Alwaght- In the psychological rhetoric of terrorism the terrorists seek leaving mental effects, something which is recognized as "mental influence." The mental influence transmits wide-ranging waves inside the society, making not only the direct addressees victims but also it covers their close relatives and friends. The influence overshadows different layers of the city, country, and even the culture that are under invasion. The media redefine this mental effect, making it firmly established in the target society.

In fact, the terrorism is tied in nature to its effectiveness on the addressees. In other words, the terrorism is a specific political violence that carries out attacks on a small group of addressees in a bid to automatically leave impacts on a larger group of addressees.

Benjamin Freedman and Jim Harper in their joint book "Terrorizing Ourselves: Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy is Failing and How to Fix It" have brought under focus the influences of fear and public opinion on the counterterrorism policy. A co-author of the book, Freedman believes that the cognitive diversions cause the citizens to be concerned more than necessary. Generally, the information on terrorism and terror attacks they get are from the media which in their place inject massive fears into the society.

Freedman thinks that this issue sets in motion a cycle in which the terrorist assaults draw radical responses by the society, and this brings forth a further wave of panic to the society. Namely, more terrorist attacks, more radical reactions from the target society, and vice versa. Only an hour after the terrorist attacks of Bastille Day on July 14 in France, the pro-terror fans rushed to the social media, expressing their felicity over carrying out the attacks. This made up part of the news of the media nationwide. This process strengthened a stable cycle of the radical reactions of the natives, and consequently possible terrorist responses. This issue possibly leads to rise of a fierce generation in the victim societies that would strive after supremacist and violent values.

Freedman believes that control of the effects and consequences of terror is also influential in control of terror itself because the counterterrorism-related policies are a necessary instrument in fight against radical measures. In fact, controlling radical responses could result in reduced exploitation of them by the terrorists, and at the end of the road leaves a reductive influence on the terrorist incidents.

Actually, the authors focus on how fear influences the public opinion and also how the influential people can scale down the harmful effects.� Freedman and Harper note that such influential people can prevent canalization of the strong public feelings towards destructive and violent courses. If the people in the society themselves make connections on the attacks, the panic increases but if people in general have correct basic information, the fear would be slight in the society.

On the other side, there is a systematic link between the number of terrorist attacks-related news and articles and the number of the next terrorist assaults. Sometimes even the news in prominent global newspapers about the terrorist attacks in a specific country can spur similar waves of attacks in the same country.

For example, some persons who are not tied to ISIS terror organization claim being terrorists,� and so through this way buy a negative credit from the terror attacks, even if they have no smallest links to terrorism, because the media audience would remember for years the names of the terrorists. As a further example, the attacker in Nice, France claimed membership in ISIS, but in fact he only had connections with families of some members of the terrorist group. Terror behaviors in the non-native societies that take place due to identity problems even if yield no desired results would have so much psychological allures for the attackers.

Calling attention of the others to the ignored identity, restructuring the self-identity, and redefinition of the self as an influential and significant group member are examples of attractions for the attackers. Furthermore, many of terrorist behaviors that originate from aggressiveness are actually an instrumental response to the collective identity crises, although this problem sometimes shows itself in other forms of antisocial behaviors.

What is significant about the recent terrorist attacks is change in patterns of violence. To put it another way, in past years the form of the terrorist attacks were indicative of their complication and existence of special strategies behind them, but now simplicity of the attacks makes prediction of them highly difficult. On the other side, the terrorism has witnessed tactical transformation, namely a decrease in reliance to the organization� something making the terrorist plans very hard.

These two factors together, namely simplicity of form of terror attacks and their conduction by unprofessional and non-networked people, have now made the terrorist attacks as possible as a trivial incident, severely affecting the mental security of the society.

Terrorism with all of its forms has a catalyzer which is radicalism. Without fighting radicalism the terrorism keeps thriving. In fact, preventing radicalization of the persons and the societies is a priority in battling terrorism. It is a process not in hands of a person, government, and organization. A ping pong mode of confrontation between the radical reaction of the target society on the one hand and the terror-capable people and their supporters on the other hand can prompt radicalization of the society. In such societies there is a type of collective hysteria that persistently gives a sense and readiness for a risk and an external damage or even an internal damage. This makes the public opinion show impulsive responses.

By Alwaght