The psychological aspects of hostage-taking

This bachelor thesis consists of a theoretical part, followed by research design. In the theoretical part, hostage-taking and its historical development is defined at first. Further, the main attention is paid to the psychological aspects of this phenomenon. Types of perpetrators' motivation, available typologies and methods of incident planning are described. This is followed by explanation of the crisis negotiation, personality dispositions of negotiators, psychologist's role in the negotiations and the impact of media on negotiations. Attention is then shifted to the victims of hostage-taking. The thesis describes the dynamics of their experience, the Stockholm syndrome and the impact of incidents on victims. Research design aims to create and verify the appropriateness of a screening method for estimating the risk of developing post-traumatic stress in victims of hostage-taking