Avoidance, backfooting and concealing: A taxonomy of resistance strategies used by terrorist suspects in the UK

Q: What does this research mean for the field?

Terrorist suspects employ dynamic resistance strategies during police interviews that can be categorized into avoidance, backfooting, and concealing, with the prevalence of these behaviors varying significantly across different ideological groups. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

Laurence Alison; Emily Alison; Frances Surmon-Böhr; Paul Christiansen; Daniel Malmgren; Tove Phillipsen

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.107705

August 27, 2026Acta PsychologicaOpen Access

Avoidance, backfooting and concealing: A taxonomy of resistance strategies used by terrorist suspects in the UK

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Key Points

To classify and examine the interpersonal resistance strategies used by convicted terrorist suspects during police investigative interviews across various ideological affiliations.
Analyzed 979 audio and video recordings of police interviews (totaling approximately 754 hours) from N=88 convicted terrorist suspects in the UK.
Categorized suspects into ideological cohorts: Islamic terrorism (n=53, including Islamic State and Al Qaeda), paramilitary (n=19), extreme right-wing (n=10), anti-government/anti-establishment (n=2), and other or unclear ideology (n=4).
Coded thirteen observable resistance behaviours and conducted component analysis to identify underlying behavioral dimensions.
Identified thirteen resistance strategies clustering into three distinct components: avoidance (e.g., silence, closed eyes), backfooting (e.g., ideological statements, insults, topic divergence), and concealing (e.g., scripted replies, claimed memory failure).
Islamic State suspects exhibited significantly more backfooting behaviours than Al Qaeda and paramilitary suspects, while showing fewer avoidance behaviours than paramilitary suspects.
Concealing tactics were more prevalent among Islamic State and extreme right-wing suspects than Al Qaeda suspects, with marked within- and between-suspect variation indicating dynamic rather than static resistance.

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Implication

Observational analysis reveals dynamic resistance strategies among convicted terrorist suspects, indicating distinct behavioural profiles across differing ideological backgrounds.

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Cite This Study

Alison et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a93f02f6c1a8fb52e79c3d1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.107705

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Avoidance, backfooting and concealing: A taxonomy of resistance strategies used by terrorist suspects in the UK

Key Points

No abstract yet

Implication

Discussion

Cite This Study

Avoidance, backfooting and concealing: A taxonomy of resistance strategies used by terrorist suspects in the UK

Key Points

No abstract yet

Implication

Discussion

Cite This Study

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