Personal Values and Attitudes Toward War

Psychological determinants of generalized militaristic attitudes and attitudes toward specific wars were analyzed on the basis of 2 waves of a large German survey on attitudes after September 11, 2001 (Ns = 1,548 and 540). Personal values-as defined by the theory of basic human values by Schwartz (1992)-as well as ideological attitudes, threat of terrorism, and concern for human costs as mediators, were taken into account. Militaristic attitudes were consistently related to high priority of self-enhancement (power, achievement) and conservation (security, conformity) values and low priority of self-transcendence values (universalism, benevolence). Path analyses showed that the effects of conservation values were predominantly mediated by right-wing authoritarianism and threat of terrorism, and the effects of self-enhancement and self-transcendence values were predominantly mediated by social dominance orientation and (lack of) concern for human costs. These results suggest that there are 2 different psychological processes that lead to support for war.