Early Communications in the War Against Terrorism: An Integrative Complexity Analysis

Abstract

Integrative complexity reflects the degree to which the source of a communication perceives several dimensions and points of view relevant to the topic (differentiation) and the degree to which such characteristics are seen as related to each other (integration). During international crises, bilateral decreases in the integrative complexity of communications frequently precede the outbreak of war; a unilateral decrease reliably precedes surprise strategic attacks. In the current study, complexity was scored in the messages of selected leaders from before to approximately a month after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Even this limited database replicated some of the complexity patterns found previously, as well as showing some novel characteristics. This was the first application of the method to hostilities other than inter-nation or civil wars.

The language of violence: distinguishing terrorist from nonterrorist groups by thematic content analysis

“…This hypothesis is based on two converging lines of evidence. Firstly, some evidence suggests that terrorist groups are fairly low in complexity (Suedfeld & Leighton, 2002) and that extremists in general are less integratively complex than moderates (e.g., Tetlock et al, 1994; but see Conway et al, in press;Van Heil & Mervielde, 2003). Indeed, in the only published research on the integrative complexity of terrorists to date, members of Al Qa'ida and the Taliban both consistently showed lower levels of integrative complexity than Western and UN leaders (Bush, Blair, Schroeder, Robertson, Chirac, and Annan) through the period from the 9/11 crisis to the invasion of Afghanistan (Suedfeld, 2003).…”

“…Indeed, psychological research using content analytic techniques to examine value references (Eckhart, 1965;Smith, 2004), motive imagery (e.g., Winter, 1980;1993;2007) and structural complexity (e.g., Suedfeld, 2003;Suedfeld & Leighton, 2002) has demonstrated the importance of attending not only to what people say but how they say it. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the communications of two terrorist groups and two comparison groups along these lines.…”

How to be Critically Open-Minded — A Psychological and Historical Analysis

“…21 In addition, the complexity of discourse of Tony Blair, starting from a very high baseline, was found to drop significantly at the time of the attack on Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, although the very low baseline complexity of both Bush and Bin Laden did not change significantly in the lead-up to the attack (Suedfeld and Leighton, 2002).…”

Liberals Lecture, Conservatives Communicate: analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 speeches

“…For example, Democrats deliver less complex speeches in a Republicandominated Congress [4]. Other examples for this phenomenon include the decrease in the integrative complexity of statements by Tony Blair and George W. Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks [28] and New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani's simpler language during times of crisis [29]. Furthermore, incumbency itself seems to increase speech complexity.…”