ABSTRACT
According to the no-concessions doctrine, we should not give in to terrorists in order to signal that violence does not pay. The assumption of other terrorists copying terror in order to similarly accomplish concessions emanates from the fear of the copycat effect, also known as “imitation” or “contagion effect.”1 The copycat effect was first identified in 1974 by sociologist David Philipps, who termed the phenomenon the “Werther effect” after the Young Werther, whose fictional suicide is believed to have unleashed a wave of actual suicides across Europe. In fact, the copycat phenomenon became apparent when those who killed themselves were dressing themselves just as Werther is described in the 1774 novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.2
