Political Psychology and International Conflict
Media
Part of Political Psychology and International Conflict
- Title
- Political Psychology and International Conflict
- extracted text
-
Political Psychology and
International Conflict
ROSE McDERMOTT
Abstract
Political psychology takes an individual level of analysis approach to the study of
international conflict. This study has traditionally investigated the psychological
foundations of decision making among elite leaders in the area of war and peace.
Psychological models that have been applied to the examination of this area
include those taken from cognitive psychology and evolutionary models. Such
approaches include the application of prospect theory to cases of decision making
under conditions of risk. Similar work in this area further explores the nature of
psychological biases in decision making, particularly in the area of risk assessment.
More recent work has explored the biological underpinnings of aggression, and
their contribution to the emergence of violent behavior. Past work has tended to
neglect the role of emotion, but more recent work has investigated these forces
more fully. Future work that seeks to incorporate both biological and environmental
forces in precipitating violence appears challenging but worthwhile. In addition,
experimental methods drawn from psychology have been applied to the study of
international conflict. The use of field experiments to explore the psychological
forces that both motivate and sustain conflict appears promising.
INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, the study of international relations has focused on state-level
actors and the interaction between them. Political psychology tends to focus
on the individual level of analysis by examining the psychological forces and
motivations that inform leaders as well as the mass public. Some of the most
important theoretical perspectives that have been employed to analyze the
effect of psychology on conflict include models from cognitive psychology,
such as prospect theory, as well as theories drawn from evolutionary psychology and biology. These approaches are typically used to examine decision making, particularly in the realm of threat perception, risk taking, and
the foundations of aggression. In addition, experimental methods have been
imported from psychology and applied in both laboratory and field work
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
contexts to explore the psychological underpinnings of conflict, as well as
understand some of the larger dynamics that both fuel and sustain real-world
conflict.
This approach is important to the study of international conflict for at least
a couple of reasons. First, political psychology puts the individual actor front
and center, arguing that individuals matter and are not interchangeable. Standard models of conflict argue that the individual leader would not matter, for
example, in influencing large state decisions such as whether or not to go to
war. From that perspective, George Bush could be replaced by Adolph Hitler
in 2001 and the outcome would have been the same. Yet history is replete
with examples such as Hitler himself where it would be hard to argue that
anyone else in this position at a particular time and place would have created the exact same result. Second, psychological approaches allow for the
incorporation of factors such as emotion into models of decision making in
a way that much more challenging from the perspective of other models. As
emotions such as fear and hatred seem obviously to motivate many conflictual situations, the integration of such factors seems important in providing
a comprehensive understanding of the reasons for conflict and possibilities
for peace.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
Although earlier work provided unsystematic explorations of topics related
to conflict from a psychological perspective, Robert Jervis provided the
foundational work by really establishing the field that applied psychological
methods and models to problems in international relations, including
questions of conflict. He examined the ways in which cognitive biases could
affect processes of judgment and decision making in leaders. He provided
seminal contributions to an understanding of how beliefs and attitudes
and values, including the images we hold in our head of our enemies,
can affect the decisions we make and the actions we take. Although a
great deal of work in political psychology has examined the role of public
opinion, including attitudes toward war and peace, the majority of the work
examining the sources of international conflict have focused on elite leaders.
Jervis work, characteristic of its time, focused on those cognitive biases that
were considered unmotivated, or which occurred under peoples’ level of
consciousness, and which they would eradicate if they became aware of
them and were able to rid themselves of them. Jervis provided influential
demonstrations of how decision makers learn from history and explicated
the dynamics that help underlie the security dilemma and escalation spirals
in conflict. He also noted the importance of the so-called motivated biases
Political Psychology and International Conflict
3
as well by showing the ways in which wishful thinking can skew decision
makers’ expectations and evaluations.
Additional work done by others such as Irving Janis sought to explicate
potential sources of error in judgment and decision making that could be
located in more emotional and social processes; Janis’ model of groupthink
suggested that leaders were no different than others in their desire to be
accepted by a group of similar others and thus proved susceptible to the
social pressures that encouraged conformity in group decision making, often
to the detriment of high quality choices.
Much of Jervis’ foundational work rested on advances in cognitive psychology, which were pioneered by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Their
early work focused on biases in judgment, affecting the assessments that people make about how, for example, how likely future events such as a terrorist
attack might be to occur. They documented at least three central judgmental
biases: representativeness, availability, and anchoring and adjustment. They
then went on to apply this work in the context of decision making, examining how cognitive biases might systematically affect the choices people
make, particularly in situation that involve risk. Kahneman won the Nobel
Prize in Economics, which he accepted in both their names, for their hugely
influential prospect theory model, in 2002. Built on creative and parsimonious experimental demonstrations, Kahneman and Tversky developed an
approach to decision making under conditions of risk that ran counter to
the dominant models offered by subjective expected utility theories. They
showed that people do not always act as economists say they should, but
rather often prefer to take risks when confronting losses and remain cautious
in the face of gains. In addition, people appeared particularly averse to losses,
weighing them psychologically more heavily than they might weigh commensurate gains. They also showed that people tend to weigh information
differently psychologically than they should from an economic perspective.
Taken together, such insights helped illuminate the reasons why people buy
lottery tickets or pay for insurance. A truly critical feature of this work concerned the so-called “framing effects,” which showed that individuals make
fundamentally different choices based on the order, wording, or method of
presentation with which options are displayed irrespective of substantive
changes in content. People fell prey to such biases even when very important
real-life decisions were at stake, such as deciding on a treatment for cancer.
Such effects prove concerning because they show how easily people can be
manipulating in their thoughts, choices, and opinions based on the nature of
the persuasive rhetoric to which they are exposed, suggesting that effective
leadership can sway people even in the absence of substantive shifts in information. Many subsequent studies have revealed the robust nature of these
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
effects, and this literature has continued to flourish in the communications
and media literature.
Additional unrelated work on risk taking in groups showed that groups
often differ in their decision-making proclivities from those espoused by
the individuals who make up those groups. In early incarnations, this was
referred to as the “risky shift” phenomena, but this label does not accurately
reflect the entirely of the research, which really shows increased polarization,
whether toward risk or caution, as individuals join groups.
It is also worth noting that experimental research had gone on in psychology for well over a 100 years, the experimental method also began to make
new forays into political science toward the end of the 1990s. Although
early seminal work in field experiments had been originated and conducted
by Goznell beginning in the 1920s, Don Green and Alan Gerber updated
and applied these methods in the context of investigating American voting
behavior. This method has proceeded to spark an interest among scholars
looking at comparative politics as well as those studying international
conflict as a mechanism by which to investigate the sources of conflict
within and between groups in various field settings around the world, often
in Africa and Central and South America.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Beginning in the late 1990s, as new technology in magnetic resonance imaging came to the fore, allowing for unprecedented investigation into the way
that the human mind processes information, models draw from evolutionary
biology provided the foundation for emerging models of evolutionary psychology that offered new theoretical avenues by which to examine conflict.
Important among this emerging perspective was an increased fascination
with emotion and a new appreciation for its central role in decision making. Models such as D’Amasio’s somatic marker hypotheses suggested that
emotion proved absolutely central to what had previously been understood
to be entirely distinct rational processes. Indeed, these new approaches provided neural evidence suggesting that not only are emotion and cognitive so
intimately intertwined that it often remains nonsensical to discuss them as
distinct processes, but that emotional processing is privileged by the brain
in speed and automaticity, suggesting its critical function in potentiating the
survival of the organism.
These methods and findings have been supported and driven by evolutionary models that interrogate the functional foundations of various behaviors,
including aggression, violence, and conflict, as well as cooperative processes.
Evolutionary hypotheses, for example, could be used to explore the foundations of demonstrable sex differences in aggression, often manifesting as
Political Psychology and International Conflict
5
gender differences in support for public policies encouraging war. They have
also been used to examine the selection pressures that may undergird motivations for war among out-groups as well as loyalty among in-groups. Evolutionary models have also been used to provide a theoretical foundation
for the origins of prospect theory type preferences by showing that optimal foraging theory would predict that individuals faced with serious losses
that might compromise their ability to survive manifest greater risk seeking
behavior.
More recent work has sought to uncover some of the biological and genetic
factors that may influence individual proclivity toward aggression. Although
such factors are not predictive of how any given individual will behave,
patterns across populations can help illuminate the ways in which various
genotypic predispositions and environmental factors may interact to increase
the likelihood of behaviors such as aggression. In addition, explorations of
the interaction of genetic and environmental factors in generating and sustaining particular emotions such as fear and disgust can provide a window
into the foundations of human psychological architecture and how it serves
to support both conflict and cooperation, depending on goals and context.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
There are several issues that arise from these foundational issues. One of the
most potentially contentious ones has to do with the relative importance of
environmental and biological factors in instigating and maintaining conflict.
Over 50 years of research has privileged the importance of social and environmental factors in determining political outcomes of interest; such forces perhaps seem more amenable to institutional intervention and political changes.
Clearly both factors play an important role in locating the sources of conflict,
but the manner in which such factors are investigated pivots on scholars’
beliefs about which factors are most important to uncover.
Given the amount of work going on in related fields in molecular biology,
behavior genetics, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, a
great deal of which often touches on topics of great interest to those who
study international conflict, such as explorations of the processes underlying
ethnocentrism and other forms of out-group prejudice, it seems that greater
exploration of these issues from a biological perspective is warranted.
For example, a great deal of work shows that boys who experience
traumatic events early in their life are more prone to manifesting physical
aggression as adults, particularly if they possess certain kinds of genetic
polymorphisms. If this is the case, then exploring the influence of environmental factors such as war, famine, drought, and poverty on populations
might provide insight into some of the precursors of conflict and violence.
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
However, such work would require a great deal of time and money, as well
as pain-staking attention to detail on both biological and environmental
measures. Such studies are aided if populations include family members,
but locating such groups is not a trivial undertaking. In addition, such
studies would benefit from large interdisciplinary teams that include people
from both the social and life sciences. However, communication between
such groups is not always straightforward, and challenges of translation can
block the successful completion of such ambitious projects. This is not just a
matter of overcoming disciplinary jargon, or trying to find overlapping areas
of central issue. Rather, oftentimes, such individuals start with fundamentally different epistemological beliefs and assumptions. For example, most
psychologist do not assume or believe that people necessarily act according
to the precepts of rationality; however, most political scientists still adhere to
the belief that people are, or should, act rationally. Such basic divides, even
in the absence of enmity and in the presence of shared interests, can lead to
serious, even insurmountable challenges in completing foundational work
at the intersection of biological and environmental determinants of conflict.
Nonetheless, these difficulties are worth trying to overcome to achieve significant progress in these areas. Existing large data sets of twins, and other
large populations, such as the Add Health data set, which include political
questions, allow for the possibility of exploring some of the biological bases
and physiological correlates of conflict in ways never before possible. Large
teams devoted to such explorations may be willing to accept those interested
in conflict studies and processes as part of the team if such individuals generate interesting hypotheses and ideas for investigation.
Going forward, some explorations at the intersection of political psychology and conflict processes appear particularly to garner increased interest,
although it may be hard to tell in the short run how fruitful such examinations may be over time. First, there appears to be a great deal of increasing
interest in undertaking field experiments in various parts of the world, which
explore the influence of particular factors, including psychological factors
such as attitudes toward equity. These studies strive for a combination of
the control offered by laboratory experiments by administered clear treatment and control conditions to different subjects with the external validity
provided by large population-based studies. How many of these kinds of
studies will be able to fruitfully explore significant psychological processes
in conflict areas remains unclear, and it may be that such studies are relegated
to nonconflict or post-conflict zones, or restrict themselves to simple behavioral economic tasks while not specifically exploring psychological processes
that encourage conflict. Another alternative is to take larger phenomena that
appear endemic in the field, such as anger, and seek to explore them in more
controlled conditions in the laboratory.
Political Psychology and International Conflict
7
A second area of research that will inevitably progress revolves around the
deeper exploration of the biological underpinnings, genetic contributions,
and environmental factors that both precipitate and sustain violence and
aggression. The real challenge is that this work may exclude those who have
studied conflict processes most extensively because such individuals tend to
focus on social factors, whereas those in the life sciences will be collecting
data as part of other projects that they will explore using their own models and methods. These data collection efforts would constitutes a true lost
opportunity for scholars interested in exploring such factors if they are not
able to climb on board. One of the institutional roadblocks to such efforts lies
in the fact that those junior scholars most likely to be both able and interested
to take on new tasks and approaches are also most susceptible to the norms of
fields that have historically privileged sole authorship; such large-scale biological and genetic work is simply not feasible in a solitary context. As such
norms change and increased opportunities for collaboration arise, political
psychology can begin a whole new area of exploration that incorporates both
the internal processes of human motivation with those external dynamics of
provocation that serve to instigate violence, aggression, and conflict among
and between individuals, groups, and nations.
FURTHER READING
Janis, I. L. (1982). Group think: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascos. Boston,
MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Jervis, R. (1976). Perception and misperception in international politics. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under
risk. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 47, 263–291.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.) (1982). Judgment under uncertainty:
Heuristics and biases. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
McDermott, R., Fowler, J. H., & Smirnov, O. (2008). On the evolutionary origin of
prospect theory preferences. Journal of Politics, 70(2), 335–350.
McDermott, R., Tingley, D., Cowden, J., Frazzetto, G., & Johnson, D. D. (2009).
Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) predicts behavioral aggression following
provocation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(7), 2118–2123.
ROSE McDERMOTT SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Rose McDermott is a Professor of Political Science at Brown University
and President of the International Society of Political Psychology. McDermott received her PhD (Political Science) and MA (Experimental Social
Psychology) from Stanford. She has taught at Cornell, UCSB, and Harvard
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
and has held fellowships at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies
and Harvard’s Women and Public Policy Program. She was a 2008–2009
Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at
Stanford University and a 2010–2011 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for
Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is the author of three books, a
coeditor of two additional volumes, and author of over 90 academic articles
across a wide variety of academic disciplines encompassing topics such as
experimentation, identity, emotion, intelligence, decision making, and the
biological and genetic bases of political behavior. She serves on numerous
journal editorial boards and has served on the American Political Science
Association Counsel and Administrative Counsel, as well as the publications
committee for APSA and the International Studies Association.
RELATED ESSAYS
Understanding American Political Conservatism (Political Science), Joel D.
Aberbach
Domestic Politics of Trade Policy (Political Science), Michaël Aklin et al.
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Economic Models of Voting (Political Science), Ian G. Anson and Timothy
Hellwig
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View (Psychology), Brian K. Barber
Mediation in International Conflicts (Political Science), Kyle Beardsley and
Nathan Danneman
Public Opinion and International Conflict (Political Science), Adam J.
Berinsky
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J.
D’Amico
Neoliberalism (Sociology), Miguel Angel Centeno and Joseph N. Cohen
The Evolving View of the Law and Judicial Decision-Making (Political
Science), Justine D’Elia-Kueper and Jeffrey A. Segal
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
Interdependence, Development, and Interstate Conflict (Political Science),
Erik Gartzke
Government Formation and Cabinets (Political Science), Sona N. Golder
Globalization of Capital and National Policymaking (Political Science),
Steven R. Hall
Cultural Heritage, Patrimony, and Repatriation (Anthropology), Richard
Handler
Political Psychology and International Conflict
9
States and Nationalism (Anthropology), Michael Herzfeld
Genetic Foundations of Attitude Formation (Political Science), Christian
Kandler et al.
Regime Type and Terrorist Attacks (Political Science), Kara Kingma et al.
Reconciliation and Peace-Making: Insights from Studies on Nonhuman
Animals (Anthropology), Sonja E. Koski
Exploring Opportunities in Cultural Diversity (Political Science), David D.
Laitin and Sangick Jeon
Women Running for Office (Political Science), Jennifer L. Lawless
Why Do States Sign Alliances? (Political Science), Brett Ashley Leeds
Civic Engagement (Sociology), Peter Levine
Attitude: Construction versus Disposition (Psychology), Charles G. Lord
Against Game Theory (Political Science), Gale M. Lucas et al.
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Domestic Political Institutions and Alliance Politics (Political Science),
Michaela Mattes
Alternative Polities (Archaeology), Roderick J. McIntosh
Gender and Women’s Influence in Public Settings (Political Science), Tali
Mendelberg et al.
Money in Politics (Political Science), Jeffrey Milyo
Implicit Attitude Measures (Psychology), Gregory Mitchell and Philip E.
Tetlock
Queer Theory (Anthropology), Martin F. Manalansan
Economics and Culture (Economics), Gérard Roland
Electoral Authoritarianism (Political Science), Andreas Schedler
War and Social Movements (Political Science), Sidney Tarrow
Leadership (Anthropology), Adrienne Tecza and Dominic Johnson
Trends in the Analysis of Interstate Rivalries (Political Science), William R.
Thompson
Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? (Political Science), Ian R. Turner
et al.
Postsocialism (Anthropology), Elizabeth Cullen Dunn and Katherine Verdery
Information Politics in Dictatorships (Political Science), Jeremy L. Wallace
Trends in the Analysis of Interstate Rivalries (Political Science), William R.
Thompson
Constitutionalism (Political Science), Keith E. Whittington
-
Political Psychology and
International Conflict
ROSE McDERMOTT
Abstract
Political psychology takes an individual level of analysis approach to the study of
international conflict. This study has traditionally investigated the psychological
foundations of decision making among elite leaders in the area of war and peace.
Psychological models that have been applied to the examination of this area
include those taken from cognitive psychology and evolutionary models. Such
approaches include the application of prospect theory to cases of decision making
under conditions of risk. Similar work in this area further explores the nature of
psychological biases in decision making, particularly in the area of risk assessment.
More recent work has explored the biological underpinnings of aggression, and
their contribution to the emergence of violent behavior. Past work has tended to
neglect the role of emotion, but more recent work has investigated these forces
more fully. Future work that seeks to incorporate both biological and environmental
forces in precipitating violence appears challenging but worthwhile. In addition,
experimental methods drawn from psychology have been applied to the study of
international conflict. The use of field experiments to explore the psychological
forces that both motivate and sustain conflict appears promising.
INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, the study of international relations has focused on state-level
actors and the interaction between them. Political psychology tends to focus
on the individual level of analysis by examining the psychological forces and
motivations that inform leaders as well as the mass public. Some of the most
important theoretical perspectives that have been employed to analyze the
effect of psychology on conflict include models from cognitive psychology,
such as prospect theory, as well as theories drawn from evolutionary psychology and biology. These approaches are typically used to examine decision making, particularly in the realm of threat perception, risk taking, and
the foundations of aggression. In addition, experimental methods have been
imported from psychology and applied in both laboratory and field work
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
contexts to explore the psychological underpinnings of conflict, as well as
understand some of the larger dynamics that both fuel and sustain real-world
conflict.
This approach is important to the study of international conflict for at least
a couple of reasons. First, political psychology puts the individual actor front
and center, arguing that individuals matter and are not interchangeable. Standard models of conflict argue that the individual leader would not matter, for
example, in influencing large state decisions such as whether or not to go to
war. From that perspective, George Bush could be replaced by Adolph Hitler
in 2001 and the outcome would have been the same. Yet history is replete
with examples such as Hitler himself where it would be hard to argue that
anyone else in this position at a particular time and place would have created the exact same result. Second, psychological approaches allow for the
incorporation of factors such as emotion into models of decision making in
a way that much more challenging from the perspective of other models. As
emotions such as fear and hatred seem obviously to motivate many conflictual situations, the integration of such factors seems important in providing
a comprehensive understanding of the reasons for conflict and possibilities
for peace.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
Although earlier work provided unsystematic explorations of topics related
to conflict from a psychological perspective, Robert Jervis provided the
foundational work by really establishing the field that applied psychological
methods and models to problems in international relations, including
questions of conflict. He examined the ways in which cognitive biases could
affect processes of judgment and decision making in leaders. He provided
seminal contributions to an understanding of how beliefs and attitudes
and values, including the images we hold in our head of our enemies,
can affect the decisions we make and the actions we take. Although a
great deal of work in political psychology has examined the role of public
opinion, including attitudes toward war and peace, the majority of the work
examining the sources of international conflict have focused on elite leaders.
Jervis work, characteristic of its time, focused on those cognitive biases that
were considered unmotivated, or which occurred under peoples’ level of
consciousness, and which they would eradicate if they became aware of
them and were able to rid themselves of them. Jervis provided influential
demonstrations of how decision makers learn from history and explicated
the dynamics that help underlie the security dilemma and escalation spirals
in conflict. He also noted the importance of the so-called motivated biases
Political Psychology and International Conflict
3
as well by showing the ways in which wishful thinking can skew decision
makers’ expectations and evaluations.
Additional work done by others such as Irving Janis sought to explicate
potential sources of error in judgment and decision making that could be
located in more emotional and social processes; Janis’ model of groupthink
suggested that leaders were no different than others in their desire to be
accepted by a group of similar others and thus proved susceptible to the
social pressures that encouraged conformity in group decision making, often
to the detriment of high quality choices.
Much of Jervis’ foundational work rested on advances in cognitive psychology, which were pioneered by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Their
early work focused on biases in judgment, affecting the assessments that people make about how, for example, how likely future events such as a terrorist
attack might be to occur. They documented at least three central judgmental
biases: representativeness, availability, and anchoring and adjustment. They
then went on to apply this work in the context of decision making, examining how cognitive biases might systematically affect the choices people
make, particularly in situation that involve risk. Kahneman won the Nobel
Prize in Economics, which he accepted in both their names, for their hugely
influential prospect theory model, in 2002. Built on creative and parsimonious experimental demonstrations, Kahneman and Tversky developed an
approach to decision making under conditions of risk that ran counter to
the dominant models offered by subjective expected utility theories. They
showed that people do not always act as economists say they should, but
rather often prefer to take risks when confronting losses and remain cautious
in the face of gains. In addition, people appeared particularly averse to losses,
weighing them psychologically more heavily than they might weigh commensurate gains. They also showed that people tend to weigh information
differently psychologically than they should from an economic perspective.
Taken together, such insights helped illuminate the reasons why people buy
lottery tickets or pay for insurance. A truly critical feature of this work concerned the so-called “framing effects,” which showed that individuals make
fundamentally different choices based on the order, wording, or method of
presentation with which options are displayed irrespective of substantive
changes in content. People fell prey to such biases even when very important
real-life decisions were at stake, such as deciding on a treatment for cancer.
Such effects prove concerning because they show how easily people can be
manipulating in their thoughts, choices, and opinions based on the nature of
the persuasive rhetoric to which they are exposed, suggesting that effective
leadership can sway people even in the absence of substantive shifts in information. Many subsequent studies have revealed the robust nature of these
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
effects, and this literature has continued to flourish in the communications
and media literature.
Additional unrelated work on risk taking in groups showed that groups
often differ in their decision-making proclivities from those espoused by
the individuals who make up those groups. In early incarnations, this was
referred to as the “risky shift” phenomena, but this label does not accurately
reflect the entirely of the research, which really shows increased polarization,
whether toward risk or caution, as individuals join groups.
It is also worth noting that experimental research had gone on in psychology for well over a 100 years, the experimental method also began to make
new forays into political science toward the end of the 1990s. Although
early seminal work in field experiments had been originated and conducted
by Goznell beginning in the 1920s, Don Green and Alan Gerber updated
and applied these methods in the context of investigating American voting
behavior. This method has proceeded to spark an interest among scholars
looking at comparative politics as well as those studying international
conflict as a mechanism by which to investigate the sources of conflict
within and between groups in various field settings around the world, often
in Africa and Central and South America.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Beginning in the late 1990s, as new technology in magnetic resonance imaging came to the fore, allowing for unprecedented investigation into the way
that the human mind processes information, models draw from evolutionary
biology provided the foundation for emerging models of evolutionary psychology that offered new theoretical avenues by which to examine conflict.
Important among this emerging perspective was an increased fascination
with emotion and a new appreciation for its central role in decision making. Models such as D’Amasio’s somatic marker hypotheses suggested that
emotion proved absolutely central to what had previously been understood
to be entirely distinct rational processes. Indeed, these new approaches provided neural evidence suggesting that not only are emotion and cognitive so
intimately intertwined that it often remains nonsensical to discuss them as
distinct processes, but that emotional processing is privileged by the brain
in speed and automaticity, suggesting its critical function in potentiating the
survival of the organism.
These methods and findings have been supported and driven by evolutionary models that interrogate the functional foundations of various behaviors,
including aggression, violence, and conflict, as well as cooperative processes.
Evolutionary hypotheses, for example, could be used to explore the foundations of demonstrable sex differences in aggression, often manifesting as
Political Psychology and International Conflict
5
gender differences in support for public policies encouraging war. They have
also been used to examine the selection pressures that may undergird motivations for war among out-groups as well as loyalty among in-groups. Evolutionary models have also been used to provide a theoretical foundation
for the origins of prospect theory type preferences by showing that optimal foraging theory would predict that individuals faced with serious losses
that might compromise their ability to survive manifest greater risk seeking
behavior.
More recent work has sought to uncover some of the biological and genetic
factors that may influence individual proclivity toward aggression. Although
such factors are not predictive of how any given individual will behave,
patterns across populations can help illuminate the ways in which various
genotypic predispositions and environmental factors may interact to increase
the likelihood of behaviors such as aggression. In addition, explorations of
the interaction of genetic and environmental factors in generating and sustaining particular emotions such as fear and disgust can provide a window
into the foundations of human psychological architecture and how it serves
to support both conflict and cooperation, depending on goals and context.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
There are several issues that arise from these foundational issues. One of the
most potentially contentious ones has to do with the relative importance of
environmental and biological factors in instigating and maintaining conflict.
Over 50 years of research has privileged the importance of social and environmental factors in determining political outcomes of interest; such forces perhaps seem more amenable to institutional intervention and political changes.
Clearly both factors play an important role in locating the sources of conflict,
but the manner in which such factors are investigated pivots on scholars’
beliefs about which factors are most important to uncover.
Given the amount of work going on in related fields in molecular biology,
behavior genetics, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, a
great deal of which often touches on topics of great interest to those who
study international conflict, such as explorations of the processes underlying
ethnocentrism and other forms of out-group prejudice, it seems that greater
exploration of these issues from a biological perspective is warranted.
For example, a great deal of work shows that boys who experience
traumatic events early in their life are more prone to manifesting physical
aggression as adults, particularly if they possess certain kinds of genetic
polymorphisms. If this is the case, then exploring the influence of environmental factors such as war, famine, drought, and poverty on populations
might provide insight into some of the precursors of conflict and violence.
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
However, such work would require a great deal of time and money, as well
as pain-staking attention to detail on both biological and environmental
measures. Such studies are aided if populations include family members,
but locating such groups is not a trivial undertaking. In addition, such
studies would benefit from large interdisciplinary teams that include people
from both the social and life sciences. However, communication between
such groups is not always straightforward, and challenges of translation can
block the successful completion of such ambitious projects. This is not just a
matter of overcoming disciplinary jargon, or trying to find overlapping areas
of central issue. Rather, oftentimes, such individuals start with fundamentally different epistemological beliefs and assumptions. For example, most
psychologist do not assume or believe that people necessarily act according
to the precepts of rationality; however, most political scientists still adhere to
the belief that people are, or should, act rationally. Such basic divides, even
in the absence of enmity and in the presence of shared interests, can lead to
serious, even insurmountable challenges in completing foundational work
at the intersection of biological and environmental determinants of conflict.
Nonetheless, these difficulties are worth trying to overcome to achieve significant progress in these areas. Existing large data sets of twins, and other
large populations, such as the Add Health data set, which include political
questions, allow for the possibility of exploring some of the biological bases
and physiological correlates of conflict in ways never before possible. Large
teams devoted to such explorations may be willing to accept those interested
in conflict studies and processes as part of the team if such individuals generate interesting hypotheses and ideas for investigation.
Going forward, some explorations at the intersection of political psychology and conflict processes appear particularly to garner increased interest,
although it may be hard to tell in the short run how fruitful such examinations may be over time. First, there appears to be a great deal of increasing
interest in undertaking field experiments in various parts of the world, which
explore the influence of particular factors, including psychological factors
such as attitudes toward equity. These studies strive for a combination of
the control offered by laboratory experiments by administered clear treatment and control conditions to different subjects with the external validity
provided by large population-based studies. How many of these kinds of
studies will be able to fruitfully explore significant psychological processes
in conflict areas remains unclear, and it may be that such studies are relegated
to nonconflict or post-conflict zones, or restrict themselves to simple behavioral economic tasks while not specifically exploring psychological processes
that encourage conflict. Another alternative is to take larger phenomena that
appear endemic in the field, such as anger, and seek to explore them in more
controlled conditions in the laboratory.
Political Psychology and International Conflict
7
A second area of research that will inevitably progress revolves around the
deeper exploration of the biological underpinnings, genetic contributions,
and environmental factors that both precipitate and sustain violence and
aggression. The real challenge is that this work may exclude those who have
studied conflict processes most extensively because such individuals tend to
focus on social factors, whereas those in the life sciences will be collecting
data as part of other projects that they will explore using their own models and methods. These data collection efforts would constitutes a true lost
opportunity for scholars interested in exploring such factors if they are not
able to climb on board. One of the institutional roadblocks to such efforts lies
in the fact that those junior scholars most likely to be both able and interested
to take on new tasks and approaches are also most susceptible to the norms of
fields that have historically privileged sole authorship; such large-scale biological and genetic work is simply not feasible in a solitary context. As such
norms change and increased opportunities for collaboration arise, political
psychology can begin a whole new area of exploration that incorporates both
the internal processes of human motivation with those external dynamics of
provocation that serve to instigate violence, aggression, and conflict among
and between individuals, groups, and nations.
FURTHER READING
Janis, I. L. (1982). Group think: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascos. Boston,
MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Jervis, R. (1976). Perception and misperception in international politics. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under
risk. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 47, 263–291.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.) (1982). Judgment under uncertainty:
Heuristics and biases. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
McDermott, R., Fowler, J. H., & Smirnov, O. (2008). On the evolutionary origin of
prospect theory preferences. Journal of Politics, 70(2), 335–350.
McDermott, R., Tingley, D., Cowden, J., Frazzetto, G., & Johnson, D. D. (2009).
Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) predicts behavioral aggression following
provocation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(7), 2118–2123.
ROSE McDERMOTT SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Rose McDermott is a Professor of Political Science at Brown University
and President of the International Society of Political Psychology. McDermott received her PhD (Political Science) and MA (Experimental Social
Psychology) from Stanford. She has taught at Cornell, UCSB, and Harvard
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
and has held fellowships at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies
and Harvard’s Women and Public Policy Program. She was a 2008–2009
Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at
Stanford University and a 2010–2011 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for
Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is the author of three books, a
coeditor of two additional volumes, and author of over 90 academic articles
across a wide variety of academic disciplines encompassing topics such as
experimentation, identity, emotion, intelligence, decision making, and the
biological and genetic bases of political behavior. She serves on numerous
journal editorial boards and has served on the American Political Science
Association Counsel and Administrative Counsel, as well as the publications
committee for APSA and the International Studies Association.
RELATED ESSAYS
Understanding American Political Conservatism (Political Science), Joel D.
Aberbach
Domestic Politics of Trade Policy (Political Science), Michaël Aklin et al.
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Economic Models of Voting (Political Science), Ian G. Anson and Timothy
Hellwig
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View (Psychology), Brian K. Barber
Mediation in International Conflicts (Political Science), Kyle Beardsley and
Nathan Danneman
Public Opinion and International Conflict (Political Science), Adam J.
Berinsky
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J.
D’Amico
Neoliberalism (Sociology), Miguel Angel Centeno and Joseph N. Cohen
The Evolving View of the Law and Judicial Decision-Making (Political
Science), Justine D’Elia-Kueper and Jeffrey A. Segal
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
Interdependence, Development, and Interstate Conflict (Political Science),
Erik Gartzke
Government Formation and Cabinets (Political Science), Sona N. Golder
Globalization of Capital and National Policymaking (Political Science),
Steven R. Hall
Cultural Heritage, Patrimony, and Repatriation (Anthropology), Richard
Handler
Political Psychology and International Conflict
9
States and Nationalism (Anthropology), Michael Herzfeld
Genetic Foundations of Attitude Formation (Political Science), Christian
Kandler et al.
Regime Type and Terrorist Attacks (Political Science), Kara Kingma et al.
Reconciliation and Peace-Making: Insights from Studies on Nonhuman
Animals (Anthropology), Sonja E. Koski
Exploring Opportunities in Cultural Diversity (Political Science), David D.
Laitin and Sangick Jeon
Women Running for Office (Political Science), Jennifer L. Lawless
Why Do States Sign Alliances? (Political Science), Brett Ashley Leeds
Civic Engagement (Sociology), Peter Levine
Attitude: Construction versus Disposition (Psychology), Charles G. Lord
Against Game Theory (Political Science), Gale M. Lucas et al.
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Domestic Political Institutions and Alliance Politics (Political Science),
Michaela Mattes
Alternative Polities (Archaeology), Roderick J. McIntosh
Gender and Women’s Influence in Public Settings (Political Science), Tali
Mendelberg et al.
Money in Politics (Political Science), Jeffrey Milyo
Implicit Attitude Measures (Psychology), Gregory Mitchell and Philip E.
Tetlock
Queer Theory (Anthropology), Martin F. Manalansan
Economics and Culture (Economics), Gérard Roland
Electoral Authoritarianism (Political Science), Andreas Schedler
War and Social Movements (Political Science), Sidney Tarrow
Leadership (Anthropology), Adrienne Tecza and Dominic Johnson
Trends in the Analysis of Interstate Rivalries (Political Science), William R.
Thompson
Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? (Political Science), Ian R. Turner
et al.
Postsocialism (Anthropology), Elizabeth Cullen Dunn and Katherine Verdery
Information Politics in Dictatorships (Political Science), Jeremy L. Wallace
Trends in the Analysis of Interstate Rivalries (Political Science), William R.
Thompson
Constitutionalism (Political Science), Keith E. Whittington