Social Beliefs and Evaluation of Military Intervention in Other Countries Affairs: The Role of Authoritarianism and National Identification

Abstract

International conflicts take place throughout the course of human history and result in serious economic and political aftermaths. Seeking to protect their interests, countries-participants use various methods of interaction: from peace negotiations to military actions. In psychological studies great attention is paid to factors that influence the support for military intervention in other countries affairs as means of international conflicts resolution. But the data of the research have two main limitations. Firstly, they consider attitudes toward military intervention of one’s own country (in-group), but not to the analogical activity of other countries (out-groups). Secondly, as the main predictor of the attitudes toward military intervention authoritarianism is studied, but not national identification. In this research two ways of formation of attitudes toward military intervention in other countries affairs were studied. According to the theory of authoritative personality we hypothesized that belief in dangerous world would predict the level of authoritarianism, which, in its turn, would predict the attitude toward military intervention of own country (in-group) and other countries (out-groups). In the same time, according to the theory of social identity we hypothesized that benevolence of the world beliefs predict the strength of national identification, which, in its turn, also predicts attitudes toward the use of military power for the resolution of international conflict. 844 Russian residents took part in the survey. They filled the on-line version of the questionnaire, which included scales of measuring the dangerous and benevolent world beliefs, right authoritarianism, national identification and attitudes toward introduction of Russian, United Nations and NATO troops in the territory of Ukraine. To test the hypotheses we used Structural Equations Modeling. It showed that the more Russians believed in the dangerous world, the higher was the level of authoritarianism. The more they believed in benevolent world, the higher was the level of national identification. The higher were the levels of authoritarianism and national identification, the more they supported the introduction of Russian troops in Ukraine and the less they supported the introduction of UN and NATO troops.