A Bear in the Woods? Threat Framing and the Marketplace of Values

Thrall, A. Trevor

doi:10.1080/09636410701547915

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…19. Liberman 2006Rathbun 2007;and Thrall 2007. Consider beliefs about the Iraq War. According to Pew surveys, in 2004 only 18 percent in the United States believed the US was motivated by oil and only 11 percent thought it was driven by a desire for domination.…”

Section: Differences In Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Attachments to the Nation Shape Beliefs About the World: A Theory of Motivated Reasoning

Herrmann¹

2017

Int Org

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If competing beliefs about political events in the world stem largely from information asymmetries, then more information and knowledge should reduce the gap in competing perceptions. Empirical studies of decision making, however, often find just the reverse: as knowledge and the stakes in play go up, the beliefs about what is happening polarize rather than converge. The theory proposed here attributes this to motivated reasoning. Emotions inside the observer shape beliefs along with information coming from the outside world. A series of experiments embedded in a national survey of Americans finds that a primary driver of the beliefs someone forms about globalization, other countries, and the politics in the Middle East is how strongly they attach their social identity to the United States. Attachment produces more intense positive and negative emotions that in turn shape the interpretation of unfolding events and lead norms to be applied in an inconsistent fashion. People, in effect, rewrite reality around their favored course of action, marrying the logic of appropriateness to their own preferences. Beliefs, consequently, are not independent of preferences but related to them. Motivated reasoning, while not consistent with rational models, is predictable and can lead to expensive mistakes and double standards that undermine liberal internationalism.All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.-John Locke 1690 1 The more people attach their identity to a nation, the more likely they are to feel stronger emotions toward other countries when those countries are seen as either contributing positively to the observer's country's goals or frustrating them. The emotions then bias the formation of beliefs in ways that release the observer from normative restrictions and license actions driven by the emotions.

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Section: Differences In Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Attachments to the Nation Shape Beliefs About the World: A Theory of Motivated Reasoning

Herrmann¹

2017

Int Org

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“…as members of that community/ nation) if they recognise themselves in the values and identity of the group represented. In the specific case of intervention in Iraq, A. Trevor Thrall (2007) has suggested that the majority support enjoyed by the Bush administration for intervention in Iraq was because the key claims of the administration 'resonate[d] more deeply with people's value systems' (457), fitting with 'preexisting frames for viewing security issues' (480). In this schema, justifying intervention entails effectively framing particular security policy as consistent with a group's sense of itself and its core values.…”

Section: Security Rhetoric and The War Of Positionmentioning

confidence: 98%

How was Howard's war possible? Winning the war of position over Iraq

McDonald¹,

Merefield

2010

Australian Journal of International Affairs

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“…More generally, Holsti and Rosenau (1988) argue that among US policymakers, conservatives and Republicans are more likely to be hardliners than liberals and Democrats. According to Trevor Thrall (2007: 470–475), conservatives are more concerned about traditional military threats than liberals, who worry more about non-military threats such as global warming. Thrall (2007: 475) also presents data showing that conservatives were more likely than liberals to view the development of China as a great power as a threat in a 2004 survey (but not in a 1998 survey).…”

Section: Situating the Argument In The Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Ideology and Threat Perceptions: American Public Opinion toward China and Iran

Mirilovic

Kim

2016

Political Studies

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What determines threat perceptions in the context of potential interstate conflict? We argue that such perceptions are to an important extent driven by domestic political cleavages and ideological differences. The ideology effects are often surprising and are more complex than the conventional wisdom would indicate. We specify the conditions under which conservatives may favor the economic rise of rising powers. Concern about budget deficits affects not only domestic political preferences but also threat perceptions. Finally, civil libertarianism in certain contexts can lead to isolationist preferences. We test these claims using the 2012 American National Election Studies data about the perceptions of American citizens of the economic and military rise of China, and of potential American responses to Iran’s nuclear program.

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A Bear in the Woods? Threat Framing and the Marketplace of Values

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

How Attachments to the Nation Shape Beliefs About the World: A Theory of Motivated Reasoning

How Attachments to the Nation Shape Beliefs About the World: A Theory of Motivated Reasoning

How was Howard's war possible? Winning the war of position over Iraq

Ideology and Threat Perceptions: American Public Opinion toward China and Iran

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