Motherland under attack! Nationalism, terrorist threat, and support for the restriction of civil liberties

• Authors: Maciej Sekerdej , Małgorzata Kossowska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper addresses the role which national attitudes play in terrorist threat perception and in the choice of specific counterterrorism strategies. Study 1 shows that participants higher on nationalism tend to perceive the threat of terrorism as more serious than participants lower on nationalism. Moreover, we found that nationalism mediated the relationship between the perceived terrorist threat and the support for tough domestic policies, even at the expense of considerable limitation of civil liberties. Study 2 confirms the link between the perceived terrorism threat and the support for suspension of civil liberties. Nevertheless, when terrorism was seen in terms of crime rather than in terms of war, the mediating role of nationalism disappeared. The results contribute to a better understanding of the process whereby the perception of one’s own national group and the perception of one’s own nation-state translate into specific reactions triggered by external threats.

Keywords

EN

national attitudes; terrorist threat; restrictions of civil liberties; perception of terrorism as war; perception of terrorism as crime

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 11-19

Contributors

author

Maciej Sekerdej

• Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, ul. Mickiewicza 3, 31-120 Krakow, Poland

author

Małgorzata Kossowska

• Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, ul. Mickiewicza 3, 31-120 Krakow, Poland

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10059-011-0003-0