Jihadists

Peer Groups:
Using Erik Erikson's life stages, adolescence (10-20 years) is a vital part of growth and with surrounding yourself with wrong people may cause one to develop ill values or to develop identity confusion. Peer group fuels this through peer pressure. In an environment of a jihadist, an individual would be very confused about his identity and since people in this age are just discovering themselves, they might cause themselves to be jihadists through pure peer pressure. Examples of how people got indulged into terrorist organization was how young Canadians such as Poulin or Dirie dropped everything and went to join ISIS.

School:
School is an important part for the development of the brain if education is missed out on or not taken seriously in middle childhood, it would not only cause a great deal of loss of knowledge which is a trait for Jihadists but also would cause the other stages that Erik Erikson developed to fail such as discovering yourself in adolescence, and establishing relationships in early adulthood. Jihadists lack all of this simply because of a lack of education.

Media:
What an individual constantly sees and hears is what likely he is going to do. An example of this is how homegrown terrorism is increasing due to the extreme amount of exposure the media gives these terrorist organizations. Media is extremely powerful and causes individuals to change their moral and social values into something completely wrong such as Jihadism. It is teached to people silently such as through radios, magazines, television and an individual being constantly exposed to something like Jihadism would cause them to change their pathway and go astray.

Family:
Behavior heavily influences on family as life-building aspects are introduced such as discipline, lessons, family heritage and/or responsibility. The behavior of a jihadist or any regular individual is highly dependant on what they were taught by family and how they were brought up.

Culture:
A Jihadi strongly believes that the way of violence or a way of struggle is necessary for eradicating obstacles to restore God's rule. What they believe is the culture around them rather than the actual religion. The culture that Jihadists follow is only comprised of ill morals and values, therefore affecting their behavior towards anyone who opposes their culture or opinion.

Perspective 1: The Jihadists themselves
Jihadists strongly believe in the way of aggression or violence to overcome obstacles to restore God's rule in the world. They themselves think they are doing the most right thing by following their "religion" and restoring God's will. They additionally think this is every Muslim's duty as well. With it first being established in Syria and Iraq, it has grown into a threat for any country.

Persepctive 2: Muslims
Muslims believe that jihadists represent Islam in a complete ill manner and also believe that Islam is a religion of peace, not violence. Muslims around the world bind together to fight against these organizations solely for the fact of how they ultimately misrepresent the religion, Islam

Perspective 3: The media
With increase in technology and the right to many privileges, the terrorist organizations are fueled by media as there is constant exposure on them through the use of technology. This has also caused homegrown terrorism where through technology and privileges has caused many Canadians to go out and join these dangerous organizations with the help of ISIS constantly posting gruesome videos around the internet and establishing a Twitter account to keep anyone and everyone up to date on their operations.

Culture:
Referring to Kohlberg's Six Stages of development, an individual shows the most development is in stages 3 and 4. Stage 2 is concerned around mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity. Stage 2 is where values are established by external sources. An external source can be culture influencing individuals in an environment of Jihadists would cause them to continue their ill values. With this, it eventually causes homegrown terrorism in much younger individuals such as Andre Poullin or Ali Mohammad Dirie.

Media:
Media is an aspect that highly affects individuals in growth and how one acts. Media especially follows Stage 4 which establishes social systems morality and media portrays a vital part in it as it shapes people to act a certain way. With a person being exposed to terrorist like actions from the media, the individual would use their knowledge and apply it in wherever they see necessary.

Family:
Following Piaget's stages of cognitive development, an individual in the beginning lacks logical reasoning and depends on morals and lessons from his/her family. However, the formal operational stage causes an individual to acquire logical reasoning and if an individual is taught again and again about the concept of jihadism or the extremities of religion, it would cause their cognitive skills to be only around these concepts.

School:
Referring to Piaget's stages, school is an enormous part of an individual's development of cognitive skills. If an individual is not granted a rich education in the years of them being pre-operational or concrete opertional, it would cause a wrong pathway of logical reasoning when they are in the final stage. Not having a good education for a Jihadist will cause them to wrongfully assess what they are doing simply because they were never taught rightfully.

The school of thought I will be choosing to represent a jihadist's lives and choices is social exchange. The main belief of this school of thought is weighing the cost and benefits of belonging and participating in personal relationships and social groups. In a Jihadist's environment, peer pressure and social pressure can be identity defining as most individuals join in these organizations in adolescence. Adolescence is a vital component of life where an individual is still discovering him or herself and being peer pressured into something like becoming a Jihadist might look like a great way for life to them at that point. With pressure, they will fail to adequately determine the costs of their actions. With the horrifying things Jihadists have done to carry out their work, the Jihadists themselves ultimately fail to know what's right or wrong and make choices purely out of pressure and conformity.