Terrorism and anxiety - Aaron M Hoffman.com



When the “Laws of Fear” Don’t Apply: Effective Counterterrorism and the Sense of Security from Terrorism.Running head: When the “Laws of Fear” Don’t apply.Aaron M. Hoffman (corresponding author)Department of Political SciencePurdue University100 North University St.West Lafayette, IN. 47907ahoffman@purdue.edu&William ShelbyDepartment of Political SciencePurdue University100 North University St.West Lafayette, IN. 47907wshelby@purdue.eduAcknowledgements: Thanks to Shana Gadarian, Erin Hennes, Ariel Merari, Kimberly Marion Suiseeya, Jordan Tama, Laurel Weldon, and participants in Purdue University’s Jewish Studies Program Speaker Series and McGill University’s CIPSS Speaker Series for commenting on this manuscript. A special note of thanks to Purdue University’s Undergraduate Honors College and their students, who helped support this research.Abstract: We investigate how effective counterterrorism influences (1) confidence in government efforts to deal with terrorism and (2) the sense of insecurity from attacks. Research on “heuristic judgments” implies information about counterterrorism undercuts people’s perceived security from terrorism. Across three experiments, however, we find that people who are exposed to information about effective counterterrorism express more confidence in governments to protect citizens from future attacks and prevent future violence than those who did not receive these treatments. People who receive information about effective counterterrorism also show greater willingness to travel to locations where the risk of terrorism is prominent than those who are only exposed to material about terrorism. Finally, counterterrorism information does not inevitably undermine government efforts to reassure people about their security. On the contrary, information about effective counterterrorism erased the effects of exposure to information about terrorism in one study.Key words: Terrorism, counterterrorism, fear appeals, reassurance, experiments.The terrorism-related death toll is minor compared to other health risks, but attacks are so threatening people seek comfort in ill-advised security measures that do more harm than good. Indeed, getting societies to engage in self-injurious behavior while pursuing security may explain why terrorism persists even though groups that use it rarely get what they want. Some say governments can save people from themselves. Leaders of Israel’s Likud party, for instance, believe military operations against Hamas make Israelis feel safer (Ganor, 2005, p. 102). On the surface, this seems like a reasonable conjecture. After all, robbing perpetrators of their capacity for violence seems like a straightforward way of making them less intimidating.Many security analysts, though, are skeptical of government efforts to neutralize terrorism’s psychological effects. Counterterrorism, they say, has the unintended consequence of reminding people about threats. Instead of providing reassurance, counterterrorism magnifies people’s sense of danger. Can governments escape this dilemma by engaging in counterterrorism in ways that make people feel less threatened by terrorists or is insecurity counterterrorism’s inevitable byproduct? In contrast to the skeptics, we argue that counterterrorism efforts are not doomed to backfire on the people they are designed to protect as long as governments manage threats effectively. Insecurity results from the sense that people cannot control their exposure to danger (Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder 1982; Witte 1992). Efficacious counterterrorism alleviates this problem by demonstrating that governments are in control and can check the threat of violence. In three experiments, we demonstrate that information about effective counterterrorism can reassure US citizens about their security when the threat of terrorism is salient. People exposed to information effective counterterrorism express greater confidence in the ability of governments to control terrorism and express less concern about the odds of future attacks. Ineffectual counterterrorism efforts do not produce these effects. Effective counterterrorism also decreases people’s concerns about traveling to potentially dangerous locations. Insecurity breeds avoidance behavior, but people who viewed presentations about Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) counterterrorism training exercises expressed greater willingness to travel to Israel than those who a presentation about terrorism. The effects of the IDF video were so strong people who saw it were as willing to travel to Israel as those who were not reminded at all about terrorism or counterterrorism in Israel. Success, as Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler (2005/2006) argue, boosts public morale during foreign military campaigns. Work on retrospective voting (Fiorina 1981) suggests a similar conclusion. Our research extends this thesis in two ways. First, we show that information about effective counterterrorism can reduce people’s sense of insecurity when threats are near. Second, we show that effective counterterrorism produces an intention to behave as if terrorism was not threatening. Cowering responses to terrorist activity that result in self-defeating policies are avoidable.Terrorism and anxietyFinding ways to take the terror out of terrorism is arguably the central challenge in the effort to reduce the use of this tactic. Since 2001, gun violence has claimed more lives in the US than terrorists have over the same period (Bower 2016). The US government, however, spends more to control terrorism than it does to reduce gun deaths. Far more, in fact, than can be justified by reasonable cost-benefit analyses (Mueller & Stewart, 2011). By terrorism, we mean the actual or threatened use of force by non-state actors for the purpose of securing political goals through intimidation (Enders & Sandler, 2006). By all accounts, it is a form of psychological warfare par excellence. People who are exposed to terrorism either directly or via the mass media are at increased risk for PTSD-like symptoms (Holman, Garfin, & Silver, 2014). They are also more likely to “protect” themselves against attacks with measures that do more harm than good. Examples include driving instead of flying even though automobile travel is more dangerous than air travel (Sj?berg, 2005) and vacationing in Italy instead of Israel (Drakos & Kutan, 2003) even though Italy’s death rate per 1000 inhabitants is twice that of Israel (World Bank).Anxiety is a natural response to threats. The problem is that targeted communities react to terrorism in ways that magnify its social and political consequences. People’s propensity to inflict harm on themselves compounds the damage terrorists are able to do themselves. These responses also encourage subsequent attacks by showing perpetrators that their strikes work (Kydd & Walter, 2006). Making terrorism less threatening would inhibit both of these tendencies (Fromkin 1974; Mueller, 2006; Shanker & Schmitt, 2012).According to research on heuristic judgments (Khaneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Sunstein, 2005), terrorism stimulates maladaptive reactions for two reasons: people believe terrorism is uncontrollable and that it is a gruesome way to die. People experience greater levels of anxiety when confronted with risks they cannot control, avoid, or protect themselves against (Klar, Zakay, & Sharvit, 2002; Rothbaum, et al., 1982). People also react more strongly (and less reasonably) when confronted with dread risks (Sj?berg, 2005). Uncontrollable risks that produce strong affective reactions encourage defective decision making, resulting in responses to terrorism that do more harm than good to targeted populations (Sunstein, 2005). Instead of estimating the chances of attacks and the harm these strikes are likely to cause, people focus on the anxiety they experience (Slovic & Peters, 2006). This orientation leads people to embrace measures that help them restore their sense of security without regard for how those choices influence their well-being. For terrorists, the ability to stimulate maladaptive reactions among target populations is a clear advantage. Small attacks can produce large, damaging effects. This is why experts like Bruce Schneier (2006) say that the “surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized.” Unfortunately, it is unclear how one would even begin taking the terror out of terrorism. Recent developments in terrorism research are partially responsible for this state of affairs. Anger is supplanting anxiety and insecurity as the focal point of research on the political psychology of terrorism (Huddy, Feldman, Taber, & Lahav, 2005; Lerner & Keltner, 2001). The big question in the literature on civilian targeting (Abrahms, 2006; Fortna, 2015) is why groups use terrorism at all in light of its poor record of long term political success? These are important questions and we are not suggesting that scholars abandon them. That said, managing terrorism’s effects are secondary concerns in this work. As such, they have little to say about ways to make terrorism less intimidating short of eliminating it altogether. The Psychology of CounterterrorismAlthough political scientists have not devoted a lot of attention to ways of reducing terrorism’s psychological effects, they should be well positioned to do so. In the end, the job of protecting people from terrorism falls on governments -- the political scientist’s stock-in-trade.Surprisingly, though, there is a strong sense among experts that government counterterrorism efforts increase people’s sense of vulnerability from terrorism. Cass Sunstein goes so far as to argue that governments should not even talk about counterterrorism. Instead, governments should “discuss something else and let time do the rest” (2005, 125). While no one takes a harder line on counterterrorism’s counterproductive psychological effects than Sunstein, he is not alone in believing that counterterrorism magnifies people’s sense of insecurity. Terrorism experts English (2010, p. 121), Friedman (2011, p. 78), Mueller (2006), and Wardlaw (1989, p. 94) all maintain that counterterrorism unnerves people by focusing their attention on the presence of mortal threats. As Robert Jervis (2002) noted about police standing on 5th Avenue in New York, visible security efforts can have unintended psychological effects. Research by Grosskopf (2006), van de Veer et al. (2012), and McDermott and Zimbardo (2007) confirm this point.The idea that counterterrorism produces alarm rather than reassurance has its roots in Darwinian arguments about the role anxiety plays in keeping people alive. According to this view, anxiety is part and parcel of a system people rely on to alert them about threats to their well-being (Marcus, Neuman, & Mackuen 2000; Mercer 2005). When people sense danger, their brains initiate the release of stress hormones that quickly trigger adaptive responses. The trouble is human preservation systems are prone to error. Since survival is endangered more by indifference to risks than responsiveness to them, people evolved to be hyper-sensitive to threats (?hman, 2000). Consequently, people interpret stimuli from their environment more ominously than logic warrants. Instead of asking whether they are likely to suffer harm from an identified threat, people focus on the danger while either neglecting their odds of injury (Sunstein 2003) or overestimating it (Braithwaite 2013). The body’s prime directive is survival. Human security systems turn off only when threats are absent. This sensitivity to danger signs explains why information about counterterrorism generates insecurity. The need to defend against terrorism reminds people about the presence of threats to their lives that their survival instincts cannot ignore. The psychology of efficacious counterterrorismThe empirical record, however, does not support the contention that anxious responses to counterterrorism are one of the “laws of fear,” as Sunstein calls it. On the contrary, there are suggestions that counterterrorism can increase people’s sense of security (Nacos, Bloch-Elkin, and Shapiro 2011 & Zussman and Zussman 2006). In this section, we advance a theory about the conditions under which messages about counterterrorism reassure people. We argue that the perceived quality of the counterterrorism strategies governments use distinguishes reassuring communications from alarming ones. We begin from the assumption that terrorism can be analyzed as a kind of “fear appeal,” a message that deliberately arouses fear in order to motivate audiences to meet perpetrator demands. Imarat Kavkazin, for example, uses terrorism to encourage Russia to relinquish its control over territory in the North Caucuses. Capitulation to this demand is the approach Imarat Kavkazin recommends to end the violence. Fear appeals are widely used in health contexts. The idea behind this, according to the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) of fear appeals (Witte, 1992, 1994; Witte & Allen, 2000), is to arouse fear in order to encourage people to take protective action (Ruiter, Abraham, & Kok, 2001, p. 614). Anti-smoking appeals, for example, might say “smoking kills” to warn people about health risks associated with smoking. Messages like this play on the anxiety threats create in order to motivate people to adopt risk management strategies (“quit” or “never start” in the case of anti-smoking campaigns) designed to guard against hazards. Fear appeals by health professionals, however, have a spotty record of success. People ignore them sometimes. Other times, fear appeals backfire by encouraging people to engage in self-destructive behavior (Peters, Ruiter, and Kok 2013). EPPM addresses the factors that distinguishes successful fear appeals from unsuccessful ones. The EPPM suggests reactions to fear appeals are produced by the interaction of perceived threat and the quality of proposed risk management strategies (Witte, 1992; Witte & Allen, 2000). Perceived threat levels determine whether people experience anxiety at all. Irrelevant and low intensity threats are ignored. Non-drug users, for example, are expected to disregard warnings about the dangers of sharing needles during intravenous drug use. Significantly, relevant threats stimulate an assessment of the risk management proposals that accompany these communications. The caliber of available risk mitigation strategies determines whether people are reassured and behave sensibly in the face of threats. People are reassured about their security and accept recommendations embedded in the communications they receive when they see risk management strategies as effective (Gore & Bracken, 2005). Reassurance reflects the knowledge that there are sensible ways of managing exposure to a risk. Accepting the advice embedded in risk management strategies is the behavioral manifestation of this state of mind.People reject proposed risk management strategies and focus on controlling their anxiety when they receive ineffectual precautionary advice. The physically unpleasant feeling of anxiety motivates this search for relief (Clark 2011). Unfortunately, this effort can do more harm than good. People prioritize controlling their emotions over reducing their risk of harm, an orientation that makes strategies that control anxiety without controlling risk look attractive. The challenges inherent in issuing health advisories that people will accept is similar to the problem terrorists have getting people to accede to their demands. Instead of stirring people to manage the risk of terrorism by capitulating to attackers’ demands, terrorism stimulates anxiety control. Groups promise to halt their attacks in exchange for concessions, but using terrorism destroys their credibility (Abrahms, 2013), making the risk management strategies terrorists propose appear unreliable.At this point, the EPPM has little to say about the role governments play in degrading terrorism’s psychological effects. The EPPM is a theory about how individuals react to fear appeals. If risk management strategies attached to fear appeals are defective in some basic way, the EPPM suggests people will shift from controlling their risk of exposure to dangers to controlling their sense of insecurity even if doing so is self-destructive. Governments have little role to play in affecting these outcomes both because individuals are the principle decision makers when personal health decisions are at issue and because EPPM theorists are skeptical outside actors can make a difference.Work on the psychology of control, however, suggests that people do not give up the search for effective risk management strategies easily. The personal desire for control is strong -- so strong people rarely abandon the search for it. Yet, problems like terrorism do not lend themselves to individual solutions, the first line of defense. In these cases, people look to actors, like governments, to provide the control they crave. Risk management is fundamentally about the ability to control exposure to danger. When individuals cannot control their exposure to danger on their own, they look to powerful others to do it for them (Rothbaum, et al., 1982).The failure of the public to find credible risk management strategies creates opportunities for governments to step into the breach. People expect governments to provide security. Indeed, governments are the only actors that possess the materiel and manpower to confront terrorist organizations. Therefore, people turn to government because of their inclination to look to powerful actors for help when they cannot control risks such as terrorism themselves (Merolla, Ramos, & Zechmeister, 2007). The search for “vicarious secondary control” (Morling & Evered 2006, 270) is not reflexive, however. Governments have to demonstrate the ability to manage the threat of terrorism to satisfy people’s search for secondary control. When governments do this, citizens find government action reassuring. When governments fail, the results can create instability and fear of future attacks. Because of the stakes, it is important for governments to ensure they are taking the right steps to mitigate fears of terrorism.Research designIn this section, we describe the research design we used to examine whether information about effective counterterrorism increases people’s (1) confidence in the ability of governments to protect them from future attacks and (2) intention to approach terrorism affected areas. The first question has been the subject of research using aggregate data on public opinion; the second question is a logical extension of the first. Both questions are consistent with the EPPM and locus of control literatures.We examined these relationships using a series of laboratory experiments. Previous tests of these propositions have been conducted in natural settings using aggregate data (e.g., stock market prices). This approach makes it difficult to determine whether counterterrorism has individual level effects (see Bausch, Faria, & Zeitzoff 2013 for an exception). It also raises questions about the internal validity of the observed associations. Frightened people are more inclined than calm ones to search for reassuring information (Gadarian, 2010), creating an inferential problem. Drawing conclusions about the consequences of counterterrorism by observing people who voluntarily expose themselves to this material risks mistaking the effects of government action for the effects of prior emotional states. Laboratory experiments offer solutions to both of these issues. The subjective sense of insecurity from terrorism is the dependent variable in these studies. We measured it by asking people about their confidence in their government’s ability to protect them from attacks and about their willingness to travel to a terrorism affected area. Both of these measures are used in extant research to assess people’s subjective sense of threat from terrorism, facilitating comparisons between our findings and existing ones. (e.g., Huddy, Khatib, & Capelos 2002). Each study was devised with an eye toward maximizing the authenticity of the stimuli volunteers received. Most Americans are exposed to terrorism and counterterrorism via the mass media. Recognizing this we used treatments that people might encounter in the news or on social media. Two of the treatments are drawn from material the IDF released on its Twitter feed (@IDFSpokesperson). A third appeared on CNN. The remaining treatments are modeled on wire service reports that appear in U.S. newspapers and on websites. [Table 1 here]All three experiments had IRB approval and were conducted using a website developed by Richard Lau and David Redlawsk called the Dynamic Process Tracing Environment. Volunteers gained access to the studies via electronic link and were permitted to complete the protocols from any location with internet service. Each study began with a presentation about the risks associated with participation and the protections in place to safeguard participants’ anonymity. Those that consented to participate received a demographic questionnaire, a randomly assigned treatment, and follow-up questions. Volunteers were then debriefed, thanked, and compensated for their time. An overview of each study appears in Table 1. We recruited volunteers for our first study from consumer sciences and political science courses taught at a large Midwestern University. We recruited participants for studies 2 and 3 through Mechanical Turk (AMT), an on-line labor market run by (see Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz 2012 for details). Our recruits are appropriate for testing hypotheses about the direction of the relationship between effective counterterrorism and reassurance. The theoretical frameworks that inform this research assume reactions to material about terrorism and counterterrorism are universal, driven by psychological processes everyone experiences. National probability samples are unnecessary in these situations, since everyone is assumed to react the same way (Calder, Phillips, & Tybout 1982; Mook, 1983). Eschewing national probability samples in this research mainly limits our ability to draw inferences about the size of the effects we observe in the laboratory outside of it. Extant research on psychological reactions to terrorism (e.g., Bonanno, Galea, Bucciarelli, & Vlahov, 2007) buttress the view that attacks produce homogenous effects among targeted populations: gender, age, and education influence the intensity, but not the type of reactions people have to attacks. Research on information that increases perceptions of response effectiveness comes to a similar conclusion (Ruiter, Kessels, Peters, & Kok 2014). The treatments we use might cause disparate reactions among particular groups (e.g., Palestinians to Israeli counterterrorism), but in studies 1 and 2 we had no reason to suspect that our recruitment strategy would yield many people like this. In study 3, we thought Jewish respondents might react differently to questions about traveling to Israel, so we controlled for these individuals in our analyses. We analyzed the data from each study using ANOVA even though this is not always the optimal choice given the dependent variables we used. We used ANOVA to simplify the interpretation of our results, but we also checked all our results using ordered logit when our dependent variable was measured at an ordinal level. Tabular presentations of these robustness checks appear in the online appendix. Study 1This study examined how college students react to information about FBI responses to international and domestic terrorism on college campuses. Bomb threats against colleges and universities were an issue when we conducted this study (November 26, 2012-May 20, 2013). In April 2013, an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated on the campus of Purdue University-Calumet (PUC) (Hayes, 2012). Four months earlier, police found an IED near student housing on the PUC campus (Sheets, 2012). Authorities also found an IED at the University of Central Florida in March 2013 (Koplowitz, 2013). Events at the University of Pittsburgh in 2012, however, inspired this study most. Between February and April, “The Threateners” issued more than 100 bomb threats against the University, forcing repeated evacuations and bomb searches on campus (see Preston, 2012 for an account). The events drew the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force to the University to assist local authorities in their investigation. The specific question we examined in this study is whether news about FBI involvement in terrorism related investigations on campus reassures students about their security? Available public opinion polls imply people have a favorable impression of the FBI’s counterterrorism capabilities. In September 2002, 56% of respondents to an ABC poll said the FBI was doing either a good or an excellent job dealing with 9/11 and its aftermath. In 2003, 52% rated the FBI’s efforts as either “good” or “excellent.” In 2004, a plurality of respondents (49%), reported having either “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in FBI counterterrorism efforts. This scenario, in other words, does a good job of pitting the competing perspectives on the psychological consequences of counterterrorism against one another.Deviating from the University of Pittsburgh situation, we replaced the previously unknown “Threateners” with threats from al Qaeda and Sovereign Citizens. We chose al Qaeda because it was seen as the international terrorist organization that presented the greatest danger to US interests at the time. We selected Sovereign Citizens because of its status as one of the serious domestic terrorist threats to US security. We expected people in the al Qaeda conditions to experience more insecurity than those in the Sovereign Citizens conditions. Participants282 undergraduates enrolled in consumer sciences and political science courses at a large Midwestern University were recruited for a two (domestic versus international terrorism scenario) x two (FBI warns about terrorist activity versus FBI prevents terrorist activity) between-subjects experimental design. About 51% of participants were women. Volunteers had an average age of 20 (SD=3.26). An oversight on our part cost us information on the party affiliations of more than half of our volunteers. Roughly 40% of those we do have information on self-identified as Republicans, while thirty-four percent self-identified as Democrats. The remaining volunteers self-identified as either Independents or “other.” Students received some extra credit toward their final grades for participating.Volunteers each received a fake wire service report, modeled on those appearing in newspapers, describing possible terrorist activity on a university campus (see the appendix for text). Half of the participants were told the FBI was concerned about the threat from Sovereign Citizens. The other half were told al Qaeda was the source of the threat. Volunteers also learned about FBI responses to the threats. People in the ineffective response condition were told the FBI issued a warning about terrorist activity on campus. Those in the effective response condition were told the FBI disrupted a plot by one of the groups. We expect the effective response to be more reassuring than the ineffective one.After presenting the treatments, we asked our participants about their confidence in “the US government’s ability to prevent future terrorist attacks” and “ability to protect its citizens from attacks” (e.g., “Please tell me if you are very confident, somewhat confident, not very confident, or not at all confident in the Israeli government's ability to protect its citizens from attacks”). We also asked questions about the likelihood of a terrorist attack “somewhere within the United States,” whether participants will “experience an act of terrorism,” and whether someone they “know well will be the victim of a terrorist attack within the United States?” Breckenridge et al (2010) used these questions to assess whether people fall victim to “optimistic bias,” a belief that they are less vulnerable to risks than their friends or family. Wording for the questions appear in the appendix. ResultsWe restricted our analysis to those respondents who demonstrated that they paid attention to the information they received. We did this because we are interested in the effects of information about counterterrorism and would not know how to interpret findings produced by inattentive volunteers. We also needed a way to identify careless participants since we rewarded participants for completing the study, not completing it carefully. We analyzed our data using ANOVA. The results suggest people’s assessments of the US government’s ability to keep them safe are influenced by the interaction of messages about FBI counterterrorism efforts and the type of threat [F(3,197)=2.04, p<.1]. Digging deeper, we found that information about effective FBI counterterrorism efforts increased confidence in the US government’s ability to prevent attacks [F(1, 100)=2.89, p<.09] and to keep its citizens safe [F(1,99)=4.84, p<.05] among those in the domestic terrorism condition. Information about the FBI, however, had no effect on those in the international terrorism condition. While information about the FBI did not reassure people assigned to the international terrorism condition, it also did not increase anxiety about terrorist attacks [F(1,197)=0.37, p>.1] nor make people more concerned about their security [F(1,197)=0.49, p>.1] or the security of people they know [F(1,197)=1.13, p>.1]. This test, in other words, does not suggest that counterterrorism exacerbates people’s sense of insecurity.DiscussionThe conditional relationship between terrorist organizations and FBI responses is consistent with our expectations based on the EPPM and locus of control literatures, but not exactly what we predicted. We expected information about efficacious counterterrorism would reassure people regardless of the identity of the threatening organization. We found, however, that the FBI’s counterterrorism success reassured participants only when Sovereign Citizens posed the threat. This suggests efficacious counterterrorism matters in context, not above all else. This result is echoed in the wider literature on success in military operations (Hoffman, Agnew, VanderDrift, & Kulzick 2015).Relatedly, this study suggests that there are conditions under which governments can reveal their counterterrorism accomplishments without making people feel more vulnerable to attack. Mentions of FBI counterterrorism efforts did not increase anxiety levels about future attacks or vulnerability to violence. Anxious responses to threats do not appear to be inevitable.Military responses to terrorism also do not appear to be the only way governments can reassure their citizens. Israeli officials have focused on using military force to inoculate their citizens against terrorism’s deleterious psychological effects, but it appears the public can also take solace from policing efforts. Methods of mitigating terrorism-induced anxiety that draw on lessons from efforts to manage the fear of crime may prove fruitful (Lynch, 2011).Finally, this study provides its own evidence that the results we reported cannot be dismissed because we relied on undergraduate research subjects. Undergraduates are supposed to be impressionable and inclined to give investigators the responses investigators want, producing falsely positive results (Sears 1986). Yet, studies that use volunteers who tell researchers what they want to hear get simple findings, not complex ones. The volunteers in this study might react either more strongly or more weakly to information about effective counterterrorism than the general public, but their selective responses to our cues suggests the responses we observed have more to do with the treatments we used than the people we recruited.Study 2Study 2 examines the effects of a counterterrorism messages sent by the Israeli military on the sense of security of people living in the US during a period of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas (20 November 2012, between 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. EST). Israel’s message, sent via Twitter on Wednesday 14 November 2012 announced the “elimination” of Ahmed al-Jabari, who commanded Hamas’ military (the announcement is in the appendix). It also marked the start of a week-long offensive by Israel against Hamas.Counterterrorism efforts are often in the news when threats appear immanent, but recreating this sense in the laboratory presents a challenge. Israel’s offensive solved this problem, so we seized this unexpected opportunity to examine the effects of counterterrorism information during a crisis.This was classic “firehouse” research. The time pressure we faced to design and get IRB approval for this study forced us to make compromises. We could not test the effects of Israel’s announcement on Israelis. Instead, we relied on the reactions of Americans living in the United States. We also did not include a treatment depicting terrorism, preventing us from examining our subjects’ sensitivity to this information.Even so, this study’s ability to illuminate how an actual counterterrorism communication influences people during an ongoing terrorism crisis made it worth pursuing. Additionally, the study allows us to examine the psychological effects of assassinations at the individual level. Polls suggest that Americans believe assassinations control the threat of terrorism (see Smeltz & Daalder 2014), but we do not know if these attacks influence people’s sense of security directly. This study provides the first controlled trial of the effectiveness of the Israeli Defense Forces’ effort to counter its enemies via social media.ParticipantsAgainst this background, we recruited 120 volunteers through AMT for a study of their responses to “questions about current events.” Participants ranged in age from 20 to 62 (mean=34.5, S.D.=12.4) and received $1 in exchange for ten minutes of their time. About sixty-one percent (60.7%) of our recruits were men. 75.8% percent of the volunteers reported having at least some college education. 52.6% of respondents self-identified as Democrats, 30.3% identified as Independents, and 10.7% called themselves Republicans. The remaining respondents selected “other” as their partisan affiliation.Materials and proceduresWe began by administering a demographic questionnaire and questions about attention to the fighting in Israel. We also asked about our participants’ attention to the controversy in the US over the 11 September 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya that killed Christopher Hill, an American diplomat. Apropos of the intensity of the event, just under 93% of those who volunteered for our study reported following the violence in Israel at least a little, making our subject pool full of the kind of people who might see a message about counterterrorism during a crisis.Volunteers assigned to the baseline condition then received six questions gauging their confidence in the ability of the Israeli and U.S. governments to protect against future strikes (e.g., “Please tell me if you are very confident, somewhat confident, not very confident, or not at all confident in the Israeli government's ability to protect its citizens from attacks”) and their concern about future attacks (e.g., “In the past, Hamas has threatened to attack the United States in retaliation against Israeli strikes. On a scale from 0 ('totally unlikely to occur') to 100 ('absolutely certain to occur'), how likely do you feel it is that Hamas will attack the United States as a result of its support of the Israeli government?”). Those in the experimental condition viewed the IDF’s tweet before answering these items.ResultsOur analyses suggest the IDF’s message increased people’s confidence in the ability of the US and Israeli governments to deal with future terrorist activity without increasing their anxiety about future attacks. Those who saw the IDF’s tweet expressed more confidence in (1) Israel’s ability to prevent attacks [F(1,103)=5.56, p<.05], (2) the US’ ability to prevent attacks [F(1,103)=4.28, p<.05] and (3) the US’s ability to protect its citizens [F(1,103)=2.82, p<.1] . The tweet, though, did not influence people’s confidence in the Israeli government’s ability to protect its citizens [F(1,103)=0.71, p>.1]. While the IDF’s tweet increased confidence in the US and Israeli governments’ counterterrorism capabilities, it did not raise concerns about retaliation by either Hamas [F (1, 103)=0.04, p>.1] or al Qaeda [F (1, 103)=1.65, p>.1]. Those who saw Israel’s message were no more concerned about future attacks than those who did not see the message.DiscussionThis experiment suggests that information about effective counterterrorism by the IDF increases Americans’ confidence in the Israeli and US governments’ ability to deal with terrorism during an ongoing crisis. This result complements Zussman and Zussman’s (2006) work showing prices on the Israeli stock market increase after targeted assassinations of suspected terrorists by demonstrating individual level effects of these attacks. Unlike Study 1, this study also suggests that effective counterterrorism reassures people facing threats from international terrorism. There are many plausible explanations for the different result across the two studies, but public faith in the value of targeted killings stands out as a possible difference maker. Americans are less convinced the FBI can deal with the threat of terrorism and took no succor from reports about the agency when foreign terrorists were in the mix. Finally, this study once again offers little support for the idea that information about counterterrorism stimulates feelings of insecurity. Negative responses to the tweet were possible given that the IDF’s message taunts as much as it informs. Nevertheless, we found no evidence that the message increased people’s sense of vulnerability to retaliatory strikes over those who did not see it.Study 3In Study 3, we examined the effects of reports about Israel’s experience with terrorism and its efforts to deal with attacks on the willingness of U.S. residents to travel there. Danger avoidance is a common reaction to threats (Lerner and Keltner 2001). This study examines whether information about effective counterterrorism can diminish this response.Study 3 builds on the previous two in several ways. First, the study examines whether effective counterterrorism influences people’s intention to act in ways consistent with the information they receive about risk management. The EPPM suggests that efficacious risk management strategies should change behavior, but studies 1 and 2 only examine whether these strategies reassured recipients. This study examines the behavioral consequences of counterterrorism communiqués. Second, this study employs a different, but related dependent variable – the desire to travel to a terrorism-affected country (Israel). One way to establish the robustness of relationships is by testing them under variable conditions. Study 3 does that. Finally, this study examines whether counterterrorism preparations reassure people. The previous studies examined reactions to attacks, but it is clear that states also take steps to control terrorism before it happens. ParticipantsBetween November 3rd and 17th, 2013, we recruited 300 volunteers from AMT for a study examining “attitudes about foreign travel.” Just under sixty percent of those who volunteered were men (N=176). Participants ranged in age from 18 to 71 (mean=33.85, s.d.=11.68) and tended to identify as democrats (49%). Republicans constituted 17% of the pool; 28% were independents. 6% said they had “other” political affiliations. Six participants said they were “Jewish.” We controlled for these six people in our analyses. Jewish participants might react to information about terrorism and counterterrorism in Israel differently than others given Israel’s identity as the Jewish state. Methods and proceduresSubjects were assigned at random into one of three groups in a between-subjects design. Group one, the baseline group, received no information about either terrorism or counterterrorism. Those in group two were exposed to a thirty-four second clip from CNN news depicting the aftermath of a bus bombing in Israel; Breckenridge et al (2010) used this video in their work. Subjects in group three saw the CNN video followed by a 1 minute 25 second video of an IDF hostage rescue training exercise the IDF released via Twitter and YouTube.After receiving the treatments, we used a modified version of a question Gallup asks about people’s willingness to travel to Israel (“If money were no object, please tell me on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 meaning totally unlikely to visit and 100 meaning absolutely certain to visit how likely it is that you would travel to Israel”). We also asked about confidence in the Israeli government’s counterterrorism efforts using the questions from Study 1. ResultsUsing ANOVA, we determined that people in the baseline and counterterrorism video conditions were more willing to travel to Israel than people who saw the terrorism video only [F(2,297)=6.40, p<.01]. People who saw only the terrorism video were nearly 9 point (b=8.96, p<.05 95% CI [-17.02 -0.91]) less enthusiastic about traveling to Israel than people in the baseline and counterterrorism video conditions. This result controls for the responses of Jewish participants in our study, who showed heightened interest in traveling to Israel (b=38.22, p<.01 95 CI [11.84 64.61]). [Figure 1 here]While seeing the terrorism video on its own dampened people’s enthusiasm for travel to Israel, the counterterrorism video erased this effect. People who saw the counterterrorism video after the terrorism video were just as enthusiastic about traveling to Israel as those in the baseline condition. Figure 3, above, displays the willingness of participants to travel to Israel across these experimental treatments.In addition to indicating a weaker intention to travel to Israel, volunteers who saw just the terrorism video expressed less confidence in the Israeli government’s ability to protect citizens from future attacks than those in the baseline and counterterrorism conditions [F(2,287)=2.50, p<.1]. This effect on attitudes is consistent with those reported in the previous two studies. Our treatments, however, did not influence beliefs about Israel’s ability to prevent terrorism. The significant F test [F(2,285)=2.5, p<1] reflects the greater optimism of Jewish respondents.DiscussionStudy 3 suggests that information about effective counterterrorism can reduce avoidance reactions associated with terrorist activity, while also increasing confidence in government counterterrorism efforts. These results are consistent with predictions based on the EPPM. The results also support the claim in work on the locus of control that efficacious action by powerful action can act as a substitute for individual action. More importantly, from the perspective of those interested in undercutting terrorism’s psychological punch, these outcomes represent a challenge to the idea that governments cannot change people’s reactions to intimidation efforts by militants. A portion of the damage terrorists do is caused by terrorized people acting in anticipation of future strikes. This study suggests that governments have a say in just how vulnerable their societies are to this activity. These results also suggest, once again, that negative reactions to counterterrorism messages are not inevitable. While those exposed to just the terrorism video reacted as expected, by expressing less interest in traveling to Israel, those who saw the terrorism and counterterrorism videos reacted as if they had not been exposed to these treatments at all. Here, comparisons to the baseline condition are important. Our inability to distinguish between people who got both terrorism and counterterrorism messages and a group who got none of these messages suggests that counterterrorism communiqués do not invariably raise levels of insecurity beyond background levels.Finally, this experiment suggests another explanation for the insensitivity of American tourists to media reports of terrorist activity in Israel. According to Fielding and Shortland (2009), actual Israeli casualties, not reported ones, discourage American tourists from traveling to Israel. Fielding and Shortland conclude this to mean that US audiences routinely get information about terrorism in Israel from non-media sources (e.g., friends and family). In contrast, our work suggests that media reports about Israeli casualties may be negated by reports about Israel’s counterterrorism efforts. People who get their information from non-media sources do not receive these counterterrorism messages and, therefore, respond to terrorism in Israel differently than people who rely on the media for their news. General DiscussionTogether, the three studies reported above suggest that information about effective counterterrorism can increase confidence in the capacity of governments to meet terrorism’s challenges. Individuals across the studies who received information about effective counterterrorism indicated greater confidence in the ability of governments to deal with terrorism than those who did not view this material. Militarized counterterrorism efforts produced the strongest results, but criminal justice efforts worked too.Although the results we report across three studies support the idea that effective counterterrorism can be reassuring, we do not appear to be explaining a lot of the variance in the counterterrorism attitudes we examined (i.e., the models have low R2 statistics). Omitted variable bias is surely playing a role in this. There are a host of variables, especially at the individual level, that we could have used to reduce heterogeneity among our subjects. By excluding these covariates, we accepted less precise estimates of the size of our treatment effects in favor of a tougher test of effective counterterrorism. As we argued earlier, laboratory experiments with convenience samples are not ideal for assessing how strongly the general population responds to effective counterterrorism. Nevertheless, available US public opinion data suggests that the reactions we observed in our laboratory can be found outside it (see Figure 2). Pollsters asked Americans about their confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to prevent terrorism twenty-five times. Public confidence in US counterterrorism capabilities exceeds mean confidence levels across all the polls by more than one standard deviation five times. Significant counterterrorism efforts (e.g., Osama bin Laden killed) preceded four of these polls.[Figure 2 here]The studies also cast doubt on the idea that counterterrorism necessarily increases feelings of insecurity. This is a significant finding by itself. Feelings of insecurity are associated with a range of damaging societal effects ranging from increased ethnocentrism (Kam & Kinder, 2007) and more pronounced gender stereotypes (Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008) to a rise in authoritarian attitudes (Merolla & Zechmeister, 2009) and greater faith in hawkish foreign policies (Gadarian, 2010). The ability of governments to respond to terrorism effectively may play a role in determining the degree to which people experience insecurity at all.Responses to the polling question, “How concerned are you about the possibility there will be more major terrorist attacks in the United States?” also suggest that concerns about ironic responses to effective counterterrorism are exaggerated (see the appendix). There are some counterterrorism events that appear to stimulate insecurity (e.g., the assassination of Osama bin Laden), but not all of them. Sunstein and others in the heuristic judgement school may be underestimating people’s ability to learn new responses to information they receive. Expanding this idea further, it appears that the mass media can ease people’s sense of insecurity from terrorism. The media is usually cast as terrorism’s partner in crime because of its willingness to present shocking material to the public (Nacos, 2000). Sensational stories, however, are not the only messages that get communicated by the press. Counterterrorism gets reported too (Hoffman, et al., 2010), but even when journalists ignore what governments do, Twitter and other social media sites allow governments to deliver messages on their own. Conclusion“The aim of terrorism,” as Lenin explained, “is to terrify.” Yet, governments focus on preventing the next attack by attending to material aspects of security: fortifying targets, increasing executive authority, recruiting first-responders, and monitoring suspicious activity. Neutralizing terrorism’s psychological effects is mostly an afterthought. The Nigerian government’s poor handling of Boko Haram’s outrages suggests governments may not even consider whether communicating counterterrorism competence is consequential. Ceding terrorism’s psychological effects to perpetrators is an unjustified concession to attackers that perpetuates the illusion that terrorism works. The sense of insecurity terrorism engenders can be managed. Based on the results of our three experiments, concerns about counterterrorism’s tendency to backfire are overstated.Still, there are questions that remain. We cannot say how long the effects of messages about effective counterterrorism last. The insecurity stimulated by spectacular attacks is difficult to recreate in laboratories, making it harder to know if effective counterterrorism reassures under extreme circumstances. Our experiments also assume a basic level of trust in government. Less credible governments may not be able to reassure their citizens. Even with these caveats, our results point to a narrow, but important conclusion: the immediate psychological effects of mundane terrorist attacks may be countered with messages about effective countermeasures. Replicating the World War II era “Keep calm and carry on” campaign probably will not work, but messages emphasizing results can help people avoid the self-inflicted wounds that make terrorism a potent weapon.References HYPERLINK "" \h Abrahms, Max (2006). Why Terrorism Does Not Work. International Security, 31(2), 42-78.Abrahms, Max (2013). The Credibility Paradox: Violence as a Double-Edged Sword in International Politics. International Studies Quarterly, 57(4), 660-671.Bausch, A. W., Faria, J. R., & Zeitzoff, T. (2013). Warnings, terrorist threats and resilience: A laboratory experiment. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 30(5), 433-451.Berinsky, Adam J., Gregory A. Huber, and Gabriel S. Lenz. 2012. "Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: 's Mechanical Turk." Political Analysis 20: 351-68.Bonanno, G. A., Galea, S., Bucciarelli, A., & Vlahov, D. (2007). What Predicts Psychological Resilience After Disaster? The Role of Demographics, Resources, and Life Stress. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75(5), 671-682.Bower, Eve. "American Deaths in Terrorism and Gun Violence in One Graph." , J. N., Zimbardo, P. G., & Sweeton, J. L. (2010). After years of media coverage, can one more video report trigger heuristic judgments? A national study of American terrorism risk perceptions. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 2(3), 163-178.Clark, Taylor. 2011. Nerve: Poise under Pressure, Serenity under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool. New York: Little, Brown and Company.Crawford, Neta C. 2014. "Institutionalizing Passion in World Politics: Fear and Empathy." International Theory 6: 535-57.Davis, D. W., & Silver, B. D. (2004). Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America. American Journal of Political Science, 48(1), 28-46.Drakos, K., & Kutan, A. M. (2003). Regional Effects of Terrorism on Tourism in Three Mediterranean Countries. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 47(5), 621-641.Enders, W., & Sandler, T. (2006). The Political Economy of Terrorism. New York: Cambridge University Press.Fielding, David, and Anja Shortland. 2009. "Does Television Terrify Tourists? Effects of Us Television News on Demand for Tourism in Israel." Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 38: 245-63.Fiorina, Morris. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections: Yale University Press.Fortna, Virginia P. (2015). Do Terrorists Win? Rebels' Use of Terrorism and Civil War Outcomes. International Organization, 69(03), 519-556.Fromkin, David.? 1975.? "The Strategy of Terrorism."? Foreign Affairs 53: 683-98Fuller, J. (2010). What is Happening to News: The Information Explosion and the Crisis in Journalism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Gadarian, Shana K. (2010). The Politics of Threat: How Terrorism News Shapes Foreign Policy Attitudes. The Journal of Politics, 72(02), 469-483.Ganor, Boaz (2005). The Counterterrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Garcia, B. E., & Geva, N. (2014). Security Versus Liberty in the Context of Counterterrorism: An Experimental Approach. Terrorism and Political Violence, 1-19.Gelpi, Christopher, Feaver, Peter D., & Reifler, Jason (2005/2006). Success matters: Casualty sensitivity and the war in Iraq. International Security, 30(3), 7-46.Getamansky, A., & Zeitzoff, T. (2014). Terrorism and Voting: The Effect of Rocket Threat on Voting in Israeli Elections. American Political Science Review, 108(03), 588-604.Gore, T. D., & Bracken, C. C. (2005). Testing the theoretical design of a health risk message: Reexamining the major tenets of the extended parallel process model. Health Education & Behavior, 32(1), 27-41.Greenberg, J., & Kosloff, S. (2008). Terror Management Theory: Implications for Understanding Prejudice, Stereotyping, Intergroup Conflict, and Political Attitudes. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(5), 1881-1894.Hayes, B. (2012, April 17, 2012). Liter Bomb in University Village. The Purdue University Calumet Chronicle. Retrieved from , Aaron M., Dwaine H. A. Jengelley, Natasha T. Duncan, Melissa Buehler, and Meredith L. Rees. 2010. "How Does the Business of News Influence Terrorism Coverage? Evidence from the Washington Post and USA Today." Terrorism and Political Violence 22: 559-80.Hoffman, Aaron M., Christopher R. Agnew, Laura E. VanderDrift, and Robert Kulzick. 2015. "Norms, Diplomatic Alternatives, and the Social Psychology of War Support." Journal of Conflict Resolution 59: 3-28.Holman, E. A., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2014). Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(1), 93-98.Huddy, Leonie, Nadia Khatib, and Theresa Capelos. 2002. "Trends: Reactions to the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001." Public Opinion Quarterly: 418-50.Huddy, Leonie, Feldman, Stanley, Taber, Charles & Lahav, G. (2005). Threat, Anxiety, and Support of Antiterrorism Policies. American Journal of Political Science, 49(3), 593-608.Jervis, Robert. 2002. "Signaling and Perception: Drawing Inferences and Projecting Images." In Political Psychology, ed. Kristen Renwick Monroe. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. 293-312.Kam, Cindy D., & Kinder, Donald R. (2007). Terror and Ethnocentrism: Foundations of American Support for the War on Terrorism. The Journal of Politics, 69(2), 320-338.Khaneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (1982). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press.Klar, Y., Zakay, D., & Sharvit, K. (2002). ‘If I don't get blown up ...’: realism in face of terrorism in an Israeli nationwide sample. Risk, Decision and Policy, 7(02), 203-219.Koplowitz, H. (2013, March 18, 2013). UCF Bomb Threat: Student May Have Been Planning Attack on Central Florida Campus. International Business Times. Retrieved from , Jennifer. L. (2004). Women, War, and Winning Elections: Gender Stereotyping in the Post-September 11th Era. Political Research Quarterly, 57(3), 479-490.Leotti, Lauren A., Sheena S. Iyengar, and Kevin N. Ochsner. "Born to Choose: The Origins and Value of the Need for Control." Trends in Cognitive Sciences 14: 457-63.Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(1), 146-159.Leventhal, H. (1970). Findings and Theory in the Study of Fear Communications. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 119-186). New York: Academic Press.Marcus, G. E., Neuman, W. R., & Mackuen, M. (2000). Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.McDermott, R., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Psychological Consequences of Terrorist Alerts. In B. Bongar, L. M. Brown, L. E. Beutler, J. N. Breckenridge & P. G. Zimbardo (Eds.), Psychology of Terrorism (pp. 357-370). New York: Oxford University Press.Mercer, Jonathan. 2005. "Rationality and Psychology in International Politics." International Organization 59: 77-106.Merolla, Jennifer. L., Ramos, J. M., & Zechmeister, Elizabeth. J. (2007). Crisis, Charisma, and Consequences: Evidence from the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. Journal of Politics, 69(1), 30-42.Merolla, Jennifer. L., & Zechmeister, Elizabeth. J. (2009). Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Mook, Douglas. G. (1983). In Defense of External invalidity. American Psychologist, 38(4), 379-387.Morling, Beth, and Sharrilyn Evered. 2006. "Secondary Control Reviewed and Defined." Psychological Bulletin 132: 269-96.Mueller, J. (2006). Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. New York: Free Press.Nacos, B. L., Bloch-Elkon, Y., & Shapiro, R. Y. (2011). Selling Fear: Counterterrorism, The Media, and Public Opinion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.?hman, A. (2000). Fear and Anxiety: Evolutionary, Cognitive, and Clinical Perspectives. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of Emotions (2nd ed., pp. 573-593). New York: The Guilford Press.Preston, J. (2012, April 24, 2012). Group Says it Has Ceased Bomb Threats on Campus. The New York Times. Retrieved from , F., Weisz, J. R., & Snyder, S. S. (1982). Changing the world and changing the self: A two-process model of perceived control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 5.Ruiter, R. A. C., Abraham, C., & Kok, G. (2001). Scary Warnings and Rational Precautions: A Review of the Psychology of Fear Appeals. [Article]. Psychology and Health, 16(6), 613.Sears, David O. 1986. "College Sophomores in the Laboratory: Influences of a Narrow Data Base on Social Psychology's View of Human Nature." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 515-30.Shayo, M., & Zussman, A. (2011). Judicial Ingroup Bias in the Shadow of Terrorism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(3), 1447-1484.Sheets, J. (2012, January 30, 2012). Liter Bombs aka "The Works". The Purdue University Calumet Chronicle. Retrieved from , L. (2005). The Perceived Risk of Terrorism. Risk Management, 7(1), 43-61.Slovic, P., & Peters, E. (2006). Risk perception and affect. Current directions in psychological science, 15(6), 322-325.Smeltz, Dina, and Ivo H. Daalder. "2014: Chicago Council Survey: Foreign Policy in the Age of Retrenchment." , Cass R. 2003. "Terrorism and Probability Neglect." Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 26: 121-36.Sunstein, Cass. R. (2005). Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.van de Veer, E., de Lange, M. A., van der Haar, E., & Karremans, J. C. (2012). Feelings of Safety: Ironic Consequences of Police Patrolling. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(12), 3114-3125.Wardlaw, Grant. (1989). Political Terrorism: Theory, Tactics, and Counter-measures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Witte, Kimberly. (1992). Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model. Communication Monographs, 59(4), 329-349.Witte, Kimberly. (1994). Fear control and danger control: A test of the extended parallel process model (EPPM). Communication Monographs, 61(2), 113-134.Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns. Health Education & Behavior, 27(5), 591-615.Zussman, A., & Zussman, N. (2006). Assassinations: Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Israeli Counterterrorism Policy Using Stock Market Data. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(2), 193-206.Table 1: Effects of successful counterterrorism: the experimental designs.Experiment 1Hypothesis:Effective counterterrorism increases college students' confidence in US ability to control terrorist activity; foreign terrorist organizations more concerning than domestic terrorist organizations.Sample:282 undergraduates enrolled at a large Midwestern university.Independent variable:FBI counterterrorism actions; type of terrorist organizations.Levels of independent variable:FBI: warns of attacks vs. arrests conspirators; domestic vs. foreign terrorist organizations.Dependent variables:Confidence in government counterterrorism effectiveness; estimated likelihood of attacks.Experiment 2Hypotheses:Effective counterterrorism increases people’s confidence in Israeli and US ability to control terrorism.Sample:120 people, recruited through ’s Mechanical Turk website.Independent variables:Exposure to Israel Defense Forces tweet announcing “elimination” of Ahmed Jabari.Levels of independent variables:No exposure vs. exposure.Dependent variables:Confidence in government counterterrorism effectiveness; Estimated likelihood of attacks.Experiment 3Hypothesis:Effective counterterrorism increases people's willingness to travel to Israel.Sample:300 people, recruited through ’s Mechanical Turk website. Independent variables:CNN video of terrorist attack in Israel; IDF counterterrorism training video.Levels of independent variables:Exposure to: no video; terrorism video only; both terrorism and counterterrorism videos.Dependent variable:Willingness to travel to Israel; confidence in government counterterrorism effectiveness. Endnotes ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download