Emotions, Terrorist Threat, and Drones: Anger Drives Support for Drone Strikes

Abstract

In this article, we investigate how threat perceptions and emotions can jointly impact individuals' attitudes toward drone strikes. We argue that conditions of threat can increase public support for the use of drone strikes. We further contend that the effect of threat perceptions on support for drone strikes is mediated by negative, emotional reactions, particularly anger. We test our arguments in France, the United States, and Turkey using data generated from nationally representative online surveys, in which individuals were randomly assigned to a control group, a condition in which they read about terrorist threat (with or without a reminder of democratic values), or a condition in which they read about economic threats. Our findings have implications for long-standing notions about the roles of rational calculations and psychological processes in influencing support for aggressive foreign policy.

Cyber Terrorism and Public Support for Retaliation – A Multi-Country Survey Experiment

“…In the case of terrorism especially, anger is more likely to intervene in any retaliation-centric mechanism since it is linked to more superficial and heuristic-based cognitive processing that is associated with aggressive policy options (Bodenhausen, Sheppard and Kramer 1994; Sirin and Geva 2013). Indeed, one recent multi-country study found that only respondents who expressed anger following exposure to a terrorist threat become more supportive of drone strikes against terrorists (Fisk, Merolla and Ramos 2019).…”

“…We hypothesized that increased levels of anger would mediate and explain a substantial portion of the relationship between exposure to cyber and conventional terrorism with retaliation preferences. This is based on the theory that the dominant response of civilian populations to terror threats is anger and a desire for vengeance (Fisk, Merolla and Ramos 2019; Wayne 2019). This anger-driven mechanism can be reflected in a basic mediation model explaining attitudes towards retaliatory strikes following terror attacks.…”

Emotional Responses Shape the Substance of Information Seeking under Conditions of Threat

“…10 Some of this may be due to anger being high in the threat-only condition. Recent work on terrorism and public opinion finds that the threat is more likely to elevate anger than fear (Fisk, Merolla & Ramos, 2018;Wayne, 2018). 11 The difference between terror-anger and the control group is in the expected direction, but not significant by conventional standards (p = 0.19, two-tailed).…”

“…10.Some of this may be due to anger being high in the threat-only condition. Recent work on terrorism and public opinion finds that the threat is more likely to elevate anger than fear (Fisk, Merolla, and Ramos 2018; Wayne 2018). …”

Assessing the relationship between terrorist attacks against ingroup or outgroup members and public support for terrorism

“…To defend oneself and the ingroup against those who could strike again, individuals justify further retaliatory action (see Hayes and McAllister, 2001 ; Canetti et al, 2017 ). Emotions—notably, the action-oriented emotion anger—were found to drive the association between exposure to violence and approval of further aggression ( Lerner et al, 2003 ; Small et al, 2006 ; Hirsch-Hoefler et al, 2014 ; Fisk et al, 2019 ; Jost, 2019 ; Shandler et al, 2021 ). In line with this rationale, exposure to violence by foreign actors facilitated hardline foreign policy attitudes ( Kupatadze and Zeitzoff, 2021 ) and negative opinions about an outgroup ( Beber et al, 2014 ).…”