Category Archives: psychologyofsecurity

Security and Human Behavior (SHB 2017)

Posted on by

I’m in Cambridge University, at the tenth Workshop on Security and Human Behavior. SHB is a small invitational gathering of people studying various aspects of the human side of security, organized each year by Ross Anderson, Alessandro Acquisti, and myself. The 50 or so people in the room include psychologists, economists, computer security researchers, sociologists, political scientists, political scientists, neuroscientists,… Continue reading Security and Human Behavior (SHB 2017)→

How the Media Influences Our Fear of Terrorism

Posted on by

Good article that crunches the data and shows that the press’s coverage of terrorism is disproportional to its comparative risk. This isn’t new. I’ve written about it before, and wrote about it more generally when I wrote about the psychology of risk, fear, and security. Basically, the issue is the availability heuristic. We tend to infer the probability of something… Continue reading How the Media Influences Our Fear of Terrorism→

Are We Becoming More Moral Faster Than We’re Becoming More Dangerous?

Posted on by

In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker convincingly makes the point that by pretty much every measure you can think of, violence has declined on our planet over the long term. More generally, "the world continues to improve in just about every way." He’s right, but there are two important caveats. One, he is talking about the long… Continue reading Are We Becoming More Moral Faster Than We’re Becoming More Dangerous?→

Confusing Security Risks with Moral Judgments

Posted on by

Interesting research that shows we exaggerate the risks of something when we find it morally objectionable. From an article about and interview with the researchers: To get at this question experimentally, Thomas and her collaborators created a series of vignettes in which a parent left a child unattended for some period of time, and participants indicated the risk of harm… Continue reading Confusing Security Risks with Moral Judgments→

Scott Atran on Why People Become Terrorists

Posted on by

Scott Atran has done some really interesting research on why ordinary people become terrorists. Academics who study warfare and terrorism typically don’t conduct research just kilometers from the front lines of battle. But taking the laboratory to the fight is crucial for figuring out what impels people to make the ultimate sacrifice to, for example, impose Islamic law on others,… Continue reading Scott Atran on Why People Become Terrorists→

Situational Awareness and Crime Prevention

Posted on by

Ronald V. Clarke argues for more situational awareness in crime prevention. Turns out if you make crime harder, it goes down. And this has profound policy implications. Whatever the benefits for Criminology, the real benefits of a greater focus on crime than criminality would be for crime policy. The fundamental attribution error is the main impediment to formulating a broader… Continue reading Situational Awareness and Crime Prevention→