From the Mind to the Feet

Assessing the Perception-toIntent-to-Action Dynamic

Strategic Multilayer Assessment

Editorial Board

Lawrence A. Kuznar

National Security Innovations (NSI), Inc.

Allison Astorino-Courtois

NSI, Inc.

Sarah Canna

NSI, Inc.

February 2011
Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely 

those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of 

the organizations with which they are associated or the views of Air University, the Air 

Force Research Institute, the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or 

any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

Air University Press

155 N. Twining Street

Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6026

http://aupress.au.af.mil

Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center Cataloging Data

From the mind to the feet : assessing the perception-to-intent-to-action dynamic / 

[edited by] Lawrence A. Kuznar, Allison Astorino-Courtois, Sarah Canna.

 p. ; cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 978-1-58566-212-8

1. Intention. 2. Decision making. 3. Situational awareness. 4. Military art and 

science – Decision making. I. Kuznar, Lawrence A. II. Astorino-Courtois, Allison. III. 

Canna, Sarah.

355.02019--dc22
iii

Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ABOUT THE AUTHORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

PART 1

Operational Perspective: 

Basic Issues in Gauging Intent

 1 From Shoe Leather to Satellites: 

Shifting the Conceptual Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Kathleen L. Kiernan and Daniel J. Mabrey 

 2 Betting Responsibly: An Effects-Based Thinker’s 

Framework for Characterizing Intent . . . . . . . . . 15

Harry A. Foster

 3 Gauging the Intent of Nation-States and 

Nonstate Actors: An Operator’s Perspective . . . . . 27

Gary Schaub, Jr.

 4 From Observation to Action: Redefining Winning

and Sovereignty for the Information Age . . . . . . . 47

John W. Bodnar
Chapter Page

PART 2

Academic Perspective:

Theory and Research in Gauging Intent

 5 Anthropological Reflections on Motive and

Intent and the Strategic Multilayer 

Assessment Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Lawrence A. Kuznar

 6 Psychology: Policy Makers and Their 

Interpretations Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Margaret G. Hermann

 7 Intent from an International Politics Perspective:

Decision Makers, Intelligence Communities, and

Assessment of the Adversary’s Intentions . . . . . . 87

Keren Yarhi-Milo

 8 Social Cognitive Neuroscience: 

The Neuroscience of Intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Sabrina J. Pagano

 9 Neuropsychological and Brain-Imaging 

Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Abigail J. C. Chapman

 10 Desperate Measures: Different Types of Violence, 

Motivations, and Impact on Stability . . . . . . . . . . 131

Thomas Rieger

 11 Communications: Framing Effects and 

Political Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Toby Bolsen

 12 Decision Science: A Subjective Decision Modeling

Approach for Identifying Intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Elisa Jayne Bienenstock and 

Allison Astorino-Courtois

 ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

CONTENTS

iv
v

Foreword

From the Mind to the Feet: Assessing the Perception-to-Intentto-Action Dynamic is an interagency, multidisciplinary collection of 12 essays addressing operational and academic perspectives on the elusive concept of an adversary’s “intent”—its 

indicators and relation to behavior. It is primarily intended for 

the operational and policy community in the Department of 

Defense, the intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security, and other US government agencies. The authors 

are from the intelligence community, the military services, US 

government agencies, federally funded research and development centers, academia, and the private sector.

The essays in this volume address the following set of critical 

questions:

•  What do we mean by intent?

•  How can intent be measured?

•  What is the relationship of intent to behavior?

We developed the concept for this collection after completing 

a 2007 Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) effort for Gen 

Robert Elder to operationalize the approach to deterrence described in the Deterrence Operations Joint Operating Concept.

*

Part of that project involved a thorough analysis of how intent 

figures in the social fabric and how it influences an actor’s decision calculus. Subsequent SMA projects elaborated on this 

work and highlighted the need for a more thorough consideration of what researchers and operators know about intent to 

act. SMA continues its work on deterrence and deterrence experimentation, and this volume is published as a supplement 

to these efforts.

*These essays were originally collected as a white paper—a product of the SMA effort. For those not familiar with 

SMA, it provides planning support to commands with complex operational imperatives requiring multiagency, multidisciplinary solutions that are not within core service/agency competencies. Solutions and participants are sought 

across the US government. SMA is accepted and synchronized by the Joint Staff and executed by the US Strategic 

Command’s Global Innovation and Strategy Center (STRATCOM/GISC) and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Rapid Reaction Technology Office (OSD/DDRE/RRTO).
vi

FOREWORD

These essays highlight three key observations:

•  Despite near-universal agreement among academics, analysts, and operators that intent is essential, there exists no 

coherent body of research designed to address intent.

•  Measuring intent requires multidisciplinary approaches 

involving psychology, neuroscience, decision theory, anthropology, and other social science disciplines, such as 

political science and sociology, that can establish the social 

context in which intentions form.

•  There is a need for continued basic research to address the 

origin of intent and its relation to behavior and to develop 

complex models that capture how humans form intent and 

that can be used to analyze the masses of data required to 

gauge the intentions of individuals and groups.

While the short essays are written to stand alone and a selective reading would offer its own rewards, you are encouraged to 

read the whole report to gain the widest perspective on this 

critical issue.

I would like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to 

the numerous contributors, the editorial board chaired by Lawrence A. Kuznar and Allison Astorino-Courtois, and Sarah 

Canna and April Hartman for compiling the manuscript.

Hriar Cabayan, PhD

Special Assistant

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

Director, Defense 

Research & Engineering

Rapid Fielding Directorate
vii

About the Authors

Allison Astorino-Courtois is the chief decision sciences officer 

at National Security Innovations (NSI). She provides core support for a number of Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Staff 

and US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) projects, including a refocusing of 

DOD deterrence planning to the decision calculus of the actor(s) 

to be deterred, a decision and behavioral analysis of states and 

actors of particular interest to the defense community, and the 

design and production of an analysis tool for USSTRATCOM 

deterrence planners. Prior to joining NSI, Dr. Astorino-Courtois 

worked for Science Applications International Corporation

(SAIC), serving as a USSTRATCOM liaison to US and international communities. She was also a tenured professor of international relations at Texas A&M University, where her research 

focused on the cognitive aspects of foreign policy decision making, and taught at Creighton University and the US Military 

Academy. She has received a number of academic grants and 

awards and has published articles in multiple peer-reviewed 

journals including International Studies Quarterly, Journal of 

Conflict Resolution, Political Psychology, Journal of Politics and 

Conflict Management, and Peace Science. She earned a PhD in 

international relations and an MA in research methodologies 

from New York University. She also earned a BA in political science from Boston College.

Elisa Jayne Bienenstock is the chief human sciences officer 

at NSI, where she is spearheading a number of DOD and intelligence community projects focused on developing and applying social network and decision-theoretic leadership models for 

anticipatory analysis and early indications and warning. Dr. 

Bienenstock received her PhD from the University of California, 

Los Angeles (UCLA), in mathematical sociology. She specializes 

in social psychology, with an emphasis on emergent properties 

of exchange. Her focus is applying formal models, such as social networks and game theory, to understand the relationships 

among elements of human interaction such as power, status, 

inequality, conflict, cooperation, coalition formation, reciprocity, and reputation. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown 
viii

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

University where she teaches social network analysis for the 

Culture, Communication, and Technology Program. Prior to 

joining NSI, she was an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton. She 

has also held positions in the sociology departments at the 

University of California, Irvine; Stanford University; and the 

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

CAPT John W. Bodnar, USN, retired, is a senior biological 

warfare analyst at SAIC in McLean, Virginia. His interest in 

modeling complex systems comes from previous experience 

conducting biological warfare analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, analyzing the revolution in military affairs as a 

Navy reservist for the Office of Naval Research and the US Naval War College, and researching and teaching bioinformatics 

at Northeastern University, the US Naval Academy, and Villa 

Julie College. Captain Bodnar has published in such journals 

as the Naval War College Review, Armed Forces and Society, 

and the Marine Corps Gazette. 

Toby Bolsen is an assistant professor in the Department of 

Political Science at Georgia State University. His research focuses on the study of political behavior, preference formation, 

communications, and experimental methods. He has published 

articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, and the Journal of Communication. His work has also been supported by the 

National Science Foundation. He received his PhD in political 

science from Northwestern University.

Abigail J. C. Chapman provides innovative, research-driven 

solutions to the challenges in human, social, and cultural behavioral modeling for NSI. Prior to joining NSI, she worked for 

Defense Group Inc. (DGI), where she used findings from neuroscience to augment and refine social psychology findings on issues of concern to the military, intelligence, and national security communities. While at DGI, she designed an innovative 

multimethod approach using neurogenetics, social-cognitive 

psychology, and neuroscience to identify possible changes in 

neural anatomy, stress reactivity, and emotional and executive 

processing of stimuli in military personnel suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and severe depression. Chapman has 

also worked at RAND’s Intelligence Policy Center. She offers an 
ix

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

international perspective gained through the course of extensive travel and study in Europe. Chapman earned her MA in 

applied social psychology and evaluation from Claremont Graduate University. Her BA is in international studies, with a focus 

on US foreign policy and European affairs, from American University.

Lt Gen Robert Elder, USAF, retired, joined the research faculty 

at George Mason University following his retirement from the 

Air Force as the 47th commander of Eighth Air Force. As the 

commander of Eighth Air Force and USSTRATCOM’s Global 

Strike Component, he was responsible for nine wings and one 

direct reporting unit with 270 aircraft and 41,000 active duty, 

civilian, and reserve personnel. General Elder served as the 

first commander of Air Force Network Operations and led the 

development of the cyberspace mission for the Air Force. He 

also served as the air operations center commander and deputy 

air component commander for Operations Enduring Freedom 

and Iraqi Freedom. His executive experience includes senior 

leadership positions with the Joint Staff, Air Force staff, and 

NATO. His international experience includes interactions with 

senior government representatives in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, the Pacific, South America, and Africa. General Elder 

served as the commandant of Air War College and holds a doctorate in engineering from the University of Detroit.

Col Harry A. Foster, USAF, retired, is deputy director of the 

Center for Strategy and Technology at Air University, where he 

directs the Blue Horizons study, a Headquarters Air Force A8 

and Air Force Research Lab–sponsored student study of the future of technology and strategy. During a 21-year Air Force career, Foster rose to the rank of colonel while gaining combat experience in the F-16, B-2, and B-1 during Operations Southern 

Watch, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom. In staff positions, 

he led the US Central Command (USCENTCOM) branch of the 

Air Staff’s Checkmate Division and later served as chief of 

strategy for USCENTCOM’s air operations center. He holds master’s degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School, Marine Command and Staff College, the School of Advanced Air and Space 

Studies, and Air War College.
x

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Margaret G. Hermann is the Gerald B. and Daphna Cramer 

Professor of Global Affairs in the Department of Political Science and director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at 

the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. Her research focuses 

on leadership, decision making, crisis management, and comparative foreign policy. Dr. Hermann has been president of the 

International Society of Political Psychology and the International Studies Association as well as editor of the journals Political Psychology and International Studies Review. Among her 

publications are Leaders, Groups, and Coalitions: Understanding the People and Processes in Foreign Policymaking (with Joe 

Hagan), Political Psychology as a Perspective on Politics, A Guide 

to Understanding Crisis Management through Case Studies

(with Bruce Dayton and Lina Svedin), “Using Content Analysis 

to Study Public Figures” (in Klotz and Prakash, Qualitative 

Analysis in International Relations), and “The Effects of Leaders 

and Leadership” (with Catherine Gerard in Dayton and Kriesberg, Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding). 

Kathleen L. Kiernan, a 29-year veteran of federal law enforcement, is the CEO of Kiernan Group Holdings, an international 

consulting firm which supports federal and civil clients. She is 

a senior fellow for the George Washington University Homeland 

Security Policy Institute and a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School. She also serves as a 

special advisor to the director of the Combating Terrorism Task 

Force in the Department of Defense. Dr. Kiernan previously 

served as the assistant director for the Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 

Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), where she was responsible for 

the design and implementation of an intelligence-led organizational strategy for explosives, firearms, and illegal tobacco diversion. She also served as the ATF representative to the Counterterrorism Center at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She

has a doctorate in education from Northern Illinois University 

and a master of science degree in strategic intelligence from the 

Joint Military Intelligence College in Washington, DC. She also 

holds a master of arts degree in international transactions from 

George Mason University. 
xi

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lawrence A. Kuznar, the chief cultural sciences officer at NSI, 

is currently supporting various SMA projects for the Department of Defense, including the development of a sociocultural 

system typology to enhance military and intelligence analysis 

and planning efforts. He supports NSI efforts through development of computational models and supports human terrain 

system capabilities through development of social typologies 

and a review of ethics issues regarding the conduct of social 

science in a military context. Prior to joining NSI, Dr. Kuznar 

was a tenured professor of anthropology at Indiana University–

Purdue University, Fort Wayne. His research focused on decision theory, theories of conflict and terrorism, and computational modeling. He conducted extensive research among the 

Aymara of southern Peru and with the Navajo in the American 

Southwest. He has published and edited several books and numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals such as American 

Anthropologist, Current Anthropology, Social Science Computer 

Review, Political Studies, Field Methods, and Journal of Anthropological Research. Dr. Kuznar earned his PhD and MA in anthropology and an MS in mathematical methods in the social 

sciences from Northwestern University. He holds a BA in anthropology from Penn State.

Daniel J. Mabrey is an assistant professor in the Henry C. Lee 

College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Science at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. In addition to his academic 

position, Dr. Mabrey is the executive director of the Institute for 

the Study of Violent Groups, which is a federally funded opensource research and analysis institute focusing on terrorism, 

extremism, and transnational crime groups and activities. He 

has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles and books 

including Homeland Security: An Introduction, published by 

Lexis-Nexis. He earned his PhD in criminal justice from Sam 

Houston State University.

Sabrina J. Pagano has experience in academic and privatesector settings as a researcher, instructor, and acting director 

of a growing behavioral sciences program. She has provided 

topical, methodological, and statistical expertise to support a 

wide variety of projects in areas ranging from message propagation and trust to the measurement of progress in conflict 
environments. In her transition from academia to industry, Dr. 

Pagano served a one-year appointment as a faculty fellow researcher and lecturer at UCLA in the Department of Psychology. In that position, she led the social psychology arm of a 

large interdisciplinary project investigating deficits in sociomoral emotions in frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Pagano earned her PhD and MA in social psychology, with a minor in measurement and psychometrics, 

from UCLA. Her research focused primarily on the relationship 

between people’s experience of distinct emotions and their support for distinct political or prosocial actions. She also holds a 

dual BA in psychology and political science from the University 

of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Thomas Rieger began working with international polling data 

and predictive models in 1986, after receiving an MS in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University. Since 

2001 he has conducted extensive research regarding the reasons why complex systems destabilize, within both organizations and societies. From this work, he developed the Gallup 

Leading Assessment of State Stability (GLASS) model of state 

stability and the Political Radicals (POLRAD) model of political 

radicalization. He has applied these and other models to a 

number of defense-related efforts in several theaters and has 

consulted on developing frameworks for reconstruction and 

stability. Rieger currently leads global consulting efforts regarding organizational and societal barriers for Gallup Consulting and has spoken and written extensively on the topic.

Gary Schaub, Jr. is an assistant professor in the Leadership 

and Strategy Department of Air War College, Maxwell Air Force 

Base, AL. He previously taught at the Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, the University of Pittsburgh, 

and Chatham College. Dr. Schaub has published articles in the 

journals International Studies Review, Political Psychology, Parameters, Strategic Studies Quarterly, and Refuge, book chapters in volumes published by Oxford University Press and St. 

Martin’s Press, as well as op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Air Force Times. He 

has written on military coercion, nuclear weapons issues (arms 

control, doctrine, and proliferation), European security, and 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

xii
xiii

research methodology. His current research addresses theories 

of coercion, decision making, and civil-military relations.

Keren Yarhi-Milo is an assistant professor in the Department 

of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Before joining Princeton in 2009, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. For 

the 2007–2008 academic year, Yarhi-Milo was a fellow at the 

Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. She 

has worked at the Mission of Israel to the United Nations and 

served in the Israel Defense Forces, Intelligence Branch. She 

has received awards for the study of political science from the 

Smith Richardson Foundation, the Arthur Ross Foundation, 

and the Christopher Browne Center for International Politics. 

Dr. Yarhi-Milo holds a PhD and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in political science from Columbia University.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

xv

Preface

Lt Gen Robert Elder, USAF, Retired

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear 

the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not 

the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a 

defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will 

succumb in every battle.

—Sun Tzu

The Art of War

The intent to act connects each actor’s ideology and worldview to his or her behaviors. This collection of papers addresses 

the necessity of understanding the dynamic process through 

which perceptions are formed, how perceptions evolve to intent, and how intent becomes actionable. This dynamic is important, not only because it is impossible to influence an actor 

that you do not understand, but also because we must understand the causal relationships between our own perceptions, 

intentions, and actions.

Threat is not only a function of capabilities, but also intent 

and opportunity. Using technology and intelligence expertise developed over many years, we do a relatively good job estimating 

adversary capabilities; we are not nearly as good at estimating 

the intent of state or nonstate actors. Our capacity to influence 

others through kinetic and nonkinetic means rests on a multidisciplinary understanding of the perception-to-action dynamic.

Intelligence analysts integrate data and information to develop accurate, timely, complete, and actionable intelligence 

estimates. Technical collection products include facts regarding the terrain, economies, weapons systems, military capabilities, and operating concepts of state and nonstate actors. 

Although human intelligence provides reporting on leadership 

profiles and intent, it is not always available in denied areas. 

Additionally, without verification by source data, it is merely 

human reporting rather than integrated intelligence. Our ability to portray leadership intent and predict leadership behavior 

is impeded by these intelligence gaps.
What connects an actor’s ideology to his intent, and what 

connects his intent to his actions? Neurologists, sociologists, 

cultural anthropologists, and linguists attest to the complex 

relationship between the mind and the body, between culture 

and perception, between perception and intent, and between 

intent to act and action. This collection is an exploration of 

these dynamic steps and provides a meaningful theoretical and 

applied discussion of these concepts. The authors, both academicians and military subject matter experts, provide invaluable insight by adding their accumulated knowledge and expertise to the project. For this we are extremely grateful.

PREFACE

xvi
xvii

Executive Summary

Allison Astorino-Courtois and Lawrence Kuznar, NSI, Inc.

The purpose of From the Mind to the Feet is to open a much 

deeper dialogue about gauging intent than currently exists either in operational or academic arenas. It is intended to serve 

military and civilian defense leaders, deterrence and policy 

planners, and practitioners with a review of the basic concepts 

and state-of-the-art understanding of intent. It is organized into 

two sections: operational and academic perspectives on intent.

Operational Perspective: 

Basic Issues in Gauging Intent

The first section of this volume consists of four operational 

perspectives on intent. Kathleen Kiernan and Daniel J. Mabrey 

offer an enlightening description of law enforcement “streetcraft” and explain how police methods of assessing an individual’s intent to offend can inform counterterrorist operations.

Harry Foster discusses the ways military planners typically 

assess the intent of state or nonstate leaders and then offers 

what he calls an “effects-based thinking” framework for measuring intent. Foster argues that this effects-based thinking 

combined with a betting methodology offers the best analytic 

framework for melding the analyst’s intuition (i.e., the art) with 

analytics to gauge intent.

Gary Schaub, Jr., widens the aperture to focus on how to 

gauge the intent of groups and large collectives such as nationstate and nonstate actors in the context of strategic deterrence. 

Schaub argues that a process to infer adversary intent on a 

continuous basis is needed so that a serviceable product is 

available to assist both in routine and crisis planning. He posits analysis of competing hypotheses as one method of achieving this goal that encourages debate and critical thinking about 

the adversary to prevent the typical intelligence errors of mirror 

imaging or groupthink.
Finally, John Bodnar outlines a new way of thinking about 

adversaries—and our relationship to them—in the twentyfirst century.

Academic Perspective: 

Theory and Research in Gauging Intent

The second section of this volume consists of perspectives on 

intent that represent research and theoretical work in seven 

academic disciplines: anthropology, social psychology, international politics, social cognitive neuroscience, survey science, 

communications, and decision science.

In the first piece in this section, Lawrence Kuznar provides a 

comprehensive review of basic motivating factors recognized by 

anthropologists that help explain intent, including structuralism, interpretivism/symbolic anthropology, postmodernism, 

culture and personality, human behavioral ecology, and discourse analysis. It provides insight on intent as derived from 

socially shared systems of meaning and ideology.

Margaret Hermann concludes that learning how policy makers view what is happening to them is critical to understanding 

how governments are likely to act. With our unprecedented access to policy makers’ perspectives through 24-hour news cycles, new ways to measure and interpret these perspectives are 

being developed. Hermann’s assertions are tested by a case 

study in the following chapter.

Based on international relations research, Keren Yarhi-Milo 

provides analytic support for what we have always suspected: 

intelligence analysts and decision makers do not view the world 

or think about it in the same ways. Yarhi-Milo uses three test 

cases: British assessments of Nazi intentions prior to World 

War II, the Carter administration’s assessments of Soviet intentions, and the Reagan administration’s assessment of Soviet 

intentions in the final years of the Cold War.

Neuroscientists are actively unlocking the inner workings of 

the brain and revealing how goal-oriented, deliberative behavior interacts with emotive impulses to generate intentional behavior. In companion pieces, social neuropsychologists Sabrina 

Pagano and Abigail Chapman shed light on the latest in brain 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

xviii
xix

studies and the possible future applications of insights gained 

from neuropsychology for estimating and capturing an individual’s intent to act in a certain way.

Tom Rieger offers empirical evidence that large-scale instabilitybased violence and ideologically based violence are driven by 

different factors with different purposes. Iraq is used as an example to explain extremist violence and to illustrate how it is 

possible to win a war and lose the peace.

Representing social communication and messaging, Toby 

Bolsen discusses information-framing research and the gaps 

in the literature regarding the links between manipulations of 

perceptions and attitudes (framing) and short- and long-term 

behavior.

Finally, theories of intent abound, but the most difficult task 

is the measurement and assessment of this intangible. Elisa 

Bienenstock and Allison Astorino-Courtois address some contemporary efforts in actually measuring intent and propose a 

backward induction method for honing in on intent based on 

behavioral “probes” identified through decision analyses.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1

Introduction

What is intent? Most of us can answer this question easily: it 

is a determination to act in a certain way for a certain purpose. 

It is a mental construct. But how do we understand or measure 

someone’s intent to act? This is a trickier question. So tricky in 

fact that even in complex analyses, it is often assumed away—

as in analyses based on the concept of a profit-motivated “economic man” or alternative models of nonrational decision making1—inferred from circumstances, taken as given from 

self-reports (conclusions drawn from preelection polls), or attributed based on our own perceptions (e.g., Khrushchev put 

missiles in Cuba to be poised to attack the United States).

Many social scientific and military disciplines—psychology, 

political science, international affairs, economics, linguistics, 

anthropology, intelligence, and operational studies—address 

intent. Nevertheless, as noted, intent as a concept remains difficult to define in a clear and unambiguous manner. It is even 

more challenging to measure. This volume contains contributions from authors representing multiple academic disciplines, 

analytic approaches, and security-related experience and training. It is intended to serve military and civilian defense, deterrence, and policy planners and practitioners with a review of 

the basic concepts and state-of-the-art understanding of intent. This volume may also inform the broader academic community by assembling a diverse set of research disciplines as 

well as the experience of practitioners.

Precisely because intent is the mental tie that links perception and behavior, it is a key component of most national security threat equations. The central thesis of this volume is simply this: understanding, estimating, and even measuring 

intent are critical and should not be given short shrift, especially in the areas of national security and defense. Failing to 

account for intent in a meaningful way amounts to ignoring 

half of what constitutes a threat in the simple but common 

additive model where threat = intent + capability. The issue is 

even more acute in the case of multiplicative threat models 

(i.e., threat = intent * capability * opportunity), where the intent 

factor can entirely determine whether or not a threat exists.
INTRODUCTION

2

The papers in From the Mind to the Feet provide fresh and informative perspectives on the conceptualization and measurement of intent. However, they are just as valuable for what they 

lack. Developing robust theories and valid measures of intent 

requires a deep research tradition along with well-developed applications. This has not yet occurred. There currently is no community of “intent” scholars, for example, the way there is a welldefined, multidiscipline community of terrorism scholars. There 

is not an accepted methodology for measuring intent. A telling 

indicator of this lack of community and deep body of research 

is the fact that many researchers we contacted had difficulty 

seeing the connection of their research to the notion of intent. 

Intent is not yet a field of study nor even a buzzword in the academic community.

This volume is organized into two sections: operational and 

academic perspectives on intent. In accordance with the notion 

that the best way to learn is by doing, we begin with operators 

and practitioners describing contemporary perspectives on and 

lessons learned about the role of intent and the challenges in 

measuring it in military, intelligence, and law enforcement settings. The second section presents perspectives from various 

academic disciplines often used to inform operational efforts to 

deal with intent. The approaches and perspectives included in 

this volume represent approaches derived from:

•  anthropology,

•  social psychology,

•  decision science,

•  international politics,

•  social cognitive neuroscience,

•  survey science, and

•  communications.

The purpose of this volume is to open a much deeper dialogue about gauging intent. In addition to delineating some of 

the existing research and ideas, the contributors have provided 

powerful indicators of the scope of the research yet to be done. 

Thus we hope that, as well as informing discussion and practice, the essays can serve as a guide for further government 
3

INTRODUCTION

and academic research. We hope you will find each piece 

thought provoking and helpful.

Note

1. Economic man is the concept of humans as rational and broadly selfinterested actors who have the ability to make judgments towards their subjectively defined ends as first described by John Stuart Mill. Nonrational 

models include bounded-rationality models and prospect-theory models, in 

which decision makers utilize simple heuristics instead of rational costbenefit analyses.

PART 1

Operational Perspective

Basic Issues in Gauging Intent

7

Chapter 1

From Shoe Leather to Satellites

Shifting the Conceptual Lens

Kathleen L. Kiernan, EdD, Faculty, Johns Hopkins University and Center for Homeland Defense and Security, 

Naval Postgraduate School

Daniel J. Mabrey, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of 

New Haven, Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and 

Forensic Science

Abstract: There is a corpus of experience in the law enforcement profession of dealing with criminals and criminal behavior, which, when understood in the context of 

support to and facilitation of terrorist activity, can help the 

defense community understand adversarial intent. Law 

enforcement streetcraft reveals that criminals have common motivators in which patterns of activity emerge that 

are known and measurable. These patterns contain embedded signatures which, when analytically unraveled, reveal the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) of the 

individuals or groups responsible for the illegal activity. 

Rational-choice-based approaches in law enforcement to 

recognizing a criminal’s intent are routinely used to help 

understand and anticipate criminality. Modus operandi 

analysis also assists in determining intent in that it forms 

the basis of many pattern/signature matching approaches 

used to identify suspects in an investigation. While previous patterns of behavior have not been conclusively proven 

to ensure accurate prediction of future behavior or intent, 

they do provide indicators and can contribute to analysis 

and moving the decision cycle “to the left,” before intent 

becomes action.
FROM SHOE LEATHER TO SATELLITES

8

Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may 

concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.

—Sun Tzu

The Art of War

Understanding the intention of a distant adversary is a requirement that has perplexed the intelligence, military, and 

law enforcement communities throughout history regardless of 

how proximate or well known the adversaries and battleground 

are. Understanding intent becomes even more complex with 

the advent of new adversarial tactics and techniques, such as 

cyber attacks, where the battlespace is largely unknown and 

ungoverned, where there are no clear rules of engagement, and 

where the adversary may disguise not only its intent but also 

its very existence.1

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that there is a corpus 

of experience in the law enforcement profession of dealing with 

criminals and criminal behavior which, when understood in the 

context of support to and facilitation of terrorist activity, can 

contribute to the knowledge of the military. An underlying premise is that, while every criminal is not a terrorist, every terrorist 

is in fact a criminal who must by necessity employ tactics which 

parallel those in the criminal world to include weapons acquisition, financing, false documents, sanctuary, and support. The 

support may manifest as an underground economy which transcends culture, geography, and routes of passage for the smuggling or concealment of people and commodities. The actual 

routes are static, perhaps enhanced through the introduction of 

technology such as sensors or lighting in tunnels or semisubmersible submarines vice go-fast boats. The actors and the 

commodities may change as well, but the intent and drive towards profit for the criminal world and the use of profit to fuel 

other terrorist-related activities do not. The examination will include the cultural and contextual expertise which enables 

skilled law enforcement practitioners to discern what is hidden 

in plain sight and invisible to the untrained eye. This experience 

or streetcraft is continually refined by practitioners in their persistent interaction with and observation of human behavior for 
9

FROM SHOE LEATHER TO SATELLITES

which a common motivator is profit and in which patterns of 

activity emerge that are known and measurable.2

These patterns contain embedded signatures which, when 

analytically unraveled, reveal the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) of the individuals or groups responsible for the 

illegal activity in a temporal as well as visual manner. In the 

early days of organized policing, rudimentary efforts included 

the accumulation of massive quantities of data in paper form, 

and often individuals hoarded knowledge and confined it to their 

memories as a means of gaining power or status. Unfortunately, 

important data was lost upon retirements or changes in assignment. While information sharing presents another complex 

problem, advances in technology have made it possible to archive historical, as well as current, data and to utilize a variety 

of sorting, matching, and analytical tool suites to interrogate the 

data. The first iterations of this were basic computer-aided dispatch systems and records management systems. Today policing is approaching the state of the art with integrated technology suites combining administrative, investigative, intelligence, 

threat/risk assessment, and resource management capabilities 

federated within and between organizations and jurisdictions. 

Leading technologies in this area are platforms and systems 

built by vendors such as COPLINK, Memex, and Tiburon.

Investigative techniques native to law enforcement are now 

being blended with analytical techniques that traditionally 

were the domain of the intelligence world to improve the efficiency of law enforcement operations. Geospatial analysis of 

crime and criminal behavior has been a mainstream application in law enforcement for more than 15 years and has driven 

military and intelligence applications of this technology. One 

such application, geographic profiling of an individual actor’s 

behavior,3 has demonstrated real-world success in understanding pattern-based crimes and apprehending serial offenders.4

Link analysis, originally an application and method of intelligence analysis, is now routinely used by police departments 

throughout the United States to organize information collected 

in criminal investigations.

While the sensational crimes of serial murder, mass murder, 

and sexual predatory behaviors are often discussed in the psychological context of compulsion, antisocial/dissocial personalities, or 
FROM SHOE LEATHER TO SATELLITES

10

uncontrollable outbursts, the intent to offend is a complex issue 

with significant implications for law enforcement. Generally, an 

individual’s intent to offend is understood as (1) a rational decision 

based on a personal cost-benefit analysis of committing the criminal act or (2) a function of internal and external behaviors outside 

a person’s control. The field of criminology has not come to a consensus on which perspective is correct, although there is a large 

research base testing the specific theories of each.

The rational choice perspective is probably the most applicable to this volume and should be interesting to defense policy 

makers because it treats an individual’s intent to offend as constant. In this view, intent is more a function of how unprotected 

a target is than how capable the guardian is. The intersection of 

target vulnerability and guardianship in time and space presents an individual with the intent to offend with a nearly endless target set, assuming the individual has patience and the 

ability to conduct the cost/benefit (risk/reward) analysis. Law 

enforcement generally accepts this approach to offender intent, 

and myriad policies, procedures, technologies, and methods 

used in modern-day policing are based on this perspective.5

The general criminal investigative model that seeks to examine the way criminals perpetrate their offenses is also based on 

the assumption that the actor was rational in making decisions 

about when, how, where, and whom to victimize. This is generally referred to as modus operandi analysis and forms the basis 

for many of the pattern/signature matching approaches used 

to identify suspects in an investigation. The assumption that 

an offender’s intent is based on rational choice allows investigators to reason about the facts/clues of an investigation. This 

reasoning can then be applied to other cases and modeled using information technologies like those mentioned previously 

to detect patterns of offending, to find matches in criminal behaviors (which can be thought of as criminal TTPs), and even to 

forecast future offending opportunities by modeling vulnerabilities and theorized guardian behaviors.

While previous patterns of behavior have not been conclusively proven to ensure accurate prediction of future behavior 

or intent, they do provide indicators and can contribute to 

analysis and moving the decision cycle “to the left,” before intent becomes action. Inherent to this is a paradox of expertise 
11

FROM SHOE LEATHER TO SATELLITES

highlighted by Rob Johnston, based on the work of Ömer Akin, 

D. E. Egan, and B. J. Schwartz,6 in which a distinction is drawn 

between a novice, who perceives randomness or disconnected 

data points, and a domain-specific expert, who sees patterns in 

the same data based on his or her organization of knowledge 

following exposure to and experience with thousands of cases. 

The paradox emerges in that strength can also be a weakness—

experts are statistically superior to machines and novices in 

pattern recognition and problem solving based on their cumulative experience but less accurate at future predictions than 

Bayesian probabilities. Johnston adds, “An expert may know 

his [or her] specific domain, such as economics or leadership 

analysis quite thoroughly, but that may still not permit him [or 

her] to divine an adversary’s intention, which the adversary 

himself [or herself] may not know.”7 The limitation on expert 

knowledge is proffered to manage expectations of any kind of 

panacea to discern intention.

The emergent recognition by elements of the Department of 

Defense of (1) the nexus between criminality and terrorism as 

a factor of force protection and (2) the value of examining terrorist modi operandi vis-à-vis TTPs has provided the opportunity to examine technologies which support the exploitation of 

this type of information.8 One underemphasized contribution 

to this is the value of open-source intelligence, which often provides important strategic and operational insights into terrorist 

intent and capabilities. This is especially acute for the law enforcement community as there has been increasing pressure 

since the 9/11 attacks to provide national security clearances 

to additional law enforcement personnel only to have the process become mired in delay. The mainstay of policing organizations will remain in the open-source domain, and it is there 

that lessons relevant to war-fighter support can be learned. An 

example of a resource with demonstrated effectiveness is the 

Institute for the Study of Violent Groups (ISVG), which performs open-source research and exploitation on terrorist, extremist, and criminal organizations for the explicit purpose of 

enabling modus operandi analysis of activities. ISVG has assisted Special Operations Command, Pacific (SOCPAC) in 

assessing threats and intent posed by violent nonstate actor 

networks in Southeast Asia by examining networks and 
FROM SHOE LEATHER TO SATELLITES

12

comparing modus operandi shifts in the activities of these networks. In several of the cases, the networks and components of 

support were unknown but knowable, and the illumination of 

each contributed to a more comprehensive product to enable 

both the analyst and the operator.

The results of the incorporation of open-source exploitation 

and the examination of intent through the lens of modus operandi analysis suggest, if not compel, a reconsideration of both 

tactics by the homeland defense and homeland security communities. Law enforcement has utilized the approach with 

demonstrated proficiency over time. Shoe-leather expertise is 

not meant to supplant other national technical means of collection and exploitation; it is rather a tremendous force multiplier 

in terms of knowledge discovery and time efficiency.

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. In May 2009 the administration released the results of the 60-day cyber 

review and on 22 December of that year followed one of the key recommendations in appointing the nation’s first cyber czar, Howard Schmidt. 

2. Streetcraft is the operational art of law enforcement that is neither codified in any standard operating procedure nor taught in a police academy. 

Rather, it is learned on the street through the experience of dealing with the 

extremes of human behavior (as defined by Kiernan, “Hidden in Plain Sight”).

3. See Rossmo, Geographic Profiling.

4. Applications of this include (1) geospatially modeling the physical and 

socioeconomic terrain of the US/Mexico border to better understand migrant 

smuggling routes and (2) geographically profiling the Washington, DC, sniper 

attacks in 2002.

5. The Compstat administrative approach for police resource allocation is 

based largely on a rational choice perspective of criminality. Many criminal 

investigative approaches, especially those that place an emphasis on examining criminal modi operandi, are founded on rational choice models.

6. Johnston, Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community; Akin, Models of Architectural Knowledge; and Egan and Schwartz, “Chunking in Recall 

of Symbolic Drawings.”

7. Johnston, Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community, 66.

8. Early adopters include the Office of the Secretary of Defense and, in 

particular, the Rapid Reaction Technology Office, which evaluates and transitions capabilities to support the war fighter.
13

FROM SHOE LEATHER TO SATELLITES

Bibliography

Akin, Ömer. Models of Architectural Knowledge: An Information 

Processing View of Architectural Design. London: Pion, 1980.

Coplink Web site. http://www.i2group.com/us.

Egan, D. E., and B. J. Schwartz. “Chunking in Recall of Symbolic Drawings.” Memory and Cognition 7 (1979): 149–58. 

Johnston, Rob. Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 

Central Intelligence Agency, 2005.

Kiernan, Kathleen. “Hidden in Plain Sight—Intelligence against 

Terrorism: Tradecraft or Streetcraft?” Crime and Justice International, July/August 2006, 29.

McKeithen, Katherine B., Judith S. Reitman, Henry H. Rueter, 

and Stephen C. Hirtle. “Knowledge Organization and Skill 

Differences in Computer Programmers.” Cognitive Psychology 13, no. 3 (July 1981): 307–25.

Memex Technology Limited. Web site. http://www.memex.com.

Rossmo, Kim. Geographic Profiling. London: Taylor & Francis, 

1999.

Tiburon. Web site. http://www.tibinc.com/solutions/lawenforce

ment.asp.

Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. Translated by Samuel Griffith. Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 1971.

15

Chapter 2

Betting Responsibly

An Effects-Based Thinker’s 

Framework for Characterizing Intent

Col Harry A. Foster, USAF, Retired, Air War College

As this volume establishes, understanding a state or nonstate actor’s intent is a squishy business. Recent attempts by 

the US military to quantify and measure an enemy’s actions 

(including intent) through formal analytic systems like effectsbased operations have been less than successful, with the commander of US Joint Forces Command stopping work on further 

development. Based on interviews with retired officers, some 

Abstract: This paper argues that effects-based thinking 

combined with a betting methodology offers the best analytic framework available to meld art with analytics to 

gauge intent. Adding betting methodology aids the analytic process by exposing the underlying presumptions 

and opinions. As the financial industry learned in the 

1980s, quantifying human behavior with mathematical 

models is problematic. In the current decade, the effectsbased operations initiatives fared little better. However, relationships do exist among nations, groups, and people. 

The perceptions and beliefs of nations, groups, and people 

do shape intent. Getting into the mind of another leader, 

therefore, requires an effects-based mental model to understand what political actions signal intent and what actions are merely noise. Assessing intent in a group context 

requires unconventional means to collect, analyze, and 

present the shared insights of the group.
BETTING RESPONSIBLY

16

best-selling authors have reinforced the notion that intent cannot be measured, suggesting instead that Clausewitz’s notion 

of coup d’oeil or “gut feel” is probably the best we can do in this 

area.1 For those who must sell their assessments to nationallevel decision makers, however, this approach is less than satisfying. The key question then is, are there mental or analytic 

models to help our gut?

This paper argues that effects-based thinking—separate and 

distinct from effects-based operations—combined with a betting methodology may offer the best analytic framework available to groups of planners trying to meld art with analytics to 

gauge intent. Since understanding intent for state and nonstate actors is largely a political study, practicing effects-based 

thinking to gauge intent requires the strategist to ask only two 

questions: how are nation/group/person A and nation/group/

person B related, and how does this relationship affect A’s and 

B’s actions? From this simple first-order analysis, the planner 

can build a larger mental map, which can then be used in concert with operational art to assess intent. Planners rarely work 

alone, however. Different planners tend to see the world differently. Adding a betting methodology to the analytic process 

aids the decision maker by exposing the underlying presumptions and range of opinions girding the analysis. To make the 

case, this paper begins by exploring the dimensions of intent. 

Next, it examines methodologies for gauging and measuring 

intent commonly used by military planners. Finally, the paper 

explores a betting methodology that employs effects-based 

thinking to characterize intent. To understand the methodology, one must first understand the dimensions of intent.

Background

Four decades ago, Thomas Schelling used the game of vehicular chicken as an analogy for geopolitics in his landmark 

work, Arms and Influence.

2 Thinking about the mentality behind a game of chicken is useful because it sheds light on the 

difficulty in understanding intent. The following briefly summarizes Schelling’s main points:
17

BETTING RESPONSIBLY

•  A game of chicken is, by definition, a game of nerve. Simply

choosing to play or not to play is a choice unto itself and 

provides a clear signal of intent. For those that do play, the 

rules of the game are unclear because without uncertainty 

and unpredictability there is no game.

•  Each player’s perception of the other drives the way the 

game is played—a player who has a reputation for recklessness may be given different consideration than one 

who always yields.

•  Third parties influence the game; therefore, the concept of 

saving face may be important. This outside pressure may 

force cooperation between the players as each tries to signal his intent to play but not collide.

•  Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the options available to each player narrow as the cars speed toward one 

another until reaching a point where neither player has a 

“last clear chance” to avoid a collision.

Although written during the height of the Cold War with nationstates in mind, Schelling’s game-of-chicken analogy is still relevant at the strategic level, notwithstanding today’s changed geopolitical environment with its mix of state and nonstate actors.

Using a single model to measure the intent of state and nonstate actors may be controversial to some readers. Nonstate 

actors are organized very differently than governments and often employ asymmetric means in pursuit of their objectives. 

While they may differ organizationally and operationally from 

states, they are similar in that their overarching goals are political in nature with their operations carefully planned for 

maximum political effect, and, like states, their desired grand 

strategic ends are reasonably clear. Because of these similarities, a shared methodology for gauging intent is workable. 

There are limits to how far a politically based methodology extends within the nonstate domain, however. An ill-defined line 

separates the political nonstate actor from other groups such 

as organized crime. With these and Schelling’s points in mind, 

I argue there are five broad dimensions of intent that the strategist must characterize to assess state and nonstate actors.
BETTING RESPONSIBLY

18

Dimensions of Intent

First, intent is multifaceted, shaped by a number of factors, 

including international and domestic perception of the other 

players, external and internal politics, and acts of third parties. 

Any model that gauges or measures intent, therefore, must attempt to characterize the impact, or effect, these interactions 

have on the players. Understanding who the key players are, 

what their relationship is, and how these relationships translate into influence is only one part of the equation, however. 

The strategist must also assess his or her nation’s own network 

to understand how the opposing sides align and collide with 

one another. Understanding the historical and cultural drivers 

that shape perceptions within the networks is critical and discussed later.

Second, intent has bandwidth. That is, a player’s intent is not 

a singular choice but represents a set of choices the player can 

make within a set of bounds or bookends. In the game of 

chicken, this bandwidth is defined by the sides of the road. In 

the real world, this bandwidth represents a set of bookends that 

define what an actor is willing to do, vice capable of doing. Unlike a road whose width never changes, the width between the 

bookends may change for each player as the game progresses. 

Characterizing this dimension of intent is the center of gravity 

in the planning process. The assumptions one makes in placing 

the bookends of both players, therefore, are critically important 

and represent significant risk. Accordingly, the strategist must 

constantly reassess the placement of these bookends, while 

policy makers continuously scrutinize underlying assumptions.

Third, intent is communicated though signaling. Signals may 

consist of overt or covert action, public or private diplomacy, 

media, or, importantly, inaction. The difficulty in signaling for 

both players lies in recognizing and correctly interpreting what 

is being communicated. As Graham Allison has pointed out, 

this is especially difficult given that organizations make decisions in at least three different ways: rationally, bureaucratically, or politically.3 What may be viewed as an “irrational act” 

by one party may be viewed as completely logical by the other. 

Understanding this communication is made worse by the presence of incomplete and often conflicting information—Clausewitz’s 
19

BETTING RESPONSIBLY

notion of fog. Moreover, a player’s true intent may be masked by 

tactics. Deception, trial balloons, or feints are as much a part of 

statecraft as they are of warfare. To deal with this environment, 

the strategist must develop methods that go beyond simple 

cost/benefit analysis to assess the actions of other players. Historical, cultural, religious, and organizational decision-making 

factors are important lenses and should be deeply integrated 

into analysis. Similarly, policy makers and strategists should 

consider how their actions are received and interpreted through 

the same lenses to ensure the signal intended is the signal 

received. As with assessing bandwidth, continually reviewing 

assumptions is critical.

Fourth, intent can become dynamic past a red line. Disputes 

can reach a point at which one or both players lose control of 

the situation. Beyond this red line, the bookends described earlier no longer apply. The fear that a conventional war in Europe 

would erupt into nuclear war was omnipresent during the Cold 

War. Today new concerns are emerging. Can a cyber attack attributed to a group cross a red line and result in military conflict between nations? Does an attack in space cross a red line 

and result in military conflict on Earth? Policy makers must 

choose where to draw these lines. They must also assess where 

the red lines of other players sit. Again, assumptions are critical as the stakes escalate quickly in these kinds of scenarios.

Finally, each player’s own definition of success shapes intent. Absolute terms like “winning,” “losing,” or “achieved objectives” are not helpful in understanding this dimension. Instead, what shapes intent is perception—the degree of success 

or failure perceived by the network. For example, nonstate actors may consider an attack that decimates a number of their 

own cells a complete success if it generates positive coverage in 

the desired media and results in an increased number of recruits for its network elsewhere. As discussed earlier, this value 

system may force some to conclude an act was irrational. To 

the actor, however, the calculation is perfectly logical based on 

the perception of the relevant network. Accordingly, in estimating intent, the strategist should focus on characterizing the 

underlying value system that motivates the opposing actors 

vice struggling to understand rationality. Cataloguing the 
BETTING RESPONSIBLY

20

dimensions of intent is straightforward. Assessing it for decision makers is considerably harder.

Current Methods of 

Assessing Intent in Planning

To assess and measure intent, military planners using Joint 

Operation Planning and Execution System–type models traditionally form a specialized “red team” to study and characterize 

an opponent’s strategic point of view. The team then represents 

that view throughout the planning process.

The red team characterizes intent and capability through development of “most likely” and “most dangerous” courses of action. The most likely course of action is largely a consensus assessment of intent—a prediction of how the enemy is expected to 

act given a set of political conditions and its collective capabilities. The most dangerous course of action is largely an assessment of capability—a prediction of how the enemy could act, 

given its collective capability, if political constraints are discounted and the situation spins out of control. The most likely 

course of action becomes the principal assumption of enemy behavior that drives planning for major operations. The most dangerous course of action is used to plan defensive measures and 

identify branch plans for consequence management and so forth.

In execution, intent is gauged by a set of priority intelligence 

requirements developed during planning. Derived from the 

most likely or most dangerous enemy courses of action, these 

requirements tell intelligence collectors where to look and assessors what to look for. Underlying each of these intelligence 

requirements may be a set of warnings and indicators that signal intent: increasing readiness, allocations of resources, or 

movement of forces. Measuring intent in execution is also subjective, but it takes into account enemy action or inaction 

through objective indicators like warnings and indicators.

There are few formulaic models or templates to assist team 

leaders in guiding a red team through an assessment of red 

intent. Students of strategy may reach for Neustadt and May’s 

Thinking in Time for ways to frame the issues or draw on Allison and Zelikow’s Essence of Decision to think about how dif-
21

BETTING RESPONSIBLY

ferent types of organizational behaviors influence outcomes. 

Beyond these texts, planners draw on experience gained 

through education and personal study. For those who buy into 

the coup d’oeil school of characterizing intent, the lack of analytic models to characterize intent may be viewed as a good 

thing. However, given the realities of team size and time pressures, a general framework for gauging intent is useful even if 

it is used only as a starting point.

A Betting Methodology 

for Characterizing Intent

The premise of this effects-based framework is that intent is 

fundamentally a political calculation. While the focus of one 

nation’s intent may be aimed at the other player in a game of 

chicken, intent is shaped by a number of factors (e.g., culture, 

history, third parties, domestic polity, governmental power 

structures), not just the other player. If the strategist can develop some idea of relationships in this influence structure, 

then a player’s true intent may be easier to “bookend” through 

analysis. Accordingly, the following offers a brief planning 

framework which uses a betting system to make an effectsbased characterization of intent.

Step 1: Set a Common Frame of Reference

Any understanding of intent begins with some degree of understanding of the cultural history and the history of the issue 

in question. This may be obvious, but it is hard to enforce in 

execution. Each person who judges a situation comes into it 

with his or her own mental model of how the world works. In an 

effort to simplify and understand, the natural tendency is for 

people to rely on analogies based on their own experience. 

Analogies, however, can lead to the wrong conclusions when 

dealing with different cultures, forms of government, and 

worldviews.4 Therefore, everyone’s mental model—regardless of 

rank, background, and experience—needs calibrating. This 

can be accomplished through reading or briefing. The key point 

is that some amount of time must be spent getting into the 
BETTING RESPONSIBLY

22

mind of the red nation before attempting to assess its actions. 

Leveling background information is not enough, however.

Setting a common frame of reference also requires developing a method to address analogies. Practices such as banning 

the use of analogies among planners do not work—they remain 

in the mind, unspoken. May and Neustadt offer a simple 

method to address the problems analogies raise: for any given 

analogy, ask “what’s like this case?” and “what’s different?” 

This technique offers a simple, quick way to reset one’s mental 

model to the task at hand.5 Building on this idea, planning 

team leaders should record the analogies red team members 

raise, perform like/different analysis, and add it to the background brief. When combined with the cultural background, 

addressing analogies up front is a powerful tool in bringing 

team members’ minds into adjusted focus.

Step 2: Describe the Issue at Hand

After leveling the background, the next step is to describe the 

issue at hand from each side’s point of view. Defining the issue 

up front is important for a couple of reasons. First, it is vitally 

important to capture what’s known (and how), what’s presumed (and why), and what’s unknown. Information will never 

be perfect, so making assumptions is a necessary part of practicing operational art. However, a big part of measuring intent 

(discussed later) depends upon how solid the information underlying the analysis is. Second, defining the issue early allows 

the team members to challenge it often throughout the process. Perceived irrational behavior by a player probably means 

the team has the issue at hand wrong.

Step 3: Map the Players and Their Relationships

Mapping the players and their relationships is the core element in effects-based analysis. While there may be many elements one could map, the principal elements of interest here 

are ones that directly affect the decision of each nation. As relationships are mapped, the strategist should assess the relative degree of influence these connections represent.

Internal to each nation is a set of relationships that defines its 

decision-making process. This may consist of constitutional 
23

BETTING RESPONSIBLY

structures, constituencies, and bureaucracies in democratic 

governments or influential elites, parties, and committees in 

more centrally managed governments or among nonstate actors.

External to each nation are connections with other nations 

or nonstate groups that can affect a state or nonstate actor’s 

decision process. These connections may include cultural, religious, diplomatic, economic, or military relationships. These 

relationships are important not only because they offer insight 

into possible sources of leverage, but also because they may 

offer an avenue for signaling between the parties.

Step 4: Define the Main Player’s Strategic Goals and Red 

Lines (Assess Rationally Based Decision Making)

Once relationships are mapped, the planning team should 

assess each player’s strategic goals and possible red lines with 

regard to the issue at hand. This gain/loss-based analysis allows the strategist to consider each side’s decision calculus 

from a rationally driven decision-making approach. The purpose of this analysis is twofold: to examine how the issue at 

hand fits into the larger context of the nation’s strategic goals 

and to explore factors that may serve to restrain the actions of 

each side such as red lines.

Step 5: Define Where Third Parties and Internal Parties 

Stand (Assess Politically Based Decision Making)

To consider the effect of a politically driven decision-making 

approach, the planning team should map where third parties 

and internal parties stand, if possible. The purpose of this 

analysis is to understand how groups around the decision 

maker may drive intent, despite the possible setbacks to their 

strategic goals.

Step 6: Assess Available Choices and Likely Indicators

At this point, it is time to assess intent itself. In keeping with 

the concept that intent is not a singular choice, but represents 

a set of choices bounded by bookends, each red team member 

offers his or her assessment of intent. This consists of a set of 

plausible actions that define the bookends and the physical 
BETTING RESPONSIBLY

24

indicators or signals that provide verification. These choices 

are then aggregated into a list for further analysis. Indicators 

are compiled into a list of prioritized intelligence requirements 

to drive intelligence collection.

Step 7: Measure Intent by Taking Bets

The final step in an effects-based framework for characterizing intent is measurement. As this paper has established, 

measuring human behavior is difficult on its face. However, in 

planning environments, staff culture complicates it even more. 

First, military culture often demands that staffs present their 

boss with “the answer”—a certain assessment of what will happen. This can force hesitation as planners wait for confirmed 

data. New data may invalidate parts of the old assessment, 

driving requirements for more data and more assessment. 

Waiting for “good” data can literally cripple the effort. Second, 

in an effort to preserve a senior decision maker’s time and prevent information overload, the cognitive style of staff processes 

may limit assessments of intent to bullet points on two or three 

PowerPoint slides. As a result, the range of staff views is often 

suppressed, and the subjective feel of the assessments is lost 

as analysis is simplified or placed in backup. As Neustadt and 

May point out, this is a reality of government.6

An alternative that overcomes both of these staff-driven complications is to set up a betting system.7 A notional betting 

system that assesses intent consists of three parts. In part one, 

assessors rate their opinion of the quality of the information 

underlying their assessment on a scale of one to ten. Plotting 

aggregated high, low, and mean data on a Gantt chart provides 

senior decision makers with a visual, qualitative summary of 

the information underlying the overall assessment. In part two, 

assessors rank order the top five key relationships that they 

feel most influenced the intent of each player. This assessment 

may help senior decision makers key in on critical details in a 

flood of intelligence data to inform their own mental models. In 

part three, assessors place bets against the list of available 

choices based on the probability that the move represents an 

opposing nation’s intent. When graphed on a bar chart, this 

assessment not only points the senior decision maker to the 
25

BETTING RESPONSIBLY

most likely intent but also provides a visual depiction of the 

range and strength of opinion regarding other possibilities. Assessors bet at set intervals, say, every 48 hours. Regular intervals allow senior decision makers to get a quick sense of the 

speed and direction of changes in the staff’s assessment as information and assumptions change.

Step 8: Present the Data

The best analyses in the world are irrelevant if the message 

is not received by the decision maker. Assessments of intent 

should include a list of key facts, assumptions, and unknowns 

(with changes annotated); a sketch outlining the relationships 

analyzed along with the team’s assessment of the top five 

relationships; a Gantt chart showing the team’s confidence in the 

underlying data (with maximum, minimum, and mean); and a 

bar chart showing the distribution of bets for each possible action. Assessment to assessment, trend data is important. Presenters should highlight changes in the team’s underlying data 

over time and changes in betting over time. In addition, presenters should highlight key disagreements between groups 

when more than one group bets.

Conclusion

As the financial industry learned in the 1980s, quantifying 

human behavior with mathematical models is problematic. In 

the current decade, the effects-based operations initiatives 

fared little better. However, there is no denying that relationships do exist among nations, groups, and people. Their perceptions and beliefs do shape intent. Getting into the mind of 

another leader, therefore, requires an effects-based mental 

model to understand what political actions signal intent and 

what actions are merely noise. Assessing intent in a group context requires unconventional means to collect, analyze, and 

present the shared insights of the group.
BETTING RESPONSIBLY

26

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Clausewitz, On War; and Gladwell, Blink, 99–147.

2. Schelling, Arms and Influence, 116–25.

3. Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision, 3–11.

4. Neustadt and May, Thinking in Time, 75–90.

5. Ibid., 89.

6. Ibid., 1.

7. Ibid., 159.

Bibliography

Allison, Graham, and Philip Zelikow. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 1999.

Clausewitz, Karl von. On War. Translated by O. J. Matthijs 

Jolles. New York: Modern Library, 1943.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005.

Neustadt, Richard, and Ernest May. Thinking in Time: The Uses 

of History for Decision Makers. New York: Free Press, 1988.

Schelling, Thomas. Arms and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 1966.
27

Chapter 3

Gauging the Intent of 

Nation-States and Nonstate Actors

An Operator’s Perspective

Gary Schaub, Jr., PhD, Air War College

Abstract: How should policy makers approach divining the 

intentions of adversaries who may take actions that the 

United States wishes to deter? Determining adversarial intent during the Cold War was based upon capabilities 

analysis married to worst-case scenarios of what the adversary could accomplish. The Deterrence Operations Joint 

Operating Concept (DO JOC) revised this thinking by recognizing that an adversary has a choice between complying with a demand to refrain from action and defying that 

demand—and that the adversary will consider the expected value of each of these options. This has opened 

significant doors to making the deterrence planning and 

assessment processes used by the US military, from Strategic Command to the regional combatant commands, 

much more sophisticated and, hopefully, effective.

Currently, however, there is no process or framework to 

help analysts determine adversarial intent. A process needs 

to be established to infer adversary intent on a continuous 

basis so that a usable product is available to assist in routine 

planning or in the event of a crisis. One method of achieving 

this goal is competing hypotheses that encourage a debate 

and critical thinking about the adversary to prevent typical 

intelligence errors such as mirror imaging or groupthink. This 

intent-assessment process would allow debate and discussion that could inform a commander or political leader about 

the issues, foreign and domestic, that are pressing on the adversary’s leadership, provide his or her planning staff the basis for recommending whether deterrence or some other 

strategy is wise in the present circumstances, and also provide a basis upon which to assess the likelihood of success.
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

28

Introduction

The Deterrence Operations Joint Operating Concept (DO JOC) 

defines deterrence operations as those that “convince adversaries not to take actions that threaten US vital interests by 

means of decisive influence over their decision-making. Decisive influence is achieved by credibly threatening to deny benefits and/or impose costs [if the undesirable action is taken], 

while encouraging restraint by convincing the actor that restraint will result in an acceptable outcome.”1 The DO JOC thus 

takes an active view of deterrence operations: achieving decisive influence over an adversary’s decision making requires deliberate action on the part of a joint force commander or other 

American policy makers. Such deterrence operations can include force projection, the deployment of active and passive 

defenses, global strike (nuclear, conventional, and nonkinetic), 

and strategic communication.

The key to knowing when to practice deterrence is determining an actor’s intent. Patrick Morgan notes that “the intentions 

of opponents are notoriously difficult to fathom.”2 How do joint 

force commanders, those who populate the staffs of the US 

government, and the elites upon whom they rely for subject 

matter expertise determine adversary intent? Do military staffs 

rely on doctrinal guidance to perform this key task? Are certain 

patterns of thought or interpretive lenses commonly employed 

by officers, civilian policy makers, or scholars? How have these 

been applied in key episodes in the past? Finally, how can the 

process of intent determination be improved?

Doctrinal Guidance

There is little doctrinal guidance for determining adversary 

intent. What exists is contained in Joint Publication (JP) 2-0, 

Joint Intelligence. This doctrine manual contains superficially 

useful sections, such as “Intelligence and the Levels of War,” 

“Intelligence and the Range of Military Operations,” “Prediction 

— (Accept the Risk of Predicting Adversary Intentions),” and 

“Intelligence Support during the Deterrence Phase.” Unfortunately, most of these sections are unhelpful.
29

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

Beyond exhorting “intelligence professionals” to “go beyond 

the identification of capabilities” and take the risk of predicting 

adversary intent, basing such forecasts on “solid analysis,” JP 

2-0 is not particularly helpful in guiding such analysis. Indeed, 

by indicating that such “an intelligence product . . . usually 

reflects enemy capabilities and vulnerabilities,” the authors of 

this doctrine indirectly encourage that capability analysis be 

substituted for intent analysis. While capabilities do suggest 

some general directions of intent—why invest in a particular 

capability if you are not going to use it?—capability analysis 

utterly fails to answer questions of the conditions under which 

such capabilities would be used. These are political issues that 

the military intelligence process, set as it is at the tactical or 

operational level of war, does not address.

Interpreting Intent: Two Frameworks

If joint military doctrine is not a helpful guide in determining 

adversary intent, how can operators structure this problem so 

as to solve it? Intelligence analysts operate in a complex environment, and they, like all human beings, are unable to process all of the innumerable stimuli that they encounter. In this 

context, Roberta Wohlstetter usefully distinguished “between 

signals and noise.”3 What Wohlstetter left unsaid was that 

noise and signals do not come clearly marked for the analysts 

as they sift through mountains of information. Rather, it is the 

analyst who determines what is signal and what is noise.

This is a difficult task. Analysts suffer the same cognitive limits as everyone else and therefore necessarily deal with “a dramatically simplified model of the buzzing, blooming confusion 

that constitutes the real world.”4 These simplified models of reality focus one’s attention toward certain pieces of information 

and away from most others and generally represent the “most 

significant chains of causes and consequences” as “short and 

simple.”5 These models allow analysts to discriminate between 

signals and noise. Consequently, it is up to the analyst to determine which information best explains the adversary’s intent.

American scholars and policy makers have been apt to apply 

one of two models to comprehend the intentions of other international actors, be they states or nonstate organizations engaging 
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

30

in politics: the strategic intent model and the internal logic 

model. Each model posits that the actor is purposive—the actor seeks to achieve a particular goal with each action. When 

the analyst is working retrospectively, this presumption risks 

making either framework tautological, as “an imaginative analyst can construct an account of value-maximizing choice for 

any action or set of actions.”6 This tautology can be escaped, 

however, if one also presumes that the preferences against 

which alternatives are considered are relatively stable. This allows an analyst to erect a set of principles that appear to guide 

the actor’s choices over time and across domains. These principles fill in generic references to preferences or utilities for 

particular actors and allow some degree of operationalization of 

the model. The preferences and utilities can be derived from 

“(1) propensities or personality traits or psychological tendencies of the nation or government [or nonstate organization], (2) 

values shared by the nation or government [or organization], or 

(3) special principles of action [that] change the ‘goals’ or narrow the ‘alternatives’ and ‘consequences’ considered.”7

The strategic intent and internal logic models differ with regard to the problems that they believe an actor is attempting to 

solve by taking actions in the interstate arena. The strategic 

intent model presumes that state and nonstate actors direct 

their behavior toward achieving political goals vis-à-vis external actors. It presumes that they desire to influence the decisions, behavior, and/or attitudes of these external actors and 

that they have chosen the most effective means available to 

them, as delimited by their capabilities and tendencies, to 

achieve this end. Whether they do so via coercion, inducement, 

or persuasion,8 using whatever power resources they have 

available, matters not. What does matter is that the impact on 

the external actor is of paramount concern to the adversary.

Thus the key variables determining the adversary’s intent to 

act are the costs of undertaking the action, the benefits that 

would accrue from successful action, and the costs and benefits of not acting. The strategic intent model is vague with regard to what factors determine costs and benefits of these two 

courses of action. Lawrence Freedman has argued that the 

costs of undertaking the action can be bifurcated into those 

costs associated with implementing the choice and those as-
31

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

sociated with enforcing it after the fact.9 The benefits of undertaking the action have not been given as much attention as the 

costs but would be composed of material benefits accrued, intangible benefits—including prestige, reputation, and so on—

and the new opportunities made possible by successful conclusion of the action. The costs of inaction, or “restraint” in the 

parlance of the DO JOC, can be broken down into the international and domestic costs of forgoing action, including suffering the unwanted reactions of opponents in the near and far 

term and the negative reactions of domestic audiences. The 

benefits of inaction or restraint have not been well thought out 

in the literature either but would include desirable international and domestic reactions—such as praise for being reasonable or a de-escalation of tensions, or tangible benefits provided by those who did not favor action. Despite the obvious 

utility of considering domestic reactions to the choice made by 

the adversary’s leadership, the strategic intent model generally 

focuses upon externally generated costs and benefits.10

The internal logic model, on the other hand, presumes that 

actors are directing their activities inward, pursuing advancement or preservation of the group, and that actions directed 

toward other actors—be they states or otherwise—are judged 

primarily by their internal effects rather than their external effects. Hence international political behavior is primarily a consequence of domestic (or internal) politics and may be more 

incidental than intended. “The idea that political elites often 

embark on adventurous foreign policies or even resort to war in 

order to distract popular attention away from internal social or 

economic problems and consolidate their own domestic political support is an old theme in the literature on international 

politics,” argues Jack Levy.11 Ned Lebow argues that states 

with weakening political systems, weakening political leaders, 

or elites engaged in a competition for power may fall back on 

“the time-honored technique of attempting to offset discontent 

at home by diplomatic success abroad.”12 While success vis-àvis external actors would certainly be welcomed, the cohesion 

within the group and support for the leadership generated by 

conflict abroad are the primary purposes of such actions.

The key variables within this framework are the internal or 

domestic groups whose support is required for the continued 
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

32

functioning of the state or nonstate organization. After they 

have been identified, the relative ability of these groups to influence the leadership by providing benefits such as continued 

support or imposing costs such as removing the leadership 

from power, the audiences’ views of the merits of the action to 

be undertaken (or not), and the relative ability of the leadership 

to substitute the support of one group for another must be assessed.13 Thus the internal logic framework requires substantial knowledge of the adversary beyond the leadership and its 

preferences. It requires detailed knowledge of the domestic political situation if the adversary is a state or of the internal dynamics of a nonstate organization. A substantial body of work 

has addressed the propensities of certain types of regimes to 

engage in external behavior to ameliorate internal dissension 

or promote internal cohesion, democratic states in particular.14

The manner in which deterrent threats are interpreted and 

used when internal needs drive external behavior has received 

attention from scholars such as Ned Lebow and Janice Stein, 

but their insights have not been incorporated into the corpus of 

deterrence theory.15

American policy makers, scholars, and analysts have relied 

upon these two frameworks of rational action to infer the intent 

of adversaries. They clearly direct attention toward different 

aspects of the adversary’s makeup, his capabilities, and particularly the hierarchy of his goals. Unsurprisingly, they often 

provide contradictory prescriptions with regard to how to approach an adversary and what to do to influence his behavior. 

A short example of each model in action should make their differences clear.

Terrorist Objectives

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the public, the media, 

and some policy makers tended to eschew either model of rational and purposive adversary behavior in favor of an instinctual 

one, which posited that Islamic terrorists such as those in alQaeda “hate us for who we are rather than what we do.”16 Similar language was included in the 2002 National Security 

Strategy of the United States, which identified “rogue states” as 

those that “reject basic human values and hate the United 
33

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

States and everything for which it stands.”17 When one posits 

that adversary intent derives from raw emotion such as hatred 

and such emotion permeates all members and aspects of an 

adversary’s organization—be it a state or a nonstate actor—

strategic thought is likely to be bypassed in favor of brute force.

In the analytic community, however, affective models of adversary behavior have not been paramount. Indeed, the strategic intent model has been primary.18 As Max Abrahms put it,

The strategic model assumes that terrorists are motivated by 

relatively stable and consistent political goals. . . . Second, the 

strategic model assumes that terrorism is a “calculated course 

of action” and that . . . terrorist groups weigh their political 

options and resort to terrorism only after determining that alternative political avenues are blocked [or at least not as efficacious], . . . [and] they possess “reasonable expectations” of 

the political consequences of using terrorism based on its prior 

record of coercive effectiveness.19

The strategic intent model also applies to suicide terrorism, 

for which motives have often been identified as religious fanaticism or insanity. As Bob Pape argues, “What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and 

strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their 

homeland.”20

This has been reflected in policy framing as well. As Pres. 

George W. Bush put it in his address to Congress on 20 September 2001, “Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. 

But its goal is not making money, its goal is remaking the world 

and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere. . . . These 

terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a 

way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows 

fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. 

They stand against us because we stand in their way.”21

Prescriptions that are derived from the strategic intent framework suggest that terrorists can be deterred by increasing the 

difficulty of their efforts to execute their strategy or by imposing costs on the groups involved through sanctions or other 

forms of punishment. These prescriptions also suggest that 

terrorists can be placated by concessions that allow them to 

achieve many of their objectives without resorting to violence.22
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

34

As Abrahms puts it, these “are designed to reduce terrorism by 

divesting it of its political utility.”23 Over time, these analysts 

argue, as the terrorists’ strategy of coercion is both frustrated 

tactically and successful strategically, they will moderate their 

behavior and be co-opted into the normal political processes of 

the state—be it their own, as happened with the Palestinian 

Liberation Organization, or that of their former adversary, as 

happened with the Irish Republican Army.

On the other hand, the internal logic model has also been 

utilized to explain terrorism. Paul Davis and Brian Jenkins have 

argued that “deterrence [of terrorist groups] is . . . difficult because for many of the people involved, terrorism is a way of life. 

. . . Terrorism provides ‘positives’—notably status, power, recruits, and psychological rewards.”24 Mia Bloom argues that 

“under conditions of mounting public support, [suicide] bombings have become a method of recruitment for militant Islamic 

organizations within the Palestinian community. They serve at 

one and the same time to attack the hated enemy (Israel) and to 

give legitimacy to outlier militant groups who compete with the 

Palestinian Authority for leadership of the community.”25 Bloom 

further argues that as the intifada continued and Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority lost its monopoly over the legitimate 

use of force—legitimate in the eyes of the Palestinian people—

“groups competed and outbid each other with more spectacular 

bombing operations and competition over claiming responsibility. At the same time, the operations whipped up nationalist 

fervor and swelled the ranks of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, who 

used the bombings, in conjunction with the provision of social 

services, to win the hearts and minds of the Palestinians.”26

The use of terror operations in the competition among these 

groups for leadership of the movement and recruitment and 

retention of members is to the detriment of their strategic 

cause, argues Bloom,27 and has left Palestinians worse off than 

they were before the suicide bombing campaigns began. Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter argue, as does Abrahms, that 

Palestinian terrorists prefer to continue their activities in spite 

of the possibility of achieving their political goals through less 

violent means—or even as a result of successful coercion.28

They therefore act as spoilers to any political settlement and 

perpetuate the conflict that provides their raison d'être. The 
35

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

violence is not a means to a political end vis-à-vis their adversary but, instead, a means to achieve a sense of honor, group 

worth, and identity.29 Indeed, the effects of violence in these 

areas have even been termed a “public good” for the group by 

one terrorism analyst.30

The internal logic framework suggests that the internal dynamics of terrorist groups drive their activities, not the potential attainment of a strategic goal. This suggests that influencing their behavior will be difficult absent destruction of the 

terrorist groups and those that support them. Indeed, Abrahms 

argues that “strategies to dry up demand for terrorism by minimizing its political utility are misguided and hence unlikely to 

work.”31 The October 2002 National Security Strategy of the 

United States argued that “traditional concepts of deterrence 

will not work against a terrorist enemy.”32 Because of this, 

President Bush argued that “our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary.”33 To many, this leaves brute 

force to eliminate the adversary as the only effective policy.34 As 

Ralph Peters put it, “Until a better methodology is discovered, 

killing is a good interim solution.”35

Prescriptive Problems

The strategic intent model and the internal logic model of 

adversary intent produce very different pictures of what motivates the adversary. Does he desire to influence external actors 

so as to achieve a political outcome vis-à-vis that actor? Or 

does he desire to bolster the solidarity of his group in the face 

of centripetal forces? Is the outcome of the action that we wish 

to deter of primary or secondary importance to the adversary? 

Making this determination is important when deciding whether 

to attempt to deter the adversary’s actions or to take another 

approach, such as preemptive brute force or actions to increase 

or decrease the adversary’s feelings of insecurity.

Deterrence is a strategy to pursue when one judges that the 

adversary’s resort to arms is motivated primarily by strategic 

goals. Given that it is directed toward external actors in such 

situations, identification of the adversary’s goal is a matter of 

routine. Focusing deterrent demands toward that objective—
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

36

“don’t do that”—places the adversary in a decision situation in 

which he can either comply with what has been demanded of 

him or defy those demands and risk the implementation of the 

deterrer’s threatened sanction. As the DO JOC rightly suggests, 

denying the adversary the potential benefits of the actions that 

he intends to take or imposing costs that reduce the net utility 

of the action are the two ideal ways of reducing the likelihood 

that the adversary will choose to act. The objective of this deterrent threat is to reduce the expected value of “doing that” to 

a point that the consequences of compliance are of greater 

value. As the DO JOC explains, “Adversaries weigh the perceived benefits and costs of a given course of action in the context of their perceived consequences of restraint or inaction. 

Thus deterrence can fail even when the adversary perceives the 

costs of acting as outweighing the benefits of acting if he believes the costs of inaction are even higher still” (emphasis 

added).36 When the adversary is basing his choice upon these 

considerations, deterrence is correctly targeted and has a 

chance of success.

Deterrence may not be the strategy to pursue if the adversary’s external behavior is directed toward enhancing internal 

cohesion or the power of the leadership. Providing overt signs 

of an external threat is precisely the outcome desired by the 

adversary’s leadership. This external threat allows the leaders 

to take actions to increase their support, silence moderates or 

critics, mobilize resources that might otherwise be unavailable, 

and provide the opportunity for common identities to be forged 

or reinforced.

If the adversary is motivated by internal logic, is it really a 

no-win situation for the deterrer? Or are there alternatives to 

issuing an immediate deterrent threat directed against the adversary’s intended external action or doing nothing and letting 

the adversary’s provocation pass unanswered? There are a 

number of options.

First, one can still attempt to deter the adversary directly 

through passive measures that deny him the opportunity to 

carry out his aggressive intent and also deny him the visible 

indicators of hostility that he seeks to engender. A number of 

means can be used to do this. One denial measure is to harden 

soft targets—be they intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) 
37

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

silos or police stations—through passive point defenses. These 

defenses make it less likely that spectacular successes can be 

had against these targets, and given their passivity—barriers, 

reinforced concrete, and so on—they deprive the deterrer of the 

ability to overreact and justify the adversary’s actions.37 Passive area defenses can also be used to deny the adversary the 

interaction he needs with the deterrer to achieve his internal 

goals. Possibilities in this realm include measures such as the 

fence that Israel erected around Palestinian areas, which has 

decreased suicide attacks substantially since its completion,38

or diplomatic isolation such as that imposed upon the People’s 

Republic of China, Cuba, and Iran after their revolutions. A 

potential drawback to passive area defenses is that they themselves might become symbols of implacable and unyielding 

hostility that the adversary can use repeatedly to rally its domestic constituents.39

Second, one can attempt to deter the adversary indirectly—

by directing the deterrent threat toward the members of the 

group that the leadership is attempting to bolster or recruit 

from. The adversary’s external challenge is designed to attract 

these followers, and a deterrent threat that is directed toward 

the group’s members and potential members may cleave them 

away by highlighting personal over group interests.40 All groups 

engaged in conflict who are attempting to recruit or retain 

members ask these people to put aside their personal interests 

for the benefit of the group’s cause, even though their individual contributions will be marginal (in most cases—suicide terrorism is designed to overcome this recruitment challenge). 

“Thus rebels confront the possibility of disastrous private costs 

and uncertain public benefits. . . . Unless the collective action 

problem is somehow overcome, rational people will never 

rebel—rebellions, that is, require irrationality.”41 Israel has 

pursued such a deterrent policy by threatening to destroy the 

family homes of young Palestinians who were involved in attacks. Such an option would be an attempt to deny the adversary leadership the domestic benefits of his intended action by 

threatening to punish individual members of the group.

Third, one can pursue a similar goal through inducements to 

members of the adversary’s constituency rather than through 

coercion. Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategies, such as those 
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

38

discussed in Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, work 

on this principle: “The real battle is for civilian support for, or 

acquiescence to, the counterinsurgents and host nation government. The population waits to be convinced. Who will help 

them more, hurt them less, stay the longest, and earn their 

trust?”42 Indeed, the Anbar Awakening in Iraq is quite a vivid 

example of using inducements to cleave potential supporters 

away from an adversary—in this case al-Qaeda in Iraq.43

Fourth, one can attempt to “encourage adversary restraint,” 

as the DO JOC puts it, by “try[ing] to communicate . . . benign 

intentions . . . to reduce the fear, misunderstanding, and insecurity that are often responsible for unintended escalation to 

war.”44 Engaging in such persuasion is an alternative to influence through coercion or inducement. It involves altering the 

considerations by which compliance and defiance are evaluated. The persuader does not promise or threaten action but 

convinces the adversary to see the situation in such a way that 

he realizes it is in his own interests to act differently. This can 

be done by highlighting—without altering—costs or benefits related to complying with or defying the persuader’s demands or 

by offering new alternatives that allow the adversary to achieve 

his goals in ways that do not harm the persuader’s interests. 

These persuasion strategies treat the definition of the problem 

facing the adversary—in this case increasing cohesion, recruitment, or retention of members—as given or settled. Another 

avenue of persuasion requires understanding the basis upon 

which the target frames the issue.45 Persuasion is generally 

seen as a fruitless option, particularly when dealing with an 

adversary whose primary concerns are internally generated, although this judgment may have more to do with the willingness to engage the adversary in terms that provide legitimacy 

than with an objective assessment of the chances for success.

Fifth, one can forgo influence altogether and use brute force 

against the adversary to prevent him from undertaking action.46

This can take the form of disarming the adversary to deny him 

the capability to pursue the action that he intends or decapitating the adversary so as to disrupt his ability to act. Either action 

risks increasing the cohesion of the adversary by justifying his 

hostility toward the deterrer and/or creating a martyr of the 
39

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

leadership. Decapitation of the leadership could also disrupt 

the internal cohesion of the adversary to some degree.47

Overall, if it is determined that an adversary decision maker 

is motivated by the internal logic of his group’s situation, deterrence may work—but not in the manner prescribed in the DO 

JOC. Rather, deterrent demands and other influence attempts 

should be directed at the primary objectives of the adversary in 

these situations: the internal constituencies whose support he 

hopes to rally by his external actions. Clearly, measures should 

also be taken to mitigate the impact of those actions, since 

nothing fails like failure. But mere signals of hostility directed 

toward the group (or nation) as a whole in an attempt to deter 

the unwanted action could provide the adversary leader precisely what he wants: an external enemy that his people can 

oppose in unity.

Conclusion

How should policy makers approach divining the intentions 

of adversaries who may take actions that the United States 

wishes to deter? Although deterrence formed the core mission 

of the American military throughout the Cold War,48 adversary 

intent was based upon capabilities analysis married to worstcase scenarios of what the adversary could accomplish. Whether 

deterrence would succeed in general or in any particular case 

was likewise inferred to be a function of American capabilities 

and willingness to use them in the event that deterrence failed. 

What would happen if deterrence succeeded and the adversary’s intent was frustrated was rarely considered.

The DO JOC rectified a basic problem in previous deterrence 

thinking by recognizing that an adversary has a choice between 

complying with a demand to refrain from action and defying 

that demand—and that the adversary will consider the expected value of each of these options. No longer is “restraint” 

considered to be an option that is outside of the deterrence calculus for the adversary or the deterrer. This has opened significant doors to making the deterrence planning and assessment processes used by the US military, from Strategic 

Command (STRATCOM) to the combatant commands (COCOM), much more sophisticated and, we hope, effective.
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

40

Getting the basic framework correct has led to the next issue: determining how much the adversary desires to undertake 

particular actions, those the United States would prefer that 

the adversary not undertake, and others that might provide 

less offensive alternatives. This requires assessing adversary 

intent. Regrettably, there is no set process or framework for 

undertaking this necessary analysis. JP 2-0, Joint Intelligence, 

merely exhorts intelligence analysts to “take risks” to “predict” 

adversary intent. Intelligence officers, uniformed and civilian, 

have indicated that producing such analyses is considered 

more of an art than a science and that no processes have been 

established; rather, intelligence analysts are left to develop 

their own methods to produce their analytic products. Hoping 

that particular analysts in key positions are da Vincis or 

Michelangelos is simply unacceptable. Military staffs excel at 

planning and use set processes to yield acceptable and improvable products. Such a process needs to be established to infer 

adversary intent on a continuous basis so that a usable product is available to assist in routine planning or in the event of 

a crisis.

Such a process should begin with a skeleton framework that 

focuses on producing at least two narratives of adversary behavior: a strategic intent model and an internal logic model. As 

I have discussed in the preceding sections, these two frameworks have provided the basis for rival interpretations of adversary behavior such as that of the Soviet Union during the Cold 

War and terrorist organizations today. They have also provided 

alternative prescriptions for American behavior. Their explicit use 

would allow debate and discussion in the intent-assessment 

process that could inform a commander or political leader 

about the issues, foreign and domestic, that are pressing on 

the adversary’s leadership, provide his or her planning staff the 

basis for recommending whether deterrence or some other 

strategy is wise in the present circumstances, and also provide 

a basis upon which to assess the likelihood of success. Developing an intent-assessment process would also help to operationalize and institutionalize the Department of Defense’s current concerns with cultural competency and provide the basis 

for the personnel system to reward those officers who excel in 

this particularly useful but heretofore neglected area of profes-
41

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

sional expertise. Thus many goods would follow from a more 

coherent and systematic process of assessing adversary intent.

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. US Strategic Command, DO JOC, 8. 

2. Morgan, Deterrence Now, 30.

3. Wohlstetter, “Cuba and Pearl Harbor,” 691.

4. Simon, Administrative Behavior, 3rd ed., xxix.

5. Ibid., 4th ed., 119. 

6. Allison, Essence of Decision, 35.

7. Ibid., 36–37.

8. For the relations among these forms of influence, see Joint Forces Command, Strategic Communication Joint Integrating Concept, 101–3.

9. Freedman, “Strategic Coercion,” xx.

10. Most empirical studies of deterrence exclude domestic-level independent variables from their analysis. See Schaub, Deterrence, Compellence, and 

Rational Decision Making.

11. Levy, “Diversionary Theory of War,” 259.

12. Lebow, Between Peace and War, 66–69.

13. For an overly abstract discussion of these variables, see Bueno de 

Mesquita, Logic of Political Survival.

14. For a recent study, see Brulé, “Congress, Presidential Approval, and 

U.S. Dispute Initiation.”

15. Rather, their work is seen as providing an alternative to deterrence 

theory. See Lebow and Stein, “Beyond Deterrence”; Lebow and Stein, “Rational Deterrence Theory”; Huth and Russett, “Testing Deterrence Theory”; and 

Lebow and Stein, “Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable.”

16. Hanson, “Islamicists Hate Us for Who We Are, Not What We Do,” 1.

17. National Security Strategy, 15.

18. Early work includes Crenshaw, “Logic of Terrorism”; and Schelling, 

“What Purpose Can ‘International Terrorism’ Serve?”

19. Abrahms, “What Terrorists Really Want,” 80–81.

20. Pape, Dying to Win, 4. 

21. Bush, Address to Congress, 20 September 2001.

22. Byman, “Decision to Begin Talks with Terrorists”; and Neumann, “Negotiating with Terrorists.” Jones and Libicki found that 43 percent of those 

terrorist groups that ceased to exist between 1968 and 2006 did so because 

their goals were accommodated by political authorities. See Jones and Libicki, 

How Terrorist Groups End.

23. Abrahms, “What Terrorists Really Want,” 103.

24. Davis and Jenkins, Deterrence and Influence in Counterterrorism, 5.

25. Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing,” 61.
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

42

26. Ibid., 71.

27. Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing,” 71.

28. Kydd and Walter, “Sabotaging the Peace”; and Abrahms, “What Terrorists Really Want.”

29. Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing,” 74.

30. Argo, “Banality of Evil,” cited in Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing,” 13. 

31. Abrahms, “What Terrorists Really Want,” 103.

32. National Security Strategy, 15.

33. Bush, graduation speech.

34. Alexander, “International Relations Theory Meets World Politics,” 19.

35. Peters, “Thou Shalt Kill,” 19.

36. US Strategic Command, DO JOC, 26–27.

37. This is an application of Schelling’s art of the commitment. See 

Schelling, Strategy of Conflict, 21–52.

38. Byman, “Do Targeted Killings Work?” 105–6.

39. Kalman, “Israeli Fence Puts ‘Cage’ on Villagers.”

40. Tolbert, Crony Attack; and Lichbach, Rebel’s Dilemma. On the other 

hand, Jerrold Post argues that “once in the group, though, the power of 

group dynamics is immense, continually confirming the power of the group’s 

organizing ideology and reinforcing the member’s dedication to the cause.” 

See Post, “Deterrence in an Age of Asymmetric Rivals,” 171.

41. Lichbach, Rebel’s Dilemma, 7.

42. Sewall, “Introduction to the University of Chicago Press Edition,” xxv.

43. A good account can be found in Ricks, Gamble, 61–72. For an analysis 

see Koloski and Kolasheski, “Thickening the Lines.”

44. Lebow and Stein, “Beyond Deterrence,” 40.

45. There are generally three such bases: consequentialism, authority, 

and principles. Consequentialism is the easiest basis on which to operate, as 

the adversary is considering outcomes, and these are all potential as opposed 

to actual. They can therefore be altered by shifting the type of problem to be 

solved and hence the solution set from which it is appropriate to consider 

options. Authority-based frames are more difficult to affect because they are 

given to the adversary by another party, one to which the adversary has previously ceded decision authority. Thus that entity is a better target to attempt 

to influence. But another approach is to provide the adversary with a different authority than that to which he has ceded the decision—one that conflicts with the current authority frame—and make the case that he should 

switch. Finally, frames based upon principle are likewise difficult to affect, 

although the mechanism is similar: find a principle to which the adversary 

adheres and make the case that it applies more than the principle that provided the basis for defiance.

46. Jones and Libicki find that only 7 percent of terrorist groups that 

“ended” in their sample of 268 such groups were defeated by military force. 

“Militaries tended to be most effective when used against terrorist groups 

engaged in an insurgency in which the groups were large, well armed, and 

well organized. Insurgent groups have been among the most capable and 
43

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

lethal terrorist groups, and military force has usually been a necessary component in such cases. Against most terrorist groups, however, military force 

is usually too blunt an instrument.” See Jones and Libicki, How Terrorist 

Groups End, xiii–xiv.

47. In “Targeting the Leadership of Terrorist and Insurgent Movements,” 

Langdon, Sarapu, and Wells found that killing the leader of a nonstate movement led to the disbanding or moderation of the movement in 61 percent of 

the cases that they examined (66, table 2).

48. Indeed, as Bernard Brodie famously put it, “Thus far the chief purpose 

of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief 

purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose.” 

See Brodie, “Implications for Military Policy,” 76.

Bibliography

Abrahms, Max. “What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives 

and Counterterrorism Strategy.” International Security 32, 

no. 4 (Spring 2008): 78–105.

Alexander, Gerard. “International Relations Theory Meets World 

Politics: The Neoconservative vs. Realism Debate.” In Understanding the Bush Doctrine: Psychology and Strategy in an 

Age of Terrorism, edited by Stanley A. Renshon and Peter 

Suedfeld. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Allison, Graham T. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban 

Missile Crisis. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971.

Argo, Nichole. “The Banality of Evil: Understanding Today’s 

Human Bombs.” Unpublished policy paper, Preventive Defense Project. Stanford University, 2003.

Bloom, Mia M. “Palestinian Suicide Bombing, Public Support, 

Market Share, and Outbidding.” Political Science Quarterly

119, no. 1 (2004): 61–88.

Brodie, Bernard. “Implications for Military Policy.” In The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order, edited by Bernard Brodie. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1946.

Brulé, David J. “Congress, Presidential Approval, and U.S. Dispute Initiation.” Foreign Policy Analysis 4, no. 4 (October 

2008): 349–70.

Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow. The Logic of Political Survival. 

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

44

Bush, Pres. George W. Address to a joint session of Congress, 20 

September 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20

/gen.bush.transcript/ (accessed 25 June 2009).

———. Graduation speech. US Military Academy, West Point, 

NY, 1 June 2002. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives

.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html (accessed 3 

June 2009).

Byman, Daniel. “The Decision to Begin Talks with Terrorists: 

Lessons for Policymakers.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism

29, no. 6 (June 2006): 403–14.

———. “Do Targeted Killings Work?” Foreign Affairs 85, no. 2 

(March/April 2006): 95–112.

Crenshaw, Martha. “The Logic of Terrorism: Behavior as a 

Product of Strategic Choice.” In Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, edited by 

Walter Reich. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Davis, Paul K., and Brian Michael Jenkins. Deterrence and Influence in Counterterrorism: A Component in the War on al 

Qaeda. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002.

Faria, João Ricardo, and Daniel G. Arce M. “Terror Support 

and Recruitment.” Defence and Peace Economics 16, no. 4 

(August 2005): 263–73.

Freedman, Lawrence. “Strategic Coercion.” In Strategic Coercion: Concepts and Cases, edited by Lawrence Freedman. 

New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Hanson, Victor Davis. “Islamicists Hate Us for Who We Are, Not 

What We Do.” Jewish World Review, 13 January 2005. http://

www.jewishworldreview.com/0105/hanson2005_01_13.php3 

(accessed 24 May 2009).

Huth, Paul, and Bruce M. Russett. “Testing Deterrence Theory: 

Rigor Makes a Difference.” World Politics 42, no. 4 (July 

1990): 466–501.

Joint Forces Command. Strategic Communication Joint Integrating Concept. Version 0.5, 25 April 2008.

Jones, Seth G., and Martin C. Libicki. How Terrorist Groups 

End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida. Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND, 2008.

Kalman, Matthew. “Israeli Fence Puts ‘Cage’ on Villagers: More 

Palestinians Scrambling to Keep Barrier from Going Up.” San 

Francisco Chronicle, 9 March 2004. http://www.sfgate.com
45

GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/09

/MNGIP5H0IL1.DTL (accessed 1 June 2009).

Koloski, Andrew W., and John S. Kolasheski. “Thickening the 

Lines: Sons of Iraq, a Combat Multiplier.” Military Review 

89, no. 1 (January–February 2009): 41–53.

Kydd, Andrew, and Barbara F. Walter. “Sabotaging the Peace: 

The Politics of Extremist Violence.” International Organization 56, no. 2 (Spring 2002): 263–96.

Langdon, Lisa, Alexander J. Sarapu, and Matthew Wells. “Targeting the Leadership of Terrorist and Insurgent Movements: Historical Lessons for Contemporary Policy Makers.” 

Journal of Public and International Affairs 15 (Spring 2004): 

59–78.

Lebow, Richard Ned. Between Peace and War: The Nature of 

International Crisis. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins 

University Press, 1981.

Lebow, Richard Ned, and Janice Gross Stein. “Beyond Deterrence.” Journal of Social Issues 43, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 5–71.

———. “Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable.” World 

Politics 42, no. 3 (April 1990): 336–69.

———. “Rational Deterrence Theory: I Think, Therefore I Deter.” 

World Politics 41, no. 2 (January 1989): 208–24. 

Levy, Jack S. “The Diversionary Theory of War: A Critique.” In 

Handbook of War Studies, edited by Manus I. Midlarsky, 

259–87. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989.

Lichbach, Mark Irving. The Rebel’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor, MI: 

University of Michigan Press, 1998. 

Morgan, Patrick. Deterrence Now. Cambridge Studies in International Relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 16 June 2003.

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. 

Washington, DC: White House, October 2002.

Neumann, Peter R. “Negotiating with Terrorists.” Foreign Affairs

86, no. 1 (January–February 2007): 128–38.

Pape, Robert A. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House, 2005.

Peters, Ralph. “Thou Shalt Kill.” Harper’s Magazine, January 

2005, 19.

Post, Jerrold M. “Deterrence in an Age of Asymmetric Rivals.” 

In Understanding the Bush Doctrine: Psychology and Strategy 
GAUGING THE INTENT OF NATION-STATES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

46

in an Age of Terrorism, edited by Stanley A. Renshon and 

Peter Suedfeld. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Ricks, Thomas. The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the 

American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008. New York: 

Penguin Press, 2009.

Schaub, Gary, Jr. “Deterrence, Compellence, and Rational Decision Making.” PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2003.

Schelling, Thomas C. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: 

Harvard University Press, 1960.

———. “What Purpose Can ‘International Terrorism’ Serve?” In 

Violence, Terrorism, and Justice, edited by R. G. Frey and 

Christopher W. Morris. New York: Cambridge University 

Press, 1991.

Sewall, Sarah. “Introduction to the University of Chicago Press 

Edition: A Radical Field Manual.” In The US Army/Marine 

Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Chicago: University 

of Chicago Press, 2007.

Simon, Herbert A. Administrative Behavior: A Study of DecisionMaking Process in Administrative Organization. 3rd and 4th 

eds. New York: Free Press, 1976 and 1997. Originally published 1945.

Tolbert, Julian. Crony Attack: Strategic Attack’s Silver Bullet?

Maxwell AFB, AL: School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2003.

US Strategic Command. Deterrence Operations Joint Operating 

Concept (DO JOC). Version 2.0, December 2006. http://oai

.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&id

entifier=ADA490279.

Wohlstetter, Roberta. “Cuba and Pearl Harbor: Hindsight and 

Foresight.” Foreign Affairs 43, no. 4 (July 1965): 691–707.
47

Chapter 4

From Observation to Action

Redefining Winning and 

Sovereignty for the Information Age

CAPT John W. Bodnar, USNR, Retired, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)

The process of developing models for intelligence analysis 

usually follows the simple six-question formula we all learned 

in high school. Who, what, when, and where are the bases 

upon which we then deduce how and why. As a defense community we customarily focus on how—capability and opportunity—rather than why—intent. Accordingly, we should not be 

surprised when the all-important question what indicates a 

state actor’s real intent? is difficult to assess when we leave the 

question why as a mere add-on to our collection, reporting, 

and analysis.1

Abstract: The transition from the industrial age to the information age requires a new way of thinking about adversaries and the international system. Instead of a bipolar 

world where security is defined as a win or lose situation, 

a multipolar world comes in many shades of gray that allow for win-win outcomes between adversaries. Instead of 

using industrial-age Newtonian and Clausewitzian physical models that focus on capability, new models are required to incorporate intent. If we (1) apply OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loops, (2) redefine winning, (3) 

redefine sovereignty, and (4) think in terms of Mahanian 

win-win policies, we can begin to build the informationage analytical models needed to understand intent.
FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

48

I suggest that we need to start our thinking with why and 

then build analytical methods and tools that can answer the 

other five questions in support of deducing why. Scientists assume that entities do what they do because of what they are 

while engineers and biologists assume that entities are what 

they are because of what they do. On the one hand, physical 

systems (such as hurricanes or tsunamis) operate without intent. On the other hand, engineering systems (such as torpedoes or ballistic missiles) are built for a purpose, and biological 

systems always operate with intent. A biological system strives 

to answer (either explicitly as in human thinking or implicitly 

as in natural selection) the following questions: What do I need 

to do to survive? What do I need to do to win (e.g., collect energy 

to build, work, and reproduce)? The organisms, species, and 

organizations that do those things best survive, live long, and 

prosper; the ones that do not, go extinct.

Therefore, I start with a simple intent model: Col John Boyd’s 

decision cycle or OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop.2 This 

simple model of organismal and organizational action is built 

on the premise that observations of the environment are the 

inputs to drive actions and decisions are required so that those 

actions can achieve the intent—to survive and win (described 

in greater detail elsewhere).3 Indeed, we need to reexamine the 

core “intent” of every biological entity by starting with the essential processes that all living systems have evolved to insure 

winning and survival. Before we can adequately understand 

any nation’s or organization’s intent and how that might become a threat, we need to ask, how does it define survival? and 

how does it define winning? We also need to reexamine our own 

definitions, especially in light of the huge differences in international politics inherent in the transition from an industrial-age bipolar world to a multipolar community in the information age.

From Winning Two-Player, Zero-Sum Games to 

Winning Multiplayer, Non-Zero-Sum Games

US foreign policy is “scientific” in that it is based on the rules 

of Newtonian science—as adapted to statecraft by Clausewitz.4
49

FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

Those rules, which were instrumental for preeminence during 

the industrial age, were based on the assumption that the world 

is continuous (can be subdivided infinitely as real numbers) 

and single-valued (having only a single solution or eigenvalue 

for any function), and they directly led to modeling the world as 

a two-player, zero-sum game. Since the end of the Cold War, this 

model has become outdated and must be replaced by one that 

is a multiplayer, non-zero-sum game. Such a change in basic 

assumptions for modeling US interactions in a multiplayer 

world will ultimately allow the United States to think outside 

the old industrial-age box and instead to think in a larger, new 

box in which the primary goal will be a win-win policy.

US Policy in Two-Player, Zero-Sum Games

The two-player, zero-sum game has been the basis for Western military-political thinking since Clausewitz. Clausewitz 

found that, just as in chess or checkers, there is a single winning strategy in a zero-sum game—the total annihilation of the 

other player. This strategy was first utilized by Generals Grant 

and Sherman against Confederate forces during the Civil War 

and has been successful in other cases where the United States 

could approximate the world situation as a two-player, zerosum conflict: Allied versus Axis powers in World Wars I and II 

and the West versus the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In all 

these cases, the United States could easily think inside the box 

(fig. 4.1A), where both players—all disciples of Clausewitz—

assumed a symmetrical win-lose and lose-win game.

As in chess or checkers, the only way to escape total annihilation for the loser in a zero-sum game is through unconditional surrender. Therefore, since Clausewitz, Western history 

has followed a pattern of matched zero-sum OODA loops where:

•  Nations disagree.

•  Nations solve their disagreement by armed conflict.

•  The fight continues until one side surrenders unconditionally (or the cost of total war leads to an armistice that 

merely postpones the unconditional fight).

•  The victor imposes conditions and assimilates the loser (or 

sets up a new government in the loser’s nation).
FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

50

The United States has been the most successful player in the 

two-player, zero-sum industrial-age world based on the symmetrical Clausewitzian strategy.

Foreign policy is relatively simple in a world where the two 

predominant players are evenly matched and think alike. To 

prevail in such an environment, one strives to have the “biggest 

stick” because the only endgame in such a world is when the 

most powerful military force imposes itself on all the other players, who are then assimilated into its sphere of influence and 

political dominance. This policy is the underlying assumption of 

current US foreign policy—an extension of “manifest destiny” 

(which has sometimes been called “white man’s burden”—a patronizing view that Westerners must raise up their supposed 

non-Western inferiors). However, in the post–Cold War world, 

this kind of strategy is beginning to unravel because strategies 

in a multiplayer environment become asymmetric.

US Failures in Multiplayer, Non-Zero-Sum Games

US policy is at loose ends because it continues to play inside 

the box of the two-player, zero-sum game while the rest of the 

world is playing outside the box using multiplayer, non-zerosum strategies. In this world, the United States cannot hope to 

find a stable endgame because its definitions of winning and 

A US THEM Industrial Age World

US Foreign Policy WIN

WIN

LOSE

Zero-Sum Game LOSE Expected Clausewitzian Counter-Policy

B US THEM The World Today

US Foreign Policy

WIN

WIN

WIN

WIN

LOSE

LOSE

LOSE LOSE

Zero-Sum Game

Non-Zero-Sum Game

Expected “Axis of Evil” Counter-Policy

Actual “Axis of Evil” Counter-Policy

Figure 4.1. Current US foreign policy is based on an industrial-age, Clausewitzian, two-player, zero-sum game model (A), which is no longer viable in an 

information-age, multiplayer, non-zero-sum environment (B).
51

FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

losing are different from those of the other players and because 

it has continually ignored the additional strategies available in 

the non-zero-sum game (fig. 4.1B). Therefore, the United States 

is continually frustrated because the actions it takes are countered with unexpected out-of-the-box reactions that appear totally illogical within the framework of US industrial-age thinking. In this environment, small nations can exploit the 

dichotomy between two contradictory aspects of US foreign 

policy: US isolationism, in which the United States turns its 

back on any outside entanglements unless threatened, and US 

world involvement, in which the United States applies the 

Clausewitzian policy.

A successful strategy based on “playing chicken” with the 

United States outside the zero-sum-game box was first employed by Fidel Castro and Communist Cuba starting with the 

Cuban missile crisis. The strategy depends on the target state 

defining winning as survival and realizing the way to insure 

regime survival is a policy of “Yankee, go home!”—go away and 

leave us alone to determine our own policy inside our own sovereign borders. The United States has expected that starting 

diplomatic overtures based on regime change will cause the 

“underdog” to back down or surrender rather than fight, not 

realizing that the underdog, like every other biological entity, 

wants to win but wants more to survive. This initial overture 

calling for regime change to open diplomatic relations is like 

starting a meeting by saying, “Good morning, I’ve come today 

to plan your funeral.” The Cuban underdog-versus-overdog rationale is a mismatch of interacting zero-sum and non-zerosum OODA loops. This scenario, which subsequently has been 

used successfully by Vietnam, Somalia, and now North Korea, 

goes as described below.

The United States has a difference of policy with the target 

state and calls for regime change. The target state responds by 

doing nothing—staying within its own borders and not threatening anyone—and indicates that it will not take any action 

unless attacked. This is an attempt to prevail on US isolationism to craft a win-win scenario, that is, the target nation wins 

by being free of US influence while the United States wins by 

not being threatened.
FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

52

The United States then reacts in its world involvement mode 

and misinterprets the target state’s response as a lose-win 

strategy. The United States reiterates its win-lose policy and 

indicates that nonsurrender by the target state will only lead to 

a US military (or economic) victory and regime change—total 

annihilation of the target state’s current government.

The target state then amplifies that it will continue to do 

nothing outside its borders and will not threaten anyone—unless attacked. This changes the target nation’s policy to an apparent lose-lose scenario because it courts US military action.

The United States misinterprets the new lose-lose scenario as 

totally irrational because such a strategy is “not allowed” within 

the zero-sum box. It interprets the new strategy as a lose-win 

counterpolicy but cannot understand how the target nation 

could be so stupid as to believe it could defeat the United States.

At this point, the United States has three options in its zerosum thinking:

1. Do nothing. This is a win-win scenario under a US foreign 

policy of isolationism. However, this becomes a lose-win 

scenario under a US policy of world involvement because 

failure to dominate the other player in a zero-sum game is 

a “lose” by Clausewitz’s definition. In either case, it is a 

“win” for the target nation.

2. Use low-level military force against the target nation and 

hope that will cause the target nation regime to fail. The 

Bay of Pigs invasion, initial actions in Vietnam, and deployment of troops in Somalia were examples of this 

strategy.

3. Use massive military force against the target nation to topple its regime. The escalated Vietnam War, Desert Storm, 

and the initial strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq fit this 

category.

The target nation will do everything it can to divert the conflict back to its perceived win-win strategy—“if you leave me 

alone, I’ll leave you alone.” For this reason scenario one above 

is always acceptable to the target nation—but rarely to the 

United States.
53

FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

For scenarios two and three, the target nation still can win if it 

can make the cost of those scenarios high enough that US isolationism trumps world involvement and the United States goes 

home—or at least leaves the current regime in power. The United 

States continually misinterprets the target nation’s actions at this 

step since the United States invariably interprets a threat of military action by the target nation as a doomed attempt at a lose-win 

strategy rather than understanding that causing the United 

States to go away without toppling the target nation regime—no 

matter the cost—is considered a win by the target nation.

Cuba was the first to win against the United States in the nonzero-sum game at the end of the industrial age. And several subsequent showdowns have followed the same pattern (for example, Vietnam, Beirut Marine barracks attack, Somalia). By 

thinking in a win-lose and lose-win box, the United States has 

repeatedly failed to recognize that an adversary’s best chance 

against the United States in any conflict is to go for a lose-lose 

strategy, which can be converted into a win-win outcome if that 

nation can force the United States out of its world involvement 

mode and back into its isolationist mode. The most frustrating 

part of this strategy is that US administrations find themselves 

faced with the possibility that they can win only by losing—which 

is unacceptable within the zero-sum game.

Clearly, new ways of thinking, which require a total reexamination of US strategy, are needed for the information age. 

What constitutes a win and a loss in military-political policy? 

How can we balance the dichotomy of the traditional US policy 

of isolationism and the new policy of world involvement? Will 

the US world involvement policy remain a variation on manifest 

destiny and white man’s burden, or can the United States come 

up with a new international policy that is not seen by the rest 

of the world as a revival or extension of these policies?

From Sovereignty in a Bipolar World to 

Sovereignty in a Multinational Community

Inherent in any society or community is the dichotomy between individual freedom and the common good. That dichotomy can be addressed in many ways, but the two extremes 
FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

54

are absolute individual freedom (which equals anarchy) and 

absolute order (which equals totalitarianism). The US Constitution recognizes that there must be a dynamic balance of 

both and provides mechanisms to insure the best balance. As 

we enter the information age, the world is forming a global 

community whose challenge is to address the question of freedom versus order in a society of individual nations the way 

the US Constitution addresses freedom versus order for individual citizens, communities, and states. In the past, national 

sovereignty has implied total freedom of action completely independent of the actions of other nations and total freedom 

from outside interference into affairs within sovereign borders. Therefore, as the world moves toward an interdependent 

global community, national policy must begin to reflect the 

information revolution: one nation’s actions are not totally independent of other nations, and the concept of national sovereignty is changing dramatically.

Balancing Freedom and Order

The United States has always acted as an individual nation, 

but as a world community evolves, the United States must recognize the dichotomies inherent in being a member of any community. With this in mind, I present a new set of problems the 

United States is facing for the first time in history, caused by 

the emerging global community. National policies based on traditional definitions of national sovereignty, which worked very 

well in the past, could lead to disaster in the next few decades. 

Every society or community must make choices on a number of 

basic issues between the two extremes of total freedom and 

total order.

TOTAL FREEDOM vs. CHECKS AND 

BALANCES

vs. TOTAL ORDER

Instability vs. Dynamic Stability vs. Stability

Anarchy vs. Constitutional Law vs. Totalitarianism

Utopia vs. US, United Kingdom, Francevs. Nazi Germany, USSR

al-Qaeda, initial efforts in Iraq 

and Afghanistan

vs. Iraq under Saddam, North Korea

Independence vs. Interdependence

Rights (owned by individual) vs. Privileges (owned by state)

Information access vs. Information control
55

FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

The strength of a constitutional government is in its balance 

between the two extremes: protecting individual rights to the 

maximum extent possible while still providing for the common 

good. There are many variations on the theme (for example, the 

United States, the nations of the European community, the nations of the former British Commonwealth, India, and Japan). 

The common principle is that any true constitutional government is based on a separation of powers and a tension between 

the individual and the state—leading to a dynamic stability in 

which order imposed by the constitution can evolve in a changing world through self-imposed mechanisms for amendment. 

Thus, in many ways, the stability inherent in the US Constitution is caused by the clauses within the Constitution that allow 

each generation to modify and reinterpret it but provide restraints on how much or how fast those changes can occur.

Redefining Intent the Mahanian Way

I suggest that a blueprint for the road ahead can be found in 

the teachings (fig. 4.2) of Alfred Thayer Mahan—a blueprint 

that encompasses definitions for both “winning” and “sovereignty” applicable for the multiplayer, non-zero-sum game in 

the information age (a world community) and that provides a 

basis for understanding intent for both “us” and “them.”5

Clausewitz assumes a world at war and, therefore, tells how 

to win wars. Mahan assumes that the job of the Navy is to keep 

commerce flowing. War is sometimes necessary to assure that 

happens, but the ultimate goal is “innocent passage” through 

US THEM Information-Age World

US Foreign Policy? WIN WIN

WIN

WIN LOSE

LOSE LOSE

LOSE

Non-Zero-Sum Game

Expected Mahanian Counter-Policy

Figure 4.2. The teachings of Alfred Thayer Mahan can provide a strategy to overcome 

the mismatch between US foreign policy and the information-age global community.
FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

56

all the sea-lanes across the world. By assuming that peace is 

impossible, disciples of Clausewitz do not even consider it an 

option. By assuming that conflict-free commerce is the goal, 

disciples of Mahan can maintain peace.

Clausewitz’s book was on war:

•  Inherently two-player, zero-sum game.

•  I win–you lose or you win–I lose.

•  Take out the primary objective, then move on to the next, 

considering each independently, one at a time—for example, the recent US hit list of Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan, and Iraq, with North Korea and Iran next on the list.

Mahan’s book was on sea power:

•  Inherently non-zero-sum game.

•  If I can maintain my business—keeping the seas free for 

what I want to do—it does not really matter if that allows 

you to do the same.

•  If I win, I do not care whether you win or lose. This inherently adds the win-win and lose-lose scenarios to the 

mix—for example, the British building the Commonwealth 

and building democracy in India.

The most telling of Mahan’s sea stories is about why Hannibal crossed the Alps. Because the Roman navy was so strong, 

crossing the Straits of Messina to march directly on Rome was 

not an option, so Hannibal needed to march thousands of miles 

out of his way via the Alps to get to Rome. Thus the Roman 

navy was a huge factor in Hannibal’s defeat—even though it 

never fought a battle. Mahan’s genius was to follow that thread 

through to the maritime strategy which was the basis of Pax 

Britannica for several hundred years and which, through Mahan’s teachings, has been inherited by the US Navy.6 How can 

we get the United States to stop thinking like Clausewitz and 

start thinking like Mahan?

Conclusion

Making the best decisions in any OODA loop requires an understanding of intent, both one’s own and that of the other 
57

FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

players. What you do and what you can do are enabled or limited by your culture. You can predict what the opponent will do 

if you know his culture. Knowing that will help you either destroy him or join with him to build a better world. Whether you 

choose to destroy or build is dependent on your particular 

worldview and culture—and on core values such as how you 

define “winning” and “sovereignty” and what kind of “game” 

you think you are playing.

If your cultural model of interaction is a two-player, zero-sum 

game (like Clausewitz’s), your strategy for any game is absolute, total annihilation of the opponent; if your model is a multiplayer, non-zero-sum game (like Mahan’s), your strategy is to 

find the right balance for your side to survive. Therefore, how 

you perceive the other players’ strategies is colored by your 

own assumptions. I believe it is time for the United States to 

rethink and redefine its assumptions.

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Bodnar, Warning Analysis for the Information Age, 14; and Grabo, Anticipating Surprise, 17, 164.

2. Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing.”

3. Bodnar, Warning Analysis for the Information Age; Bodnar, “Information 

Age Decision-Making”; and Bodnar, “Making Sense of Massive Data by Hypothesis Testing.” 

4. Detailed in Bodnar, Warning Analysis for the Information Age. 

5. Mahan, From Sail to Steam; and Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power 

upon History.

6. This strategy was first outlined in The Influence of Sea Power upon History and fleshed out through his later teachings.

Bibliography

Bodnar, John W. “Information Age Decision-Making: Reaffirming Marine Corps Leadership Traditions.” Marine Corps Gazette 89, no. 4 (2005): 20–24.

———. “Making Sense of Massive Data by Hypothesis Testing.” 

Presentation. 2005 International Conference on Intelligence 

Analysis, McLean, VA, 2–4 May 2005. https://analysis.mitre
FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION

58

.org/proceedings/Final_Papers_Files/124_Camera_Ready

_Paper.pdf.

———. Warning Analysis for the Information Age: Rethinking 

the Intelligence Process. Washington, DC: Joint Military Intelligence College, 2003. http://www.dia.mil/college/pubs

/pdf/3245.pdf.

Boyd, Col John R. “A Discourse on Winning and Losing.” Collection of unpublished briefing slides, August 1987. Muir S. 

Fairchild Research Information Center, Maxwell AFB, Document No. M-U 43947.

Grabo, Cynthia M. Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic 

Warning. Washington, DC: Joint Military Intelligence College’s Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, 2002.

Mahan, Alfred Thayer. From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1907.

———. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. 

5th ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1894. Reprint, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1987.
PART 2

Academic Perspective

Theory and Research in Gauging Intent

61

Chapter 5

Anthropological Reflections on 

Motive and Intent and the Strategic 

Multilayer Assessment Typology

Lawrence A. Kuznar, PhD, NSI, Inc. 

Intention implies a conscious, desired end state an individual or an organization may strive to achieve. Intentions are 

influenced by a variety of factors, from shared cultural values 

to evolutionary psychology. In this chapter, I review basic motivating factors considered by anthropologists and relate these 

to a general sociocultural typology1 currently used in Strategic 

Multilayer Assessment (SMA) efforts to structure analyses of 

human, social, cultural, and behavioral factors.2

Abstract: This paper provides a review of basic motivating 

factors recognized by anthropologists that help explain intent. Intentions are influenced by a variety of factors, from 

shared cultural values to evolutionary psychology. These 

factors are then related to a general sociocultural typology 

used in the Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) effort to 

structure analyses of human, social, cultural, and behavioral factors. Various anthropological perspectives on the 

sources of motivating factors that influence intent are explored including structuralism, interpretivism/symbolic 

anthropology, postmodernism, culture and personality, 

human behavioral ecology, and discourse analysis. Brief 

examples of how these perspectives could be used to interpret the intentions of al-Qaeda are included. While the diversity of anthropological approaches illustrates the lack of 

a unified approach to understanding intent, each approach 

provides a window on how an actor’s intent could be judged.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

62

The chapter begins with an overview of the SMA sociocultural 

typology and continues with various anthropological perspectives on the sources of motivating factors that influence intent. 

This chapter cannot provide an exhaustive discussion of all relevant perspectives, nor can it fully describe the theory and 

method of each approach. However, it can provide an overview 

of several important anthropological approaches relevant for 

assessing the intentions of individuals and organizations. The 

primary approaches covered include structuralism, interpretivism/symbolic anthropology, postmodernism, culture and personality, human behavioral ecology, and discourse analysis. In 

each case, I provide very brief examples of how these perspectives could be used to interpret the intentions of al-Qaeda.

The SMA Sociocultural Typology

The SMA sociocultural typology was developed to provide a 

generalizable typology for military and intelligence analysts 

and planners to characterize sociocultural systems. This typology is based on comparative analysis of academic sociocultural 

typologies, sociocultural typologies produced for the US military and intelligence community, and standard approaches to 

examining levers of power (diplomatic, informational, military, 

and economic) and their effects (political, military, economic, 

social, informational, and infrastructural). The typology has 

academic roots in the work of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Bronislaw 

Malinowski, Julian Steward, Edward Hall, Marvin Harris, David Wilson, and the Human Relations Area Files Outline of Cultural Materials.3

The typology is organized in a hierarchy that includes increasingly detailed levels (fig. 5.1). The levels include five fundamental 

categories (interests, capabilities, context, decision-making psychology, and language) with 10 high-level variables: interests—

(1) motivating factors, religion, and ideology, (2) social identity, 

(3) objectives; capabilities—(4) economy, technology, and other 

capabilities; context—(5) roles/life cycle, (6) demography, (7) political and social organization, (8) environmental and historical 

context and other actors; (9) decision-making psychology; and 

(10) language. Subcategories can be added as necessary. This 

typology is designed to provide a broad coverage of relevant 
63

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

sociocultural factors at sufficient detail to facilitate finer inquiries 

into the exact data required for a sociocultural analysis; it is not 

an exhaustive list of all possible sociocultural variables, and it is 

intended to be a “living document,” revised as SMA efforts grow.

From an anthropological perspective, motivating factors, religion, ideology, contextual factors, and language are the primary cultural influences on an actor’s intent and are therefore 

the focus of this chapter.

Motivating Factors, Religion, and Ideology

Many scholars assume that our intentions are derived from 

deeply held beliefs, often encoded in shared values and religious 

or other ideological belief systems. The SMA sociocultural typology captures many of these elements in the “motivating factors, 

religion, and ideology” variable. This common idea rests upon 

deep theoretical and philosophical assumptions about ideology 

and human behavior that are not resolved in the anthropological community. Major influences on the “ideology to intent 

and behavior” paradigm include philosophical structuralism, 

interpretivism/symbolic anthropology, and recent trends in post- Language DecisionMaking

INTERESTS

PSYCHOLOGY

CONTEXT

CAPABILITY

Motivating Factors, Religion

and Ideology

Interpretation

and

Expression

Environmental and

Historical Context +

Other Actors

Political and Social Organization

Social Identity Objectives

Roles/

Life Cycle Demography

Economy, Technology

and Other Capabilities

Figure 5.1. SMA sociocultural typology. (Created by author)
ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

64

modern thought. These approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive and often bear similar analytical results.

Structuralism, an approach developed in anthropology by 

Claude Lévi-Strauss, is based on the axiom that humans perceive the world in terms of binary opposites.4 These opposites 

structure human experience, which in turn reproduces these 

cognitive structures. By analyzing myths, social structures, 

and behaviors, one can reveal a deep cultural grammar that 

constitutes the structured meanings of a culture. Furthermore, 

the practitioners of culture are unaware of these deep meanings. Since these meanings structure perception and experience, they therefore provide the values upon which intentions 

would be based. From a structuralist perspective, intent would 

have to be derived from deeply seated cognitive structures and 

values that may be revealed through the analysis of discourse 

and behavior. For example, a structuralist analysis of al-Qaeda’s 

worldview would focus on its Manichean division of the world 

into good (an Islamic world according to al-Qaeda’s dictates) 

versus evil (a corrupted West).

The interpretivist/symbolic school of anthropology focuses 

on how people construct meaning through the use of symbols 

and symbolic acts. Perhaps the most influential scholar in this 

field was Clifford Geertz, who advocated “thick description,” or 

the teasing apart of cultural meanings through the interpretation of symbols and actions in a particular cultural context.5

According to this perspective, meaning cannot be discovered 

outside of its particular cultural context. The same symbols and 

actions in another context could take on very different meanings. 

Both interpretivist and structuralist approaches rely on the 

interpretation of the meanings of events, symbols, and actions, 

but interpretivist approaches privilege the context-specific construction of meaning by actors and are less (or not at all) concerned with uncovering deep, transcendent systems of meaning. 

Intent from this perspective would be judged from the context of 

cultural meanings surrounding an event. As an example, a thick 

description of the 1993 Twin Towers bombing might include the 

following themes: Islam versus the West, Third World versus 

globalizing financial institutions, and intent to increase the 

intensity of attacks against symbolic US targets.
65

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

Structuralist and interpretivist schools heavily influenced 

postmodern anthropology of the late twentieth and early twentyfirst century. Postmodernism, sometimes called poststructuralism, is in part a rejection of structuralist attempts to uncover 

deep meanings based on fundamentals in human perception. 

Postmodernists stress the idiosyncratic and context-dependent 

nature of culture, as well as the active manipulation of culture 

and symbols by individuals for political ends.6 Postmodernists 

argue that culture and meaning are so highly context dependent, and the ulterior motives of actors so permeate human 

discourse, that no event, action, or utterance can be innocently 

interpreted; therefore, these interpretations cannot provide the 

basis for generalizations about culture. Furthermore, in deconstructing a text to uncover its meaning, one uncovers so many 

layers of meaning, and one’s own interpretations are so dependent on one’s own biases, that no stable meaning is to be discovered.7 Despite the seemingly nihilistic logic of postmodern 

analysis, it has become the major interpretive framework used 

by anthropologists to discuss the meanings of people’s actions 

and analyze their intent. A postmodern analysis of Osama bin 

Laden’s 1998 declaration of war against the Americans and 

“crusaders” would highlight resistance against Western domination, the suffering of Iraqis due to Western-imposed sanctions, and the intention to attack US targets.

Cultural Context and Intent

Postmodern and interpretivist schools heavily stress cultural 

context. Other anthropological approaches also derive their 

analysis of intent and meaning from context but are based on 

more specific aspects of cultural context. Examples include the 

“culture and personality” school of thought and human behavioral ecology.

The basic argument of the culture and personality school is 

that child-rearing practices, which vary across cultures, lead 

to differing psychological development processes that result 

in different modal personality types among cultures.8 The 

SMA sociocultural typology captures these dimensions in the 

roles/life-cycle variable. A classic example of a culture and 

personality analysis is Ruth Benedict’s study of Japanese 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

66

culture, commissioned by the Office of War Information during World War II.9 Culture and personality studies, however, 

have been difficult to test scientifically, leading to controversies in how they are used. More recent research on the effects 

of child rearing on culture is more scientifically based and nuanced, but generalizations are still made with great caution.10

Intent from this perspective would be identified by observing 

how adult behavior is modeled to children and how people 

resolve challenges in the course of their psychological development. A culture and personality analysis of bin Laden’s intentions would include analysis of the difficulties he may have 

encountered as one of many sons where expectations were 

very high, the separation of the sexes among Arabic adolescents, and the importance of being socialized with shame and 

honor values in intensifying his grievance against the US and 

Saudi governments.

Human behavioral ecology approaches are based in Darwinian evolutionary theory and posit a deep underlying human 

motivation to acquire the resources needed to reproduce (territory, food, shelter, mates, and security).11 Many of the variables 

relevant to these motivations are captured in the SMA demography variable. Cultural success theory is a variant of human 

behavioral ecology that notes how reproductive benefits are often the indirect result of men attaining high social status 

through success in competitive ventures such as raiding.12

Most human behavioral ecology approaches are grounded in 

models of individual, selfishly motivated behavior. Intent is understood as the intention to acquire resources and mates and 

to favor closely related kin because they share one’s genes. 

Classic human behavioral ecology analyses of intent would 

suggest the recruiting power terrorist organizations have among 

young men with few ways to gain the status and resources necessary to marry in traditional Arabic society.13

An alternative human behavioral ecology approach assumes 

instead that humans are inherently social and therefore tend to 

act altruistically toward members of their group (family, lineage, 

tribe, ethnic group, religious group, etc.).14 For instance, Peter 

Richerson and Robert Boyd demonstrated a correlation between 

the combat effectiveness of units in World War II and how closely 

unit recruitment and training approximated kin relations.15
67

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

Intent from this perspective is driven by a desire to help and 

defend members of one’s own group. Analyses of bin Laden’s 

1998 declaration might indicate concern for fellow Muslims as 

a motivating factor that led to his intent to continue attacking 

US targets. Studies of suicide bombers that emphasize bombers’ altruistic motives fall within this mode of explanation.16

Language and Intent

Varieties of linguistic discourse analysis have also been influential in anthropological attempts to analyze intent. These analyses relate to the language category of the SMA typology and 

recognize that language influences all aspects of culture. The 

simplest forms of discourse analysis are seemingly straightforward interpretations of what people say or what their doctrines state; sometimes people telegraph their intentions quite 

transparently. For instance, in a 1998 interview, referring to the 

United States, Osama bin Laden stated that “it is the duty of 

every Muslim to struggle for its annihilation.” One could interpret this as a straightforward statement of intent to kill all 

Americans. However, what people say and what they do may not 

be the same, and people address different audiences differently, 

complicating the straightforward interpretation of discourse. 

More sophisticated approaches to discourse analysis are exemplified by the work of George Lakoff and Teun van Dijk.

Lakoff argues that the meaning of discourse is derived from 

overlapping metaphors.17 According to Lakoff, a concept rarely 

has a clear-cut declarative meaning but rather derives its 

meaning in association with other concepts, which often serve 

as metaphors. Van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis similarly 

seeks to uncover meaning from metaphorical association of 

concepts. Much of van Dijk’s research concerns the euphemization (self-praise) of one’s own group (in-group) and the 

derogation of other groups (out-groups) and therefore directly 

relates to studies of conflict. Van Dijk has identified 27 rhetorical devices used to express inequality and moral distinctions 

among groups.18 Intent from a discourse analysis perspective 

would be derived from analysis of the metaphorical associations of concepts in an actor’s discourse. And so, in bin Laden’s 

1998 declaration, derogative terms such as “devil’s army” 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

68

conjure demonic metaphors for the US military, and the term 

“crusader” links Western powers with rapacious aggression in 

the minds of Arabic readers.

Summary

This brief overview of anthropological perspectives on intent 

demonstrates the diversity of anthropological approaches, differences in theoretical underpinnings, and a consequent lack 

of a unified approach. However, each approach provides a window on how an actor’s intent could be judged. Some approaches 

are clear as to their data requirements and methodology (human behavioral ecology and linguistic discourse analysis), others are less clear (culture and personality, structuralism, and 

interpretivism), and yet others eschew method altogether (postmodernism). The approaches relate to different aspects of a 

general sociocultural typology such as that used by SMA. Probably the greatest advantage of an anthropological approach is 

in its increased awareness of the great variety of sources for 

intent (ideology, metaphoric associations, group values, individual motives, and evolutionary drives) and the types of sociocultural data required to gauge intent.

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Chesser, Deterrence in the 21st Century. 

2. SMAs are conducted in the Rapid Response Transition Office of the 

Directorate of Defense Research and Engineering in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. 

3. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society; Malinowski, 

Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays; Steward, Theory of Culture 

Change; Hall, Silent Language; Harris, Cultural Materialism; Wilson, Indigenous South Americans of the Past and Present; and Murdock, Outline of Cultural Materials.

4. Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology.

5. Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures.

6. Clifford, “On Ethnographic Authority”; Herzfeld, Anthropology; Rabinow, “Representations Are Social Facts”; Rosaldo, Culture and Truth; and 

Tyler, “A Post-Modern In-Stance.”

7. See especially Tyler, “A Post-Modern In-Stance.”
69

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

8. Benedict, Patterns of Culture; Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa; and Mead, 

Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies.

9. Benedict, Chrysanthemum and the Sword.

10. Gregg, Middle East.

11. Chagnon, “Reproductive and Somatic Conflicts of Interest”; and Gat, 

“Human Motivational Complex,” Parts I and II.

12. Chagnon, “Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare”; and Irons, 

“Cultural and Biological Success.”

13. Simons, “Making Enemies.”

14. Richerson and Boyd, Not by Genes Alone.

15. Richerson and Boyd, “Complex Societies.”

16. Pedahzur, Perliger, and Weinberg, “Altruism and Fatalism.”

17. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By.

18. van Dijk, “Politics, Ideology and Discourse.”

Bibliography

Benedict, Ruth. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns 

of Japanese Culture. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1946.

———. Patterns of Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.

Chagnon, Napoleon A. “Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population.” Science 239, no. 4843 (26 February 1988): 985–92.

———. “Reproductive and Somatic Conflicts of Interest in the 

Genesis of Violence and Warfare among Tribesmen.” In The 

Anthropology of War, edited by Jonathan Haas, 77–104. 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Chesser, Nancy, ed. Deterrence in the 21st Century: An EffectsBased Approach in an Interconnected World. Report prepared for US Strategic Command Global Innovation and 

Strategy Center (USSTRATCOM/GISC), Strategic Multilayer 

Assessment Team, 2007.

Clifford, James. “On Ethnographic Authority.” Representations

2 (Spring 1983): 118–46.

Gat, Azar. “The Human Motivational Complex: Evolutionary 

Theory and the Causes of Hunter-Gatherer Fighting, Part I. 

Primary Somatic and Reproductive Causes.” Anthropological Quarterly 73, no. 2 (April 2000): 20–34.

———. “The Human Motivational Complex: Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of Hunter-Gatherer Fighting, Part II. 

Proximate, Subordinate, and Derivative Causes.” Anthropological Quarterly 73, no. 2 (April 2000): 74–88.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

70

Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic 

Books, 1973.

Gregg, Gary S. The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology. Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 2005.

Hall, Edward Twitchell. The Silent Language. 1959. Reprint, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1966.

Harris, Marvin. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science 

of Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Herzfeld, Michael. Anthropology: Theoretical Practice in Culture 

and Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001.

Irons, William. “Cultural and Biological Success.” In Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior, edited by Napoleon 

A. Chagnon and William Irons, 257–72. North Scituate, MA: 

Duxbury Press, 1979.

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Leví-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. Garden City, 

NY: Doubleday, 1963.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other 

Essays. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 

1944.

Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study 

of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization. New York: Blue 

Ribbon Books, 1928. 

———. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New 

York: W. Morrow, 1935.

Murdock, George P. Outline of Cultural Materials. 5th ed. with 

modifications. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files, 

2004. http://www.yale.edu/hraf/Ocm_xml/newOcm.xml.

Pedahzur, Ami, Arie Perliger, and Leonard Weinberg. “Altruism 

and Fatalism: The Characteristics of Palestinian Suicide 

Terrorists.” Deviant Behavior 24 (2003): 405–23.

Rabinow, Paul. “Representations Are Social Facts: Modernity 

and Post-Modernity in Anthropology.” In Writing Culture: 

The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James 

Clifford and George E. Marcus, 234–61. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. New York: Free Press, 1965.
71

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

Richerson, Peter J., and Robert Boyd. “Complex Societies: The 

Evolutionary Origins of a Crude Superorganism.” Human 

Nature 10, no. 3 (1999): 253–89.

———. Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human 

Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Rosaldo, Renato. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social 

Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.

Simons, Anna. “Making Enemies: An Anthropology of Islamist 

Terror, Part I.” American Interest 1, no. 4 (Summer 2006): 

6–18.

Steward, Julian. Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of 

Multilinear Evolution. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 

1955.

Tyler, Stephen A. “A Post-Modern In-Stance.” In Constructing 

Knowledge: Authority and Critique in Social Science, edited 

by Lorraine Nencel and Peter Pels, 78–94. London: Sage, 

1991.

van Dijk, Teun A. “Politics, Ideology and Discourse.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, edited by Ruth Wodak, 

“Language and Politics” section. New York: Elsevier, 2004.

Wilson, David J. Indigenous South Americans of the Past and 

Present: An Ecological Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview 

Press, 1999.

73

Chapter 6

Psychology

Policy Makers and Their Interpretations Matter

Margaret G. Hermann, PhD, Moynihan Institute of Global 

Affairs, Syracuse University

People Matter

Richard Snyder and his colleagues argued in an influential 

monograph that people matter in international affairs and 

launched the study of foreign-policy decision making.1 Indeed, 

Abstract: Learning how policy makers view what is happening to them is critical to understanding how governments are likely to act. This statement is particularly true 

for those policy makers who have the authority to commit 

the resources of the government. Such policy makers’ interpretations appear to be influenced by their beliefs, their 

experience, their thoughts about the chances of losing or 

winning in a situation, and their view of the constraints 

under which they operate. In effect, their rationality is 

bounded or conditioned by such characteristics. Depending on the nature of these characteristics, policy makers 

are likely to deal with situations on a case-by-case basis or 

to be directly and immediately influenced by their own personal predispositions. Researchers are developing techniques to assess these characteristics by taking advantage 

of the growing number of Web-based speeches, interviews, 

and writings available on leaders from around the world. 

Some of these techniques have been turned into software 

programs that enable the analyst to examine all available 

materials and contextualize the resulting profiles.
PSYCHOLOGY

74

they contended that policy makers who perceive and interpret 

events and whose preferences become aggregated in the decisionmaking process shape what governments and institutions do in 

the foreign policy arena. People affect the way foreign policy 

problems are framed, the options that are considered, the 

choices that are made, and how policy gets implemented. To 

bolster their claims, Snyder and his associates brought research 

from cognitive, social, and organizational psychology to the attention of scholars interested in world politics.

Why are people important? For one thing, foreign policy 

problems are generally complex and ill structured. They demand interpretation for several reasons: there is no “correct” 

answer, there may be uncertainty about the nature and salience of the problem, what is happening may need to be placed 

in some structure or frame, and there may be value trade-offs.2

How decision makers define and represent the problem may or 

may not match how an outside observer views it. In fact, research has shown that around 75 percent of the time policy 

makers involved with foreign policy issues disagree about the 

nature of the problem, the options that are feasible, or what 

should happen.3 Note how the same event—the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001—was framed differently by leaders 

in Britain and the United States. Prime Minister Tony Blair announced at the Labour Party conference just hours after the 

Twin Towers collapsed that we had just experienced a crime 

against civilization—police, courts, and justice were the instruments for dealing with what had happened; Pres. George W. 

Bush framed the event as an attack on America and pronounced a war on terror, engaging the military and calling forth 

nationalism.

Moreover, the people in governments change, and with each 

change can come a difference in perspective. Consider that in 

the past decade (1998–2008), the 29 Asian countries bordering 

the Pacific Rim have had 133 governments with 124 different 

leaders.4 Often these governments are coalitions of parties. 

Some 60 percent of the leaders during this decade who came to 

power with an agenda and intention to control the policy-making 

process by defining what was important were overturned 

through irregular means—by votes of no confidence, calls for 

early elections, parties withdrawing from a coalition, and coups. 
75

PSYCHOLOGY

Interestingly, only 21 percent of leaders who believed in the use 

of informal power and preferred to work behind the scenes to 

make policy experienced an irregular regime change—when regime change occurred, it was regular and planned. Leadership 

style and strategy affected longevity in office as well as how influential the leaders’ views were in what was considered a problem and who was involved in making policy.

Research has also shown that there is a contraction of authority to those most accountable for policy in crisis situations.5

Such a contraction appears to happen regardless of the type of 

political system.6 People and their interpretations of what is 

happening become more important in crisis situations, which 

are usually considered to involve a serious threat to the values 

and interests of the government, allow little time for decision 

making, and come as a surprise. Indeed, in a study of 81 international crises, identified as such by journalists, historians, 

and political scientists, how the policy makers viewed the 

amount of time available to them and the degree of surprise in 

the situation led to different decision-making processes.7 When 

they viewed themselves as having little time and were surprised 

(a 9/11-type of event), the policy makers pushed to frame the 

event quickly, reach a rapid consensus on what to do, and then 

implement their decision with little interest in, or reaction to, 

feedback regarding what they were doing—either positive or 

negative. They engaged in path-dependent behavior. However, if 

policy makers thought themselves to have a little more time in 

which to decide, even if they were caught by surprise (the US 

reaction to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, for example), they became more innovative—searching for information and expertise 

that could help them ascertain what was happening and trying 

to think outside the box. The data suggest that the public is 

much more pleased with the first set of policy makers than the 

second since the first appears decisive while the second takes 

time to discuss and consider the situation out of the public’s 

eye, seeming not to be taking any action even though in the long 

run their actions are generally more effective.
PSYCHOLOGY

76

Rationality Is Bounded

Nobel laureate in economics Herbert Simon pushed us further by arguing that not only do people matter, but they do not 

necessarily act rationally.8 His experimental studies of decision 

making indicated that rationality is bounded by how the people 

involved process information, what they want, the ways in 

which they represent the problem, their experiences, and their 

beliefs. In effect, decision makers “do not have unlimited time, 

resources, and information” to make choices that maximize 

their movement toward their goals.9 They “satisfice”—settling 

for the first acceptable option rather than pushing for ever 

more information and a more optimal choice. “People are, at 

best, rational in terms of what they are aware of, [but] they can 

be aware of only tiny, disjointed facets of reality.”10 It becomes 

important to learn about the foreign policy makers’ “view of 

reality” as their preferences, so defined, will shape their actions. Building on this idea, for example, we have ascertained 

that (1) beliefs are like possessions and are relinquished only 

reluctantly, (2) decision makers’ interpretations of the nature 

of a situation appear to determine how risk prone or risk averse 

their actions are likely to be, (3) prior experience and knowledge about a problem have been found to shape cognition and 

focus decision making while a lack of such expertise leaves decision makers to rely on their personal predispositions, and (4) 

decision makers perceive and react to political constraints differently, depending on their leadership style.

In 1969 Alexander George proposed that policy makers are 

guided by an “operational code”—a set of philosophical and 

instrumental beliefs that set the parameters for their actions. 

These beliefs help to define what is viewed as a problem and 

what options are seen as viable within that particular orientation to politics. For instance, consider what might be the differences in the actions of policy makers who believe that conflict is endemic to politics and those that view it as generally 

temporary and the result of misunderstanding. For the first 

type, the world is full of threats, vigilance is necessary as control and predictability are limited, and all actors are potential 

rivals, whereas with a misunderstanding there is the opportunity to change the other’s view and thus to control any escalation 
77

PSYCHOLOGY

as well as to establish a climate that can foster negotiation.11

The operational code has proven particularly useful in examining the strategic interaction among leaders of countries during a crisis.12 By determining the leaders’ beliefs about the 

conflict and the adversary and charting them across time, the 

analyst can note if changes are occurring—for example, one 

leader’s beliefs are becoming more entrenched and less cognizant of opportunities to bargain. An analysis of this sort on the 

public speeches of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and 

Pres. Anwar Sadat of Egypt following the 1973 Yom Kippur 

War suggests why peace was possible even though officially 

Egypt “lost” the war.13

An influential set of studies by Daniel Kahneman and Amos 

Tversky on the impact of policy makers’ definitions of the situation on foreign-policy decision making became the basis for 

prospect theory.14 In essence, their findings indicated that how 

individuals frame a situation shapes the nature of the decision 

they are likely to make. If policy makers perceive themselves in 

a domain of gains (things are going well), they are likely to be 

risk averse. But if their frame puts them in the domain of losses 

(things are going poorly), they are likely to be more risk prone 

or risk seeking. Decisions depend on how the policy maker 

frames the problem. Critical for determining whether a decision maker finds himself or herself in the domain of losses or 

gains is the individual’s reference point or definition of the status quo. Problems arise when decision makers face situations 

where they perceive a discrepancy between what is happening 

and their reference point. The direction of the discrepancy indicates whether the decision maker interprets the situation as 

involving gains or losses, though decision makers appear to be 

more sensitive to discrepancies that are closer to their reference point than to those further away and, perhaps more importantly, to believe that “losing hurts more than a comparable 

gain pleases.”15 Interestingly, decision makers who are relatively insensitive to threats and constraints appear to have a 

penchant for the domain of losses and are risk seeking regardless of the situation, and similarly, decision makers who are 

generally anxious and responsive to what others think seek out 

the domain of gains and risk-averse behavior.16 As Kahneman 

and Tversky observe, these individuals represent those who are 
PSYCHOLOGY

78

willing to gamble no matter the odds or take out insurance no 

matter the cost.17

Experience also appears to count as an important influence 

on how policy makers interpret events.18 With some expertise, 

they are more likely to rely on their knowledge and background 

and to engage situations on a case-by-case basis. Without expertise, decision makers are more affected by their personal 

predispositions, be they beliefs, motivations, or leadership 

style, or are led to depend on those whom they trust that have 

such experience. Moreover, policy makers feel more comfortable and confident dealing with domains in which they have 

some expertise and often drift toward those arenas.19 Consider, 

for example, the effects of Dick Cheney on the foreign policy of 

the two Presidents Bush. Pres. George H. W. Bush had extensive experience in the foreign-policy-making process and could 

differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information as 

well as recognize inconsistencies in the information provided to 

him and exceptions to the rules—based on his own knowledge 

and expertise, he could say no to Cheney. His son, Pres. George 

W. Bush, came to office with little foreign policy experience or 

even international travel. By necessity he viewed Cheney as an 

expert and relied on Cheney’s advice as well as his own beliefs 

regarding the importance of the United States and democracy 

in the world in making policy.

Often leaders and their perceptions are dismissed because 

they are viewed as constrained by the roles and institutions in 

which they find themselves. Prime ministers and presidents, 

for instance, are restricted by constitutions and norms to certain kinds of behavior. Even a head of government like Kim 

Jong Il of North Korea is constrained by his military as it is responsible for keeping him in power. But, interestingly, there is 

growing evidence that there are differences among leaders in 

whether they respect (work within) or challenge (go around) the 

constraints in their environments.20 The two most recent presidents in Iran are a good example of this difference—compare 

Khatami, president until 2005, who, though charismatic, was 

concerned with working for change within the constraints of 

the political system in which he found himself, to Ahmadinejad, 

the current president, who pushes at the constraints in which 
79

PSYCHOLOGY

he finds himself, willing to challenge the outside world and his 

own people. 

Data suggest that leaders who are more pragmatic and opportunistic accept the constraints of their positions whereas 

the more ideological and strategic leaders tend to ignore the 

constraints unless they work to the leaders’ advantage. Those 

who challenge constraints appear to engage in more confrontational behavior, commit the resources of their governments 

more readily, initiate activities, and take actions that involve or 

threaten to involve more than diplomacy. Leaders who challenge constraints often come to their positions with an agenda 

and seek “true believers” as advisors who will help them implement that agenda. They view themselves to be at the top of the 

decision-making ladder and are interested in controlling information flows; issues and events are not perceived as important 

or relevant unless they pertain to or affect the implementation 

of the agenda. On the other hand, leaders who respect constraints often seek out others’ perspectives, are interested in 

diverse opinions, work well in a team, and focus on building 

consensus or working on a compromise. The problems that 

arise are those important to the constituents whose support is 

needed to stay in office. In effect, similar to the observations 

from research on experience, leaders who respect constraints 

are sensitive to the context and define as well as respond to 

problems on a case-by-case basis, while those who challenge 

constraints do so based on what they want or need—their personal predispositions.

Personal Predispositions Can Be Measured

A major reason researchers have offered for sticking with 

defining the problems facing policy makers from an outside 

observer’s perspective revolves around the difficulties we have 

in assessing the subjective views of those involved in the process. Thus, the research to date that focuses on policy makers’ 

own interpretations has tended to be case studies of individual 

incidents where it is feasible to interview some participants 

and secure access to archival materials. But within the last two 

decades, there has been a movement to engage in assessment 

at a distance—to use the recorded words and deeds of policy 
PSYCHOLOGY

80

makers to infer their perceptions and interpretations. Only 

movie stars, hit rock groups, and athletes leave more traces of 

their behavior in the public arena than politicians. Indeed, few 

of a US president’s or a British prime minister’s movements or 

statements, for example, escape the media’s and archivists’ notice. With 24/7 coverage and the Internet, what leaders from 

around the world discuss is often beamed into our televisions 

and put onto the web. Such materials help us learn about how 

such figures are viewing and interpreting what is happening to 

them in more than a cursory fashion. Through content analysis, we can begin to develop images about these people and 

their ways of considering events even when they are essentially 

unavailable for the more usual assessment techniques. Content analysis does not require their cooperation, and researchers have begun to use this type of methodology to study what 

public figures are like and their interpretations of the problems 

they face.21 In fact, there are now a number of software programs that assist in such analysis—for example, Profiler Plus.22

These content analysis techniques take advantage of the fact 

that communication is an important part of what political leaders 

do. Indeed, the web is full of the speeches, press conferences, 

and writings of political leaders. As governments seek to record 

what they are doing, the media captures their interactions among 

political leaders online, and political leaders themselves preserve 

their legacies. By using such materials, these assessment-at-adistance techniques become unobtrusive ways of measuring 

how leaders view what is happening. Even though leaders may 

be shaping a communication for a specific audience or setting, 

we are able to take such intentions into account and learn 

about their effects by varying the kinds of material we study.

In effect, not only do the techniques—particularly those 

translated into software—make it feasible to construct a general profile of a particular leader or set of leaders, but also they 

make possible placing such profiles into perspective by examining contextual factors that indicate how stable the characteristics are with certain kinds of changes in the situation. We can 

ascertain what leaders are like in general, what kinds of information they are likely to respond to in the political environment, 

how they are likely to change their views with experience, and 

which situations are likely to be considered as involving gains 
81

PSYCHOLOGY

versus losses, for example. With knowledge about both the 

general and contextualized profiles, the researcher and analyst 

gain a more complete portrait of a leader and the nature of how 

that person’s rationality is likely to be bounded overall and in 

particular types of situations. It becomes possible to consider 

how policy makers are likely to interpret what is happening 

and the problems to be addressed instead of being limited only 

to how observers say that policy makers are likely to define 

situations.

Summary

Learning how policy makers view what is happening to them 

is critical to understanding how governments are likely to act. 

This statement is particularly true for those policy makers 

who have the authority to commit the resources of the government. Such policy makers’ interpretations appear to be influenced by their beliefs, their experience, their thoughts about 

the chances of losing or winning in a situation, and their view 

of the constraints under which they operate. In effect, their 

rationality is bounded or conditioned by such characteristics. 

Depending on the nature of these characteristics, policy makers are likely to deal with situations on a case-by-case basis 

or to be directly and immediately influenced by their own personal predispositions. Researchers are developing techniques 

to assess these characteristics by taking advantage of the 

growing number of web-based speeches, interviews, and writings 

available on leaders from around the world. Some of these techniques have been turned into software programs that enable 

the analyst to examine all available materials and contextualize 

the resulting profiles.

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin, Decision Making as an Approach. See also 

Snyder et al., Foreign Policy Decision-Making Revisited.

2. Sylvan and Voss, Problem Representation in Foreign Policy Decision Making.

3. Beasley et al., “People and Processes in Foreign Policymaking.”
PSYCHOLOGY

82

4. Hermann et al., Crisis-Prone Governments.

5. Boin et al., Politics of Crisis Management.

6. Hermann and Kegley, “Rethinking Democracy and International Peace.” 

7. Hermann and Dayton, “Transboundary Crises through the Eyes of 

Policymakers.”

8. Simon, “Human Nature in Politics”; and Simon, Model of Bounded Rationality.

9. Chollet and Goldgeier, “Scholarship of Decision Making,” 157.

10. Simon, “Human Nature in Politics,” 302.

11. Walker, “Role Identities and the Operational Codes of Political Leaders.”

12. Schafer and Walker, Beliefs and Leadership in World Politics.

13. Walker, “Role Identities and the Operational Codes of Political Leaders.”

14. Kahneman and Tversky, “Choices, Values, and Frames”; Kahneman 

and Tversky, “Prospect Theory”; and Tversky and Kahneman, “Advances in 

Prospect Theory.” See also Farnham, Avoiding Losses/Taking Risks; and McDermott, Risk-Taking in International Politics. 

15. McDermott, Risk-Taking in International Politics, 29.

16. Kowert and Hermann, “Who Takes Risks?”

17. Kahneman and Tversky, “Choices, Values, and Frames.”

18. For example, see Preston, President and His Inner Circle; Beer, Healy, 

and Bourne, “Dynamic Decisions.”

19. Stewart and Stasser, “Expert Role Assignment and Information Sampling”; Wittenbaum, Vaughn, and Stasser, “Coordination in Task-Performing 

Groups.”

20. For example, see Keller, “Leadership Style”; Hermann, “Assessing Leadership Style”; and Hermann and Gerard 2009, “Contributions of Leadership.”

21. For overviews of these techniques, see Young and Schafer, “Is There 

Method in Our Madness?”; Post, Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders; Schafer and Walker, Beliefs and Leadership in World Politics; and Hermann, “Using Content Analysis to Study Public Figures.”

22. Social Science Automation Web site, http://www.socialscience.net

/tech/overview.aspx.

Bibliography

Beasley, Ryan, Juliet Kaarbo, Charles F. Hermann, and Margaret 

G. Hermann. “People and Processes in Foreign Policymaking.” International Studies Review 3, no. 2 (2001): 217–50.

Beer, Francis A., Alice F. Healy, and Lyle E. Bourne, Jr. “Dynamic Decisions: Experimental Reactions to War, Peace, 

and Terrorism.” In Advances in Political Psychology, edited 

by Margaret G. Hermann, 139–68. London: Elsevier, 2004.
83

PSYCHOLOGY

Boin, Arjen, Paul Hart, Eric Stern, and Bengt Sundelius. The 

Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Chollet, Derek H., and James M. Goldgeier. “The Scholarship of 

Decision Making: Do We Know How We Decide?” In Foreign 

Policy Decision-Making Revisited, edited by Richard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, Burton Sapin, Valerie M. Hudson, Derek 

H. Chollet, and James M. Goldgeier, 153–80. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Farnham, Barbara, ed. Avoiding Losses/Taking Risks: Prospect 

Theory in International Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of 

Michigan Press, 1994.

George, Alexander L. “The ‘Operational Code’: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision-Making.” 

International Studies Quarterly 13, no. 2 (June 1969): 190–222.

Hermann, Margaret G. “Assessing Leadership Style: A Trait 

Analysis.” In The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders, edited by Jerrold Post, 178–212. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005.

———. “Using Content Analysis to Study Public Figures.” In 

Qualitative Analysis in International Relations, edited by

Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakash. New York: Palgrave, 2008.

Hermann, Margaret G., and Bruce W. Dayton. “Transboundary 

Crises through the Eyes of Policymakers: Sense Making and 

Crisis Management.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis 

Management 17, no. 4 (December 2009): 233–41.

Hermann, Margaret G., Bruce W. Dayton, Matthew Smith, 

Havva Karakas-Keles, Azamat Sakiev, and Hanneke Dierksen. Crisis-Prone Governments: A Study of 29 Pacific Rim 

Countries. Syracuse, NY: Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, 2009.

Hermann, Margaret G., and Catherine Gerard. “The Contributions of Leadership to the Movement from Violence to Incorporation.” In Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding, edited by Bruce W. Dayton and Louis Kriesberg, 30–44. New 

York: Routledge, 2009.

Hermann, Margaret G., and Charles W. Kegley. “Rethinking 

Democracy and International Peace: Perspectives from Political Psychology.” International Studies Quarterly 39, no. 4 

(December 1995): 511–33.
PSYCHOLOGY

84

Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. “Choices, Values, and 

Frames.” American Psychologist 39, no. 4 (April 1984): 341–50.

———. “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk.” 

Econometrica 47, no. 2 (March 1979): 263–91.

Keller, Jonathan. “Leadership Style, Regime Type, and Foreign 

Policy Crisis Behavior: A Contingent Monadic Peace.” International Studies Quarterly 49 (June 2005): 205–31.

Kowert, Paul A., and Margaret G. Hermann. “Who Takes Risks? 

Daring and Caution in Foreign Policy Making.” Journal of 

Conflict Resolution 41, no. 5 (1997): 611–37.

McDermott, Rose. Risk-Taking in International Politics: Prospect 

Theory in American Foreign Policy. Ann Arbor, MI: University 

of Michigan Press, 2001.

Post, Jerrold, ed. The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders. 

Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005.

Preston, Thomas. The President and His Inner Circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Affairs. New 

York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

Schafer, Mark, and Stephen G. Walker. Beliefs and Leadership 

in World Politics: Methods and Applications of Operational 

Code Analysis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Simon, Herbert A. “Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of 

Psychology with Political Science.” American Political Science Review 79, no. 2 (1985): 293–304.

———. Model of Bounded Rationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT 

Press, 1982.

Snyder, Richard C., H. W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin. Decision 

Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics. 

Foreign Policy Analysis Project Series no. 3. Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1954.

Snyder, Richard C., H. W. Bruck, Burton Sapin, Valerie M. 

Hudson, Derek H. Chollet, and James M. Goldgeier. Foreign 

Policy Decision-Making Revisited. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Stewart, Dennis D., and Garold Stasser. “Expert Role Assignment and Information Sampling during Collective Recall 

and Decision Making.” Journal of Personality and Social 

Psychology 69, no. 4 (October 1995): 619–28.
85

PSYCHOLOGY

Sylvan, Donald A., and James F. Voss, eds. Problem Representation in Foreign Policy Decision Making. Cambridge, UK: 

Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. “Advances in Prospect 

Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty.” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5 (1992): 297–323.

Walker, Stephen G. “Role Identities and the Operational Codes 

of Political Leaders.” In Advances in Political Psychology, edited by Margaret G. Hermann, 71–106. London: Elsevier, 

2004.

Wittenbaum, Gwen M., Shannon I. Vaughn, and Garold Stasser. 

“Coordination in Task-Performing Groups.” In Social Psychological Applications to Social Issues. Vol. 4, Theory and 

Research on Small Groups, edited by R. Scott Tindale, Linda 

Heath, John Edwards, Emil J. Posavic, Fred B. Bryant, 

Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar, Eaaron Henderson-King, and Judith Myers, 177–204. New York: Plenum Press, 1998.

Young, Michael D., and Mark Schafer. “Is There Method in Our 

Madness? Ways of Assessing Cognition in International Relations.” Mershon International Studies Review 42 (1998): 

62–96.

87

Chapter 7

Intent from an International 

Politics Perspective

Decision Makers, Intelligence Communities, 

and Assessment of the Adversary’s Intentions

Keren Yarhi-Milo, PhD, Department of Politics and the 

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 

Princeton University

Abstract: How do decision makers and intelligence communities infer the political and military intentions of the adversary? Using wide-ranging declassified primary documents 

from presidential archives, intelligence assessments, and 

interviews with US decision makers and intelligence analysts, I test three alternative indicators of intentions. These 

include the adversary’s capabilities, strategic military doctrine, and behavior. The cases providing the evidence for 

these tests are the British assessments of Nazi Germany’s 

intentions in the years leading up to the Second World War, 

US assessments of Soviet intentions under the administration of Pres. Jimmy Carter, and US assessments of Soviet 

intentions in the years leading to the end of the Cold War 

under the second administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan. I 

find that decision makers tend to view the world through 

the behavioral lens, placing importance on the actions of 

countries, including participating in binding international 

organizations, entering arms control agreements, and refraining from intervening in areas outside their legitimate 

sphere of influence. The US intelligence community, meanwhile, places greater emphasis on the capabilities of other 

nations, such as building up or scaling down their military 

forces, as indicators of intent. Intelligence products have 

limited success in influencing the decision calculus of decision makers, who rely on their own lens for understanding 

the adversary’s intentions.
INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

88

Introduction

One of the central tasks of statecraft is to predict the behavior of current or prospective adversaries. History teaches us, 

however, that this is perhaps one of the most challenging undertakings confronting decision makers (DM). Observing the 

dramatic changes that were taking place in Nazi Germany during the mid-1930s, members of the British cabinet argued fervently about the nature and scope of Hitler’s ambitions. American DMs throughout the Cold War debated the objectives of 

the Soviet Union. Today, they debate the future intentions of a 

rising China and the political and military objectives of Iran.

International relations scholars have advanced propositions, 

implicit or explicit, about how states should gauge the intentions of other states. One school of thought in international 

relations argues that since the intentions of other states are 

difficult to discern with confidence, cautious DMs must assume the worst about their adversaries’ intentions.1 Other 

scholars argue that uncertainty about intentions should lead 

DMs to focus on the adversary’s material power, especially its 

military and economic capabilities.2 Yet others recognize the 

strong incentives for leaders to look beyond material indicators.3 More recently, the literature has emphasized the importance of costly signals in revealing information about intentions.4 The focus of this recent rationalist literature has been 

on the signaling of costly information about intentions; how 

perceivers extract and interpret such information has been almost entirely ignored.

In addition to theoretical approaches to discerning others’ 

intentions, the evolution of adversarial relations throughout 

history also suggests important empirical questions: What 

prompts change in perceptions about intentions? What factors, 

for example, best explain the change in Pres. Ronald Reagan’s 

beliefs about the intentions of the Soviet Union under Mikhail 

Gorbachev? Were these factors comparable to the ones that led 

members of Pres. Jimmy Carter’s administration to reevaluate 

Soviet objectives in the late 1970s? On which type of evidence 

did British DMs focus when estimating the intentions of Nazi 

Germany in the 1930s? In all such cases, what role did intelligence estimates about the adversary’s intentions play in shaping 
89

DMs’ inferences about the enemy’s intentions? And were there 

systematic differences between the views of DMs and the views 

of the intelligence community providing advice to them?

Below I describe three competing theoretical perspectives on 

the links between intentions and changes in perceptions, which 

I term the capabilities thesis, the strategic military doctrine 

thesis, and the behavioral signals thesis. Then I summarize my 

research’s methodology and main findings and briefly indicate 

the foreign policy significance of my findings.

Testing Alternative Explanations 

for Perceived Intentions

As a first step toward addressing these questions, I tested 

the causal relationship between three kinds of indicators and 

perceptions of an adversary’s long-term foreign policy objectives and its intentions to use military force to achieve these 

objectives.5 The first, called the capabilities thesis, posits that 

DMs infer the intentions of an adversary from different indexes 

of its military power. This thesis draws on several theories 

whose common denominator is the idea that, since governments are unlikely ever to be certain about others’ intentions 

and because intentions are fluid and can easily change, prudent DMs should assume the worst about other states’ intentions.6 Thus, how aggressive an adversary could be is essentially a function of how powerful it is. Accordingly, this thesis 

predicts that DMs will rely heavily on assessments of an adversary’s capabilities to infer its intentions. For example, a country is likely to be seen as signaling hostile intentions if it devotes more resources to building up its military capabilities 

and develops and deploys offensive capabilities.

The second thesis, which I term the strategic military doctrine 

thesis, posits that DMs infer intentions of the adversary from the 

adversary’s military doctrine. Building on the logic of the offensedefense theory, scholars have pointed out that, by providing a 

set of ideas about how to employ the instruments of military 

power, a state’s military doctrine is likely to be seen as a valuable 

indicator about the objectives of others.7 Accordingly, adopting 

offensive conventional or nuclear doctrines is expected to increase 

INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE
INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

90

the probability that others will perceive that country as having 

hostile intentions. Conversely, adopting deterrent or defensive 

doctrines, either conventional or nuclear, is expected to increase 

the probability that others will infer benign intention.

The third theoretical perspective, termed the behavioral signals thesis, posits that certain kinds of costly actions are particularly useful in revealing information about the objectives of 

the adversary. The thesis is rooted in various strands of work 

in international relations—the democratic peace theory, neoliberal institutionalism, social constructivism, and the rationalist literature on signaling. According to this thesis, actions 

such as joining binding international institutions, initiating 

domestic democratic reforms, embarking on military interventions, and signing arms control agreements can be perceived 

by others as providing costly, reassuring signals of benign intentions. Alternatively, withdrawing from such institutions and 

commitments is likely to lead others to infer malign intentions.

Methodology

To test the three theses about perceived intentions, I employed the historical case-study method. I examined the British assessments of Nazi Germany’s intentions in the years 

leading up to the Second World War, US assessments of Soviet 

intentions under the Carter administration, and US assessments of Soviet intentions in the years leading to the end of the 

Cold War under the second Reagan administration. There are 

several ways we can examine how well each of the three theses 

explaining perceived intentions fares against the empirical record. To test each one in the case studies, I examine three aspects of decision making. First, relying on private statements 

by DMs and intelligence agencies, I look at covariation between 

perceptions of the adversary’s capabilities, strategic military 

doctrine, or behavior and shifts in perceptions of its political 

and military intentions. I also examine whether the direction of 

change in perceived intentions accords with the predictions of 

each thesis. Second, I examine the reasoning invoked to support assessments of intentions. Here I look at the explanations 

provided in private statements and evaluate whether these explanations were informed by the factors emphasized in each of 
91

INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

the three theses. For example, if the capabilities thesis is correct, we should expect DMs to link their assessments of the 

adversary’s intentions to indicators associated with the adversary’s military capabilities. Third, I look for covariation between 

the individual DM’s statements about his perceptions of the 

adversary’s intentions and the policies towards the adversary 

that he advocates.

I analyze perceptions about the adversary’s intentions among 

two groups—the intelligence community and key DMs. My research is primarily based on over 20,000 primary documents 

that I collected from the Reagan and Carter presidential libraries, the National Security Archive, National Archives, the British National Archives, and the Israel Defense Forces Archives 

in Israel. Additionally, to date I have conducted over two dozen 

interviews with American and Israeli DMs and retired intelligence analysts. For assessments of the US intelligence community during the Cold War, I use the declassified national intelligence estimates (NIE) on the Soviet Union as well as research 

papers, memoranda of conversations, and documents produced by the Office of National Estimates in the CIA. The community regularly assessed Soviet intentions in the 11-4 and to 

a lesser extent the 11-8 series of NIEs, and these were supplemented by occasional special NIEs (SNIE). For key US DMs’ 

views, I make extensive use of declassified archival documents 

such as protocols of National Security Council meetings, national security decision directives, presidential directives, memoranda of conversations between the president and other important DMs in his administration, and additional documents, 

telegrams, and protocols of meetings where DMs discussed the 

threat posed by the adversary. For assessments of the British 

intelligence community prior to World War II, I review reports 

produced by the intelligence staffs of the War Office, the Air 

Ministry, the Admiralty, and the Foreign Office, as well as reports and protocols of meetings of the Defence Requirements 

Sub-Committee and the Chief of Staff Sub-Committee. To analyze the views of British DMs, I look at the protocols of Cabinet 

meetings, Cabinet memoranda, Foreign Office documents, and 

protocols and memoranda of various Cabinet committees, such 

as the Committee for Foreign Policy, the Defence Requirement 

Committee, and various ad hoc committees.
INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

92

Findings

How did policy makers—specifically, civilian DMs and intelligence communities—infer the political and military intentions 

of their adversary during these historical episodes? When and 

why do these beliefs about intentions change? My research has 

yielded some surprising and novel findings. The evidence I examined reveals that intelligence communities and civilian DMs 

use quite different analytic lenses to assess intentions.

Specifically, in all three cases, the evidence from civilian DMs’ 

assessments of the adversary’s political intentions lent the 

strongest support to the behavioral signals thesis and rather 

weak support to the capabilities and strategic military doctrine 

theses. The timing and direction of changes in perceptions of 

intentions and the reasoning invoked by DMs to support their 

assessments, as well as the policies they advocated, were congruent with the hypotheses inferred from the behavioral signals 

thesis. American DMs in two very different administrations, as 

well as British DMs in an entirely different historical era, all 

privileged indicators associated with the recent behavior of their 

adversaries, rather than the adversaries’ capabilities, when assessing the nature and scope of their foreign policy goals.

What types of behavioral signals seem to have mattered the 

most? The historical evidence does not indicate one particular 

behavioral signal that was most important. In the late 1970s, 

Soviet interventions in the Third World exerted the most significant effects upon the perceptions of intentions among members of the Carter administration. However, in the second term 

of the Reagan administration, Gorbachev’s domestic behavior 

toward dissidents, his 1987 signing of the Intermediate-Range 

Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and his withdrawal of Soviet forces 

from Afghanistan combined to change US perceptions of Soviet 

intentions. For British DMs in the 1930s, Hitler’s militarization 

of German society, the annexation of Austria, and, most importantly, the invasion of Czechoslovakia ultimately led Chamberlain and members of his cabinet to change their view of the 

scope of Hitler’s revisionist intentions.

In each of the three cases, DMs used a similar process of 

interpreting and reacting to their adversary’s actions. Prima 

facie, it looks as if one particular action was responsible for a 
93

INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

sudden shift in perceptions of the adversary. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for example, has often been cited as the 

single most important action to cause a shift in President Carter’s 

perceptions of the Soviet Union. But the evidence indicates that 

Carter’s perceptions had begun to change as early as 1978, 

when the Soviets intervened in the Horn of Africa. Afghanistan 

was the tipping point. Likewise, in the British case, the evidence indicates that British perceptions of Germany’s intentions had begun to shift in mid-December 1938, following intelligence reports of a possible German attack in Western Europe. 

The invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 merely reinforced British DMs’ confidence that Germany’s intentions were 

more grandiose than they had thought.

Perceptions of intentions did not change to the same degree 

among all DMs. Thus, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and the British ambassador in Berlin, Sir Nevile Henderson, did not significantly change 

their perceptions of the intentions of the key adversaries their 

countries faced. Their perceptions certainly did not change to 

the same extent as those of their leaders—Carter, Reagan, and 

Chamberlain. Preexisting beliefs, and the degree to which they 

were entrenched, probably played a role in preventing more 

radical transformations of perceived intentions. Yet even those 

DMs who never “updated” their beliefs in light of new evidence 

consistently used the adversary’s recent behavior to support 

assessments about their intentions. To Vance, the invasion of 

Afghanistan indicated that the Soviet Union was still an opportunistic power, but not an expansionist one. To Weinberger, the 

withdrawal from Afghanistan came only because the Soviets 

had recognized they could not win that war. To Henderson, the 

German invasion of Prague was still compatible with the longheld conviction that Germany’s intentions were limited.

American and British DMs were also similar insofar as they 

did not use certain indicators to infer intentions. During the 

mid-to-late 1970s, the Soviets built up their military capabilities, especially their nuclear forces, to such an extent that some 

described it as a push to gain superiority in the arms race. During the 1980s, Soviet capabilities declined. British DMs in the 

1930s were aware of the impressive rate, scale, and magnitude 

of Germany’s rearmament efforts. Yet the historical documents 
INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

94

do not suggest that these changing capabilities fundamentally 

altered American or British perceptions of their adversaries’ intentions. Empirical support for the capabilities thesis is weak: 

the turning points in DMs’ perceptions of intentions were at 

best only partly consistent with changes in the adversary’s capabilities. In private discussions and writings about the adversary, DMs only rarely linked their assessments of the adversary’s capabilities to their interpretations of its foreign policy 

goals. It is true that US-Soviet détente collapsed at about the 

same time the Soviets were building up their nuclear forces, the 

Cold War ended at about the same time the Soviets scaled down 

their conventional forces, and World War II erupted following a 

massive German military expansion. But the evidence I have 

presented in the empirical cases suggests that the correlation 

should not be mistaken for a causal relationship. During each 

of these historical periods, observations of the adversary’s behavior, rather than observations about its changing military capabilities, produced a change in perceptions of its intentions 

and resulted in changed foreign and defense policies.

Nevertheless, changes in the adversary’s capabilities were 

significant in three ways. First, these changes often led DMs to 

raise questions about the adversary’s political objectives and 

military intentions. Second, concern about the extent of the 

changes, as well as the types of weapon systems being developed and deployed, was critical in shaping the ways countries 

responded in their foreign policy and defense planning. Third, 

capabilities were the most significant indicators upon which 

the United States and British intelligence communities based 

their perceptions of intentions.

Unlike DMs, when gauging the adversary’s intentions, intelligence communities gave greater weight to capabilities over behavior and doctrine. The records of the available intelligence 

estimates about the Soviet threat during the Cold War are riddled with assumptions about the causal relations between Soviet capabilities and their likely foreign policy behavior in the 

future. The NIEs of the 1970s and 1980s repeated the claim 

that Soviet decisions about how, where, and when to expand 

would be driven by Soviet assessments of the correlation of 

forces between the two superpowers. Similarly, British intelligence reports of Germany’s foreign policy suggested an intimate 
95

INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

link between capabilities and intentions, claiming that Germany’s foreign policy would be dictated by calculations about when 

the German army would reach its peak efficiency and numerical superiority. Additionally, both the British prewar and the 

American Cold War intelligence communities appear to have 

dedicated only a small portion of their efforts to analyzing the 

political intentions of the adversary. In the 1970s, the vast majority of NIEs analyzed many different aspects of the Soviet strategic forces, but the sections that analyzed Soviet intentions 

and strategic objectives were remarkably underdeveloped. The 

intelligence community’s discussion of Soviet intentions improved somewhat during the mid-1980s, when it struggled to 

understand Gorbachev’s motivations and ultimate objectives. 

The low priority of political intentions was also evident in British intelligence assessments of the 1930s, which contained very 

little analysis about the scope and nature of Germany’s longterm foreign policy goals under Hitler.

In all three of the cases discussed here, the analysis of intentions by intelligence agencies suffered from similar biases and 

fallacies, which were later recognized by scholars. For instance, 

as shown in the case studies, mirror imaging—attributing to the 

subject one’s own values, perceptions, and behavior—led to inaccurate estimates about the adversary’s military capabilities, 

which consequently affected assessments about intentions. 

Also, in all three cases, assessments fluctuated between overestimating and underestimating the adversary’s capabilities. 

British intelligence moved from underestimating the German 

military in the early to mid-1930s to exaggerating its abilities 

between mid-1936 and early 1939. Similarly, the US intelligence 

community shifted from an underestimation of Soviet strategic 

forces to an overestimation during the 1970s and 1980s.

How much influence did intelligence assessments of the adversary’s political intentions have on the perceptions of civilian 

DMs? The short answer is that their effect was marginal, at best. 

National DMs appear to have reached conclusions about the adversary’s foreign policy objectives independent of intelligence estimates. To a large extent, they preferred to make these general 

political judgments for themselves. Indeed, Robert Vansittart, 

Zbigniew Brzezinski, and George Shultz were all critical of intelligence estimates, believing that they had better knowledge of 
INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

96

the adversary and could therefore offer better insights about the 

adversary’s foreign policy objectives. This notion is nicely captured by Vansittart’s criticism of British intelligence reports on 

Germany’s military power: “Prophecy is largely a matter of insight. I do not think the Service Departments have enough. On 

the other hand they might say that I have too much. The answer 

is that I know the Germans better.”8 The evidence presented in 

research shows that intelligence assessments were not congruent with the opinions and assessments of key civilian DMs at the 

time. But perhaps most important, there is no evidence to suggest that intelligence reports—even when DMs read them—led 

them to reconsider their own assessments.

These findings echo the conclusions of scholars who have 

examined the correlation between intelligence and foreign 

policy in other cases. For example, after analyzing US intelligence views of the threats from Japan and Germany, David 

Kahn concludes, “Intelligence had little to do with American 

assessments of Germany and Japan before December 1941.”9

Similarly, interviews I conducted with Maj Gen Shlomo Gazit, 

retired, head of the Israel Defense Forces intelligence branch in 

the mid-1970s, suggest that Israeli DMs paid little attention to 

the Israeli intelligence about Anwar Sadat’s political intentions 

in the period following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Moreover, the 

analysis here has shown that intelligence reports relied on different indicators than those used by DMs and reached different 

conclusions about the adversary’s foreign policy objectives. 

Both the timing and the reasoning provided by the intelligence 

community for its reassessments of the adversary’s intentions 

were markedly different from those of the key civilian DMs. As 

a result, key civilian DMs viewed intelligence assessments on 

issues pertaining to the adversary’s political intentions as 

largely irrelevant.

So far I have discussed the relevance of the adversary’s behavior and capabilities for assessments of intentions. The third 

category of signals examined in this study is the adversary’s 

strategic military doctrine. DMs rarely invoked the adversary’s 

doctrine in their deliberations about its political intentions, 

while intelligence communities had trouble clearly defining the 

adversary’s military doctrine. During the 1970s, the US intelligence community was split in its assessments of Soviet nuclear 
97

INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

doctrine and the intentions to be inferred from it. During the 

1980s, the US intelligence community was slow to recognize 

changes in Soviet military doctrine and was split in its evaluation of what these changes signified about Gorbachev’s intentions. During the 1930s, British intelligence recognized the 

German strategic military doctrine as offensive, but it failed to 

identify the particular characteristics of the blitzkrieg and the 

role of the Luftwaffe in planned military operations. In all three 

cases, then, the adversary’s strategic military doctrine did not 

serve as a straightforward indicator of intentions, and its role in 

the assessment of political intentions was marginal. The adversary’s strategic military doctrine did play a role in the American 

assessments of Soviet military intentions for both Cold War 

cases, but even then, it was secondary to assessments of Soviet 

capabilities.

Implications

This study has several practical policy implications. First, 

and perhaps most obviously, a state’s (non–capability based) 

behavior is likely to have the greatest effect on how others will 

judge its intentions. This means that states can most effectively 

signal benign intentions by joining binding international organizations, entering arms control agreements, and refraining 

from intervening in areas outside their legitimate sphere of influence. However, even through such behavior, reassurance is 

difficult, and the historical record suggests uncertainty about 

the extent to which these actions will have the desired effect. 

Cognitive biases and preexisting beliefs are likely to taint others’ 

interpretation of these actions and affect the resulting perceptions of intentions. Further, the cases I have examined suggest 

that the pattern of change in perceived intentions appears to 

mirror one of punctuated equilibrium. Yet a close look at the 

evolution of perceived intentions indicates that the accumulation of several actions, rather than one particular costly action, 

produces fundamental change in perceptions. This means that 

policy makers should be aware that a single reassuring act is 

unlikely to decisively change others’ assessments. Similarly, behavior that might give others reason to be concerned, if followed 
INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

98

by a reassuring action, is unlikely to lead them to reach firm 

and immutable conclusions about one’s intentions.

Second, while behavior appears to matter most, building up 

or scaling down one’s military forces is unlikely to change how 

other DMs perceive one’s political intentions. Prudent DMs 

should not, however, conclude that this means they need not 

worry about the consequences of a large-scale military buildup. 

The historical evidence indicates that armament efforts by the 

adversary did lead observers to raise, though not answer, questions about the adversary’s objectives.

A third set of policy implications pertains to the quality of 

analysis generated by the intelligence community about adversaries’ political and military intentions. This study was not designed to analyze intelligence failures, and the question of 

whether the intelligence community got it right or not is purposefully left unanswered. As a result, I am in no position to 

offer concrete recommendations as to whether and how the 

intelligence community in the United States or elsewhere needs 

to be transformed. This study, however, does point to practices 

in imputing intentions that may have prevented the intelligence 

community from reaching accurate conclusions about the adversary’s foreign policy goals. Most relevant in this context are 

the following observations.

First, the NIEs did not state the assumptions underlying the 

intelligence community’s estimates of the adversary’s political 

intentions. Thus, it is unclear whether the intelligence community was even aware of its (repeated) practice of discerning intentions from capabilities and whether it recognized at all that 

this premise was decisive in driving estimates about Soviet foreign policy intentions. Second, the premise that the perceived 

correlation of forces would determine Soviet foreign policy 

should have been examined as to whether it relied on direct 

evidence or on assumptions. The intelligence community 

should have asked what an alternative picture of Soviet intentions would look like if that premise were removed from the 

equation. The NIEs, however, contained no alternative explanations for the adversary’s behavior and consequently did not 

even entertain the possibility that the intentions attributed to 

the adversary based on capabilities might be imprecise, if not 

altogether wrong. Questioning this premise might have allowed 
99

INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

the US intelligence community to consider the possibility that 

Gorbachev’s intentions were different from those of earlier Soviet leaders. Yet, to be fair, even if the practice of inferring intentions had been conducted with more rigor and imagination, 

there is no guarantee that the intelligence community would 

have produced more accurate assessments of Soviet intentions. 

Nor is there reason to believe that the sorts of improvements 

I’m suggesting in the assessments of adversary intentions 

would have led civilian DMs to pay more attention to the views 

of the intelligence community. Nonetheless, if no effort is made 

to institutionalize practices designed to counteract the bias 

this study has identified, which privileges capabilities over behavior, then one should expect it will continue to affect the intelligence community’s assessments of adversaries’ intentions.

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

2. Waltz, Theory of International Politics.

3. Walt, Origins of Alliances.

4. Fearon, “Signaling Foreign Policy Interests”; and Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations.

5. Yarhi-Milo, “Knowing Thy Adversary.”

6. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

7. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine; and Glaser, “Political Consequences 

of Military Strategy.”

8. Watt, “British Intelligence.”

9. Kahn, “United States Views of Germany and Japan,” 476.

Bibliography

Betts, Richard. Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power 

in American National Security. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Edelstein, David. “Managing Uncertainty: Beliefs about Intentions and the Rise of Great Powers.” Security Studies 12, no. 

1 (Autumn 2002): 1–40.
INTENT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PERSPECTIVE

100

Fearon, James. “Signaling Foreign Policy Interests: Tying 

Hands versus Sinking Costs.” Journal of Conflict Resolution

41, no. 1 (1997): 68–90.

Glaser, Charles L. “Political Consequences of Military Strategy: 

Expanding and Refining the Spiral and Deterrence Models.” 

World Politics 44, no. 4 (July 1992): 497–538.

Jervis, Robert. “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma.” 

World Politics 30, no. 2 (January 1978): 167–214.

———. The Logic of Images in International Relations. Princeton, 

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Kahn, David. “United States Views of Germany and Japan in 

1941.” In Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment 

before the Two World Wars, edited by Ernest R. May, 476–

501. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Kydd, Andrew. Trust and Mistrust in International Relations. 

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

May, Ernest R., ed. Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New 

York: Norton, 2001.

Posen, Barry. The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, 

and Germany between the World Wars. Ithaca, NY: Cornell 

University Press, 1984.

Walt, Stephen. The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca, NY: Cornell 

University Press, 1987.

Waltz, Kenneth. Theory of International Politics. New York: Random House, 1979.

Watt, Donald. “British Intelligence and the Coming of the Second World War in Europe.” In Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars, edited by 

Ernest R. May, 237–70. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1984.

Yarhi-Milo, Keren. “Knowing Thy Adversary: Assessments of Intentions in International Politics.” PhD diss., University of 

Pennsylvania, 2009.
101

Chapter 8

Social Cognitive Neuroscience

The Neuroscience of Intent

Sabrina J. Pagano, PhD, NSI, Inc.

Abstract: While a variety of scholars and practitioners 

across several disciplines have addressed the intent question, the present chapter will consider the ways in which 

the relatively new field of social cognitive neuroscience 

(SCN) can illuminate our understanding of others’ intent. 

The field of SCN may yield greater insight into intent by allowing better understanding of the processes being engaged in response to psychological events or interaction. 

We thus may best engage with, change, or counteract those 

processes. However, it is likely that the best understanding 

of how to decipher intent, as in the study of other complex 

problems, will be a multimethod approach rather than one 

focusing solely on SCN. While no method should be viewed 

as a magic wand or panacea, SCN can contribute to our 

understanding of intent by increasing insight into the way 

we make attributions for others’ intentions. SCN offers the 

promise of examining how this process might differ when 

we make more or less accurate assessments of intent and 

thus may help us understand how we might do so more 

effectively. With time and continued work in this area, this 

increased insight might extend into an improved understanding of how to measure and model others’ intent and 

not solely our interpretation of it.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

102

Introduction and 

Methodological Overview

In its simplest form, intent can be thought of as a determination to engage in a given action with the goal of achieving a 

specific outcome.1 Deciphering the intentions of others, however, is far from a simple task. Complicating the process of deciphering intent is the potentially complex relationship among 

people’s attitudes, intent to act, and their actual behavior.2 Arguably, the first step in this process involves acknowledging 

that others may have mental states (i.e., intentions, beliefs, 

emotions, and desires) that differ from our own. Beyond merely 

understanding that others may think and feel differently than 

we do, a true understanding of others’ intent also requires the 

ability to determine the nature of those feelings and thoughts, 

as well as their likely associated behaviors. This ability has 

been referred to as mentalizing or theory of mind.3

While a variety of scholars and practitioners across several 

disciplines have addressed the intent question, the present 

chapter will consider the ways in which the relatively new field 

of social cognitive neuroscience (hereafter SCN) can illuminate 

our understanding of others’ intent. First, however, a brief description of one of the most promising brain measurement 

techniques—and its strengths and weaknesses—is warranted.

Measuring Brain Activity: 

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

At the outset, it is critical to dispel the common misperception that there is a straightforward, one-to-one relationship between neural firing in a given region of the brain and particular 

tasks or cognitive processes. For example, it would be overly 

simplistic to refer to the “aggression spot” of the brain. The 

more complex the macro-level process, the more likely that a 

distributed network of brain elements is involved.4 Moreover, it 

is a challenge to ascertain with any certainty whether a particular brain structure or network is involved solely with one 

process; indeed, available evidence appears to suggest otherwise.5 That said, there are conditions under which we can reasonably expect to observe a similar pattern of activation when 
103

people perform a given task if that pattern has been observed 

previously. This occurs when a particular set of brain regions 

is consistently activated in response to a particular type of task 

over dozens of studies examining multiple individuals and that 

pattern of activation is not observed during other activities. 

Thus, as a shorthand, we may find it useful to speak of distributed networks being associated with specific cognitive 

processes. As Cacioppo and his colleagues caution, however, 

even seemingly clear patterns of activation do not eliminate 

the possibility that the networks being activated are “part of a 

sufficient but not a necessary neural mechanism for [a given] 

information-processing operation.”6

SCN allows us to examine social phenomena and processes 

using the tools traditionally utilized by cognitive neuroscience, 

such as neuroimaging.7 Since another chapter in this volume 

is dedicated to neuroimaging methods, their treatment here 

will be brief. The most popular of the neuroimaging techniques, 

and the principal approach reported in this chapter, is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A majority of fMRI 

studies use what is known as blood-oxygen-level dependent 

(BOLD) contrast to determine which regions of the brain are 

more or less active during a psychological task. BOLD is based 

on two presuppositions: (1) blood flowing to more active regions 

of the brain is higher in oxygen content than blood in less active brain regions; and (2) oxygenated blood has different magnetic properties than deoxygenated blood. An MRI works by 

mapping the varying magnetic signals to determine the pattern 

of blood flow in the brain.

Like any other methodology, fMRI (and neuroimaging in general) has strengths and weaknesses that must be considered 

when deciphering the degree to which it can facilitate our understanding of intent. One major strength of fMRI is that the 

precision with which it can measure the brain’s activity (i.e., its 

temporal and spatial resolution) is greater than that of other 

brain imaging techniques like positron emission tomography 

(PET). This precision allows researchers to examine a greater 

number and type of questions. Another strength of fMRI is the 

potential to discriminate between the cognitive processes that 

individuals appear to use when engaging in differing tasks, 

such as deciding to pursue one course of action versus another.8

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

104

This information goes beyond what we are able to decipher, for 

example, by simply observing behavioral outcomes (e.g., that 

someone pursues course of action A versus course of action B).

A major limitation of fMRI is that to obtain measurements of 

which areas of the brain are engaged during certain tasks, the 

individual under study must be exposed to the task or stimulus repeatedly, potentially leading to response contamination 

when individuals become accustomed to the task and no longer 

react in an unbiased way.9 Second, because of the way in which 

fMRI data must be collected, comparisons between groups—so 

often of interest when examining social science questions—are 

atypical. One reason for this limitation is that the scanner environment itself is quite sterile. Those undergoing an fMRI must 

remain completely still inside a very noisy scanner; they cannot 

speak, and face-to-face interactions cannot occur for the duration of the brain imaging,10 which typically lasts between 30 

and 60 minutes. People being scanned wear video goggles that 

present stimuli to which they indicate responses on a button 

box typically composed of two to five buttons. This is hardly the 

rich social environment in which people interact daily. However, cutting-edge research techniques are beginning to mitigate some of these limitations. For example, protocols have 

been established that allow an examination of real social interactions (albeit still in the scanner context)11 or of the neural 

activity of two people as a coupled system.12

Intent-Related Research 

in Social Cognitive Neuroscience

People frequently make inferences about others’ qualities 

and mental states based on relatively impoverished inputs, a 

process known as thin slicing.13 For example, in one study, 

students made judgments about a teacher’s nonverbal behavior by viewing less than 30 seconds of a silent video of the instructor teaching.14 These quick judgments were essentially 

the same as those made by students who had taken the instructor’s class for a semester. This type of result has been 

replicated in a laboratory versus more natural settings and 

across modes of expression (e.g., tone of voice versus facial 
105

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

cues). Nonetheless, several variables can moderate (i.e., weaken 

or strengthen the relationship between the input and the output of) thin slicing. These include the type of target being judged 

(e.g., more extroverted and more expressive people are easier to 

judge), the person judging the behavior (e.g., less dogmatic and 

more cognitively complex people do better), the culture of the 

judges and targets (people are typically better at assessing targets from their own culture), and context (namely, judgments 

improve when the context is appropriate and diagnostic, such 

as observing and diagnosing someone as an extrovert in a large 

group versus an intimate social setting).15 Thus, despite the 

amazing potential implicated by our ability to thin slice, we often appear to fall short of easily and reliably understanding 

others’ intent. The very challenges implied by screening lines at 

airports, elaborate job application protocols, and the like reveal 

that we are still working on the intent puzzle. Fortunately, SCN 

can contribute some of the pieces.

Broadly speaking, much of the SCN literature relevant to the 

question of intent focuses on the ability of a social observer to 

determine the intentions of another individual. Less research 

appears focused on determining the intentions of a given actor 

and the cohesion—or lack thereof—among the actor’s attitudes, 

intentions, and behaviors. The following is a brief overview of 

the most relevant findings in several categories of study related 

to the perception and understanding of others’ intent.

Measuring Our Ability to Decipher Others’ Intent

Theory of Mind. As discussed above, theory of mind (ToM) 

refers to the ability of people to understand that others have 

mental states that may differ from their own and to infer what 

those mental states might be.16 Some researchers have gone so 

far as to say that ToM includes the ability to explain and predict 

the behavior of others of the same species.17 In general, a successful analyst would likely perform well on ToM tasks. However, measuring ToM aptitude does not require SCN—it can be 

determined using simple paper-and-pencil tests. What cannot 

be determined easily from these written tests, however, are the 

subprocesses in which people engage when they are more or 

less successful at ToM. SCN in time can provide us with this 
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

106

kind of information by differentiating the cognitive processes 

(e.g., making judgments about familiar or unfamiliar others, inferring temporary versus stable states or dispositions) involved 

in the selective engagement of different brain networks.

For example, a general consensus in the neuroscience literature has identified the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as a 

brain region that is crucial to social understanding, such as 

attempts to decipher the comparatively stable dispositions 

(e.g., personality traits such as extroversion or conscientiousness) of others.18 Additional regions, such as the temporal parietal junction (TPJ), may be recruited to infer transient states 

such as the goals, intentions, and desires of other people.19

Similarly, different regions of the brain are engaged when making judgments about familiar versus unfamiliar others or when 

specifically visual (as opposed to other media) representations 

of target behavior are presented to the perceiver.20 More importantly, brain regions may be differentially engaged depending 

on the nature of the intention. For example, Ciaramidaro and 

colleagues propose and provide evidence for distinct brain activity based on whether an individual’s goal or intention is social or private and whether an interaction is to occur in the 

present or the future.21

To the extent that SCN will be able to give us confident insights into the subprocesses involved in performing various 

tasks, we can train analysts to engage in these processes to 

achieve a better understanding of others. One method of training might be to use neurofeedback, which appears to operate 

based on operant conditioning (wherein positive reinforcement 

can be used to continually modify behavior so that it becomes 

successively closer to the desired outcome). Neurofeedback enables people to monitor in real time, and in some cases modify, 

biological states such as brain activity. This ability is useful to 

the extent that one is trying to develop or train a particular neural or other response. A full review of the neurofeedback literature is beyond the scope of the present paper; however, the success of this method across several domains (e.g., treating 

attention deficit disorder or migraines) suggests that it might be 

a worthwhile area for future investigation. Additionally, to the 

extent that people successfully engaging in various kinds of 

ToM tend to demonstrate a particular kind and degree of neural 
107

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

activation for each kind of task, we could potentially use fMRI 

measurement to select people who perform above a desired 

threshold. However, this suggestion comes with the caveat that 

this assessment—which necessarily has some measurement error—should be used as part of a battery-style screening tool 

and not as a stand-alone criterion for selection or dismissal.

Emotion Recognition. In making attributions about others’ 

intentions, we often look at facial expressions and other nonverbal indicators for clues to their emotional states. Recent research suggests that relatively independent brain systems may 

process different kinds of basic emotions (i.e., biologically 

based emotions that are thought to be cross-culturally universal, such as anger or disgust).22 At the same time, some structures or networks appear to be variously involved in the processing of any stimulus of emotional significance. Neuroscience 

researchers have focused mainly on the amygdala as a central 

brain structure of interest in exploring what happens as we 

engage in the emotion recognition process,23 and there is evidence that the amygdala in fact allows us to understand and 

process the emotional significance of incoming stimuli in a relatively automatic way.24 For example, selective damage to the 

amygdala results in deficits to an individual’s ability to recognize fear in others.25 However, the amygdala is not the only 

region implicated in the ability to detect emotion from facial cues. 

Other regions of the brain (e.g., the ventromedial prefrontal 

cortex, insula, and basal ganglia) appear to be implicated in 

people’s ability to identify other facial expressions, such as disgust.26 As the body of SCN work on perceived hostility and disgust grows, we may discover a promising source for identifying 

individuals who can assess potentially dangerous intentions. 

We could operationalize this knowledge in the future by training or selecting analysts in the same way as described in our 

earlier discussion of ToM. The growing SCN literatures on attributions of trustworthiness and on trust interactions may inform training and selection from a complementary perspective.

Action Observation. Another promising area for understanding intent is the study of action observation, which arises 

when people perceive biological motion (i.e., motion that is consistent with the biomechanics of living organisms) that suggests an intentional and goal-directed action is being enacted. 
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

108

As discussed by Lieberman, the majority of action observation 

studies to date have focused on brain activity related to reaching to grasp or associated hand movements. Importantly, as 

Lieberman goes on to discuss, the regions of the brain that become active in response to action observation (compared with 

control stimuli) tend to become increasingly active when observing action that is specifically functional (e.g., grasping a 

coffee mug right side up versus upside down).27 One potential 

benefit of SCN studies of action observation to our understanding of intent is as part of a selection or training tool aimed at 

optimally identifying behaviors associated with hostile intention (e.g., reaching for and grasping a gun). As action observation studies expand their repertoire of observed activities, they 

may yield greater rewards in understanding intent.

Measuring Others’ Intent: Initial Research

Intent is an important variable to examine because it may be 

a precursor to actual behavior. Attempts to convert people’s 

hostile intentions through persuasion are aimed ultimately at 

decreasing the corresponding hostile behaviors. To the extent 

that we can better understand how to influence people’s intentions, we can thus address a core concern for analysts. In our 

attempts to convert people’s hostile intentions through persuasion, it is important to understand what might predict both 

their intentions in response to a received persuasive message 

and their later behavior. The first step along this path comes 

from understanding what happens when people are successfully persuaded by a message to which they are exposed.

Falk and her colleagues undertook an investigation of the 

brain regions involved when people are successfully versus unsuccessfully persuaded.28 During successful persuasion (and 

not during unsuccessful persuasion), active brain regions included those that together have been consistently shown to be 

involved in social cognition or mentalizing.29 These include the 

dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and the bilateral temporal poles. 

As in other kinds of research, the absence of other likely explanatory mechanisms (e.g., activation of the reasoning and 

working memory networks) in the Falk et al. study is noteworthy 
109

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

since it strengthens the narrative positing that specifically social cognitive and mentalizing processes are invoked during 

successful persuasion. More importantly, these findings were 

replicated across two distinct cultural groups and two forms of 

media, lending further confidence to these findings and potentially extending the degree to which they might be generalized.30 Continued replication of this pattern of results would 

enable us to gain a better understanding of people’s likely intentions and subsequent behaviors by examining their neural 

responses to a persuasive message, without having to directly 

ask them (though this capability is still a long-term goal).31 Future SCN work should examine the precise relationship between successful persuasion and people’s downstream intentions and/or behaviors; to date, there is no published body of 

work in this area. While there might not be a perfect concordance between people’s intentions to act and their subsequent 

behaviors, it is safe to say that being in a specific intentional 

state increases the likelihood that someone will engage in 

intention-consistent behavior.32

The caveat remains that an examination of a single person’s 

brain activity should not be taken as a direct indicator of subsequent behavior. In interpreting these findings, it also is important to note that this work used a topic for which people did 

not hold strong prior attitudes. As with other preliminary findings reported here, several replications and boundary tests for 

the limits of the initial effects or relationships are required before any conclusions might be drawn. Moreover, the act of measuring attitudes or intent can under some conditions alter later 

behavior, a process that in the marketing literature is known 

as the mere measurement effect. While the consideration of 

intent certainly is more complex than product selection, we 

might expect that some of the processes engendered by measurement may similarly alter the course of events to come. Despite these caveats, these initial findings extend our understanding of the processes invoked during successful persuasion, 

which may similarly predict intentions and downstream behaviors. Keeping abreast of related findings as they accumulate 

will allow us to determine the degree to which these preliminary findings can or cannot be generalized.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

110

Case Study: How SCN Can Improve Understanding

To understand how SCN contributes to an improved understanding of various phenomena, let us examine a historical debate within social psychology on the motivational and behavioral implications of feeling different emotions in response to 

another’s suffering. Several years ago, Daniel Batson, a prominent social psychologist, set about examining the relationship 

between empathy and altruistic behavior in the face of another’s suffering.33 His goal was to demonstrate that feeling empathy toward a suffering individual was distinguishable from feeling distress. Batson defined empathy as an emotional response 

congruent with the perceived welfare of another. When the 

other person is suffering, empathy may be composed of otheroriented feelings of tenderness, compassion, and similar affects. Personal distress, on the other hand, is a self-focused 

emotion characterized by feelings such as alarm, grief, and 

worry.34 Batson argued that it is important to distinguish between different emotional responses (e.g., empathy and distress) because they produce different motivational states. Specifically, in response to another’s suffering, empathy motivates 

observers to alleviate the other person’s suffering (i.e., altruistic motivation). Conversely, personal distress motivates observers to alleviate their own suffering (i.e., egoistic motivation).35

In the course of his work, Batson found that empathy and 

personal distress can produce similar or distinct behavioral 

outcomes depending on the situation.36 Specifically, when 

people cannot easily escape the perceived suffering of a victim, 

both empathy and personal distress may produce helping behavior for the person who is suffering. However, only empathy 

is likely to produce help when the observer can easily escape 

the perceived suffering of the victim (either by physically leaving or by mentally “exiting” the situation through one or another strategy, such as blaming the victim).

How could SCN help/have helped this debate? Batson and 

his colleagues conducted a study of the neural underpinnings 

of empathy.37 As they discuss, their findings support the notion 

that human responses to others’ suffering can in fact be influenced by cognitive and motivational processes. While obtaining 

convergent evidence from an additional method in support of 
111

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

prior theory and findings is quite promising and illustrative of 

the potential power of an SCN approach, it does not illustrate its 

specific strengths. We can look to SCN not only to corroborate 

but also to enrich our understanding of the processes involved 

over the time course of psychological reactions and interactions 

of interest. To provide compelling evidence that the differential 

behavior observed in the “easy exit” situation results from truly 

different emotional experiences and motivational consequences, 

it is also useful to demonstrate the similarities and differences 

in the neural networks underlying different ways of sharing 

pain with others (as did Lamm et al.).38 Using the tools of SCN, 

Lamm et al. elucidated the mechanisms that allow people to 

distinguish self from other—a critical component for the experience of empathy. We might also consider how, if the SCN study 

had been conducted prior to the original studies by Batson and 

colleagues, it might have served as a useful catalyst for generating hypotheses that might under different conditions have been 

ignored. For example, if the researchers examined only situations that happened to produce similar outcomes as a result of 

feeling either empathy or distress, then in the absence of an 

SCN study, researchers less insightful than Batson and his colleagues might not have thought to look for cases in which these 

emotions did not produce similar outcomes.

Implications and Conclusions

Despite its limitations, SCN has strengths to recommend it 

as a vehicle for gaining insight into several psychological questions of interest. To the extent that SCN can give us insight into 

the actual processes being engaged in response to a particular 

psychological event or interaction, we may begin to understand 

how best to engage with, change, or counteract those processes. To date, a great deal of groundwork has been laid in 

brain mapping—the process by which scholars have iteratively 

built knowledge to determine where in the brain various processes occur (i.e., connect structure and function). If a brain 

region has been consistently associated with specific psychological processes that were not previously known to be involved 

during different kinds of tasks, the recruitment of this region in 
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

112

response to other stimuli or events may yield insights that we 

did not have before (though this view is not unchallenged).39

Being able to infer the psychological processes in which 

people are engaged is useful for several reasons. First, people 

may not always be willing to share honestly their emotional or 

cognitive states due to social desirability or other concerns. Second, people sometimes simply are unaware of the processes in 

which they are engaging while making certain decisions or performing certain tasks.40 Finally, as noted above, the very act of 

reporting one’s experience may change the nature of that experience and possibly affect later behavior.41 SCN studies that are 

designed to help dissociate different underlying processes involved in the production of similar or identical behaviors, or 

those that help us identify similar contributing processes involved in what first appear to be different events, also may provide guiding insights. Having a tool that enables us to become 

aware of the processes involved when people execute various 

activities can be important, for example, when we are training 

people to improve their skills at a particular task or when we are 

trying to stop a process and its outcome. Indeed, as Lieberman 

aptly states, “In the best social cognitive neuroscience research, 

the where (in the brain) question is merely a prelude to the 

when, why, and how questions” (italics in original).42

As discussed, SCN can contribute new insight into the intent 

puzzle. It nonetheless is likely that the best understanding of 

how to decipher intent, as in the study of other complex problems, will be a multimethod approach rather than one focusing 

solely on SCN.43 While no method should be viewed as a magic 

wand or panacea, SCN can contribute to our understanding of 

intent by increasing insight into the way we make attributions 

for others’ intentions. SCN offers the promise of examining how 

this process might differ when we make more or less accurate 

assessments of intent and thus may help us understand how 

we might do so more effectively. With time and continued work 

in this area, this increased insight might extend into an improved understanding of how to measure and model others’ 

intent and not solely our interpretation of it.
113

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

Notes 

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Joint Publication 1-02, Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 238.

2. Ajzen and Fishbein, “Influence of Attitudes on Behavior.”

3. Frith and Frith, “Interacting Minds”; and Premack and Woodruff, “Does 

the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?”

4. Cacioppo et al., “Just Because You’re Imaging the Brain.”

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., 657.

7. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” Annual Review of Psychology.

8. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Encyclopedia of Social 

Psychology; and van Overwalle, “Social Cognition and the Brain,” 830.

9. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, 173. 

10. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Encyclopedia of Social 

Psychology.

11. For example, see de Quervain et al., “Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment.”

12. King-Casas et al., “Getting to Know You.”

13. Ambady and Rosenthal, “Thin Slices of Expressive Behavior.”

14. Ambady and Rosenthal, “Half a Minute.”

15. Ambady and Rosenthal, “Thin Slices of Expressive Behavior.”

16. Premack and Woodruff, “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?”

17. Ciaramidaro et al., “Intentional Network.”

18. van Overwalle, “Social Cognition and the Brain.”

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Ciaramidaro et al., “Intentional Network.”

22. Ekman, “Basic Emotions.” 

23. See, for example, Adolphs, “How Do We Know the Minds of Others?”

24. Whalen et al., “Masked Presentations of Emotional Facial Expressions”; Vuilleumier et al., “Neural Responses to Emotional Faces; and KrolakSalmon et al., “Early Amygdala Reaction to Fear.”

25. Adolphs et al., “Impaired Recognition of Emotion in Facial Expressions.” 

26. For example, see Heberlein et al., “Ventromedial Frontal Lobe Plays a 

Critical Role”; Calder et al., “Impaired Recognition of Anger”; Calder et al., 

“Impaired Recognition and Experience of Disgust”; Hennenlotter et al., “Neural Correlates Associated with Impaired Disgust Processing”; and Phillips et 

al., “Specific Neural Substrate for Perceiving Facial Expressions of Disgust.”

27. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Handbook of Social 

Psychology, 150–51.

28. Falk et al., “Neural Correlates of Persuasion.”

29. Frith and Frith, “Development and Neurophysiology of Mentalizing.”

30. Falk et al., “Neural Correlates of Persuasion.”
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

114

31. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Encyclopedia of Social 

Psychology.

32. Ajzen and Fishbein, “Influence of Attitudes on Behavior”; and Gollwitzer, 

“Implementation Intentions.”

33. Batson, Altruism Question.

34. Batson, Early, and Salvarani, “Perspective Taking.”

35. Ibid.

36. See Batson, Altruism Question, for a review.

37. Lamm, Batson, and Decety, “Neural Substrate of Human Empathy.”

38. Ibid.

39. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. For the challenge, see Poldrack, “Can Cognitive Processes Be Inferred?”

40. Nisbett and Wilson, “Telling More Than We Can Know.”

41. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Encyclopedia of Social 

Psychology.

42. Ibid. See also Cacioppo et al., “Just Because You’re Imaging the Brain”; 

and Harmon-Jones and Winkielman, “Brief Overview of Social Neuroscience.”

43. Campbell and Fiske, “Convergent and Discriminant Validation.”

Bibliography

Adolphs, Ralph. “How Do We Know the Minds of Others? DomainSpecificity, Simulation, and Enactive Social Cognition.” Brain 

Research 1079 (2006): 25–35. 

Adolphs, Ralph, Daniel Tranel, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio 

Damasio. “Impaired Recognition of Emotion in Facial Expressions Following Bilateral Damage to the Human Amygdala.” Nature 372 (1994): 669–72.

Ajzen, Icek, and Martin Fishbein. “The Influence of Attitudes on 

Behavior.” In The Handbook of Attitudes, edited by Dolores 

Albarracín, Blair T. Johnson, and Mark P. Zanna, 173–221. 

Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005.

Ambady, Nalini, and Robert Rosenthal. “Half a Minute: Predicting Teacher Evaluations from Thin Slices of Nonverbal Behavior and Physical Attractiveness.” Journal of Personality 

and Social Psychology 64, no. 3 (1993): 431–41.

———. “Thin Slices of Expressive Behavior as Predictors of Interpersonal Consequences: A Meta-analysis.” Psychological 

Bulletin 111, no. 2 (1992): 256–74.

Batson, C. Daniel. The Altruism Question: Toward a Social Psychological Answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991.
115

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

Batson, C. Daniel, Shannon Early, and Giovanni Salvarani. 

“Perspective Taking: Imagining How Another Feels versus 

Imagining How You Would Feel.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23, no. 7 (July 1997): 751–58.

Cacioppo, John T., Gary G. Berntson, Tyler S. Lorig, Catherine 

J. Norris, Edith Rickett, and Howard Nusbaum. “Just Because You’re Imaging the Brain Doesn’t Mean You Can Stop 

Using Your Head: A Primer and Set of First Principles.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 4 (2003): 

650–61.

Calder, Andrew J., Jill Keane, Andrew D. Lawrence, and Facundo Manes. “Impaired Recognition of Anger Following 

Damage to the Ventral Striatum.” Brain 127, no. 9 (September 2004): 1958–69.

Calder, Andrew J., Jill Keane, Facundo Manes, Nagui Antoun, 

and Andrew W. Young. “Impaired Recognition and Experience of Disgust Following Brain Injury.” Nature Neuroscience

3 (2000): 1077–78.

Campbell, Donald T., and Donald W. Fiske. “Convergent and 

Discriminant Validation by the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix.” Psychological Bulletin 56, no. 2 (March 1959): 81–105.

Ciaramidaro, Angela, Mauro Adenzato, Ivan Enrici, Susanne 

Erk, Lorenzo Pia, Bruno G. Bara, and Henrik Walter. “The 

Intentional Network: How the Brain Reads Varieties of Intentions.” Neuropsychologia 45 (2007): 3105–13.

de Quervain, Dominique J.-F., Urs Fischbacher, Valerie Treyer, 

Melanie Schellhammer, Ulrich Schnyder, Alfred Buck, and 

Ernst Fehr. “The Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment.” 

Nature 305, no. 5688 (2004): 1254–58.

Ekman, Paul. “Basic Emotions.” In Handbook of Cognition and 

Emotion, edited by Tim Dalgleish and Mick J. Power, 45–60. 

San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1999.

Falk, Emily B., Lian Rameson, Elliot T. Berkman, Betty Liao, 

Yoona Kang, Tristen K. Inagaki, and Matthew D. Lieberman. 

“The Neural Correlates of Persuasion: A Common Network across Cultures and Media.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, early access posted online 19 November 2009. 

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn 

.2009.21363.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

116

Frith, Chris D., and Uta Frith. “Development and Neurophysiology of Mentalizing.” Philosophical Transactions of the 

Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences 358, 

no. 1431 (29 March 2003): 459–73.

———. “Interacting Minds—A Biological Basis.” Science 286, 

no. 5445 (1999): 1692–95.

Gollwitzer, Peter M. “Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects 

of Simple Plans.” American Psychologist 54, no. 7 (July 

1999): 493–503.

Harmon-Jones, Eddie, and Piotr Winkielman. “A Brief Overview 

of Social Neuroscience.” In Social Neuroscience: Integrating 

Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, 

edited by Eddie Harmon-Jones and Piotr Winkielman, 3–11. 

New York: Guilford Press, 2007.

Heberlein, Andrea S., Alisa A. Padon, Seth J. Gillihan, Martha 

J. Farah, and Lesley K. Fellows. “Ventromedial Frontal Lobe 

Plays a Critical Role in Facial Emotion Recognition.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20, no. 4 (2008): 721–33.

Hennenlotter, Andreas, Ulrike Schroeder, Peter Erhard, Bernhard 

Haslinger, Robert Stahl, Adolf Weindl, H. Grafin von Einsiedel, 

Klaus W. Lange, and Andres O. Ceballos-Baumann. “Neural 

Correlates Associated with Impaired Disgust Processing in Presymptomatic Huntington’s Disease.” Brain 127, no. 6 (2004): 

1446–53.

Johnson-Frey, Scott H., Farah R. Maloof, Roger Newman-Norlund, 

Chloe Farrer, Souheil Inati, and Scott T. Grafton. “Actions or 

Hand-Object Interactions? Human Inferior Frontal Cortex and 

Action Observation.” Neuron 39, no. 6 (2003): 1053–58.

Joint Publication 1-02. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 12 April 2001, as amended 

through 31 October 2009.

King-Casas, Brooks, Damon Tomlin, Cedric Anen, Colin F. 

Camerer, Steven R. Quartz, and P. Read Montague. “Getting to 

Know You: Reputation and Trust in a Two-Person Economic 

Exchange.” Science 308, no. 5718 (1 April 2005): 78–83.

Krolak-Salmon, Pierre, Marie-Anne Hénaff, Alain Vighetto, Olivier 

Bertrand, and François Mauguière. “Early Amygdala Reaction 

to Fear Spreading in Occipital, Temporal, and Frontal Cortex: 

A Depth Electrode ERP Study in Human.” Neuron 42, no. 4 

(2004): 665–76.
117

SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

Lamm, Claus, C. Daniel Batson, and Jean Decety. “The Neural 

Substrate of Human Empathy: Effects of Perspective-Taking 

and Cognitive Appraisal.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

19, no. 1 (January 2007): 42–58.

Lieberman, Matthew D. “Social Cognitive Neuroscience.” In Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, edited by Roy F. Baumeister and 

Kathleen D. Vohs. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press, 2007.

———. “Social Cognitive Neuroscience.” In Handbook of Social 

Psychology, 5th ed., edited by Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. 

Fiske, and Gardner Lindzey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.

———. “Social Cognitive Neuroscience: A Review of Core Processes.” Annual Review of Psychology 58 (2007): 259–89.

Nisbett, Richard E., and Timothy D. Wilson. “Telling More Than 

We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes.” Psychological Review 84, no. 3 (May 1977): 231–59.

Phillips, Mary L., Andrew W. Young, Carl Senior, Michael J. 

Brammer, Christopher Andrew, Andrew J. Calder, Edward T. 

Bullmore, et al. “A Specific Neural Substrate for Perceiving 

Facial Expressions of Disgust.” Nature 389, no. 6650 (1997): 

495–98.

Poldrack, Russell A. “Can Cognitive Processes Be Inferred from 

Neuroimaging Data?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10, no. 2 

(February 2006): 59–63.

Premack, David, and Guy Woodruff. “Does the Chimpanzee 

Have a Theory of Mind?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1 

(1978): 515–26.

van Overwalle, Frank. “Social Cognition and the Brain: A MetaAnalysis.” Human Brain Mapping 30 (2009): 829–58.

Vuilleumier, Patrik, Jorge L. Armony, Karen Clarke, Masud Husain, Julia Driver, and Raymond J. Dolan. “Neural Responses to Emotional Faces with and without Awareness: 

Event-Related fMRI in a Parietal Patient with Visual Extinction 

and Spatial Neglect.” Neuropsychologia 40, no. 12 (2002): 

2156–66.

Whalen, Paul J., Scott L. Rauch, Nancy L. Etcoff, Sean C. 

McInerney, Michael B. Lee, and Michael A. Jenike. 

“Masked Presentations of Emotional Facial Expressions 

Modulate Amygdala Activity without Explicit Knowledge.” 

Journal of Neuroscience 18, no. 1 (1998): 411–18.

119

Chapter 9

Neuropsychological and 

Brain-Imaging Techniques

Abigail J. C. Chapman, NSI, Inc.

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the current neuropsychological tools and techniques available to social scientists. These tools, such as 

lesion studies and functional magnetic resonance imaging 

(fMRI), help researchers understand the complex relationship between mind and body to explore the possibility of 

harnessing the ability to anticipate an individual’s intention to engage in a behavior. While the field of social cognitive neuroscience offers exciting research findings through 

the use of promising tools and techniques, it is a nascent 

field that requires further study and experimentation before conclusive findings can be applied to current problems facing the defense community.

James Watson once said, “There are only molecules; everything 

else is sociology.” His tongue-in-cheek arrogance reminds us of 

the great gulf that once separated the “two cultures” of humanities and science. In the last decade this gap is successfully being bridged by social neuroscience.

—V. S. Ramachandran, MD, PhD

University of California, San Diego

Introduction

Researchers have long been fascinated by the complexities of 

the human brain and, in particular, the relationship between 

mind and body and the possibility of harnessing the ability to 

predict an individual’s intention to engage in a behavior. While 

it has been and will remain for many years to come an organ 
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

120

that cannot be easily seen or understood, science has made 

great strides in developing tools and techniques that allow us 

to gain insight into the neural mechanisms (the patterns of 

brain activation) underlying social cognitive processes,1 such 

as social perception,2 attitude formation,3 emotion recognition,4 and decision making,5 as well as the theory of the mind.6

Only in the last 10 years have researchers begun marrying 

the tools of social psychology and neuroscience to create a new 

field of study that harnesses the strengths of both to examine 

phenomena, such as intention, that cannot be easily addressed 

by studying behavior (e.g., obedience studies) or relying upon 

self-reported responses (e.g., surveys, implicit attitude tests). 

While applying the tools of social psychology and neuroscience 

allows researchers to gain deeper insight by capitalizing on the 

multimethod approach to studying various phenomena, it is 

important to note that at this relatively nascent stage, studies 

are restricted to a laboratory setting, are reliant upon volunteers, and incur high monetary costs associated with certain 

neuroimaging tools (to be explained in detail below). In addition, to discover and isolate the neural imprint, or neural correlates, of an attitude, behavior, or intention to engage in a 

behavior, it is necessary to conduct rigorous experiments in a 

controlled setting across numerous studies to ensure the findings are consistent.

This chapter will provide an overview of the current neuropsychological tools and techniques available to social scientists. The tools are presented in detail below starting with the 

oldest technique (lesion studies) and ending with the most recent and most often used technique (functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI]).

Techniques

Lesion studies

Lesion studies are correlation studies that are primarily conducted on individuals who suffer from an isolated and identifiable brain injury from an accident, disease, or surgical lesion. 

This body of work laid the foundation for the field of social cognitive neuroscience and allows for the close examination of the 
121

correlation between damage to isolated areas of the brain and 

observable changes in psychological functioning (i.e., changes 

in emotion, mood, and cognition). 

Procedure. In some cases, to study changes in performance 

on tasks of interest, a temporary lesion is created using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a technique that uses electromagnetic pulses to stimulate the neurons in a targeted area 

of the cerebral cortex to simulate a lesion (the cortex is the area 

of the brain that is also referred to as the grey matter and is 

responsible for higher-order or executive brain functions). In 

situations where the exact location of the lesion is not known 

due to injury through an accident (e.g., a foreign object forcibly 

inserted through the skull) or disease (e.g., tumor), it is necessary to obtain a structural brain scan of the individual so that 

the damaged area of the brain can be identified.

The most well-known example of a lesion study is the posthumous case study of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker in 1848. 

While working on the California railroad, Gage survived the 

impalement of a railroad rod through his head, but the injury 

severely damaged both his left and right frontal lobes, resulting 

in an observable change in demeanor.7 An 1868 report by 

Gage’s physician in fact noted that Gage’s “mind was radically 

changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said 

he was ‘no longer Gage.’ ”8 However, it was the lesion study 

conducted by Damasio et al. in 1994 that provided scientific 

evidence supporting the historical account that Mr. Gage’s behaviors and actions were radically altered by the accident. 

Damasio et al. compared computer-generated images of Gage’s 

skull to those of other patients who had suffered damage in the 

same area of the brain and in fact had exhibited similar symptoms. Thus, it was through the observation of changes in behavior and the comparison of identical brain damage in other 

patients that researchers were able to identify the critical role 

that the frontal lobe plays in decision making, emotion regulation, and behavior.

Benefits and Limitations. Primarily, a lesion-based study 

is used to establish a causal relationship between damage to 

a localized area of the cortex and demonstrated changes in 

the personality, behavior, and executive processing tasks of 

an individual. Given that the study is done on an individual 

NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

122

level, the research is reliant upon finding numerous individuals who all suffer from isolated damage to the identical location of their brain or using the TMS procedure to induce a 

temporary “lesion” in a sample group. A limitation to conducting this type of study is that research is restricted to examining higher-order processing tasks and is easily confounded if 

the damage is not localized. An appealing benefit to a lesionbased study is that it is relatively low cost and aids in establishing a causal relationship, as long as the findings are replicated across numerous studies.

Electroencephalography

Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine, researchers 

measure the electrical activity of neurons, or brain waves, 

(known as event-related potentials) that are activated in the 

outer layers of the brain when the participant is presented with 

a task. 

Procedure. The EEG machine requires that the participant 

wear a skull-cap that contains a number of electrodes (from 20 

to 256 or more) soaked in a conductive gel solution allowing the 

electrode to connect easily with the skin. Prior to the start of 

the study, the experimenter inputs the time stamps of the 

stimuli into the computer protocol so that the data can be 

“tagged” as either occurring in response to a stimulus or resting background activity of the individual. Once the data has 

been averaged across several trials, it is relatively easy to identify patterns of brain-wave activity as reliable responses to the 

given stimuli. The pattern of wave activation is then mapped 

onto a generic computer-generated image of the brain that allows for the illustration of the degree of activation, or density of 

response, in the brain as it responds to the stimulus.9

Benefits and Limitations. The EEG machine is a relatively 

low-cost, noninvasive technology that allows for the mapping of 

real-time neural responses to a given stimulus (the temporal 

resolution is about one millisecond). There are two main drawbacks to conducting this type of study. First, only the outer 

layer of the cerebral cortex is measurable, unless electrodes are 

implanted subdermally, which limits the research to questions 

that involve only the outer layer of the cerebral cortex (i.e., 
123

NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

executive functioning tasks). Second, spatial resolution of eventrelated potentials (the measured brain activity) is poor, thus not 

allowing the exact location of the activity to be identified. The 

spatial resolution can be improved by increasing the number of 

electrodes attached to the skullcap, but it still does not allow for 

the exact pinpointing that the following technique provides.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been 

used successfully to identify, diagnose, and understand neurological conditions and brain abnormalities, but only in the last 

few years have social cognitive psychologists employed fMRI to 

detect subtle changes in localized activity within the brain 

while participants engage in an experiment designed to elicit a 

response in a particular area of the brain that researchers believe may correspond to the emotion, behavior, or attitude they 

are studying. The fMRI relies upon a model of homodynamic 

response that posits that a “transient increase in neuronal activity within a region of the brain begins consuming additional 

oxygen in the blood proximal to these cells. . . . As a result, 

blood near a region of local neuronal activity soon has a higher 

concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin than blood in locally 

inactive areas.”10 In other words, just like any other muscle in 

the body, when an area of the brain is activated or engaged, it 

receives an influx of oxygenated blood. Further, the model suggests that the more oxygenated blood has a different magnetic 

property, allowing the fMRI machine to capture visual images 

of the change in oxygenated blood at a one- to two-second latency. The brain is scanned on a preset interval schedule that 

corresponds to the experimental protocol, allowing for control 

scans when the brain is at rest and experimental scans when 

the participant is engaged in a cognitive task. Results are obtained by subtracting the control, or resting, scan from the 

experimental scan, leaving behind the difference in activation. 

We can theorize that the activation differential is primarily due 

to the task that the participant was engaged in.

Procedure. An fMRI scan requires a participant’s head or 

entire body to be placed inside an fMRI scanner, which is 

built around a powerful electrical magnet (approximately 105 
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

124

times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field), for an extended 

amount of time.11 The entire scan usually lasts 30–45 minutes 

and requires the participant to remain immobile to ensure that 

the images obtained are not affected by movement. It is important to ensure that the participants are not claustrophobic and 

fully understand the task that will be asked of them while they 

are inside the scanner. It is helpful to do a practice set outside 

the scanner on a computer where the researcher is available to 

clarify and answer potential questions. Once the participant is 

inside the scanning machine, it is important to first complete a 

structural brain scan of the individual to ensure there are no 

abnormalities in structure that would preclude the individual 

from participating in the study. This usually takes less than 

five minutes. In addition, due to the uniqueness of every brain 

(e.g., areas of the brain are not uniform in size or exact location), the structural scan is used to map the areas of activation 

onto the individual’s brain to ensure consistency in the identification and labeling across participants.

Once the experiment has begun, the participant is presented 

with a slide designed to elicit minimal neural response, such as 

a crosshair (fig. 9.1), so that a baseline neural response can be 

calculated and contrasted with the experimental condition. In 

the simple example presented in figure 9.1, the participant first 

views a baseline image for three seconds, an image of a square 

for five seconds, and the baseline image for three seconds, and 

then is asked to engage his or her recall, or short-term memory, in identifying the object that he or she has just seen. This 

series is repeated several times with different experimental 

slides (e.g., different geometric shapes) over the course of approximately 30 to 60 minutes to ensure that there will be 

enough clean scans of the brain.

After all participants are run through the experimental protocol, the data is scrubbed and prepared for analysis, a process 

called preprocessing. It is within this step that the data is made 

usable for the final analysis. Preprocessing of the experimental 

data includes realignment (correcting the image to account for 

motion of the individual within the scanner), normalization 

(alignment of each individual’s brain onto one common brain to 

line up brain regions and structures across the sample group), 

and smoothing (averaging) of the data to ensure that the data 
125

NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

can be compared across individuals. It is important to point out 

that the three steps involved in preprocessing change the data 

to make it more analyzable. As Lieberman points out, “[The 

data] are far from their raw state and represent a series of decisions and transformations that render the data more analyzable but sometimes introduce problems when the data do not 

conform to the assumptions behind the transformations.”12

Finally, once the data has been analyzed, the results are either overlaid on a standard structural brain scan, a composite 

brain scan of all the participants, or a specific individual’s 

structural brain scan. The images are usually presented in 

color, with the areas of activation displayed in a red or “hot” 

color and areas of decreased activation in shades of blue.

Benefits and Limitations. The primary benefit of conducting an fMRI study is that the technique allows researchers to 

look inside the brain to see not only which brain regions respond to certain stimuli but also the patterns and strengths of 

activation. It allows for three-dimensional imaging of subcortical activation in response to stimuli, providing greater understanding of the intricacies of the brain as it responds to the 

social environment. While fMRI studies have significant appeal 

and benefits both scientifically and visually, there are also several major limitations associated with this technology, including the high cost of acquiring and maintaining the scanner.

Since it is necessary to obtain multiple data points to average 

across the responses, each experimental condition must be presented to the participants across multiple trial repetitions, 

which has the potential for contamination and habituation 

effects. Ensuring that all participants are cognitively engaged in 

+

Baseline Experimental

+

Baseline Experimental

Did you just see a

circle or a square?

Left

Thumb

Circle

Right

Thumb

Square

Figure 9.1. An example of an fMRI scanning protocol. The participant sees each 

baseline slide for three seconds and each experimental slide for five seconds. Only 

during the second experimental slide is the participant asked to engage in a response 

behavior—using his or her thumbs to depress the corresponding button on the buttonbox device by his or her side.
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

126

the study, that each experimental condition is consistent, and 

that the total run time for the scan is under one hour can help 

mitigate this drawback.

Because of the limitations of current fMRI technology, behavioral research that utilizes the technology is constrained by 

operational requirements. For instance, it is difficult to study 

an individual’s intention to engage in a specific behavior and 

even more challenging while he or she is alone inside an fMRI 

machine and exposed to visual and auditory stimuli via goggles 

and headphones. The scanner itself creates a unique environment that does not reflect a real-life situation. Consequently, 

researchers are limited in their ability to generalize their findings beyond the laboratory setting and are restricted by their 

need to rely upon volunteers to participate in studies.

In addition, the current technology is cumbersome and noisy, 

unsuited to clandestine scanning applications. Therefore, the 

technique may be applied only in scenarios where the participant’s awareness of the scanning process is of no concern. In 

other words, current fMRI technology cannot be used to remotely scan individuals in a public setting such as an airport to 

look for intention to engage in threatening behavior. Consequently, given the controlled and sterile environment of an fMRI 

laboratory, researchers studying social behavior have difficulty 

generalizing their findings beyond the laboratory setting and 

examining intentions to engage in behavior outside of the fMRI.

One way to compensate for this limitation is to engage in a 

two-part study comprised of an fMRI study followed by a survey over a short period of time. In the first part of the study, 

researchers would identify a behavior they are interested in 

studying. For example, researchers may be interested in exploring the link between pro-environmental attitudes and past 

behavior and an individual’s intention and subsequent use of 

compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. The researchers would 

run participants through an fMRI protocol designed to elicit a 

neural response to questions on their environmental attitudes, 

past behaviors, and possible intention to use CFL bulbs in the 

future. Several weeks later, researchers would contact each 

participant and ask them several follow-up behavioral questions (such as, Have you purchased CFL bulbs for your home?) 

to see if their behaviors mapped onto their stated responses 
127

NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

and neural activity from the fMRI session. Alternatively, for the 

second part of the study, the researchers could monitor a basket of free CFL bulbs sitting by the door and record how many 

each participant took and follow up with them to see if they 

used them in their homes.

Conclusion

While the field of social cognitive neuroscience offers exciting 

research findings through the use of promising tools and techniques, readers of the published results of these neuroimaging 

studies should maintain a critical eye. Though the tools described above provide greater insight into how the brain works, 

it is important to realize that the brain is subject to change, 

structurally and neurally, by the environment and experience, 

both in early development and throughout adulthood (this is 

referred to as neural plasticity). In addition, while the current 

techniques used within the field of social cognitive neuroscience 

allow for the study of phenomena that cannot be easily observed, the tools themselves are relatively cumbersome and 

cannot be easily taken outside of a controlled laboratory setting. 

With current technology, it is nearly impossible to conduct experiments outside of a laboratory setting or to scan individuals 

covertly. Given the current limitations associated with neuroimaging studies and the relatively limited body of research, it is 

critical that we continue to conduct experiments using both 

neuroimaging and traditional social psychology techniques. We 

must ensure that the results are appropriately caveated and 

that researchers continue to replicate study findings before we 

can lay claim to understanding the way the brain works.

Notes 

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” Annual Review of Psychology.

2. Bartholow and Dickter, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience of Person Perception”; and Ito, Willadsen-Jensen, and Correll, “Social Neuroscience and 

Social Perception.”

3. Cunningham and Johnson, “Attitudes and Evaluation.”
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

128

4. Morris et al., “Differential Neural Response”; and Nomura et al., “Functional Association of the Amygdala and Ventral Prefrontal Cortex.”

5. Krawczyk, “Contributions of the Prefrontal Cortex.”

6. Stone, “Evolutionary Perspective on Domain Specificity”; and Van Overwalle, “Social Cognition and the Brain.”

7. Damasio et al., “Return of Phineas Gage.”

8. Harlow, “Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar through the Head,” 277.

9. Dubin, How the Brain Works.

10. Cacioppo et al., “Just Because You’re Imaging the Brain,” 651.

11. Langleben, “Detection of Deception with fMRI,” 2.

12. Lieberman, “Social Cognitive Neuroscience,” in Handbook of Social 

Psychology, 147.

Bibliography

Bartholow, Bruce D., and Cheryl L. Dickter. “Social Cognitive 

Neuroscience of Person Perception: A Selective Review Focused on the Event-Related Brain Potential.” In Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Eddie Harmon-Jones and 

Piotr Winkielman, 376–400. New York: Guilford Press, 2007.

Cacioppo, John T., Gary G. Berntson, Tyler S. Lorig, Catherine 

J. Norris, Edith Rickett, and Howard Nusbaum. “Just Because You’re Imaging the Brain Doesn’t Mean You Can Stop 

Using Your Head: A Primer and Set of First Principles.” 

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 4 

(2003): 650–61.

Cunningham, William A., and Marcia K. Johnson. “Attitudes 

and Evaluation: Toward a Component Process Framework.” 

In Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Eddie HarmonJones and Piotr Winkielman, 227–45. New York: Guilford 

Press, 2007.

Damasio, Hanna, Thomas Grabowski, Randall Frank, Albert 

M. Galaburda, and Antonio R. Damasio. “The Return of 

Phineas Gage: Clues about the Brain from the Skull of a 

Famous Patient.” Science 264, no. 5162 (20 May 1994): 

1102–5.

Dubin, Mark W. How the Brain Works. Williston, VT: Blackwell 

Publishing, 2002.
129

NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN-IMAGING TECHNIQUES

Harlow, John M. “Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar 

through the Head.” Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society 2 (1868): 327–47.

Ito, Tiffany A., Eve Willadsen-Jensen, and Joshua Correll. “Social Neuroscience and Social Perception: New Perspectives 

on Categorization, Prejudice and Stereotyping.” In Social 

Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Eddie HarmonJones and Piotr Winkielman, 400–24. New York: Guilford 

Press, 2007.

Krawczyk, Daniel C. “Contributions of the Prefrontal Cortex to 

the Neural Basis of Human Decision-Making.” Neuroscience 

and Biobehavioral Reviews 26, no. 6 (2002): 631–64.

Langleben, Daniel D. “Detection of Deception with fMRI: Are We 

There Yet?” Legal and Criminological Psychology 13, no. 1

(2008): 1–9.

Lieberman, Matthew. “Social Cognitive Neuroscience.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, 5th ed., edited by Daniel T. Gilbert, 

Susan T. Fiske, and Gardner Lindzey, 143–93. Vol 1. New York: 

McGraw-Hill, 2010.

———. “Social Cognitive Neuroscience: A Review of Core Processes.” Annual Review of Psychology 58 (2007): 259–89.

Morris, Stephen, Chris D. Frith, David I. Perrett, Daniel Rowland, Andrew W. Young, Andrew J. Calder, and Raymond J. 

Dolan. “A Differential Neural Response in the Human Amygdala to Fearful and Happy Facial Expressions.” Nature 383 

(1996): 812–15.

Nomura, Michio, Hideki Ohira, Kaoruko Haneda, Tetsuya Iidaka, 

Norihiro Sadato, Tomohisa Okada, and Yoshiharu Yonekura. 

“Functional Association of the Amygdala and Ventral Prefrontal Cortex during Cognitive Evaluation of Facial Expressions 

Primed by Masked Angry Faces: An Event-Related fMRI 

Study.” NeuroImage 21, no. 1 (January 2004): 352–63.

Stone, Valerie E. “An Evolutionary Perspective on Domain Specificity in Social Intelligence.” In Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Eddie Harmon-Jones and Piotr Winkielman,

316–49. New York: Guilford Press, 2007.

Van Overwalle, Frank. “Social Cognition and the Brain: A MetaAnalysis.” Human Brain Mapping 30 (2009): 829–58.

131

Chapter 10

Desperate Measures

Different Types of Violence, 

Motivations, and Impact on Stability

Thomas Rieger, Gallup Consulting*

Abstract: All types of violence are not created equal, and a 

decline in violence is not necessarily equivalent to an increase in stability. Violence due to instability and violence 

that stems from the pursuit of some ideological goal are 

often driven by very different factors and have different 

purposes. Instability due to the lack of ability to survive 

and thrive may lead to substantial unrest, violence, rioting, or other undesirable activity. Iraq provides an example to explain extremist violence and to illustrate how it is 

possible to win a war and lose the peace. The example suggests that counterterrorism efforts must be undertaken in 

coordination with stability efforts to effectively manage 

both types of potential unrest.

Introduction

Desperate times call for desperate measures. It is a cliché often invoked to justify some strong action in the face of adversity. There are numerous contemporary examples of individuals and groups taking desperate measures, from food riots in 

Haiti to suicide bombings in Baghdad. While both these examples represent violent actions in pursuit of a goal, they are 

quite different in many ways.

Violence due to instability and violence that stems from the 

pursuit of some ideological goal are often driven by very different factors with very different purposes. It may be tempting, 

*The author would like to thank Dr. Shane J. Lopez, PhD, and Lt Col Christopher 

Rate, USAF, PhD, for their valuable contributions to this work.
DESPERATE MEASURES

132

however, to overlook those distinctions in interpreting changes 

in levels of violence. For example, one might assume that a decline in extremist violence such as improvised explosive device 

(IED) attacks would represent increased stability. That assumption in many cases would be incorrect.

Not all acts of violence are born out of the same conditions or 

inspired by the same psychological motivations. Some are 

driven more by a need to survive, while others are in pursuit of 

a larger purpose. Both may require some level of courage before 

an individual can convince himself or herself to commit the act, 

but there are multiple types of courage that can shed light on 

the distinctions among different types of violent actions.

Types of Courage

The first step in understanding the differences between violence due to difficult living conditions and violence due to extremism is to understand the psychological factors that produce 

the courage to commit such an act. Defining courage is no simple task. The long history of discussion on the topic dates all the 

way back to Aristotle (350 BC).1 For the purposes of this essay, 

however, we will draw upon recent research that provides relevant definitions for understanding different types of violence.

C. R. Snyder and Shane Lopez, in their definitive work on 

positive psychology, define several types of courage, including 

vital courage and moral courage. Vital courage is defined as the 

inspiration for an action taken that “extends lives.” In other 

words, the ultimate and primary motivation for acts of vital courage is to preserve survival for oneself or others to which an individual feels connected and responsible. By definition, the purpose of vital courage is not to sacrifice a life. It is to save a life.2

Moral courage, on the other hand, is defined as an act that 

“preserves the ideals of perceived justice and fairness.” Snyder 

and Lopez further define moral courage as “the authentic expression of one’s beliefs or values in pursuit of justice or the 

common good despite power differentials, dissent, disapproval, 

or rejection.” In other words, while vital courage is inwardly focused (survival), moral courage is outwardly focused (ideology).3

It can be argued that courage is the wrong label for the actions of a suicide bomber or someone stealing water from a 
133

reservoir, as these are far from desirable behaviors. We do not 

ascribe worth to or express admiration for these activities. 

These definitions of courage are put forth simply to provide a 

framework for understanding some of the very fundamental 

differences among different types of violence, each of which 

represents a course of action that may bring harm or even 

death to the actor.

The label courage is also appropriate based on established 

criteria for what can be considered a courageous act. Violence 

due to extremism and violence in pursuit of survival include 

willing, intentional acts involving substantial danger, difficulty, 

or risk to the actor that are primarily motivated to bring about 

a noble, good, or morally worthy purpose, as defined by the actor—all marks of a courageous act.4 Given the commonality on 

these three dimensions between courageous and violent acts, 

courage appears to be a reasonable label for part of the psychological motivation behind violent acts in support of extremist 

agendas and violent acts intended for survival.

Neither vital nor moral courage should be associated solely 

with heroes or villains. Both are motivating forces that could 

apply to either type of person.

Violence Inspired Primarily by Vital Courage

During 2008 the cost of basic food staples rose sharply in 

many parts of the world.5 The desperate violence that ensued 

provides a clear example of actions taken by those who seek to 

extend lives, a key component of the definition of vital courage.

The shortages and higher prices inspired riots in many countries, the most severe of which took place in Bangladesh, Haiti, 

India, Indonesia, Mozambique, Senegal, Somalia, Yemen, Ivory 

Coast, Cameroon, Mexico, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Egypt. 

In these riots, many lost their lives, were injured, or were imprisoned. There was also substantial damage to public and private 

property. The rioting and associated violence were not inspired 

by the desire to recreate an Islamic caliphate or in pursuit of 

some holy jihad. Instead the violence was ultimately about food.

Certainly, in many of these cases, someone or something 

needed to provide the spark to motivate the crowd to take action. Claims of unfairness, objections to a change in taxation or 

DESPERATE MEASURES
DESPERATE MEASURES

134

policy, assertions of one’s right to survive, and so forth were 

undoubtedly made to justify the actions taken. But while ideology of a sort played a role, the primary motivating force was a 

desire to survive or improve one’s quality of life. Hence, vital 

courage (as we are defining it here) was likely the stronger force.

As an example, in 2008 violence broke out in the mining regions of Peru, where as many as 20,000 protesters closed 

roads, kidnapped and beat law enforcement personnel, and for 

all intents and purposes, closed down the entire region due to 

perceived inequities in revenue sharing.6 Once again, religion 

or ideology had virtually nothing to do with the root cause of 

the violence even though taxation and revenue-sharing policy 

provided the catalyst.

Violence Inspired Primarily by Moral Courage

While there are many examples of acts of violence spurred by 

a desire both to survive and to achieve an ideological purpose 

(for example, guerilla activity against an invading army), some 

cases by definition put the desire to survive aside to achieve 

some ideological purpose or have nothing whatsoever to do 

with survival. The clearest example of an act that has nothing 

to do with survival is a suicide bombing, where the actor knows 

full well that he or she will die. Once someone volunteers, elements of vital courage may be injected into the situation by the 

leaders of the extremist group (if the individual backs out, his 

or her family will be killed), but the primary motivation for volunteering is based more in ideology than the ability to survive, 

violating the “desire to extend lives” aspect of vital courage.

As another example, the nerve gas attack perpetrated by 

Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo clearly had nothing to do with the 

ability to get food, shelter, or water. It was purely inspired by 

the “expression of authentic beliefs,” as our definition of moral 

courage dictates. The same could be said for the Oklahoma 

City bombing. Timothy McVeigh did not plan and carry out the 

bombing so that he would have more food and water or more 

comfortable living conditions.

In fact, conducting acts that are ideologically driven often 

would be contrary to behavior driven by vital courage. Once individuals join a terrorist group and participate in civilian attacks, 
135

DESPERATE MEASURES

they do so knowing full well that the combined might of national 

and international police, military, and intelligence forces will 

likely hunt them down relentlessly for the rest of their lives.

Terrorist acts of this type are meant to achieve an ideological 

purpose. Those that commit these acts, therefore, are doing so 

to further progress in achieving that purpose. Snyder and Lopez’s definition of moral courage (the authentic expression of 

one’s beliefs or values in pursuit of justice or the common good 

despite power differentials, dissent, disapproval, or rejection) 

fits these types of acts very well. The acts are an expression of 

the actor’s beliefs in pursuit of some goal he or she believes to 

be worthy, despite a power differential and the inevitable consequences for the actor.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center, the 

countries with the most deaths due to terrorist acts in 2007 

included Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Somalia, 

Sudan, Chad, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Russia.7 With the exception of 

India and Somalia, none of these countries were also among 

those that experienced the worst violence due to poor living 

conditions or absence of basic needs (listed above). The same 

could be said for the countries in which the most kidnappings 

took place (Iraq, Nepal, Philippines, Gaza Strip, Afghanistan, 

Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India, Chad, Nigeria, 

Colombia, Niger, Sudan, Netherlands, and Kenya).8 In each of 

these countries, the vast majority of violence was due primarily 

to the desire to further some ideology or larger purpose.

There has been much in the news recently about the role that 

Islamic extremism has played for many in providing a “greater 

purpose” to inspire acts framed under the banner of moral courage. However, it should not be assumed that terrorist activity 

inspired by moral courage is possible only as an extremist interpretation of Islam. History abounds with examples of ideologically driven attacks on civilians that had nothing whatsoever to 

do with Islamic doctrine, such as the Shining Path in Peru, the 

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or even the Ku Klux 

Klan in the United States. In each of these cases, justification 

for a civilian attack was provided through the need to further 

some purpose that was important to the actor.
DESPERATE MEASURES

136

One potential flaw in this line of reasoning is that society 

provides a different definition of what is right and wrong, and if 

someone is primarily driven by perceptions of ideology, societal 

pressure would prevent him or her from ultimately committing 

the act.

The ability of the nonstate actor to overcome this apparent 

disconnect can be partially explained by behavioral economist 

George Loewenstein, who found that “whenever individuals face 

tradeoffs between what is best for themselves and what is morally correct, their perceptions of moral correctness are likely to 

be biased in the direction of what is best for themselves.”9

Further insight into this dynamic can be gained from Lawrence Kohlberg’s work on the stages of moral development. If 

someone has not advanced beyond what Kohlberg describes as 

stage two, or “self-interest driven” morals, he or she would not 

necessarily be very concerned about achieving social order or 

higher ethical principles (the more advanced stages).10

One of the main reasons why individuals subscribe to a particular ideology is that they believe it is a worthy purpose and 

that somehow their lives, as well as the lives of others like them, 

will be better as a result. Therefore, it is not that far of a leap to 

allow the end to justify the means, as Loewenstein suggests 

might happen in the face of a trade-off between self-interest 

and moral correctness. The extremist interpretation of what is 

allowable under the Koran is an often-cited source for overcoming this trade-off among jihadist groups.11

Certainly the desire to create a better world contains aspects 

of vital courage, but the primary motivation is not survival. It is 

making progress toward an ideological (and presumably desirable) goal. Given the above discussion, it is reasonable to assume that acts meant to achieve some larger purpose or ideologically based outcome are driven more by moral courage than 

vital courage—in fact, committing such an act is often in direct 

conflict with one’s ability to survive and thrive (vital courage).

Example: Iraq

According to the 2008 9010 Report to Congress, since the 

surge (and with the help of the Awakening Councils, local 

groups of Sunnis) there have been dramatic declines in the 
137

DESPERATE MEASURES

number of attacks and casualties resulting from terrorist or 

extremist activity. The report also notes that provisions for basic needs such as fresh water and electricity are still lacking in 

most parts of the country. In addition, a sizable proportion of 

the country still must rely on food rations to survive.12

In other words, violence inspired by moral courage has declined. But the potential still exists for it to be replaced by violent acts driven by vital courage. To illustrate this point, one 

must merely imagine what would happen if food rations simply 

stopped. It would not take very long for violence to break out.

Given the lack of basic services, cholera outbreaks from poor 

sewage systems, and the inherent instability that these conditions may cause, assuming that the decline in terrorist violence 

is equal to a decline in the potential for any violence would be 

a potentially disastrous conclusion. Specifically, if a society is 

not able to sustain itself, it is by definition unstable. Instability 

due to the lack of ability to survive and thrive may lead to substantial unrest, violence, rioting, or other undesirable activity.

A Vicious Cycle

It is, of course, very possible to win a war and lose the peace. 

If the assumptions discussed in the example prove correct, societies such as Iraq that experienced declines in extremist violence may be very prone to future violence due to unstable 

conditions, which in turn may lead to more violence inspired 

by ideology. According to the Gallup Political Radicals (POLRAD) 

model, Type Two radicals are downscale and perceive themselves to be victims. As this group is highly leader seeking, it 

may provide a very rich recruiting pool for the more mainstream 

Type One radicals, who are more ideologically driven.13 Separate research by Troy Thomas and Stephen Kiser describes this 

same phenomenon as “ideology entrepreneurs” who seek to 

win over the victimized poor.14

In either case, creating downscale victims risks sowing the 

seeds of a resurgence of terrorist group membership and activity by not addressing the survival needs of the population at 

risk. The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is perhaps 

the most recent example of this dynamic. If a leader of an ex-
DESPERATE MEASURES

138

tremist group can provide promises of a better world (and inspire moral courage) while blaming others for poor living conditions (inspiring vital courage), he or she would likely be sending 

a very compelling message to a desperate population. If a postwar state cannot win the peace, the war may start all over again.

Implications for Policy

The points presented in this paper contain several implications for policy. First, it is dangerous to assume that all types 

of violence are created equal and that a decline in terrorist violence is equivalent to increased stability. The converse is also 

true. A decline in unrest due to poor conditions may be unrelated to violence inspired by ideology.

Violence due to extremism and violence due to instability represent similar behaviors stemming from very different psychological motivations and environmental conditions. Eliminating 

one does not necessarily mean that a society is safe from the 

other. Achieving a lasting peace may require elimination or mitigation of extremist elements, while at the same time building a 

self-sustaining society that can take care of itself. By not viewing safety as a multidimensional issue, policy makers risk declaring victory when there may be other battles to be fought.

Second, and related to the first implication, is the necessity 

to tie together counterterrorism efforts and stability operations. 

Eliminating extremist elements from a population that is otherwise highly unstable runs the risk of replacing suicide bombings with food riots, increased crime, and possible insurgency. 

Increasing stability in an environment that is experiencing acts 

of desperation without addressing ideologically based extremist elements will likely see the opposite occur.

Even if extremist elements are eliminated, an unstable environment may over time provide a swamp from which future 

nonstate actors are born (Type Two radicals, as described 

above). On the other hand, if a society can provide a sustaining 

economy, basic services, and decent living conditions to its 

population while minimizing or eliminating extremist violence, 

then it is much more likely to achieve a lasting peace.
139

DESPERATE MEASURES

Notes

1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 3, chapters 7–9.

2. Snyder and Lopez, Positive Psychology, 241.

3. Ibid., 242.

4. Rate, “What Is Courage?” 77.

5. Walt, “World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis.” 

6. Palomino and Aquino, “Peru Police Held Hostage.”

7. National Counterterrorism Center, 2007 Report, 26.

8. Ibid., 29.

9. Babcock and Loewenstein, “Explaining the Bargaining Impasse,” 230. 

See Loewenstein’s study “Behavioral Decision Theory.”

10. Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development.

11. Aaron, In Their Own Words, 37–70.

12. Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, 2008.

13. Rieger, “Stability and Different Types of Radicalism,” 88–91.

14. Thomas and Kiser, “Lords of the Silk Route.”

Bibliography

Aaron, David. In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2008.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W. D. Ross, 

1908. Available at the Constitution Society, http://www

.constitution.org/ari/ethic_00.htm.

Babcock, Linda, and George Loewenstein. “Explaining the Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases.” In Exotic 

Preferences: Behavioral Economics and Human Motivation, 

edited by George Loewenstein, 215–40. New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2007.

Department of Defense. Measuring Stability and Security in 

Iraq. Report to Congress, in accordance with the Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2008, Sections 9010 

and 9204, September 2008.

Kohlberg, Lawrence. Essays on Moral Development. Vol. 1, 

The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco: 

Harper & Row, 1981.

Loewenstein, George. “Behavioral Decision Theory and Business Ethics: Skewed Trade-Offs between Self and Other.” In 

Codes of Conduct: Behavioral Research into Business Ethics, 

edited by David M. Messick and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, 214–27. 

New York: Russel Sage, 1996.
DESPERATE MEASURES

140

National Counterterrorism Center. 2007 Report on Terrorism, 

30 April 2008.

Palomino, Maria L., and Marco Aquino. “Peru Police Held Hostage 

as Mining Unrest Deepens.” El Economista, 17 June 2008.

Rate, Christopher R. “What Is Courage? A Search for Meaning.” 

PhD diss., Yale University, 2007.

Rieger, Thomas. “Stability and Different Types of Radicalism.” 

In Anticipating Rare Events: Can Acts of Terror, Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction or Other High Profile Acts Be Anticipated? A Scientific Perspective on Problems, Pitfalls and Prospective Solutions, edited by Nancy Chesser, 88–91. Topical 

Strategic Multi-Layer Assessment (SMA) Multi-Agency/

Multi-Disciplinary White Papers in Support of CounterTerrorism and Counter-WMD, November 2008. http://www

.hsdl.org/?view&doc=105192&coll=public.

Snyder, C. R., and Shane J. Lopez. Positive Psychology: The 

Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths. 

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007.

Thomas, Troy S., and Stephen D. Kiser. “Lords of the Silk 

Route: Violent Non-State Actors in Central Asia.” USAF Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Occasional Paper 43, May 2002.

Walt, Vivienne. “The World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis.” Time,

27 February 2008. http://www.time.com/time/world

/article/0,8599,1717572,00.html.
141

Chapter 11

Communications

Framing Effects and Political Behavior

Toby Bolsen, Georgia State University

Abstract: While a large body of literature has shown that 

framing communication affects attitudes and preferences, 

few studies have demonstrated framing effects on observed 

behavior. In the few studies that do demonstrate a direct 

impact of framing on behavior (goal-framing studies), the 

psychological processes are not well understood. Individual behavior is embedded in a social context. Research on 

framing effects has helped to identify one specific contextual factor (i.e., rhetoric) that shapes individuals’ attitudes 

and preferences. But attitudes and preferences represent 

one of several factors known to determine behavior. Moreover, attitudes and preferences vary in terms of the degree 

of importance people attach to them, and these variations 

have consequences in terms of promoting action. Recent 

efforts to identify individual and contextual moderators of 

framing effects represent an important first step in assessing the external validity of experimental findings. These 

studies also raise doubts about the pervasive view that 

framing effects threaten the rational foundations of democratic self-governance.

Framing Effects and Political Behavior

Human behavior is affected by numerous individual and environmental factors. One factor that has received considerable 

attention among scholars is frames used in communication 

(e.g., by politicians, journalists, interest groups, etc.). Framing

is a term that has been loosely used to refer to circumstances 
COMMUNICATIONS

142

in which different words, phrases, and presentation styles affect how a person understands a problem or situation.1 In this 

paper, I differentiate among various types of framing effects, 

explore the psychological processes driving the effects, and assess literature linking frames to individual behavior.

Although scholars know a great deal about how framed messages affect individuals’ attitudes, they know much less about 

the conditions under which these communications impact behavior. The vast majority of studies focus on how framed communications affect attitudes and preferences,2 which do not 

always correspond to how a person behaves.3 Although attitudes can be an important determinant of action, other factors 

are known to shape intentions and actions (e.g., social norms, 

values, and habits).4 Recently social psychologists have begun 

to explore the direct impact of framing on behavior.5 I review 

these studies and assess the normative implications in terms 

of the criteria on which individuals base their actions.

Classifying Framing Effects

The term framing has been used by scholars to refer to distinct phenomena whereby exposure to different types of messages (i.e., substantively different or logically equivalent) shapes 

individuals’ attitudes and preferences.6 The most commonly 

encountered frames in political contexts are emphasis frames.7

An emphasis-framing effect occurs when a speaker uses substantively different words, images, or phrases to influence the 

way a perceiver thinks about a person, issue, or action. For 

instance, in deciding whether to allow a local hate rally, officials could emphasize the importance of extending freedom of 

speech to all groups or the threat that this demonstration might 

pose to public safety.8 The frame emphasized in the communication may influence citizens’ preferences (i.e., whether to support or oppose the demonstration). A large body of literature 

shows that similar emphasis frames (e.g., persuasive communications) have a direct effect on political attitudes;9 however, 

an important area of future work is to look at the effects of this 

type of rhetoric on explicit behavior.

A second class of framing effects involves the use of different 

but logically equivalent words, phrases, and presentation styles 
143

to alter individuals’ preferences. For instance, whether a policy 

proposal is framed as resulting in “95 percent employment” or 

“5 percent unemployment” has been shown to affect policy support. Equivalency-framing effects typically occur when a frame 

casts the same information in a positive or negative light.10

These effects violate critical assumptions of a rational framework of choice.11 To understand why, it is critical to understand 

what is meant by preference. A preference is a rank ordering 

over a set of comparable objects, and many scholars (e.g., economists) assume that preferences must “possess specific properties including transitivity (e.g., if one prefers chocolate to vanilla, and vanilla to strawberry, then he/she must prefer 

chocolate to strawberry too) and invariance (e.g., a person’s 

preference should not change if asked whether he/she prefers 

‘vanilla to chocolate’ as compared to being asked whether he/

she prefers ‘chocolate to vanilla.’ ”12 As I explain in detail below, 

equivalency-framing effects clearly demonstrate a systematic 

failure of preference invariance because logically equivalent information presented in alternative ways causes individuals to 

alter their choices. Thus, the existence of equivalency-framing 

effects has led some to question the normative implications of a 

system of social choice rooted in the aggregation of attitudes 

rather than preferences.13 I address these concerns below.

Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth developed a typology of three 

different forms of equivalency-framing effects: risky-choice 

framing, attribute framing, and goal framing.14 While these 

three forms of equivalency-framing effects differ in terms of 

what is framed, the underlying psychological mechanisms driving the effect, and how the effects are detected (i.e., the dependent variable), they each show that logically equivalent communications have differential effects on attitudes, preferences, 

or actions. One type of equivalency-framing effect is riskychoice framing. In risky-choice framing, two options (i.e., policies) that differ in terms of risk are described in different ways.15

A classic example involves a choice between two programs to 

combat the spread of a disease expected to kill 600 people.16 In 

this problem, participants are given a choice between adopting 

two programs. The experiment involves manipulating the way 

each policy option is described—for example, in terms of the 

number of lives that will be saved or the number that will die. 

COMMUNICATIONS
COMMUNICATIONS

144

One group of subjects is informed that if Program A is adopted, 

200 people will be saved, and if Program B is adopted, there is 

a 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved and a 2/3 probability that no people will be saved. Described in these terms, 

Program A represents a risk-averse choice because the outcome is certain (in one instance of this experiment, 72 percent 

chose this option), and Program B represents a risk-seeking 

choice because the outcome is uncertain (28 percent chose this 

option). The other half of the subjects are asked about the same 

programs in terms of the number of people that would die (Program A = “400 die” and Program B = “1/3 probability nobody 

will die and 2/3 probability that 600 will die”). When framed in 

terms of the number of people that would die (negative) rather 

than the number that would be saved (positive), 78 percent of 

respondents opted for Program B (the risk-seeking alternative) 

and only 22 percent selected Program A (the risk-averse option) 

in the aforementioned instance of this experiment. Thus, aggregate preferences toward identical policies shifted by 50 percent based on equivalent descriptions of the programs. Riskychoice framing effects have received a great deal of attention 

because of the magnitude of the preference reversals, but the 

implications of these effects on behavior are unclear, given that 

the dependent variable is a measure of preference between hypothetical policy alternatives.

A second variant of equivalency framing focuses on the framing of a single attribute of an object or event—attribute framing. 

For instance, people evaluate beef as tasting better and being 

less greasy when described as “75 percent lean” instead of “25 

percent fat.”17 Similarly, automobiles are evaluated more favorably when citizens are informed of the percentage of American 

workers employed rather than the percentage of non-American 

workers employed. In both cases, the frame casts an attribute 

of a single object in a positive or negative light. Attribute frames 

differ from risky-choice frames in that (1) a single feature of an 

object is framed rather than independent options and (2) the 

effect does not depend on the presence of risk.18 However, similar to risky-choice frames, attribute-framing effects focus exclusively on how equivalent descriptions of an object’s attribute 

influence attitudes. Future research is necessary to determine 

whether attribute frames have any effect on behavior.
145

COMMUNICATIONS

A third form of equivalency frames causally links framed 

messages to changes in behavior. Goal framing involves using 

framed messages to increase the performance of a targeted, 

desired action. The primary difference between goal-framing effects and other types of equivalency-framing effects is that the 

dependent variable in these studies is actual behavior rather 

than policy preferences or attitudes. These studies generally 

find that the impact of a persuasive message on behavior depends on whether the message stresses the positive benefits of 

taking action or the negative consequences of not taking action.19 For instance, women are more likely to perform breast 

self-examination (BSE) when informed that “research shows 

that women who do not do BSE have a decreased chance of 

finding a tumor in the early, more treatable stages,” compared 

to a message saying “research shows that women who do engage in BSE have an increased chance of finding a tumor in the 

early, more treatable stages of the disease” (emphasis added).20

Thus, although these statements are logically equivalent, the 

negatively charged frame had a more powerful effect than the 

positive frame in promoting BSE.

Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth explain that goal-framing studies are “relatively new to the framing scene and often involve 

health-related persuasive messages,”21 but instances of goalframing effects can be found in studies ranging from consumer 

choice to social dilemma problems.22 Recently, social psychologists have utilized field experiments to explore the effects of 

these messages on health-related behaviors in the workplace. 

The purpose is to “address a significant real world problem . . . 

the low rates of adherence to behavioral recommendations that 

could reduce the incidence or the mortality from certain cancers or the spread of HIV/AIDS.”23 In two separate field experiments conducted by researchers at the Health, Emotion, and 

Behavior Lab (HEB) at Yale University, researchers explored 

the effect of goal-framed messages emphasizing either the “benefits of mammography” or the “risks of neglecting mammography.”24 Twelve months after exposure to the messages, women 

who viewed the message focusing on the risks of not detecting 

cancer early were significantly more likely to have obtained a 

mammography than the women who watched a video emphasizing the benefits of early detection. These findings parallel the 
COMMUNICATIONS

146

results from the Meyerowitz and Chaiken study on BSE.25 In 

both cases, a message emphasizing the negative effects of not 

taking action led to greater performance of the behavior.

In several recent studies on health-related goal frames, HEB 

researchers found that positive goal frames were more likely to 

promote prevention-related behaviors.26 In one study, beachgoers were given a brochure either listing the benefits of wearing sunscreen for preventing skin cancer or focusing on the 

increased risk of cancer from not wearing protective sunscreen.27 In this case, the positive message was the stronger 

motivator of action. While the findings here seem to contradict 

the two goal-framing studies described above—because negative messages increased BSE and mammograms and positive 

messages increased sunscreen application—this research shows 

that it is crucial to differentiate between prevention-related 

(e.g., applying sunscreen) and detection-related (e.g., performing BSE, obtaining a mammogram, etc.) behaviors in terms of 

the impact of goal frames on this domain of actions.28 Detectionrelated health actions inherently contain more risk than 

prevention-related behaviors, and this difference affects the 

impact of the framed message on behavior. Clearly more research is necessary to determine the processes driving these 

effects and whether these effects occur in political contexts.

The Psychology of Framing Effects

The various classes of framing effects identified above are 

driven by distinct psychological processes. Emphasis framing 

involves altering the salience and/or perceived strength of accessible considerations about an issue.29 Most scholars agree 

that emphasis-framing effects occur regularly in political contexts, and they have been characterized as essential to the 

opinion-formation process.30 Moreover, competing emphasis 

frames are “a defining element of most political contexts,” and, 

in the presence of messages highlighting alternative considerations, individuals consciously evaluate the persuasiveness of 

opposing sides.31 Thus, emphasis framing is driven by a conscious evaluation of the perceived strength of accessible considerations.
147

COMMUNICATIONS

In contrast, equivalency-framing effects have been treated 

(erroneously) as a relatively homogenous set of phenomena explained by prospect theory.32 Prospect theory explains that individuals’ preferences are reference dependent—that is, they 

depend on whether choice options are cast in a positive or negative light (i.e., gains or losses).33 The theory is based on the 

observation that individuals tend to be risk averse with gains 

and risk seeking with losses (as the results of the disease experiment illustrate). While prospect theory describes the pattern of results observed in risky-choice framing problems, it 

does not explain why equivalency-framing effects regularly occur in the absence of risk.34

To fill this gap, social and political psychologists have begun 

exploring the underlying processes driving equivalency-framing 

effects.35 Like emphasis framing, equivalency framing alters 

the accessibility, or salience, of different aspects of information. 

However, in contrast to emphasis framing, equivalency framing 

operates subconsciously by increasing positive or negative associations about the object framed.36 For instance, positive or 

negative labeling of an object attribute (e.g., percent fat versus 

percent lean) automatically generates positive or negative associations about the object (e.g., tastiness of beef). Thus, attribute framing is the result of information being encoded based 

on its descriptive valence and “stimulus-response compatibility 

effects” in which individuals attend to positive or negative aspects of messages when forming an evaluation.37

Unfortunately, the theoretical literature on the mechanisms 

driving goal-framing effects is underdeveloped. In part, this 

stems from the fact that goal-framing effects are a relatively 

recent discovery. Some researchers have tried to explain goalframing effects in terms of prospect theory; however, this can 

be problematic when risk levels of alternative actions are not 

clearly specified.38 For instance, Meyerowitz and Chaiken explain the results from their BSE study as consistent with prospect theory.39 However, Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth argue that 

this relies on the questionable assumption that performing 

BSE is riskier than not performing BSE.40 In this problem, and 

in other similar studies of the effects of health-related messages on behavior, it is often not clear what represents the riskiest course of action. One implication of these studies is that it 
COMMUNICATIONS

148

may be difficult to predict the impact of goal-framing messages 

on behaviors that do not contain the same level of risk to one’s 

personal health.

Meyerowitz and Chaiken offer a second explanation for the 

behavioral effect observed in their study—a negativity bias in 

information processing.41 It has been well documented that individuals pay greater attention to and are influenced more by 

negative information than positive information.42 However, most 

of this research has focused exclusively on emphasis-framing 

effects—for example, evaluating the impacts of negative campaign advertisements on voters.43 Future research must explore 

the conditions under which these effects occur and whether 

they can be explained by existing theory.

Linking Framing to Political Behavior

Although social scientists know a great deal about how different types of frames influence attitudes and preferences, 

much less is known about when and to what degree framing 

influences behavior. Nearly all the research in political science 

focuses on the impact of frames on attitudes and reported intentions.44 However, attitudes have been shown to vary much 

in terms of their influence on behavior.45 A key finding is that 

the strength of the evaluative association toward an object (i.e., 

an attitude’s strength) is the primary factor determining 

whether an attitude will predict behavior.46 Persuasive rhetoric 

(e.g., emphasis frames) has the potential to influence an attitude’s strength.47 However, moving forward it is important to 

determine whether framing effects influence behavior by altering specific constructs related to attitude strength—for example, by increasing the perceived importance of an action. Most 

research in political science focuses on the process by which 

frames heighten the accessibility of considerations toward an 

object, and an attitude’s accessibility has been only weakly 

linked to political behavior.48 Other strength-related characteristics of attitudes, such as an attitude’s importance and the 

degree of certainty with which it is held, have been linked more 

closely to political action—for example, turning out to vote and 

issue-based voting in elections.49
149

COMMUNICATIONS

Equivalency framing may be less important to understand 

given that these effects are difficult to locate in real political 

contexts.50 Nonetheless, this class of framing effects has been 

cited as a clear demonstration of the limitations of human rationality because a necessary assumption of rational-choice 

theories is that different representations of an identical choice 

should yield the same preference.51 Some go so far as to cite 

equivalency-framing effects as evidence that citizens do not 

have real preferences because they are influenced by arbitrary 

features of how a choice is described.52 If citizens lack preferences, it begs the question of whether people are capable of 

self-governance.

While equivalency-framing effects may be normatively disconcerting, it seems premature to make generalizations about their 

implications for the rational underpinnings of political behavior. 

These effects have been documented in isolated settings and on 

specific types of problems. One difficulty for researchers interested 

in studying the effects of equivalency framing on behavior is that 

they are nearly impossible to find in real political contexts. The 

presence of competitive elite frames, political discussion networks, 

and other contextual cues (e.g., party and interest group positions) 

suggests that equivalency frames may not be encountered too often in the social world. If equivalency-framing effects occur primarily inside of a laboratory but are moderated by internal characteristics and the social context, then they represent little more 

than “probability puzzles” that demonstrate isolated violations of 

rationality.53 However, if these effects are more pervasive across 

contexts, then proponents of democracy must confront the normative implications of a system of social choice rooted in attitudes 

as opposed to preferences.54

Moderators of Framing Effects

A critical point about psychological processes driving equivalency framing is that “under certain conditions, individuals do 

not assimilate accessible information (i.e., do not focus on the 

negative or positive valence of the information).”55 Individual 

characteristics and cues from the social context may interrupt 

the “accessibility assimilation process” and “moderate accessibility processes by leading individuals to resist the impact of the 
COMMUNICATIONS

150

initial frame, envision alternative frames, and, as a result, avoid 

being driven by a particular frame.”56 This literature shows that 

framing effects are less likely when a respondent is male, has 

high cognitive ability, has strong attitudes or personal involvement with an issue, briefly thinks about his or her decision, or 

is asked to offer a rationale for his or her decision.57

Framing studies have also been criticized for failing to account 

for the influence of the social context on behavior.58 Several 

recent studies offer clear evidence of the power of the social context to moderate framing effects. For instance, Druckman replicated the disease problem, but instead of labeling the choice 

options Program A and Program B, he labeled them the “Democrats’ Program” or the “Republicans’ Program.”59 In this example, 

party cues significantly reduced the risky-choice framing effect. 

Druckman concludes that “the importance of these results is 

that the political context leads people to base their preferences 

on systematic information rather than on arbitrary information 

contained in the frames.”60 In another study, Druckman explored two other potential moderators of equivalency-framing 

effects that are features of most political contexts: (1) the 

presence of alternative frames and (2) the presence of deliberation. In the study, individuals responded to four randomly 

ordered equivalency-framing problems (two involving risk and 

two not involving risk).61 He found that counterframes (i.e., presenting both frames) eliminated equivalency-framing effects entirely and deliberation reduced these effects significantly.62

More recently, noncognitive factors such as emotions have 

been shown to affect individuals’ susceptibility to risky-choice 

frames.63 Interestingly, distinct emotions operate in different 

ways: enthusiasm increases risk-seeking behavior because individuals are more likely to anticipate positive outcomes (i.e., 

optimistic appraisal of risk); anger leads to the adoption of a 

negative frame and greater risk-taking; and distress enhances 

the susceptibility to both positive and negative frames.64 Druckman and McDermott also examined the impact of emotions on 

preference confidence in the context of the disease problem.65

They found that anger increases confidence in individuals’ 

preferences, while distress tends to reduce preference confidence. This suggests a possible link among mood, framing effects, 

and behavior. Emotion may be linked to behavior through an 
151

COMMUNICATIONS

“affective intelligence” system that operates in parallel to cognitive processing.66 In the case of risky-choice framing, action 

may be influenced by an affect heuristic that short-circuits 

cognitive processing of information in the presence of risk.67

Future research on emotions and framing may shed light on 

the affective processes linking these effects to behavior.

Conclusion

While a large body of literature has shown that framing communication affects attitudes and preferences, few studies have 

demonstrated framing effects on observed behavior. In the few 

studies that do demonstrate a direct impact of framing on behavior (goal-framing studies), the psychological processes are 

not well understood. Individual behavior is embedded in a social context. Research on framing effects has helped to identify 

one specific contextual factor (e.g., rhetoric) that shapes individuals’ attitudes and preferences. But attitudes and preferences represent two of several factors known to determine behavior. Moreover, attitudes and preferences vary in terms of the 

degree of importance people attach to them, and these variations have consequences in terms of promoting action. Recent 

efforts to identify individual and contextual moderators of framing effects represent an important first step in assessing the 

external validity of experimental findings. These studies also 

raise doubts about the pervasive view that framing effects 

threaten the rational foundations of democratic self-governance.

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Druckman, “Implications of Framing Effects.”

2. Attitudes are defined as a summary evaluation toward an object—for 

example, a policy, candidate, political issue, and so forth (Chong and Druckman, “Framing Theory”; Fazio, “Attitudes as Object-Evaluation Associations”). Preferences refer to “comparative evaluations (i.e., a ranking over) a 

set of objects” (Druckman and Lupia, “Preference Formation,” 2). 

3. LaPiere, “Attitudes versus Actions”; Wicker, “Attitudes versus Actions”; 

and Fazio, “Attitudes as Object-Evaluation Associations.”

4. Ajzen and Fishbein, “Influence of Attitudes on Behavior.”
COMMUNICATIONS

152

5. Rothman et al., “Strategic Use of Gain- and Loss-Framed Messages”; 

Salovey and Williams-Piehota, “Field Experiments in Social Psychology”; and 

Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal.”

6. Druckman, “What’s It All About?”; Druckman, “Implications of Framing 

Effects”; Kuhberger, “Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions”; and Levin, 

Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal.”

7. Druckman, “Implications of Framing Effects,” 226–28.

8. Nelson, Oxley, and Clawson, “Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects.”

9. O’Keefe, Persuasion: Theory and Research; Druckman and Parkin, “Impact of Media Bias”; and Chong and Druckman, “Framing Theory.”

10. Druckman, “Implications of Framing Effects,” 228. Social psychologists sometimes refer to equivalency framing effects as “valence” or “message” 

framing. These terms refer to the same phenomenon, in which logically 

equivalent messages alter preferences and actions. 

11. Kahneman, “Preface.”

12. Druckman, “What’s It All About?” 2.

13. Bartels, “Democracy with Attitudes.”

14. Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal.”

15. Ibid., 150.

16. Tversky and Kahneman, “Framing of Decisions”; and Tversky and 

Kahneman, “Prospect Theory.”

17. Levin and Gaeth, “Framing of Attribute Information,” 159.

18. Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal,” 166.

19. Ibid., 168; and Rothman et al., “Strategic Use of Gain- and LossFramed Messages.”

20. Meyerowitz and Chaiken, “Effect of Message Framing on Breast SelfExamination Attitude,” 504.

21. Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal,” 168.

22. For example, consumers are more willing to forgo a cash discount 

(gain frame) than pay a credit card surcharge (loss frame) (Thaler, “Toward a 

Positive Theory of Consumer Choice”; and Ganzach and Karsahi, “Message 

Framing and Buying Behavior”). Similarly, in social dilemma problems, individuals are more willing to refrain from using a “common resource” (i.e., forgo 

a benefit) than to contribute to the provision of a “public good” (i.e., suffer a 

personal loss) (Brewer and Kramer, “Choice Behavior in Social Dilemmas”; 

and Fleishman, “Effects of Decision Framing and Others’ Behavior”).

23. Salovey and Williams-Piehota, “Field Experiments in Social Psychology,” 489.

24. Banks et al., “Effects of Message Framing on Mammography Utilization”; and Schneider et al., “Effects of Message Framing and Ethnic Targeting.”

25. Meyerowitz and Chaiken, “Effect of Message Framing on Breast SelfExamination Attitudes.”

26. Salovey and Williams-Piehota, “Field Experiments in Social Psychology”; and Rothman et al., “Systematic Influence of Gain- and Loss-Framed 

Messages.”

27. Rothman et al., “Systematic Influence of Gain- and Loss-Framed 

Messages.”
153

COMMUNICATIONS

28. Ibid.; Rothman et al., “Strategic Use of Gain- and Loss-Framed 

Messages”; and Apanovitch et al., “Using Message Framing to Motivate 

HIV Testing.”

29. Iyengar and Kinder, News That Matters; Zaller, Nature and Origin of 

Mass Opinion; and Druckman, “Implications of Framing Effects.”

30. Druckman, “Implications of Framing Effects,” 235; and Chong, “How 

People Think, Reason, and Feel about Rights,” 870.

31. Chong and Druckman, “Framing Theory,” 101.

32. Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal”; and 

Kuhberger, “Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions.”

33. Tversky and Kahneman, “Prospect Theory”; and Tversky and Kahneman, “Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.”

34. Druckman, “Political Preference Formation,” 674.

35. Druckman, “Political Preference Formation”; Levin, Schneider, and 

Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal”; and Jou, Shanteau, and Harris, 

“Information Processing View of Framing Effects.”

36. Druckman, “Political Preference Formation,” 674.

37. Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal,” 164.

38. Ibid., 176.

39. Meyerowitz and Chaiken, “Effect of Message Framing on Breast SelfExamination Attitudes.”

40. BSE is said to be riskier because the negative frame (i.e., “decreased 

chance of finding a tumor”) is increasing “risk-seeking” behavior (i.e., engaging is BSE) (Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created Equal”). 

41. Meyerowitz and Chaiken, “Effect of Message Framing on Breast SelfExamination Attitudes.”

42. Fiske and Taylor, Social Cognition; Taylor, “Asymmetrical Effects of 

Positive and Negative Events”; Ansolabehere and Iyengar, Going Negative; 

and Geer, In Defense of Negativity.

43. For a meta review, see Lau, Sigelman, and Rovner, “Effects of Negative 

Political Campaigns.”

44. But see Lau and Redlawsk, “Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics”; Miller et al., “Impact of Policy Change Threat”; and Brader, 

Valentino, and Suhay, “What Triggers Public Opposition to Immigration?”

45. For a review, see Fazio, “Attitudes as Object-Evaluation Associations”; 

and Ajzen and Fishbein, “Influence of Attitudes on Behavior.”

46. Krosnick and Petty, Attitude Strength; Visser, Krosnick, and Simmons, 

“Distinguishing the Cognitive and Behavioral Consequences”; and Visser, Bizer, and Krosnick, “Exploring the Latent Structure.”

47. O’Keefe, Persuasion; and Chong and Druckman, “Framing Theory.”

48. Miller and Peterson, “Theoretical and Empirical Implications of Attitude Strength.”

49. Visser, Krosnick, and Simmons, “Distinguishing the Cognitive and Behavioral Consequences”; Krosnick, “Role of Attitude Importance in Social Evaluation”; and Schuman and Presser, Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys.

50. Druckman, “Political Preference Formation.”
COMMUNICATIONS

154

51. Ibid., 671; and Tversky and Kahneman, “Rational Choice,” S253. Emphasis framing effects do not violate assumptions of rational decision making 

because they occur when substantively different considerations (i.e., new information) surface. This new information can shape the relative prominence 

of alternative considerations. 

52. Bartels, “Democracy with Attitudes,” 14.

53. Riker, “Political Psychology of Rational Choice Theory,” 32.

54. Bartels, “Democracy with Attitudes.”

55. Druckman, “Political Preference Formation,” 674.

56. Ibid.

57. Cf. Druckman, “Implications of Framing Effects,” 236; see also Miller 

and Fagley, “Effects of Framing”; Fagley and Miller, “Framing Effects and 

Arenas of Choice”; Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth, “All Frames Are Not Created 

Equal”; Takemura, “Influence of Elaboration”; and Sieck and Yates, “Exposition Effects on Decision Making.”

58. Druckman and Lupia, “Preference Formation”; Stern, “Toward a Coherent Theory”; Druckman, “Political Preference Formation”; and Bolsen, 

“Light Bulb Goes On.”

59. Druckman, “Implications of Framing Effects,” 238.

60. Ibid., 239.

61. Druckman, “Political Preference Formation.” Participants were assigned to one of eight conditions that varied the valence of the frame (positive 

or negative), the presence of counterframes (i.e., both the positively and negatively worded alternatives), and the presence of homogeneous or heterogeneous discussion groups (participants were given a chance to discuss the 

framing problem they received with three other participants).

62. Ibid., 678. This parallels research on emphasis framing which finds 

that counterframes (e.g., presenting both sides of an issue) and political discussion tend to reduce the impact of frames. However, discussion groups 

have distinct effects depending on their composition and the characteristics 

of individuals in the group (e.g., Druckman and Nelson, “Framing and Deliberation”; and Sniderman and Theriault, “Structure of Political Argument”).

63. Druckman and McDermott, “Emotion and the Framing of Risky 

Choice.”

64. Ibid., 11–13.

65. Druckman and McDermott, “Emotion and the Framing of Risky 

Choice.”

66. Marcus, Neuman, and MacKuen, Affective Intelligence and Political 

Judgment.

67. Slovic et al., “Affect, Risk, and Decision-Making”; and Loewenstein et 

al., “Risk as Feelings.”
155

COMMUNICATIONS

Bibliography

Ajzen, Icek, and Martin Fishbein. “The Influence of Attitudes on 

Behavior.” In The Handbook of Attitudes, edited by Dolores 

Albarracin, Blair T. Johnson, and Mark P. Zanna, 173–222. 

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.

Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Shanto Iyengar. Going Negative: 

How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate. New York: Free Press, 1995.

Apanovitch, Anne Marie, Danielle McCarthy, and Peter Salovey. 

“Using Message Framing to Motivate HIV Testing among 

Low-Income, Ethnic Minority Women.” Health Psychology

22 (2003): 60–67.

Banks, Sara M., Peter Salovey, Susan Greener, Alexander J. 

Rothman, Anne Moyer, John Beauvais, and Elissa Epel. 

“The Effects of Message Framing on Mammography Utilization.” Health Psychology 14 (1995): 178–84.

Bartels, Larry M. “Democracy with Attitudes.” In Electoral Democracy, edited by Michael Bruce MacKuen and George 

Rabinowitz, 48–82. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan 

Press, 2003.

Bolsen, Toby. “A Light Bulb Goes On: Attitudes, Values, Social 

Norms, and Personal Energy Consumption.” Unpublished 

manuscript, 2009.

Brader, Ted, Nicholas A. Valentino, and Elisabeth Suhay. “What 

Triggers Public Opposition to Immigration? Anxiety, Group 

Cues, and Immigration Threat.” American Journal of Political Science 52, no. 4 (2008): 959–78.

Brewer, Marilynn B., and Roderick M. Kramer. “Choice Behavior in Social Dilemmas: Effects of Social Identity, Group 

Size, and Decision Framing.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50 (1986): 542–49.

Chong, Dennis. “How People Think, Reason, and Feel about 

Rights and Liberties.” American Journal of Political Science

37 (1993): 867–99.

Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. “Framing Theory.” 

Annual Review of Political Science 10 (2007): 103–26.

Druckman, James N. “The Implications of Framing Effects for 

Citizen Competence.” Political Behavior 23 (2001): 225–56.
COMMUNICATIONS

156

———. “Political Preference Formation: Competition, Deliberation, and the (Ir)relevance of Framing Effects.” American Political Science Review 98, no. 4 (2004): 671–86.

———. “What’s It All About?: Framing in Political Science.” In 

Perspectives on Framing, edited by Gideon Keren. New York: 

Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis, 2009.

Druckman, James N., and Arthur Lupia. “Preference Formation.” Annual Review of Political Science 3 (2000): 1–24.

Druckman, James N., and Kjersten R. Nelson. “Framing and 

Deliberation.” American Journal of Political Science 47, no. 3 

(2003): 728–44.

Druckman, James N., and Michael Parkin. “The Impact of Media Bias: How Editorial Slant Affects Voters.” Journal of Politics 67 (2005): 1030–49.

Druckman, James N., and Rose McDermott. “Emotion and the 

Framing of Risky Choice.” Political Psychology 30, no. 3 

(2008): 297–321.

Fagley, Nancy S., and Paul M. Miller. “Framing Effects and Arenas of Choice.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 71, no. 3 (1997): 355–73.

Fazio, Russell H. “Attitudes as Object-Evaluation Associations of 

Varying Strength.” Social Cognition 25, no. 5 (2007): 603–37.

Fiske, Susan T., and Shelley E. Taylor. Social Cognition. 2nd ed. 

New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.

Fleishman, John A. “The Effects of Decision Framing and Others’ Behavior on Cooperation in a Social Dilemma.” Journal 

of Conflict Resolution 32 (1988): 162–80.

Ganzach, Yoav, and Nili Karsahi. “Message Framing and Buying Behavior: A Field Experiment.” Journal of Business Research 32 (1995): 11–17.

Geer, John G. In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads and Presidential Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder. News That Matters: 

Television and American Opinion. Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 1987.

Jou, Jerwen, James Shanteau, and Richard Jackson Harris. 

“An Information Processing View of Framing Effects.” Memory and Cognition 24, no. 1 (1996): 1–15.
157

COMMUNICATIONS

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick J. Kenney. The Spectacle of US 

Senate Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1999.

Kahneman, Daniel. “Preface.” In Choice, Values, and Frames, 

edited by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. Choice, Values, and 

Frames. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Krosnick, Jon A. “The Role of Attitude Importance in Social 

Evaluation: A Study of Policy Preferences, Presidential Candidate Evaluations, and Voting Behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 55, no. 2 (1988): 196–210.

Krosnick, Jon A., and Richard E. Petty, eds. Attitude Strength: 

Antecedents and Consequences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence 

Erlbaum Associates, 1995.

Kuhberger, Anton. “The Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 75 (July 1998): 204–31.

LaPiere, R. T. “Attitudes versus Actions.” Social Forces 13 

(1934): 230–37.

Lau, Richard R., and David P. Redlawsk. “Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision 

Making.” American Journal of Political Science 45, no. 3 

(2001): 951–71.

Lau, Richard R., Lee Sigelman, and Ivy Brown Rovner. “The Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Reanalysis.” Journal of Politics 69, no. 4 (2007): 1176–1209.

Levin, Irwin P., and Gary J. Gaeth. “Framing of Attribute Information before and after Consuming the Product.” Journal of 

Experimental Social Psychology 24 (1988): 520–29.

Levin, Irwin P., Sandra L. Schneider, and Gary J. Gaeth. “All 

Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical 

Analysis of Framing Effects.” Organizational Behavior and 

Human Decision Processes 76, no. 2 (1998): 149–88.

Levy, Jack S. “Applications of Prospect Theory to Political Science.” 

Synthese 135 (May 2003): 215–41.

Loewenstein, George F., Elke U. Weber, Christopher K. Hsee, 

and Ned Welch. “Risk as Feelings.” Psychological Bulletin

127, no. 2 (2001): 267–86.
COMMUNICATIONS

158

Marcus, George E., Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen. 

Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Meyerowitz, Beth E., and Shelly Chaiken. “The Effect of Message Framing on Breast Self-Examination Attitudes, Intentions, and Behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 (1987): 500–10.

Miller, Joanne M., and David A. M. Peterson. “Theoretical and 

Empirical Implications of Attitude Strength.” Journal of Politics 66, no. 3 (2004): 847–67.

Miller, Joanne M., Jon A. Krosnick, Allyson Holbrook, and 

Laura Lowe. “The Impact of Policy Change Threat on Financial Contributions to Interest Groups.” Unpublished manuscript. University of Minnesota, 2002.

Miller, Paul M., and N. S. Fagley. “The Effects of Framing, Problem Variations and Providing Rationale on Choice.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17 (1991): 517–22.

Nelson, Thomas E., Zoe M. Oxley, and Rosalee A. Clawson. “Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects.” Political Behavior 19 

(1997): 221–46.

O’Keefe, Daniel J. Persuasion: Theory and Research. London: 

Sage Publications, 2002.

Quattrone, George A., and Amos Tversky. “Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice.” American Political Science Review 82, no. 3 (1988): 719–36.

Riker, William H. “The Political Psychology of Rational Choice 

Theory.” Political Psychology 16 (1995): 23–44.

Rivers, Susan E., Peter Salovey, David A. Pizarro, Judith Pizarro, 

and Tamera R. Schneider. “Message Framing and Pap Test 

Utilization among Women Attending a Community Health 

Clinic.” Journal of Health Psychology 10, no. 1 (2005): 65–77.

Rothman, Alexander J., and Peter Salovey. “Shaping Perception to Motivate Healthy Behavior: The Role of Message 

Framing.” Psychological Bulletin 121 (1997): 3–19.

Rothman, Alexander J., Roger D. Bartels, John Wlaschin, and 

Peter Salovey. “The Strategic Use of Gain- and Loss-Framed 

Messages to Promote Healthy Behavior: How Theory Can 

Inform Practice.” Journal of Communication 56 (2006): 

S202–20.
159

COMMUNICATIONS

Rothman, Alexander J., Steven C. Martino, Brian T. Bedell, Jerusha B. Detweiler, and Peter Salovey. “The Systematic Influence of Gain- and Loss-Framed Messages on Interest in 

and Use of Different Types of Health Behavior.” Personality 

and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, no. 11 (1999): 1355–69.

Salovey, Peter, and Pamela Williams-Piehota. “Field Experiments in Social Psychology.” American Behavioral Scientist

47, no. 5 (2004): 488–505.

Scheufele, Dietram A. “Framing as a Theory of Media Effects.” 

Journal of Communication 49 (1999): 103–22.

Schneider, Tamera R., Peter Salovey, Anne Marie Apanovitch, 

Judith Pizarro, Danielle McCarthy, Janet Zullo, and Alexander Rothman. “The Effects of Message Framing and Ethnic Targeting on Mammography Use among Low-Income 

Women.” Health Psychology 20 (2001): 256–66.

Schuman, Howard, and Stanley Presser. Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, 

Wording, and Context. New York: Academic Press, 1981.

Sieck, Winston, and Frank J. Yates. “Exposition Effects on Decision Making: Choice and Confidence in Choice.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 70 (1997): 

207–19.

Slovic, Paul, Melissa Finucane, Ellen Peters, and Donald G. 

MacGregor. “Affect, Risk, and Decision-Making.” Health 

Psychology 24 (2005): S35–S40.

Sniderman, Paul M., and Sean M. Theriault. “The Structure of 

Political Argument and the Logic of Issue Framing.” In Studies in Public Opinion, edited by Willem E. Saris and Paul M. 

Sniderman, 133–64. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 2004.

Stern, Paul C. “Toward a Coherent Theory of Environmentally 

Significant Behavior.” Journal of Social Issues 56, no. 3 

(2000): 407–24.

Takemura, Kazuhisa. “Influence of Elaboration on the Framing 

of Decisions.” Journal of Psychology 128 (1994): 33–39.

Taylor, Shelley E. “Asymmetrical Effects of Positive and Negative Events: The Mobilization-Minimization Hypothesis.” 

Psychology Bulletin 110, no. 1 (1991): 67–85.
COMMUNICATIONS

160

Thaler, Richard. “Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer 

Choice.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1 

(1980): 39–60.

Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science 211 (1981): 

453–58.

———. “Prospect Theory.” Econometrica 47, no. 1 (1979): 263–91.

———. “Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions.” Journal of Business 59, no. 4 (1986): S251–78.

Visser, Penny S., George Y. Bizer, and Jon A. Krosnick. “Exploring the Latent Structure of Strength-Related Attitude Attributes.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38 

(2006): 1–67.

Visser, Penny S., Jon A. Krosnick, and J. P. Simmons. “Distinguishing the Cognitive and Behavioral Consequences of Attitude Importance and Certainty: A New Approach to Testing the Common Factor Hypothesis.” Journal of Experimental 

Social Psychology 39 (2003): 118–41.

Wicker, Allan W. “Attitudes versus Actions: The Relationship of 

Verbal and Overt Behavioral Responses to Attitude Objects.” 

Journal of Social Issues 25, no. 4 (1969): 41–78.

Zaller, John. The Nature and Origin of Mass Opinion. New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 1992.
161

Chapter 12

Decision Science

A Subjective Decision Modeling 

Approach for Identifying Intent

Elisa Jayne Bienenstock, PhD

Allison Astorino-Courtois, PhD, NSI, Inc.

Abstract: Capability and intent are often identified as the two 

indicators necessary for a state or nonstate actor to pose a 

threat to US interests. It is broadly recognized that determining an adversary’s capability is a complex endeavor that requires information about the availability of facilities, resources, and the expertise necessary to carry out a nefarious 

activity. Nevertheless, it is an endeavor for which both the 

intelligence community and the Department of Defense have 

tested analytic processes and procedures. The process for determining intent, however, is much less well defined, with 

“proof” of an actor’s intent often resting on analysts’ own suppositions and perhaps biases. We argue that this need not be 

so. Even if not directly measurable at the level of brain activity, intent to do harm should manifest in a number of ways. 

Providing supporting evidence—if not incontrovertible proof—

of intent can and should be pursued as rigorously as that of 

capability. In this chapter we suggest a subjective decision 

analysis approach for developing and validating models to 

analyze and then design hypotheses of an actor’s intent. Specifically, the subjective decision analysis approach can serve 

as an analytic framework for developing inferences regarding 

which adversaries are incentivized to perform certain actions 

based on their own perceptions, worldviews, and combined 

preferences. The same model also might be used to help planners and analysts design “decision probes”—ways to test the 

actual decision maker’s preferences and priorities to evaluate 

(1) the accuracy of the analytic decision model produced and 

(2) the weights of the interests he or she considers and which 

intent those weights convey.
DECISION SCIENCE

162

Subjective Decision Analysis

A subjective decision approach involves reconstructing a decision unit’s (either an individual or group) choice problem. It 

is subjective in that the elements of the calculus (e.g., options, 

interests) represent the perception of reality held by the decision maker modeled, rather than an objective reality provided 

by the analyst. The approach assumes that within their own 

reality, decision makers are gain maximizers. That is, they are 

motivated to satisfy or avoid costs on multiple interests of importance to them. Inputs into the subjective decision model 

include the decision maker’s perceived courses of action and 

interests/motivations. The data that informs the model can 

come from subject-matter expert (SME) inputs, intelligence reporting, or even stated policy. It is important to note that the 

intention of the subjective decision analysis is not to make 

point predictions on what a decision maker will choose to do 

but to depict the range of likely decision outcomes associated 

with various conditions (e.g., personality and context). When 

used to provide insight regarding intent, the analysis goes one 

step further by making explicit the likelihood of specific outcomes associated with certain initial conditions.

To prepare the reconstructed decision calculus, the analyst 

assembles the decision maker’s interest, perceived strategy/behavior options, and other context factors based on intelligence 

and other quantitative, qualitative, and SME input. Decisionmaker preference orderings are then derived from construction 

of search-evaluation (SE) matrixes. The SE matrix is a graphic 

representation of a multidimensional decision process containing the list of decision options perceived by the decision maker 

(down column one) judged across the interests considered in 

making that decision.1 Once the SE matrix is compiled, the 

decision options are compared along each interest (i.e., down 

each interest column) and ordinally ranked according to the 

degree to which that option is perceived by the decision maker 

to satisfy each interest. That is, perceived options are ranked 

not in terms of a numeric value but relative to the other options 

considered. These single-interest ranks then can be aggregated 

across the set of interests for each outcome to produce a multidimensional preference ordering for the entire choice set. The 
163

SE matrix thus yields a multi-interest-based assessment of the 

decision maker’s incentives to pursue one behavior option versus another.

A simple example illustrates the technique. Imagine that the 

autocratic leader of a state is considering whether or not to 

proliferate special nuclear material in contravention of international norms and the state’s own treaty obligations. The subjective decision matrix (table 12.1) represents the choice to proliferate, not proliferate, or postpone the decision given the 

leader’s four main interests: (1) enhancing his country’s prestige with international actors opposed to the West, (2) maintaining national security against regional threats, (3) maintaining his own personal wealth, and (4) maintaining sufficiently 

good relations with his state’s major ally. 

Table 12.1. SE matrix—incentives to proliferate

International 

prestige

National 

security

Personal 

wealth

Relations 

with ally

Overall rank

Proliferate

1* 3 1 3 2 

(combined 

ranks = 8)

Do not 

proliferate

3 2 3 1 3

(combined

ranks = 9)

Do not 

decide now

2 1 2 2 1

(combined 

ranks = 7)

* Rankings: 1 = best, 3 = worst. Ties are allowed.

As shown in the matrix, if all of the decision maker’s interests are considered equally (i.e., if he is an aggregate utility 

maximizer), the structure of his motivations (interests) indicates that his optimum option is to postpone his decision. His 

second best option, however, is to proliferate. 

We can gain a number of additional insights from this reconstruction of the decision maker’s choice problem. First, we see 

that there are no dominant choices here (i.e., no single option 

is better than another across all the interests). Second, we see 

that the two main motivators of a choice to proliferate are the 

decision maker’s interests in enhanced international prestige 

and personal wealth. If either of these interests is removed, the 

DECISION SCIENCE
DECISION SCIENCE

164

value of proliferate and do not proliferate becomes the same. 

Only if both of these motivations are eliminated does nonproliferation become an attractive option. Applying this type of 

backward inductive reasoning to collections of previously made 

decisions with known outcomes provides a means of refining 

model inputs and assumptions.

Backward Inductive Decision Analysis

While not designed for this purpose, backward inductive 

analysis of prior decisions provides a means of validating initial 

conditions and conclusions. Rather than using the decision 

model to predict a future decision, this approach uses the decision model to evaluate and modulate the inputs to past decisions as a way of evaluating the accuracy of and refining assumptions about options and interests. The backward induction 

allows the analyst, who knows the outcomes of each decision, 

to experiment with the interests and priorities that were key to 

each decision. For instance, if the decision analysis described 

above was retrospective and the known outcome was proliferation, the analyst could surmise that neither wealth nor prestige 

was of critical importance in that decision. If the same conclusion emerged for multiple prior decisions, the analyst could, 

with increasing confidence, begin to assess the relative importance of the decision maker’s motivations.

Designing Probe Decisions 

for Estimating Intent

Gaining an appreciation for the motives likely driving a choice 

still leaves us with limited insight into the relationship between 

those motivations and the decision maker’s intention to act on 

them. To assess intent to act, we need to know more about the 

relative weights of these motives. For example, would the decision maker be willing to accept less satisfaction on his interest 

in maintaining good relations with his main ally and/or on national security in return for increased personal wealth? Inductive application of the decision model can provide a method for 

gauging this type of intent. Rather than using the decision 
165

DECISION SCIENCE

model solely to evaluate the motives driving a potential decision, the analyst or planner can also use the reconstructed 

decision calculus to design “decision probes” to test the relative 

weights of the interests as well as the leader’s willingness to 

make the value trade-offs needed to act on those motives. A key 

feature of this approach for assessing intent to do harm is that 

the probes used to test the implications of the decision model 

may be innocuous; they do not need to bear directly on covert 

or nefarious intentions. Often decisions from very different 

realms are impacted by identical priorities, preferences, and 

interests. In fact, the decisions selected for probing need not be 

directly related to the threat in question. This is a benefit because information about these innocuous decisions is likely 

easier to obtain than information regarding preferences and 

intentions relating to decisions a decision maker wishes to conceal. By gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying motivations for this set of decisions, the analysts can then assess 

and update assumptions about priorities and intent.

In the current example, an effective probe decision might be 

designed to elicit from the decision maker a choice requiring a 

trade-off between his interest in personal wealth and good relations with his major ally—for example, whether or not to accept 

a bribe of a certain size in exchange for making a public show 

of snubbing the ally’s ambassador. What does this tell us? Say 

the decision probe is carried out and we observe that the decision maker accepted a relatively small bribe and publicly 

snubbed the ambassador. While this does not confirm the accuracy of our decision model, it does provide some additional 

evidence to suggest the weight of personal wealth versus ally 

relations for this decision maker. Namely, he is willing to trade 

at least near-term satisfaction of ally relations for a relatively 

low gain in wealth. Returning to the proliferate/do not proliferate decision matrix in table 12.1, we may now suspect that 

while there are both incentives and disincentives to proliferate, 

it is unlikely that the ally-relations motive would be sufficient 

to counter the decision maker’s interest in pursuing personal 

wealth. While still not directly measuring intent, the analytically 

derived probe decisions can provide confidence-enhancing evidence that the decision maker’s intent (i.e., his evaluation of 
DECISION SCIENCE

166

the interplay of his interests) may lean more heavily toward 

proliferation than not.

Conclusion

In general, we can conceive of at least three forms of intent: 

(1) unwavering intent that we would perhaps call resolve; (2) 

contingent intent that includes tipping points (“I will move if he 

comes any closer”); and (3) anticipatory or attribution-based 

intent in which an actor takes action in the belief that another 

will take a certain action. The first is relatively static. The latter 

two involve some estimation of context and events or anticipation of the interests of others. The simple proliferation decision 

example presented here assumes the first category of intent. 

However, assessment of intentions to act contingent on actual 

or anticipated actions may be made and tested in the same 

way. Not considered are crisis-related effects such as extreme 

time pressure, fear, stress, and so forth, which may impede a 

decision maker’s ability to follow an intended course of action.

In this paper, we suggest that whether the decision unit is an 

individual or a leadership group, its interests and incentives can 

be used to develop a subjective decision model that can help 

analysts gain insight into and make more informed inferences 

about its intent to pursue various actions. Conveniently, many 

of these interests and preferences also influence other decisions. 

Because this is the case, it is possible to design probe decisions 

to collect data that will do two things. First, analytically derived 

probes will give analysts the opportunity to test some of the implications of their models and improve their accuracy and the 

reliability of conclusions drawn from them. Second, data collected around probe decisions will help analysts determine the 

perceptions and interests that are the likely drivers of a particular choice and how these are evaluated by the decision maker to 

generate an intention to act. That said, it is fair to conclude that 

gauging intent in the way suggested here would require much 

research and analytic work. However, we hope that—as has been 

the case with capability—once begun, a tradecraft would develop 

around the intent estimation process that would streamline the 

process, detect and mitigate biases, and continue to enhance 

our abilities to identify intentions to act.
167

DECISION SCIENCE

Note

1. For more detailed explanations of SE matrix construction and theoretical foundations, see Allison Astorino-Courtois, “Clarifying Decisions: Assessing the Impact of 

Decision Structures on Foreign Policy Choices during the 1970 Jordanian Civil War,”

International Studies Quarterly 42 (1998): 733–54; and Zeev Maoz, National Choices 

and International Processes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

169

Abbreviations

BOLD blood-oxygen-level dependent

BSE breast self-examination

CFL compact fluorescent light

COCOM combatant command

COIN counterinsurgency

DM decision maker

dmPFC dorsomedial prefrontal cortex

DOD Department of Defense

DO JOC Deterrence Operations Joint Operating Concept 

EEG electroencephalograph

fMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging

HEB Lab Health, Emotion, and Behavior Lab

IED improvised explosive device

INF Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces

JP joint publication

mPFC medial prefrontal cortex

NIE national intelligence estimate

OODA observe, orient, decide, act

PET positron emission tomography

POLRAD Political Radicals 

pSTS posterior superior temporal sulcus

SCN social cognitive neuroscience

SE search-evaluation

SMA Strategic Multilayer Assessment

SME subject matter expert

SNIE special national intelligence estimate

SOCPAC Special Operations Command, Pacific

SOP standard operating procedure

TMS transcranial magnetic stimulation

ToM theory of mind

TPJ temporal parietal junction

TTP tactics, techniques, and procedures

USSTRATCOM US Strategic Command

From the Mind to the Feet

Assessing the Perception-to-Intent-to-Action Dynamic

Air University Press Team

Chief Editor

Demorah Hayes

Copy Editor

Sandi Davis

Cover Art, Book Design, 

and Illustrations

Daniel Armstrong

Composition and 

Prepress Production

Vivian D. O’Neal

Quality Review

Marvin Bassett

Print Preparation and Distribution

Diane Clark