Journal of Language and Social

Psychology
http://jls.sagepub.com

Effects of Political Framing and Perceiver's Social Position on Trait

Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter
Cristina Jayme Montiel and Ashiq Ali Shah
Journal of Language and Social Psychology 2008; 27; 266 originally published online
May 5, 2008;
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X08317951
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://jls.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/3/266

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Journal of Language and Social Psychology can be found
at:
Email Alerts: http://jls.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://jls.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations http://jls.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/27/3/266

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

Research Note

Effects of Political Framing and

Perceivers Social Position on
Trait Attributions of a
Terrorist/Freedom Fighter

Journal of Language
and Social Psychology
Volume 27 Number 3
September 2008 266-275
2008 Sage Publications
10.1177/0261927X08317951
http://jls.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com

Cristina Jayme Montiel

Ateneo de Manila University

Ashiq Ali Shah

Kwantlen University College, Surrey, Canada

Positioning theory was invoked to predict that framing effects of political violence are
moderated by the social position of the message receiver. As a reference, for the purpose of this study, the societal structural configurations of Malay Muslims and Filipino
Christians led to their classification as respondents from the Dominant Social Position,
and Malay Christians and Filipino Muslims as participants in the Nondominant Social
Position, respectively. Respondents read a vignette about either a terrorist or a freedom
fighter who bombed a building, and then described the story character using trait attributes on a semantic differential scale. Respondents from disadvantaged groups preferred
freedom fighters over terrorists, whereas respondents from dominant groups evaluated
terrorists more highly than freedom fighters.
Keywords: positioning theory; political communication; framing effects; terrorist;
freedom fighter; Malay Muslims; Malay Christians; Filipino Christians;
Filipino Muslims

ecent theoretical work suggests that the very nature of terrorism is largely cognitive. Although political violence occurs in the real world, terrorism operates
as a socially constructed phenomenon in the mass minds of large pluralities of people
(Harr, 2004; Turk, 2004). Positioning theory explains how a socially constructed
phenomenon such as terrorism can be influenced by political framing. A position is
a set of rights and duties to enact certain social behaviors, associated with the nature
of a persons occupation of a strip of life (van Langenhove & Harr, 1999). The
Authors Note: The authors thankfully acknowledge the support given to the first author by the Ateneo
de Manila Universitys Loyola Schools Scholarly Work Grant and Professorial Chairs in 2004/2006. The
authors are also greatly indebted to the anonymous reviewers who gave valuable feedback on earlier
drafts. The second author was working at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, when the study
was conducted. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cristina Jayme Montiel,
Department of Psychology, Ateneo de Manila University, PO Box 154, Manila 1099, Philippines; e-mail:
cmontiel@ateneo.edu.
266
Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

Montiel, Shah / Political Framing on Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter 267

concept of position can likewise be viewed as a point in a mentally represented

social space. Harr (2004) used positioning theory to elucidate the social construction of terrorism. He explained how Osama bin Laden and President Bush position
themselves and their enemy in relation to the socially constructed mental map surrounding politically violent acts. Both political actors mutually frame their position
as heroic freedom fighting and position their enemy as the evil terrorist.
The social construction of terrorism, however, does not arise only as a private
conversation among high-profile power wielders but also as an open discourse in the
social arena (Steinberg, 1998). There are several participants in this public discursive
processthe enactor of the violence who self-alludes (Herbst, 2003; Schlesinger,
1978), the media (Cole, 2006a), and the target public that receives the message from
the media source (Druckman, 2001; Schmid & de Graaf, 1982). The enactor of political violence self-appellates and positions ones group in the persuasive discourse
about terrorism. However, underground groups rarely converse directly with the
target public, but only communicate through media.1 Media reportage, in turn, positions political violence in a manner that can counter the ideological stance of the
enactor of violence.
In controversial political discourse, communication effects on the public at large are
important because antagonistic power wielders compete and position themselves to win
the hearts and minds of the third-party public (Simon & Klandermans, 2001). Can the
language used by media and those who commit political violence produce any persuasive effects on the public at large, by labeling an act as terrorism or freedom fighting?
Borrowing ideas from framing research, we examined the psychological effects associated with labeling a politically violent enactor as a terrorist or a freedom fighter.
In the political arena, a frame is a collectively shared interpretative schema (Snow,
Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986). As a persuasive tool, framing alters the
weights that one puts on the different components that comprise a perceived object.
Unlike belief change which relies on new information, and priming which facilitates
accessibility to information, framing affects the way one loads or emphasizes information already in the mind of the message receiver (Herbst, 2003; Nelson, Oxley, &
Clawson, 1997).
The interest of this research was on the framing effects of political labeling. There
is no one-to-one correspondence between a persons label and the real person (Leyens,
Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994). Inaccuracy occurs because the labeling process
extrapolates from little evidence, uses subjective inferences to fill cognitive gaps,
and interprets vague information to fit the schema. Furthermore, such representational inaccuracies resist change as new inconsistent information gets distorted or
ignored to retain the cognitive requirements of the label. Regardless of representational inaccuracies vis--vis reality, the Other gets delegated to a position, as if she
or he indeed possessed the human properties associated with the label.
One predominant label-related debate in contemporary politics has to do with
framing political violence as terrorism or freedom fighting (e.g., Blanford, 2001).

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

268 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Both descriptions convey images of individuals who harm other people to obtain
political goals, and suggest other characteristics that may push perceivers to view
terrorists more negatively than freedom fighters. The terrorist label implies that the
person is motivated by revenge, remains closed to political negotiations, targets randomly selected civilians, and is considered an evil villain (e.g., Kennedy, 1999). After
September 11, 2001, the terrorist label turned more Islamic (Martin & Phelan, 2002).
On the other hand, the freedom-fighter label suggests a person who stands passionately committed to national liberation, remains open to political negotiation for the
sake of liberation, hits military targets only, and may be viewed as hero and martyr
(e.g., Ganor, 2002; Harr, 2004). Note that the aforementioned descriptions of terrorists and freedom fighters characterize mental categories, and as such do not correspond on a one-to-one basis with the realities of enactors of political violence.
In addition to framing effects, we further conjectured that the labels terrorist/
freedom fighter produced different cognitive effects across types of social perceivers.
We nuanced that the social position of the message perceiver moderated framing
effects.2
Social position refers to a groups location within a hierarchical social structure
(Guimond, Dambrun, Michinov, & Duarte, 2003; Higgins, 2000). Bourdieu (1984)
raised a crucial point that linked the social position of the perceiver to the relative
meaning of a message. Bourdieu claimed that agents have points of view on this
objective space which depend on their position within it (p. 169). Other studies have
likewise shown that perceivers from different power positions view the same social
reality in different ways (Montiel & Macapagal, 2006; Sachdev & Bourhis, 1985).
We predicted that groups from different power positions in a society would attach
significantly different meanings to the labels terrorist and freedom fighter. Individuals
from nondominant social groups would evaluate more positively a communication
about freedom fighters rather than terrorists because the frame produced by the former
label highlights goals of freedom from oppression. On the other hand, members of
dominant groups would not evaluate the label freedom fighter more positively because
the frame emphasizes a liberation-oriented goal that threatens their upper-hand position in society. Another reason for a predicted dominant groups preference for the
terrorism label is context specific to the Malaysian sample site. A study on terrorism
and media in Malaysia showed that the government itself is not absolutist in its
stance against terrorism, especially because of postSeptember 11 associations
between terrorism and Islam (Cole, 2006b). One repeated government media message
has been that the war on terror unjustly attacks Islam. Further, the Malaysian government has condemned the expansion of the war on terror into Iraq, and supports
Palestinian goals.
The impact of political frame and social position was examined on the evaluative
trait attributions of a terrorist/freedom fighter. We experimentally produced the first
independent variable of political frame by varying the labels terrorist/freedom fighter
in a set of vignettes.3 The second predictor variable, social position, was created

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

Montiel, Shah / Political Framing on Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter 269

(McBurney & White, 2004) by selecting participants based on their subject-related

characteristics. The two values of the newly created variable social position were
dominant group (Muslim Malays and Christian Filipinos) and nondominant group
(Christian Malays and Muslim Filipinos). We determined which religious category
was the dominant group, acknowledging that social power in these countries is closely
aligned with religious aggrupations (Andaya & Andaya, 2001; Vitug & Gloria, 2000).
We focused on evaluative rather than descriptive traits because Harr (2004) asserted
that the use of terrorist/freedom fighter labels involves moral positioning about who
is good and who is evil, and evaluative traits approximate a goodbad coordinate
(Gillen & Sherman, 1980; van der Pligt & Taylor, 1984).
Malaysia and the Philippines were appropriate as sample sites for this study for two
reasons. First, both countries are characterized by hierarchical social structures, with a
clearly dominant group positioned above nondominant groups. Although the history of
conflict varies across the two countries, both share a markedly vertical intergroup configuration, which is a sufficient prerequisite in the creation of our variable social position. In Malaysia, the superior position of Malay Muslims over Chinese and Indians is
defined by rights allocated to each ethnic group in the countrys constitution. Ethnic
inequalities erupted into bloody confrontations during the May 1969 street riots in
Kuala Lumpur, but since then there has been no major upheaval by the nondominant
groups (Andaya & Andaya, 2001). In the Philippines, Muslims stand as the socially
marginalized group in relation to the Christians. Muslim areas are the most economically depressed, and about 85% of them live below the poverty line. Furthermore, there
is a chronic armed conflict in Southern Philippines between the marginalized Muslims
and the dominant Christians (Vitug & Gloria, 2000).
A second reason for our site choice was related to the opportunity to distinguish
the variable, that is, perceivers social position from the effects of the perceivers
religion. The political power of Muslims and Christians reversed across the two sample countries. Our choice of sample countries allowed us to test the effects of social
position as distinct from religion.
A total of 268 college students participated in the survey, with 172 students from
the Philippines and 96 students from Malaysia. The Malaysian sample consisted of
students from two major universities of Malaysia, namely, Universiti Malaya and
Universiti Kembangsan Malaysia. Muslim respondents were ethnic Malays whereas
Christian subjects were a mixture of Chinese and Indian ethnic groups. The Philippine
sample likewise consisted of undergraduate students in their junior and senior years.
Muslim respondents were students at the Mindanao State College in Marawi, a city
that is predominantly Muslim populated. On the other hand, Christian respondents
came from Manila universities, namely, the Far Eastern University and Mapua Institute
of Technology.
The first part of the survey instrument presented a vignette that varied the communication frame using either terrorist or freedom fighter and the outcome versions of
the violent act. Table 1 shows the different versions of these vignettes.

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

270 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Table 1
2 2 Matrix Showing the Four Vignettes Used to
Create the Variable Political Framea
Name of Politically Violent Actor
Outcome of Violent
Act on Actor
Suicide bomber

Escapes unhurt

Terrorist

Freedom Fighter

A terrorist is preparing to blow up a

building. He carries a bomb in his
bag and enters the building. He
knows that he will also die in this
mission when the bomb explodes.
After half an hour the bomb explodes
and many people die, including him.
A terrorist is preparing to blow up a
building. He carries a bomb in his
bag and enters the building. He
leaves the building. After half an
hour the bomb explodes and many
people die.

A freedom fighter is preparing to blow

up a building. He carries a bomb in
his bag and enters the building. He
knows that he will also die in this
mission when the bomb explodes.
After half an hour the bomb explodes
and many people die, including him.
A freedom fighter is preparing to
blow up a building. He carries a
bomb in his bag and enters the
building. He leaves the building.
After half an hour the bomb explodes
and many people die.

a. The original instrument did not contain the italic words which are used on this table only for emphasis.

The second section of the questionnaire contained a 6-point semantic differential

scale for trait attributions. The section was introduced by the stem statement: The
character of the terrorist (freedom fighter) who blew up the building and willingly
died (escaped) is most probably . . . . This was followed by a set of adjective pairs
which the respondent marked to describe the character of the person who blew up
the building. We used 20 adjective pairs for the final survey instrument.
To examine our data, we first factor analyzed the adjective sets to separate evaluative from descriptive trait attributions. Varimax rotations on the 20 semantic adjective
pairs produced 4 factors that accounted for 51% of the total variance. We derived four
trait factors, namely, Good, Strong, Emotional, and Obedient. The first factor, Good,
loaded highly on the attributed traits of good, kind, not criminal, friendly, correct, and
mentally well, with weights ranging from .654 to .858.4 Reliability analysis on the six
adjective scales in the Good factor produced a high Cronbachs alpha of 0.89.
The Good factor was most valuable in assessing framing effects on a characters
perceived goodness because the other factors were descriptive rather than evaluative. We used the set of adjective traits that loaded heavily on the Good factor to create
our scale of evaluative trait attributions. This is in consonance with Harrs (2004)
claim that the use of terrorist/freedom fighter labels involves moral positioning about
who is good and who is evil.
We measured trait attributions of a terrorist/freedom fighter by computing the
semantic-differential average of the evaluative traits. Character evaluation was carried

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

Montiel, Shah / Political Framing on Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter 271

out on a scale of 1 to 6, from 1 = the most positive to 6 = the least positive. To get a
sense of typical character evaluations, we calculated the overall group mean. Results
showed that respondents rated the violent actor negatively (N = 266, M = 2.2, SD = 1.2).
Further mean derivations established that all subgroups viewed the violent enactor
as bad (M < 3.5) rather than good (M > 3.5), regardless of political frame (terrorist:
M = 2.18, SD = 1.26; freedom fighter: M = 2.29, SD = 1.16) or perceivers social
position (dominant: M = 2.34, SD = 1.16; nondominant: M = 2.16, SD = 1.24).
We employed a 2 2 ANOVA following the procedure proposed by Baron and
Kenny (1986) to examine moderator effects. ANOVA results showed no main effects
but confirmed a significant interaction effect. The tests for both political frame (F[1,
262] = 0.234, p = 0.63) and perceivers social position (F[1, 262] = 1.916, p = 0.17)
were insignificant, although the effect of the latter was relatively stronger than the
first. The interaction effect was significant (F[1, 262] = 9.765, p = 0.002). Although
the interaction-effect size was relatively weak (partial eta square = .036), this part of
the results contains the most striking part of the ANOVA because it indicates that the
effect of political framing in the terrorist discourse depends on some social characteristic of the third-party public.
Figure 1 illustrates the moderating effects of perceivers social position by graphing the means of the comparative social groups across the two framing conditions.
A freedom fighter frame elicits better evaluations from nondominant groups, whereas
a terrorist label results in higher character evaluations among dominant groups. Note,
however, that higher evaluations do not indicate positive attributions but rather characterological perceptions that improve from very bad to slightly bad.
Our results demonstrate that the amount of negativism toward political violence can
be mitigated by political frames in the communication process. Contrary to common
expectations that freedom fighters would receive more favorable ratings than terrorists,
our findings show that the effect of using the label freedom fighter varies in relation to
the perceivers social position. Only the members of nondominant groups tend to give
better evaluations to freedom fighters. Individuals located in dominant group positions
find freedom fighters even more repelling than terrorists. Hence, in positioning power
games, freedom fighter labels take on a more positive meaning only among groups
who come from or who identify with the nondominant groups.
One theoretical contribution of this research lies in the presentation of evidence of
an interface between communication frames and the social position of the message
receiver. In the discursive construction of political violence, power wielders position
themselves and their enemies on the mental maps of the public at large. By power
wielders, we refer not only to state or global authorities but also to individuals and
groups engaged in social contentions against these state and global authorities
(Montiel & Christie, 2007). The violent enactor or media may use labels like terrorist or freedom fighter to frame the violence in a politically persuasive way. However,
the framing impact of the labels terrorist or freedom fighter cannot be predicted
unless one considers the social position of the message receiver. The public nature of

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

272 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Figure 1
Interaction Effects of Political Framing and Perceivers Social Position on
Evaluative Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter

Group Means: Evaluative Trait Attributions

2.60

Perceivers
Social Position

2.40

Nondominant
Dominant

2.20

2.00

1.80

Freedom Fighter

Terrorist

Political Frame

political violence warrants that mental positions in discursive space are socially constructed not only by the framed location of the perceived terrorist/freedom fighter,
but also by the social position of the message-receiving public.
One implication to real life politics has to do with the persuasive effects of using
the term freedom fighter. Our findings suggest that the use of the term freedom fighter
produces positive persuasive effects only to audiences who already tend to sympathize with liberation causes due to their nondominant social positions. This raises the
question about whether the term freedom fighter becomes controversial not because
of its influential effects on third-party publics, but because of its persuasive framing
effects among potential recruits (i.e., sympathizers) and active members of a liberation movement.
In general, however, our findings indicate a universal negative view toward political violence among third-party publics. Regardless of political frame, perceivers

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

Montiel, Shah / Political Framing on Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter 273

social position, and all other demographics, the character who bombed the building
was evaluated as bad rather than good. Findings in Malaysia and the Philippines suggest that at least in these countries, power wielders engaged in political violence do
not gain meaningful moral uppance among third-party publics by framing themselves
or their opponent as terrorist or freedom fighter. Such results speak to practical political players and fortify the arguments for nonviolent strategies. Unlike militarized
methods, active nonviolent strategies do not harm civilian populations, yet they offer
viable pragmatic alternatives to homegrown liberation struggles or militarized foreignbacked power shifts (Ackerman & DuVall, 2000; Zunes, Kurtz, & Asher, 1999).
Further, our findings suggest that in real politik, antagonists on both sides of political
contentions can increase their popularity with third-party publics by emphasizing
nonviolent means of obtaining their political goals, rather than framing their use of
violence in various ways.

Notes
1. With the rise of the Internet, however, the enactors of political violence are rapidly gaining access
to their public at large, and do not have to pass through conventional media outfits to communicate their
messages.
2. The interactive nature of framing effects has already been demonstrated by Druckman (2001). He
showed that the effects of framing were moderated by whether the message receiver perceived the source
as credible or not.
3. We further refined each label by varying the outcome of the violent act. Preliminary results showed
this alteration did not matter. We deduced that the labels terrorist / freedom fighter produced powerfully
salient frames that were not influenced by whether the politically violent character died as a suicide
bomber, or escaped unhurt from the deadly scene.
4. Regarding the other trait factors, interested readers should connect with the first author for emergent findings on these. Interestingly, initial findings indicated that mentally well loaded highly on the
evaluative factor Good, which also included other judgmental trait attributions like kind, not criminal, and
correct. This suggests that in contexts of political violence, perceptions of mental well-being and illness
may be a reflection of certain peoples moral judgments of a political act.

References
Ackerman, P., & DuVall, J. (2000). A force more powerful: A century of nonviolent conflict. New York:
Palgrave.
Andaya, B. W., & Andaya, L. (2001). A history of Malaysia (2nd ed.). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.
Baron, R., & Kenny, D. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological
research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
Blanford, N. (2001). Freedom fighters or terrorists? Christian Science Monitor, 78 6.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1979).
Cole, B. (2006a). Introduction. In B. Cole (Ed.), Conflict, terrorism and the media in Asia (pp. 1-4).
New York: Routledge.

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

274 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Cole, B. (2006b). Al Qaeda and the struggle for moderate Islam in Malaysia. In B. Cole (Ed.), Conflict,
terrorism and the media in Asia (pp. 23-40). New York: Routledge.
Druckman, J. (2001). On the limits of framing effects: Who can frame? Journal of Politics, 63,
1041-1066.
Ganor, B. (2002). Defining terrorism: Is one mans terrorist another mans freedom fighter? Police Practice
and Research, 3, 287-304.
Gillen, B., & Sherman, R. (1980). Physical attractiveness and sex as determinants of trait attributions.
Multivariate Behavioral Research, 15, 423-437.
Guimond, S., Dambrun, M., Michinov, N., & Duarte, S. (2003). Does social dominance generate prejudice?
Integrating individual and contextual determinants of intergroup cognitions. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 84, 697-721.
Harr, R. (2004). The social construction of terrorism. In F. Moghaddam & A. Marsella (Eds.),
Understanding terrorism: Psychosocial roots, consequences, and interventions (pp. 91-102). Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association.
Herbst, P. (2003). Talking terrorism: A dictionary of the loaded language of political violence. Westport,
CT: Greenwood.
Higgins, E T. (2000). Social cognition: Learning about what matters in the social world. European
Journal of Psychology, 30, 3-39.
Kennedy, R. (1999). Is one persons terrorist anothers freedom fighter? Western and Islamic approaches
to Just War compared. Terrorism and Political Violence, 11, 1-21.
Leyens, J., Yzerbyt, V., & Schadron, G. (1994). Stereotypes and social cognition. London: Sage.
Martin, P., & Phelan, S. (2002). Representing Islam in the wake of September 11: A comparison of US
television and CNN online messageboard discourses. Prometheus, 20, 263-269.
McBurney, D., & White, T. (2004). Research methods. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
Montiel, C. J., & Christie, D. (2007). Conceptual frame for a psychology of nonviolent democratic transitions: Positioning across analytical layers. In F. Moghaddam, R. Harr, & N. Lee (Eds.), Global conflict resolution through positioning theory (pp. 259-278). New York: Springer.
Montiel, C. J., & Macapagal, M. E. J. (2006). Effects of social position on societal attributions of an
asymmetric conflict. Journal of Peace Research, 43, 219-227.
Nelson, T. E., Oxley, Z. M., & Clawson, R. A. (1997). Toward a psychology of framing effects. Political
Behavior, 19, 221-245.
Sachdev, I., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1985). Social categorization and power differentials in group relations.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 15, 415
Schlesinger, P. (1978). Putting reality together: BBC news. New York: Methuen.
Schmid, A., & de Graaf, J. (1982). Violence as communication. London: Sage.
Simon, B., & Klandermans, B. (2001). Politicized collective identity. A social psychological analysis.
American Psychologist, 56, 319-331.
Snow, D., Rochford, E. B., Worden, S., & Benford, R. (1986). Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51, 464-481.
Steinberg, M. (1998). Tilting the frame: Considerations on collective action framing from a discursive
turn. Theory and Society, 27, 845-872.
Turk, A. (2004). Sociology of terrorism. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 271-286.
van der Pligt, J., & Taylor, C. (1984). Trait attribution: Evaluation, description, and attitude extremity.
European Journal of Psychology, 14, 211-221.
van Lagenhove, L., & Harr, R. (1999). Positioning theory. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
Vitug, M. D., & Gloria, G. M. (2000). Under the crescent moon: Rebellion in Mindanao. Quezon City,
Philippines: Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and Institute for Popular Democracy.
Zunes, S., Kurtz, L. R., & Asher, S. B. (1999). Nonviolent social movements: A geographical perspective.
Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009

Montiel, Shah / Political Framing on Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter 275

Cristina Jayme Montiel has been with the psychology department of Ateneo de Manila University for
30 years, where she is currently professor and coordinator of the PhD in Social-Organizational
Psychology program. A former associate editor of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, she
has received the Outstanding Service Award from the Division of Peace Psychology of the American
Psychological Association, the Distinguished Contribution Award from Psychologists for Social
Responsibility, and was in the first group of senior research fellows of the Nippon Foundations Asian
Public Intellectuals program.
Ashiq Ali Shah is a professor of psychology at the Kwantlen University College, British Columbia,
Canada. He is former associate editor of the Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, currently the
consulting editor of Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, the Pakistan Journal of
Professional Psychology, and advisor to the Search Institute: The Centre for Spiritual Development in
Childhood and Adolescence, Minneapolis. His research interests include social-psychological problems
of minorities, development of indigenous scales, spiritual development, and cross-cultural differences in
human behavior.

Downloaded from http://jls.sagepub.com at PURDUE UNIV LIBRARY TSS on June 19, 2009