The Emotional Construal of War: Anger, Fear, and Other Negative Emotions

This study builds on the functionalist approach to examine whether emotions are specifically and robustly linked to action tendencies outside of the laboratory. In the year following the events of 9/11, four samples, totaling 546 college students, participated in a series of studies. Participants reported their negative emotions after viewing photographs of the 9/11 attack. The behavior of the participants and their support for President Bush's decision to deploy troops in the Middle East were assessed as proxies for action tendencies. Anger specifically predicted support for military action. Fear predicted current and anticipated future avoidant behaviors. All of these links between emotion and action tendency were robust across the four naturalistic circumstances. The results supported the functionalist approach to emotions, and provided a new angle to understand the public support for war. The results are discussed in the context of frustration-aggression, fear tactics, dimensional and discrete views, as well as classic literature on war.