Support for torture over time: Interrogating the American public about coercive tactics

Mayer, Jeremy D.; Armor, David J.

doi:10.1016/j.soscij.2012.10.001

Cited by 21 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The issues were as follows: same‐sex marriage, animal testing for medical research, euthanasia, capital punishment, wartime torture, affirmative action, abortion, stem cell research, surrogate mothering, and marijuana legalisation. Research shows that support for these issues varies as a function of political orientation, thus satisfying (ii) earlier (e.g., Koleva et al, ; Mayer & Armor, ; Weber & Federico, ).…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 79%

Different relational models underlie prototypical left and right positions on social issues

Simpson

Laham

2014

Euro J Social Psych

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social issues are important dividing lines in the “culture wars” between the political left and right. Despite much research into social issue stance and ideology, little research has explored these with Relational Models Theory (RMT). RMT proposes four distinct models that people use to construe social relations, each entailing distinct moral considerations. In two studies, participants read summaries of the models, rated how relevant each was to their positions on several social issues (e.g., capital punishment), and expressed issue positions. In Study 1, Communal Sharing and Equality Matching construals predicted prototypical liberal positions across a range of issues; Authority Ranking and Market Pricing construals predicted prototypical conservative positions. By using multilevel modelling in Study 2, individual differences in average Communal Sharing and Authority Ranking construals predicted prototypical liberal and conservative positions, respectively, independent of several factors known to predict social issue stance. In issue‐specific analyses (e.g., focusing on euthanasia), all models showed effects independent of self‐reported ideology, while for certain issues (same‐sex marriage, animal testing, gun control, and flag burning), issue construal using different models predicted opposing positions, implicating relational models in moral disagreement. This paper provides novel tests of Relationship Regulation Theory and suggests that RMT is relevant in understanding political ideology, social issue stance, and moral judgement. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 79%

Different relational models underlie prototypical left and right positions on social issues

Simpson

Laham

2014

Euro J Social Psych

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…7 To be clear, we did not hypothesize that efficacy is the sole underlying factor that explains all meaningful associations with Torture Favorability. For this reason and for the sake of brevity, we focus the presentation of mediation results on the ideology-based variables (political conservatism, RWA, and SDO) that previous research suggests are strongly connected to torture endorsement (Benjamin, 2016;Homant & Witkowski, 2011;Houck & Conway, 2013;Mayer & Armor, 2012). But importantly, supplementary exploratory mediation tests revealed that every statistically significant predictor of Torture Favorability (e.g., idealism, moral foundation variables, and empathic concern) showed a significant indirect effect on Favorability through Belief in Torture Efficacy.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the contrary, evidence suggests that people are both harm averse (e.g., Cushman, Gray, Gaffey, & Mendes, 2012;Gray, Waytz, & Young, 2012;Haidt, 2007) and averse to torture specifically (for review, see Houck & Repke, 2017). Indeed, researchers have described support for torture as "resilient ambivalence" (Mayer & Armor, 2012), a framing that highlights a tension between disliking torture on the one hand, while simultaneously supporting it in practice on the other.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research has identified a number of dispositional and situational influences that might contribute to this resilient ambivalence. Individual characteristics such as political conservatism (Mayer & Armor, 2012), right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation predict favorability towards torture use (e.g., Benjamin, 2016), while both religiosity and levels of personal moral conviction play complicated roles in the acceptance of torture use (Aramovich, Lytle, & Skitka, 2012;Malka & Soto, 2011;Smith, Aquino, Koleva, & Graham, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

When Beliefs Lead to (Im)Moral Action: How Believing in Torture's Effectiveness Shapes the Endorsement of Its Use

Houck

McFarland

Machia

et al. 2019

Political Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Does believing in torture's effectiveness shape the endorsements of its use? Using a multimethod approach across six studies, we provide converging evidence that efficacy beliefs can help increase understanding of individual differences and situational influences on torture support. Studies 1a and 1b found that torture opinions contained more efficacy-based language than other types of harm and that people relied more on torture efficacy than torture's inherent morality when conveying their views. Study 2 assessed predictors of torture favorability including effectiveness and other key covariates, revealing that efficacy beliefs strongly predicted torture favorability-an association that retained its predictive validity above and beyond individual differences known to influence torture support. Mediation analyses further showed that efficacy beliefs explained key associations with torture support. Studies 3 and 4 used moral dilemmas requiring decisions about torture versus other harm. Results showed that individuals who believed harm would be effective were more likely to endorse its use; this was especially evident for torture judgments. Study 5 replicated the torture-efficacy effect while also revealing efficacy effects for other interrogation techniques, thus suggesting the effect is driven more by the instrumental objective of torture than harm or moral violations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

show abstract

“…If the public is simply taking cues from elites, there should not be a "foreign policy disconnect" between the wishes of the former and the preferences of the latter (Page and Bouton 2007). Yet although there was relative elite consensus in the lead-up to the Iraq War-and, in a content analysis of network news coverage in the eight months preceding the war, Hayes and Guardino (2010, 61) find that "the voices of anti-war groups and opposition Democrats were barely audible"-there was sizable domestic opposition to the war in a manner that strictly top-down theories of public opinion have trouble explaining (Hayes and Guardino 2011), just as they have trouble explaining why public support for torture rose when elite opposition increased (Mayer and Armor 2012). Additional evidence comes from outside the United States as well: Kreps (2010) finds that against elite-driven theories of public opinion, the war in Afghanistan was extremely unpopular in most of the countries that contributed troops to the mission, despite the backing of foreign elites.…”

Section: Going Beyond a Top-down Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bottom‐Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy

Kertzer

Zeitzoff

2017

American J Political Sci

200

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

If public opinion about foreign policy is such an elite-driven process, why does the public often disagree with what elites have to say? We argue here that elite cue-taking models in International Relations are both overly pessimistic and unnecessarily restrictive. Members of the public may lack information about the world around them, but they do not lack principles, and information need not only cascade from the top down. We present the results from five survey experiments where we show that cues from social peers are at least as strong as those from political elites. Our theory and results build on a growing number of findings that individuals are embedded in a social context that combines with their general orientations toward foreign policy in shaping responses toward the world around them. Thus, we suggest the public is perhaps better equipped for espousing judgments in foreign affairs than many of our top-down models claim. . Thanks to Kyle Dropp for his assistance with fielding Experiments 1-2. Kertzer acknowledges the support of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance. series of polls found that Democrats and Republicans in the public were divided. In a Pew poll conducted July 24-27, 60% of Republicans blamed Hamas for the violence, whereas Democrats were split, with 29% blaming Hamas, and 26% blaming Israel. A Gallup poll conducted July 22-23 detected a similar pattern: 65% of Republicans thought Israel's actions were justified, but Democrats were divided, as 31% backed the Israeli response, and 47% called it unjustified. This pattern-where political elites are united but the public is divided-is particularly interesting for political scientists because it violates the assumptions of a commonly held theory about public opinion, in which the public knows relatively little about foreign affairs and thus structures its beliefs by taking cues from trusted, partisan elites-a top-down process in which members of the public adeptly swallow whatever their preferred elite cue-givers feed them. Yet if the mass public knows so little and can only regurgitate carefully pureed talking points, why does it often disagree with what elites have to say? We argue here that partisan elite

show abstract

Support for torture over time: Interrogating the American public about coercive tactics

Cited by 21 publications

References 13 publications

Different relational models underlie prototypical left and right positions on social issues

Different relational models underlie prototypical left and right positions on social issues

When Beliefs Lead to (Im)Moral Action: How Believing in Torture's Effectiveness Shapes the Endorsement of Its Use

A Bottom‐Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About