Psychology of Terrorism

This guide lists basic sources helpful for library research in psychology.  In addition to the reference materials listed here, the Library has many circulating books that may be of interest to those pursuing research in psychology.  Consult the library catalog to find out what is available.

• Background Sources
• Finding Books in the Pace Library
• Finding Journal Articles
• Web Sites
• Citing Your Sources

Background Sources in Psychology

• Encyclopedia of World Terrorism
  Mortola REF HV6431 .E53 2003
• World at Risk: a Global Issues Sourcebook
  Mortola REF JZ1241 .W67 2002
• Historical Dictionary of Terrorism
  Mortola REF HV6431 .A537 2002
• The Psychology of Terrorism
  On Reserve at Mortola Circulation Desk
• Palestinian Religious Terrorism: Hamas and Islamic Jihad
  Mortola REF JQ1830 .A98 H373 2002

Other books are on Reserve at the Mortola Circulation Desk for your class. Click here for a list of items.

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Finding Books in the Pace University Library

You can find other books on your research topic by searching the online Pace Library Catalog by subject or keyword. Subject searches target the specific Library of Congress Subject Headings that have been assigned to the books that the Pace Library owns.  Unless you know the subject headings that pertain to your topic, you may want to begin with a Keyword search.  Once you have found a source that you find useful, look at the Library of Congress Subject Headings towards the bottom of the catalog record to determine the best terms to use in a Subject search for further materials. 

Terrorism and Terrorists are both Subject Headings and may be used in Subject searches. Other subject searches you may want to try include:

Terrorists - psychology

Terrorism - psychological aspects

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Finding Journal Articles

To find out which psychology journals the library subscribes to (in print and/or electronic formats), go into the Print and E-Journals link from the Library homepage and choose to Browse Journals by Subject.

To find journal articles on a particular topic, use one of the library's databases.  To access psychology databases that the Pace Library subscribes to, go to the library home page at http://www.pace.edu/library, click on Articles via Databases, and use the pull-down menu labeled "Subject Research Area" to select Psychology and click the GO button.  You may also choose a specific database from an alphabetical list.  The following library databases may be useful for research in psychology:

PsycINFO    1887-present

Psychology database published by the American Psychological Association.  Also see PsycArticles, which includes the full-text of APA journals dating back to 1988.  Help on searching this database is available.

Academic Search Premier

Provides full text for more than 3,430 scholarly publications covering academic areas of study including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.  Help on searching this database is available.

Research Library    1989-present

Contains citations, with abstracts, to more than 1,800 general-interest periodicals. Included are over 500 periodicals related to the social sciences, nearly 400 related to the humanities, more than 150 in the general sciences field, and approximately 200 business titles. More than 200 of the journals are available in full text.  Help on searching this database is available.

JSTOR

Contains back issues of Scholarly Journals in a number of disciplines. The most recent articles will be from three years ago. Help on searching this database is available.

Sociological Abstracts    1963-present

Indexes and abstracts English-language journals in sociology, social work, and other social sciences.  Help on searching this database is available.

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Web Sites

Terrorism and Crime Studies http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/terrorism.html
A list of the reports created by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress including The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why? http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/Soc_Psych_of_Terrorism.pdf
This report was published in September of 1999

FRONTLINE http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
This PBS documentary show has been highlighting the Iraq war. The most recent stories include "The Soldier's Heart" about the psychological effect on Marines and what happens when they return home from Iraq and "Son of Al Queda" about a Candian who was brought up with the Bin Laden family to become a terrorist but became a CIA informant instead.

Some extensive directories of high-quality Web resources that you may find useful are:

INFOMINE    http://infomine.ucr.edu/

A collection of scholarly Internet resources, arranged by subject.  INFOMINE was developed by the University of California, Riverside.

Librarians' Index to the Internet    http://lii.org/

Though specifically intended for users of public libraries, this annotated subject directory links to more than 9,000 high-quality Web resources.

The Scout Report Archives    http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/archives/

Search for critical evaluations of Websites that have appeared in previous editions of the Scout Report.

You may also find useful information on the Web by using a general search engine.  Bear in mind that anybody can publish on the Web, so it is particularly important to critically evaluate the information that you find there.  For more information, please see the Pace Library's guide to Evaluating Resources.

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Citing Your Sources

Once you have finished your research and written your paper, you will need to prepare your bibliography and cite any sources you have referenced within the text.  Please see the Pace Library's guide to How to Cite Resources for more information on APA citation style for print and electronic resources.

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