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Paving the road to war with group membership, appraisal antecedents, and anger
Author(s) -
CheungBlunden Violet,
Blunden Bill
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
aggressive behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.223
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1098-2337
pISSN - 0096-140X
DOI - 10.1002/ab.20234
Subject(s) - anger , appraisal theory , psychology , social psychology , terrorism , relevance (law) , action (physics) , structural equation modeling , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , criminology , law , political science , medicine , statistics , physics , mathematics , environmental health , quantum mechanics
This study uses appraisal theory, functionalist approach to emotions, and recent theory on group emotions as a basic framework to model the genesis of supporting military action. During the year after the events of 9/11, 588 college students participated in a series of four studies that assessed religious affiliation, appraisal antecedents, anger response to viewing photographs of the 9/11 attack, and support for military action. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that the relation between support for the war and attitudes toward terrorism and relevance could be explained adequately by a model in which anger mediated the effects of attitudes and relevance on support. Attitudes toward terrorism were further identified as mediators that could explain the group effect by Christians. The result was not only generalizable across the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in terms of how consent for war manifests itself—outright calls for bloodshed versus more subtle, politically loaded, posturing (e.g. entreaties to “support our troops”). Aggr. Behav. 34:175–189, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.