Threats
of terrorism perceived differently depending on identification within a group
People who see their group as more homogenous -- for instance,
the more one thinks Americans are similar to each other -- are less likely to
be influenced by external terrorist threat alerts, according to research from
NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
"Among people who viewed their group to be homogeneous,
external threat did not translate to higher perceived threat, and they did not
influence beliefs about the legitimacy of the U.S. military intervention in
Iraq," said study author Rezarta Bilali, assistant professor of psychology
and social intervention at NYU Steinhardt.
The findings, published Nov. 24 in the Journal of
Applied Social Psychology, suggest that people interpret terrorist threats
in very different ways.
Terrorist threats communicated through mass media, government
agencies, and other sources influence levels of perceived threat. In the
aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. government created a color-coded warning system
to alert Americans to the level of threat facing the country. From 2002 through
the system's dissolution in 2011, the warning level never dropped below
"yellow," a three out of five on the alert scale.
The study, conducted in two stages, included 147 American
university students. In the first stage, participants completed questionnaires
measuring their identification with their American nationalities, and whether
they perceived Americans to be similar to each other or different.
A few months later, participants completed additional tasks for
the study's second stage. In one task, the participants read a fake newspaper
article that was manipulated to communicate either security or a threat to
America. Subsequently, participants completed questionnaires to gauge their
opinions on the war in Iraq and whether they agreed with the U.S.'s decision to
intervene.
Bilali found that participants legitimized the U.S. military
intervention in Iraq to a higher degree when they were exposed to threat cues
versus when they were made to believe that the U.S. is safe from terrorism.
She
found that participants who saw their group to be unlike each other were more
likely to perceive greater threat when exposed to external terrorist threats,
and they were more likely to legitimize the U.S.'s involvement in the war in
Iraq.
By contrast, individuals who viewed their group to be homogeneous -- in
other words, viewed Americans to be like them and similar to each other -- were
less likely to perceive heightened threat when they read about a terrorist
threat to the U.S.
"Perceiving the group as similar to one another seems to
disrupt the expected relationship between external cues of threat and
subjective perceptions of threat," Bilali said. "There's some
evidence that homogeneity is related to increased feelings that you can cope
with a disastrous event, so these results can be interpreted by looking at the
role of homogeneity in increasing the perceived ability to cope with threats
toward the group."
The results shed light on the potential impact of terror warning
systems and media influence on different segments of the population.
"While the study creates more questions than answers, it
suggests that terror threat alerts are not affecting everyone equally,"
Bilali said.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by New York University. Note: Materials may be edited for
content and length.
Journal Reference:
Rezarta Bilali. Do terrorist threat alerts increase
perception of threat and legitimization of in-group's wars? The moderating role
of perceived in-group homogeneity. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
2014; DOI:10.1111/jasp.12296
Cite This Page:
New York University. "Threats of terrorism perceived
differently depending on identification within a group." Science Daily,
24 November 2014.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141124103233.htm>.