Is What Is Past Always Prologue? Priming to Past Conflicts and Fear of Terrorism Influence Americans’ Support for Military Intervention in Syria

Implicit knowledge influences decision-making in a variety of areas, including conflict resolution and decisions about war. Individuals may unknowingly apply implicit knowledge from past experiences to present experiences, even if that information leads to less accurate decisions in the present experience. The current study is an exploration into how implicit knowledge of past international conflicts and fear of terrorism affects recommendations for military conflict resolution in current international conflicts. Priming is one way to make implicit knowledge salient, and participants in this study were implicitly primed to think of either the Iraq War, World War II, or no war in particular before reading a description of the Syrian Civil War. Participants reported their recommendations for resolving the conflict in Syria, including to what extent they would recommend that the United States intervene using military force. Fear of Terrorism, which is theoretically linked to knowledge and attitudes about Middle Eastern conflicts, was also measured. Results showed that support for U.S. military intervention in Syria was significantly impacted by Fear of Terrorism when participants had been primed to think of the Iraq War. This effect was such that, when primed to think of the Iraq War, higher Fear of Terrorism predicted greater support for military intervention in Syria. This effect did not occur in the other priming conditions. This study extends current research by examining how implicit priming of past conflicts and fear of terrorism interact to influence Americans’ decision-making in support for military intervention in Middle Eastern conflicts. IS WHAT IS PAST ALWAYS PROLOGUE? 3 Is What Is Past Always Prologue? Priming to Past Conflicts and Fear of Terrorism Influence Americans’ Support for Military Intervention in Syria Wisdom holds that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but lessons from the past do not always apply to present circumstances. Histories, both personal and collective, give each individual a unique understanding of their world and provide resources for the decisions they face. Individuals’ past experiences are known to influence outcomes in various facets of life, such as the accuracy of decisions in economic decision-making and in social behaviors, such as discrimination (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; North, 1994; Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). Past experiences vary in their practical relevance when applied to current circumstances. Humans commonly use the knowledge accumulated and consolidated throughout the lifespan in making judgments and decisions (Kahneman & Tversky, 1974; Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). However, using knowledge gained from past experience to make judgments and decisions in new situations can lead to invalid judgments. Using past experiences to make future judgments is problematic when individuals are unaware of the effects that knowledge of past outcomes have on current perceptions (Fischoff, 1975). Fischoff (1975), for example, found that when participants knew a particular outcome had occurred in a past event, they perceived that outcome to be more likely to occur again in a different event, even if those events were unrelated. Moreover, the participants were unaware of the impact that this knowledge had on their perceptions. Similarly, Schwenk (1988) demonstrated that people experience the illusion of control when they have experienced success in their past decisions. The use of unconscious collections of past experiences, referred to as implicit knowledge, is associated with a number of IS WHAT IS PAST ALWAYS PROLOGUE? 4 biases, including biased emotions and distorted memories (Kahneman & Riis, 2005; Khatri & Ng, 2000). Implicit Cognition and Priming In many real-world situations, the use of past experiences provides benefits, such as ease in decision-making in a new setting. The ease of decision making, however, usually requires a loss of accuracy. Humans use mental shortcuts through a process of implicit cognition to make decisions quickly. Implicit cognition involves associated memories of past experiences that shape decision-making and behavior (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Kahneman & Riis, 2005). Implicit cognition influences preferences, views, and attitudes in areas related to one’s cumulative experiences. Implicit association tests (IATs), for example, measure how implicit cognition impacts attitudes and behaviors (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Although researchers have use the IAT in a variety of contexts, the clearest application of the IAT has been in revealing subtle and unconscious racial prejudices (Greenwald, et al., 1998). Thus, the use of implicit cognition typically leads to bias rather than accuracy, but people use implicit cognition because of efficiency. Implicit cognition operates by establishing neural connections between elements of past experiences and related concepts. Connections between elements of past experience and conceptual knowledge become strengthened with use and weakened with disuse (Bruer, 1999). The strengthening of neural connections among elements of past experiences and conceptual knowledge allows for many cognitive effects. Priming effects (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971) and spreading activation theory (Collins & Loftus, 1975; Quillian, 1962) delineate how information from past experiences can be activated among neural networks when making new decisions. The phenomenon of priming IS WHAT IS PAST ALWAYS PROLOGUE? 5 occurs when one encounters one stimulus and this stimulus facilitates the processing of subsequent stimuli that are either the same as the first stimulus (i.e., direct priming) or conceptually related to the first stimulus (i.e., indirect priming; Tulving, Schacter, & Stark, 1982). For instance, participants were more quickly able recognize the word “nurse” when they had already been primed with the related word “doctor” (Friederici, Steinhauer, & Frisch, 1999). Semantic and conceptual priming refer to meaning and function rather than the structural or surface-level elements of a situation. For instance, individuals are more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior when primed with images of weapons (Berkowitz & LePage, 1967). This effect is due to the accessibility of the second concept, aggression, following the introduction of the first concept, a weapon. The priming effect occurs because of the conceptual proximity or similarity of these stimuli in neural activation networks. The neural networks automatically activate stimuli that share a semantic connection, a connection based on meaning (Schvaneveldt & Meyer, 1973). The processes of semantic priming have practical implications for determining behavior. Research indicates that semantic priming for implicit knowledge influences decision-making and impacts behavioral choices. Implicit priming of God concepts, for example, increases pro-social behaviors, such as donating to those in need (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007). Implicit priming also impacts strategic social decision-making. Participants who experienced implicit priming to angry faces were less likely than those primed to neutral faces to engage in social approach behavior (Van’tWout & Sanfey, 2008). The implicit activation of the conceptual meaning of a past experience can influence one’s interpretation of a new experience, impacting decisions in a new