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Martyrdom is defined as the psychological readiness to suffer and sacrifice one's life for a cause. An integrative set of 8 studies investigated the concept of martyrdom by creating a new tool to quantitatively assess individuals' propensity toward self-sacrifice. Studies 1A-1C consisted of psychometric work attesting to the scale's unidimensionality, internal consistency, and temporal stability while examining its nomological network. Studies 2A-2B focused on the scale's predictive validity, especially as it relates to extreme behaviors and suicidal terrorism. Studies 3-5 focused on the influence of self-sacrifice on automatic decision making, costly and altruistic behaviors, and morality judgments. Results involving more than 2,900 participants from different populations, including a terrorist sample, supported the proposed conceptualization of martyrdom and demonstrated its importance for a vast repertoire of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral phenomena. Implications and future directions for the psychology of terrorism are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to a research paper that examined the motivation behind the actions of suicide terrorists. The author discusses some of the problems that have been associated with previous psychological studies that have examined terrorism and the terrorists that carry out these acts. The author believes that this paper has committed several errors in terms of the case they present and how it has been constructed. The author explores the evidence that is presented and questions how effectively it supports the argument set forth. The paper also discusses the contextual nature of psychological studies of motivation.