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Americans’ Value Preferences Pre‐ and Post‐9/11*
Author(s) -
Ciuk David J.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
social science quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1540-6237
pISSN - 0038-4941
DOI - 10.1111/ssqu.12229
Subject(s) - feeling , politics , value (mathematics) , social psychology , psychology , panic , anxiety , cognition , odds , ordered logit , term (time) , demographic economics , rank (graph theory) , order (exchange) , logistic regression , economics , political science , medicine , physics , mathematics , finance , quantum mechanics , combinatorics , psychiatry , neuroscience , law , machine learning , computer science
Objective This article examines the short‐ and long‐term effects of the attacks of 9/11 on Americans’ value preferences. Method Using data from 1994, 2002, and 2005, I estimate a rank‐ordered logit model where the dependent variable is respondents’ rank‐ordered preferences on four values central to American political culture. Results The short‐term effects of 9/11 are significant: Americans’ were willing to “trade” equality and economic security for social order. In the long term, these effects fade and value preferences swing back to pre‐9/11 levels. Conclusion These findings align nicely with a body of literature that suggests that traumatic public events induce feelings of panic and anxiety, thereby causing people to reorder their fundamental political cognitions. As these feelings fade, however, individuals’ fundamental political cognitions revert back toward normal.