Human Subjects Protection and Research on Terrorism and Conflict

The last decade has seen considerable expansion in research on terrorism and conflict. People have studied root causes, group behavior, and different approaches to counter such acts ( 1 ). Some of the best cases involved direct interaction with current or former terrorists, producing important results that, for example, replaced caricatures of terrorists as pathological killers with nuanced models of what drives individuals to join such groups and even sacrifice themselves intentionally for a cause.