Acts of terrorism are becoming increasingly common in today's society. From the frequent suicide bombings in Israel, the recent violence in the Russian village of Beslan, to the attacks on the world trade centres on September the eleventh of 2001 that so violently shook the world; terrorism is rarely far from our minds. Terrorist groups have a variety of aims, acts of revenge, politics, but by far the most common, and arguably most disturbing reason for these actions is religion.

It is exceptionally important that we can learn to understand the forces that drive people to commit such wanton acts of destruction, and social psychology can help us to do that.

Social psychology is a diverse field of study, it is "the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behaviour in social situations" (Social Psychology, Baron and Byrne). In social psychology we study the...