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Emotionally  Evocative  Women:  The  Influence  of  Women  Suicide  Bombers  on  the  American  Public  

 

Jeanette  Mendez,  Associate  Professor  and  Head  Oklahoma  State  University  (Jeanette.mendez@okstate.edu)  

Tracy  Osborn,  Associate  Professor  University  of  Iowa                                                                                (tracy-­‐osborn@uiowa.edu)  

Candice  Ortbals,  Associate  Professor  Pepperdine  University  (Candice.ortbals@pepperdine.edu)  

Lori  Poloni-­‐Staudinger,  Associate  Professor  and  Chair  Northern  Arizona  University  (Lmp75@nau.edu)

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Title: Emotionally  Evocative  Women:  The  Influence  of  Women  Suicide  Bombers  on  the  American  Public

Abstract: How does the American public emotionally react to media portrayals of terrorists? Do

these reactions vary by the sex of the respondent and/or the sex of the perpetrator? This paper

asks whether and why the violent actions of women terrorists in particular evoke anger, fear,

anxiety, and/or sadness in women and men respondents in the United States. On one hand,

previous research indicates that terrorism evokes emotions of fear and vulnerability. On the

other hand, theory also suggests that actions undertaken by women terrorists, particularly those

who are mothers, may evoke specific emotions, such as anger because women terrorist transgress

gender expectations (not acting “like women”) or sadness because women terrorists are viewed

as victims, manipulated by men. Using a survey experiment, we ask respondents to react to news

stories about authorities thwarting a suicide terrorist attack, conducted by a perpetrator identified

as either a man, a woman, a father, or a mother. Our findings show that while women

respondents react more emotionally to the terrorist scenarios we presented to them, the sex and

gender representations of the terrorists do not produce consistent emotional reactions or policy

preferences in respondents. These results suggest that a more nuanced understanding of the

relationship between public opinion, sex, gender and terrorism is needed in the literature.

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Emotionally  Evocative  Women:  The  Influence  of  Women  Suicide  Bombers  on  the  American  Public

INTRODUCTION Women, in theory, have several advantages when it comes to perpetrating terrorism (Narozhna

2012). Scholars hypothesize that women have an advantage because people do not expect them

to be suicide terrorists, as society constructs women as peaceful and not violent (Poloni-

Staudinger and Ortbals 2012; Brunner 2010; Byrd and Decker 2008; Sjoberg and Gentry 2007).

For that reason, counterterrorism measures have not always anticipated women terrorists at

security checkpoints. Women also offer an advantage to terrorist groups using suicide terrorism

if they are considered a cheaper bombing option, with their families receiving a lower monthly

stipend than the families of men bombers (Patkin 2004).1 Arguably, women’s unexpected

involvement in terrorism is most advantageous to terror groups as women capture media

attention, disturbing international audiences more than the actions of a man bomber (Narozhna

2012). Because it is presumed women are peaceful, the media often sensationalize the emotional

and seemingly paradoxical nature of violent women (Nacos 2005; Patkin 2004; Gentry 2009).

Though counterterrorism security details are realizing the possibility of women bombers, the

public and media continue their gendered assumptions about women bombers, even though

scholarship has not yet determined the extent to which the public is scared of women bombers.

That is, do terrorist groups achieve their goal of psychologically damaging target populations

through the “highly emotive” use of women (Naroznha 2012, 92)? To this end, this article

examines public responses to women terrorists. We argue that the threat of women terrorists

                                                                                                               1 Patkin 2004 reports that family members of suicide bombers receive a lower monthly stipend if

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cannot be fully understood, and possibly stymied, until we know if/how the public responds to

terrorism in gendered ways.

This paper is situated in several literatures. First, we consider the International Relations

(IR) feminist literature that looks at how society and media construct gender as related to

terrorism (see Sjoberg and Gentry 2007; Auchter 2012; Sjoberg and Gentry 2011). These works

theorize the impact of said constructions; here, we test them experimentally to see if members of

the public hold stereotypical constructions of gendered terrorism. Second, the psychological and

political science literatures about terrorism intersect with IR feminism both to explain various

emotional reactions to terrorism and to confound the variables driving these reactions (see

Brader, Marcus, and Miller 2011; Nacos and Bloch-Elkon 2011; Huddy, Feldman, Lahav, and

Taber 2003). Additionally, the media and politics literature demonstrates how media cues guide

these emotional reactions (Gadarian 2010; Das et al 2009). When considered as a whole, these

literatures lead us to ask the American public emotionally reacts to media portrayals of terrorists.

Do these reactions vary by the sex of the respondent, the sex of the perpetrator, and/or the

media’s gender presentation of the perpetrator?

Using an original survey experiment, we ask 587 respondents to react to news stories

about authorities thwarting a suicide terrorist attack conducted by a perpetrator identified as

either a terrorist irrespective of sex, a man, a woman, a parent irrespective of sex, a father, or a

mother. Additionally, we tested two sensationalized news pieces about women terrorists; one

who is a mother fanatically motivated to kill others via suicide and another who is a young

woman duped into suicide bombing by a radical boyfriend. This experimental design provides a

way to test the emotional impact of terrorism based on the gender and maternal/paternal

identities of the terrorists. Whereas news sources almost always generically identify men

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bombers, often without name or background story, women terrorists are often identified by

maternal identity and name (Poloni-Staudinger and Ortbals 2014). Given these tendencies, our

experiment gauges typical media cues as well as ones rarely seen in the media (e.g., a man

terrorist as a father, with a name identified), thus allowing us to assess the public’s emotional

reaction given diverse media cues. Our design also allows for the measurement of emotional

reactions of men and women respondents, consequently allowing us to assess how the sex

identity of the targets and viewers of terrorist actions affects views of terrorism in addition to

variation in the sex and gender of the perpetrator.

Our results demonstrate that while women respondents react more emotionally to the

terrorist scenarios– particularly with fear– the sex and gender representations of the terrorists do

not produce consistent respondent reactions, either emotionally or in public policy preferences

about terrorism. These results suggest that a more nuanced understanding of the relationship

between public opinion, sex, gender and terrorism is needed in the literature, as the sex of the

respondent rather than the perpetrator determines emotional reactions to terrorists in the news.

These findings advance both feminist and political psychology research related to

terrorism. Although scholars of gender and terrorism debate the psychology of the terrorist

herself (Bloom 2011; Cragin and Daly 2009; Galvin 1983), they have not assessed the

psychological impact of women terrorists on others. We find that media about terrorism

engenders more emotional reactions from women respondents, who in turn approve of more

hawkish foreign and strong counterterrorism policies. Counter to previous research, (Shapiro

and Mahajan 1986; Huddy and Cassese 2011), these results suggest that women not only support

peace-oriented and humanitarian interventions as solutions to terrorism, but they prefer military

responses as well. Additionally, our study’s policy implications call into question the use of

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women bombers as a new “terrorist tactic”. We argue that though terrorist organizations tend to

use women because they draw attention and supposedly evoke emotions, women (and mother)

terrorists do not overwhelmingly influence the public more so than men (and father) terrorists.

THEORY REVIEW

Emotional Impact of Terrorism and Media

Regarding the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., Cho et al state that, the “attacks…were

universally dramatic and emotionally evocative” (2003, 310). To some degree, the idea that

terrorist attacks evoke emotional responses in their targets is common sense; yet, there “has been

little research on general psychological and social effects [of terrorism]” (Crenshaw 1986, 401;

Nacos and Bloch-Elkon 2011). Instead, the emphasis in the psychology of terrorism literature is

placed on the psychological motives of terrorists (Crenshaw 1986; Crenshaw 2000). Therefore,

it is imperative to uncover what is known about the emotional effects of terrorism.

Previous work suggests that terrorism influences the short-term and long-term mental

health of a society. Moreover, these reactions hold for members of the public who are direct and

indirect victims of terrorism, the former being victims who experience harm and/or witness harm

in person and the latter being the public that hears about terrorism through information sources.

Including indirect victims, following 9-11, Americans reported having more stress, depression,

and PTSD than before the attacks (Fischer and Ai 2008; Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav

2003). In the days after 9-11, “47 percent [of survey respondents in the US] reported increased

anxiety and fear that they or their loved ones might become a victim of international terrorism”

(Fischer and Ai 2008, 343; see also Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2005; Huddy, Feldman,

and Cassese 2003). The prevalence of concern among Americans also continued for many years

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after 9-11. Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, and Shapiro (2011) report that seven years after 9-11, 64

percent of Americans were somewhat or a great deal concerned about the potential of terrorist

attacks.

Media raise the stakes of terrorism-induced emotions for several reasons. First, media

are themselves a targeted audience for terrorists. The terrorists’ strategy is to convey a message

worldwide, and the media receive this message and provide terrorists with a large audience

(Tuman 2010). That is why Margaret Thatcher once said that media act as “the oxygen of

terrorism” (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, and Shapiro 2011, 13). Media also typically make terrorism,

especially new terrorism in the current age, seem incredibly dangerous (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, and

Shapiro 2011). Thus, the media construct an overreaction that is based on emotionalism. The

emotion that media mostly convey is fear; their coverage gives people cues about what to fear.

This fear can be so extreme as to lead to “death-related thoughts” (Das et al 2009, 453).

The media’s “evocative way ” of covering terrorism influences the public’s opinions and

policy preferences (Gadarian 2010, 469). Brader, Valentino, and Karl (2012) purport that

subjects in an experimental setting experience anger and fear in response to terrorism in media.

Inducing fear and threat in experiments leads respondents to be more supportive of hawkish

foreign policy (Gadarian 2010) and increases their prejudice for out-groups, namely those who

do not think and act according to the respondent’s own cultural values (Brader, Valentino, and

Karl 2012; Das et al 2009). Analyses of public opinion data following 9-11 also demonstrate that

different emotions have varying influence on policy preferences. Fear causes citizens to be less

supportive of military interventions overseas, and anxiety promotes isolationism and less

aggressive foreign policy (Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2003; Brader, Marcus, and Miller

2011). Anger causes citizens to prefer policies associated with force. Sadness, fear, and anxiety

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cause individuals to retreat, be risk avoidant, and prefer safety (Brader, Marcus, and Miller 2011;

Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2005); whereas, anger leads one to attribute blame (Small,

Lerner, and Fischoff 2006) and prefer military action (Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, and Fischoff

2003). Moreover, authoritarian values associated with intolerance and uniformity (Stenner 2005)

lead to support for military action and isolationism when dealing with terrorism (Huddy,

Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2003).

Respondent characteristics mediate these emotional reactions to terrorism via the media.

Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav (2003) explain that race, gender, education level and party

identities influence emotional responses to terrorism. Republicans, Hispanics, and women have

been shown to experience more fear and depression. Moreover, those who live in proximity to

past terrorist attacks, watch more television, and have authoritarian values display more fear and

depression (see also Huddy, Feldman, and Cassese 2009). The less educated are more likely to

be anxious about terrorism (Huddy, Feldman, and Cassese 2009).

Emotional Reactions based on Non-direct Victim’s Sex

Scholars suspect women will have different reactions to terrorism than men, both in terms

of emotions and their public policy preferences. Several psychological and political science

works demonstrate that women tend to be more emotional than men regarding terrorism.

Women report more stress and experience more negative emotions following terrorism, such as

anxiety and anger (see Fischer and Ai 2008; Cho et al 2003; Huddy, Feldman, and Cassese

2009). They are also more fearful regarding terrorism (Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2003;

Huddy, Feldman, and Cassese 2009), and they report more mental illness in the aftermath of a

direct experience of terrorism (see Heskin 1980 for description of this in Irish case) as well as

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more depression as indirect victims (Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2003). Women self-

report that they feel less secure regarding terrorism (Huddy, Feldman, and Weber 2007). Huddy,

Feldman, and Cassese suggest that women are more worried about personal victimization in

many aspects of life, thus they also may feel more victimized by terrorism (2009).

Personality studies in psychology highlight women’s greater trait of “harm avoidance,”

i.e., the tendency to react negatively to adverse stimuli (Fresána et al 2010), which is typical of

people who tend to be worriers, pessimists, and shy. According to Lippa (2005), women are

“much higher than men on harm avoidance, and they were moderately higher on stress reaction”

(15; see also Fresána et al 2010). Women on average also have higher levels of anxiety than

men (Lippa 2005). We therefore might expect women to have stronger emotional reactions to a

terrorist attack, which could be considered an adverse stimulus that leads to anxiety and fear.

The effects of women’s emotional reactions could contribute to the gender distinctions in

foreign policy opinions identified by previous researchers. Without focusing on sex, Gadarian

concludes that heightened emotions about terrorism lead to support for more hawkish policies

(2010). Thus, if women are more emotional in response to terrorism, they may hold more

hawkish stances than we would expect them to, given that scholars also note that women are less

hawkish than men in terms of foreign policy preferences generally. Previous work demonstrates

that women prefer less use of force (Fite, Genest and Wilcox 1990; Shapiro and Mahajan 1986;

Huddy and Cassese 2011; Sapiro 2003; Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2003) and that anti-

militarism tends to be a “woman” issue (Gentry 2009). However, newer research shows that

women may be acutely concerned with terrorism, so much so that they are “security moms,” i.e.,

holding hawkish preferences with the aim to keep their families safe from terrorism. For

instance, “after the September 11th attacks, women became much more concerned with security

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issues (43%) than men (11%) (before September 11th it was the opposite with men more

concerned)” (Poloni-Staudinger and Ortbals 2012, 97; see also Grounds 2008). Even following

evidence of post 9-11 opinion change for women, other work continues to suggest that men

support war more so than women (Clements 2012).

Reassessing Responses: Feminist IR, Terror Management Theory, and Emotional Responses to

Terrorism

We weave together diverse sources to generate a new model of how men and women

might respond to terrorism from perpetrators of different sexes and parental identities. As we

discuss above, the preponderance of political science and some psychology research

demonstrates that women tend to react more emotionally to terrorism than men. International

relations theory adds a second component to this reaction: the sex of the perpetrator. Feminist

literature proposes that the emotions of fear, anger, anxiety, and sadness felt by the victim should

vary based on the sex and gender of the perpetrator, especially when the perpetrator’s sex is

interpreted by the media. Yet, Terror Management Theory (TMT) implies that all persons –

whether men or women—have reason to react similarly to terrorism. Below, we discuss what

each of these theories leads us to expect about the terror stimuli to which respondents react.

Emotional Effect of Perpetrator’s Sex and Gender

The public perception of women terrorists relates to media portrayals. The Western press

stereotypes women terrorists as a paradox (Nacos 2005), as they may look innocent and/or

convey gentleness associated with maternity, yet they are committing a violent act leading to

death (Naaman 2007). Their maternal identities and bodies are front and center in media reports

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(Brunner 2005). Much of the feminist IR literature focuses on these narratives. Although

researchers typically do not analyze narratives in order to establish their causal effects on public

opinion, it is conceivable that variations in narratives affect public emotional reactions to

terrorism. A narrative “reproduces particular ways of thinking;” the public is a “consumer” of

narratives and reacts to them (Steans 2013, 144; Sjoberg and Gentry 2007; Auchter 2012;

Sjoberg and Gentry 2011). The media are instrumental in constructing narratives that impact the

public (Steans 2013; Brunner 2005).

The most documented narratives cast women bombers as pitiful and as evoking sadness.

Given this narrative, the public tends to see women terrorists as victims and not as political

agents (Narozhna 2012). Typical tropes in Western scholarship and in media convey that

women terrorists are young, and perhaps virgins, who are “desperate figures, sway[ing] public

opinion and generat[ing] sympathy” (Alvanou 2007, 13; Hardy 2010). The emotional reaction of

sadness also may arise from the perception that otherwise peaceful women have been unjustly

thrown into terrorist action. A mother who is a terrorist may make people sad if they assume that

the only explanation for mothers to be terrorists is that they were forced into terrorism, as a

mother would never risk her family’s well-being by willingly killing herself and others. Reasons

for ascribing women’s lack of political agency in terrorism range from patriarchal control (e.g.,

an abusive, radical Muslim man made them do it), marginalization, mentally ineptitude, or

sexual deviance (Brown 2011; Patkin 2004; Victor 2003). Bloom’s work most poignantly

displays how women seem to be caught up in bad life circumstances. She states, “women across

a number of conflicts and in several different terrorist groups tend to be motivated by…revenge

[for death of a family member, often a man], redemption [for past sins], relationship [with

insurgents, often a man], and [desired] respect [from their community]” (2011, 235).

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The media more often portray Muslim men as religious radicals, thereby making men

terrorists who are Muslim scarier in the public eye than women (see Brunner 2005). The Western

public has difficulty comprehending Islamic fundamentalism, which leads the public to view

fundamentalists as an out-group (Brunner 2005). Though people react with hostility toward out-

groups, out-groups also produce a fear of the unknown and the uncontrollable. If Islamic men are

“othered” by the media as extremists, the public is likely to fear them. Moreover, when the

media relay the biographical stories of women – and not men—terrorists, men’s actions remain

ones of fanaticism and are feared, but women’s stories become somewhat justified on the basis

of their sad motives and lives (Naaman 2007).

Two exceptions to this logic exist. First, Brunner (2005) and Bloom (2005) point out,

“once women and girls turn themselves into weapons, nothing seems impossible anymore and

anything may be possible in the future” (Brunner 2005, 44). The unexpected then evokes fear

aside from the sex of the perpetrator. Second, Brunner argues, “the black face-veil appears to

function as the signifier of the ‘radical Muslim terrorist’” (715). As a result, the public may fear

Islamic women as terrorists when they are presented in the media as radicals.

Finally, the literature posits that audiences react to terrorists with anger. Media and

government leaders, following 9-11, used the demonization of Al-Qaeda to rally the American

public (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, and Shapiro 2011). This applies to women terrorists because they

are often subjected to extreme demonization (Brown 2011), particularly as “monsters” (see

Sjoberg and Gentry 2007). Women make people angry because “a female terrorist” is seen “as

‘non-woman’ or ‘non-feminine/female’…[who] symbolizes a transgression of gender” (Melzer

2009, 36). The maternal identity of terrorists may give rise to anger as well, because a vengeful

and violent mother who participates in terrorism violates the idea of a peaceful mother (Sjoberg

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and Gentry 2007; Gentry 2009). We argue that this relates to the in-group/out-group analysis of

Brader, Valentino, and Karl (2012), whose experiments involving the American public’s

response to terrorism show that people are angrier with white, domestic terrorists than foreign

Muslim terrorists. An in-group terrorist evokes more anger because, as a perpetrator, s/he has

betrayed her/his own group. It could be the case that mothers see themselves as a group and

become very angry when another mother is a perpetrator of terrorism. This mother perpetrator

betrays what mothers stand for: giving life rather than causing death.

An alternative view, which is not prominent in political science scholarship, challenges

the gendered perspectives offered in this literature review thus far. Given the extraordinary

nature of terrorism and the extreme fear associated with it, we might expect all members of the

public to feel similar, high levels of emotion, regardless of the direct or indirect victim’s sex or

the sex of the perpetrator. Terror Management Theory suggests that members of the public

process mortality, and the anxiety caused by it, in a similar way. When a person becomes aware

of death, he or she experiences “overwhelming terror” (Pyszczynski, Solomon, and Greenberg

2003, 27; Das et al 2009). According to TMT, how humans manage the extreme emotions

elicited by mortality depends on the person’s ability to make sense of death and preserve

meaning in life, which varies given the individual’s self-esteem and cultural worldview

(Pyszczynski, Solomon, and Greenberg 2003). When people do not cope well with terror, and

particularly terrorism, they may become more nationalistic and prejudicial to out-groups as

prejudice serves as a way to cope with fear (Das et al 2009; Stenner 2005). People with

authoritarian mindsets may struggle even more so to cope with terror, as they have rigid

worldviews. They also may be more likely to support anti-terror policies (Brader, Valentino, and

Karl 2012).

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TMT contains two key points for our research here. Though TMT puts no emphasis on

gender, given its basic premises, we would not expect the terrorist’s identity (male or female,

mother or not) to condition the emotional response to terrorism. Rather, under TMT, terrorism is

so scary that all terrorist scenarios will challenge respondents’ mortality. Second, unless men and

women have varying levels of self-esteem or distinct worldviews, TMT would imply that women

and men struggle with mortality in a similar way and have similar reactions to terrorism. In the

sections that follow we test whether the dominant view in the literature, of gendered terrorists

influencing gendered respondents, holds up against TMT’s implications.

RESEARCH DESIGN

While experimental studies like Brader, Valentino and Karl (2012) vary attack scenarios

and perpetrators2 to determine public reaction to terrorism, in order to test our hypotheses, we

chose to keep our attack scenario constant (a thwarted attack on the US Capitol, see Appendix)

and vary the perpetrator: a terrorist irrespective of sex, a man, a woman, a parent irrespective of

sex, a mother, a father, a sensationalized mother, or a sensationalized young woman3. Scenarios

for the generic “terrorist” and the generic “parent” were used as control groups. Articles were

randomly assigned to respondents and differed based upon the description of the perpetrator. All

                                                                                                               2 For example, a white attacker versus a Muslim attacker or a domestic versus a foreign attack.

3 Sensationalized mother and young woman played up their parental status and stereotypical

gender traits (see Appendix). There is not a corresponding sensationalized father article because

this would not be found in actual media reports. Actual reports tend to sensationalize women’s

participation in terrorism, while not sensationalizing men’s (Poloni-Staudinger and Ortbals

2014).

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other aspects of the articles -- attack location, thwarting, background information, quotes, etc. –

remained consistent across the various treatments. The respondents become terrorism’s indirect

audience in the public, and the articles suggest that the object of the attack is the US Capitol

building and people in it. All articles were patterned off of actual print news articles discussing a

thwarted terrorist attack. The sensationalized articles emphasized and provided more detail about

the perpetrator’s youth in addition to her sex (sensationalized young woman) and her status as a

mother (sensationalized mother). The language for the sensationalized portion of the articles was

taken directly from actual newswires reporting on women terrorists in order to mimic real-world

reports. One caveat is in order. Sources stress that television is a more evocative media than

print journalism due to the way in which visual images convey emotions (see, for example,

Huddy, Feldman, and Cassese 2009; Cho et al 2003; Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, and Shapiro 2011). By

using print media, we offer a conservative test of emotional reactions to terrorism. Our results

would likely be stronger if we employed television media.

Hypotheses

Our expectations vary by the sex of the perpetrator and the sex of the respondent. We

expect that respondents will react with fear and anger to the man attacker and that there will be

little difference in reaction between the man attacker and the father (H1a). Further, we expect

that emotional reactions to the man attacker and father will not differ dramatically from the

control groups (terrorist and parent) as people typically think about a man when they see the

word “terrorist” (H1b). On the other hand, we expect that respondents will react with increased

sadness and anger to the woman, mother, and sensationalized mother attackers as well as the

sensationalized young woman scenario (H2a). We expect the intensity of these reactions to be

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least for the woman scenario and strongest for the sensationalized mother scenario and

moderated by the degree to which the respondent is herself a mother (H2b). We believe reactions

will be strongest for mothers due to the extant literature’s emphasis on the sensationalism of

terrorist mothers (Sjoberg and Gentry 2007; Gentry 2009).

In terms of overall level of emotion, we expect the emotion of fear to be stronger for

women respondents than for men (H3). Due to in-group dynamics, we expect women

respondents to react with stronger anger emotions to the women attackers (all scenarios) than

men respondents. Particularly, we expect mothers to be angry at the mother attacker scenarios

(H4). We would expect those with authoritarian values to react with more anger to all scenarios,

irrespective of sex of the respondent (H5), as this has been seen in other works. Finally, in

terms of policy reactions, we expect women will support more peaceful (humanitarian) policy

options, whereas men will be more willing to support military action. We expect this to vary

based upon the sex of the attacker, with men attackers eliciting preferences for stronger policy

measures, such as military action and curtailment of civil liberties (H6).

Data and Methods

To recruit subjects, we used Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk). MTurk works by having

requestors (us) pay turkers (respondents) for completing tasks. In the social sciences, researchers

recruiting subjects for surveys commonly use Mturk. As a requestor, one pays turkers for the

completion of their work. We conducted our survey at the beginning of June 2014. The survey

took 18 minutes and 5 seconds, on average to complete and we had 600 respondents complete

the survey. We paid the turkers $1.75 for the completed survey. The survey gave us 587 valid

responses. Descriptive statistics of respondents show that while the survey is weighted slightly

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toward those who are more highly educated (common for MTurk surveys), on other values,

variables are fairly normally distributed. About half of our respondents were women and half

men. While the sample drawn is not a representative sample, scholars have found MTurk has

advantages of traditional student drawn convenience samples (Berinsky, Huber, Lentz and

Alvarez 2012).

As a check of the representativeness of our sample, we compared our sample

demographics against the 2010-2012 American National Election Study Evaluations of

Government and Society Study (ANES). For gender, our MTurk sample was 52.47% male,

47.53% female while the ANES was 47.8% male, 47.53% female. The MTurk mean age was 34

years old, while the ANES mean age was 45-54. For race, the MTurk sample was 82.0% white,

and the ANES sample was 84.4% white. For party identification, the MTurk sample had 16.0%

Republican, 41.40% Democrat and 32.5% Independent and the ANES had 27% Republican,

32.7% Democrat and 34.6% Independent. For income, the MTurk mean income was $35-50,000

and the ANES mean income was $35-50,000. Finally, for education, in the MTurk sample 1%

had 9-12th grade education without a diploma, 10.2% high school graduates, 30.5% some

college, 38.16% college graduates and 14.1% post-graduate work, and the ANES had 8.4% had

9-12th grade education without a diploma, 30.4% high school graduates, 19.7% some college,

20.2% college graduates and 12.0% post-graduate work. Table 1 summarizes the descriptive

statistics of our sample.

<<Table 1 about Here>>

Respondents to the survey were first asked demographic questions, including their sex,

education level, ideology, and parental status, as well as four questions that assessed their level

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of authoritarianism4. After this battery of questions, respondents were randomly assigned a faux

news article about a thwarted terrorist attack where the attacker varied, as indicated above. After

reading the article, respondents were asked questions related to their emotional reaction to

terrorism and anti-terrorism policy preferences. Table 2 presents emotional reactions for all

respondents by terrorist scenario. The cells represent the percentage of respondents indicating

they felt these emotions “quite a bit” or “extremely”. Though the data show that no more than

half (and in some cases a third or a quarter) of the population felt emotions this strongly, our

findings are in line with Huddy, Feldman, Lahav, and Taber who found, in surveys conducted in

the more immediate aftermath of 9-11, that “a majority…did not feel frightened or scared, or felt

that way only occasionally” (2003, 260). We see that while all scenarios elicit some feelings of

sadness, the sensationalized mother elicits higher levels of sadness. Additionally, the young

woman scenario elicits higher levels of anxiety, and parents (mothers and fathers) seem to elicit

lower levels of many emotional responses. Thus, this snapshot tells us that there is some

variation in emotional response to the different scenarios. We subsequently assess this variation

in three different ways.

<<Table 2 About Here>>

In the first test, we use ANOVA to determine if respondents displayed differences in

emotional response to scenarios based upon their sex. We focus on four emotions: anxious,

                                                                                                               4 Authoritarianism was assessed because Brader, Valentino, and Karl (2012) find it to be a key

control variable in assessing reactions to terrorism.

 

  19  

afraid, angry, and sad. Next, these emotions become our dependent variables in an ordered logit

examining the degree to which respondents feel these same emotions after exposure to the

scenarios5. Finally, we examine policy responses and the degree to which the emotional

responses elicited by the scenarios shape the policy preferences of respondents. In the

multivariate models, we control for the sex of the respondent, political ideology of the

respondent, parental status of the respondent, education of the respondent, and authoritarianism

of the respondent, as these have found to impact other experimental studies dealing with

terrorism (see Brader, Valentino, and Karl 2012; Huddy, Feldman, Lahav, and Taber 2003).6

RESULTS

ANOVA Results

We first analyze key emotion variables by treatment using ANOVA, to test difference in

responses by men and women respondents. Table 3 shows the results of the ANOVA. Results

were mixed. It is clear that men and women experience different emotional reactions to certain

scenarios, but these reactions are not always consistent across newspaper scenarios. While

women have strong “anxious” responses to the young women cue (p<.10), men have strong

“anxious” responses to the woman and mother cue (p<.10 and p<.05, respectively). When

                                                                                                               5 “Anxious” and “afraid” displayed similar results; therefore, we look at just “afraid” in the

multivariate models.

6 We also included interaction effects between sex of respondent and treatment and sex of

respondent and emotion. These interactions had no effect on results and thus in order to present

a more parsimonious model are not included in the presentation of our results.

  20  

examining the degree to which scenarios make respondents “afraid”, we see that the mother cue

makes men afraid, similarly to how it made them anxious (p<.05). Women, on the other hand,

are afraid when exposed to the parent cue and sad (p<.01) when exposed to the woman cue. The

father (p<.05), parent (p<.01) and mother cues (p<.10) elicited sadness in men. None of the

scenarios elicited a statistically significant “angry” response for either men or women. Thus,

while there is less consistency for women’s reactions across scenarios, stories involving the

mother make men anxious, sad, and afraid, suggesting a possible gendered reaction by men to

terrorist who are mothers.

<<Table 3 About Here>>

Emotional Responses

Thus, it seems as if there is some emotional variation to scenarios based upon the sex of

the respondent, but what happens when other controls are introduced into a multivariate

equation? This is where the story begins to complicate. IR feminist literature would lead us to

expect that respondents would have the strongest emotional responses to the scenarios focused

on women, with the absolute strongest responses to the sensationalized mother story (see Sjoberg

and Gentry 2007). Other psychological studies would suggest that respondents would have

strong in-group and out-group responses to the stories, such that women would be angrier toward

women terrorists and mothers toward mother terrorists. Instead, our results show a different and

more complicated pattern. Table 4 gives the ordered logit results for the impact of our

experimental scenarios on respondent emotions. While the sensationalized mother scenario

increased feelings of sadness among all respondents (p<.10), with respondents being about 5

  21  

percent more likely to experience sadness after receiving this treatment7, all else being equal, the

mother treatment made respondents less likely to be afraid, yet had no impact on feelings of

anger or sadness. Additionally, the woman scenario elicited lower levels of anxiety from

respondents, with those receiving the woman scenario on average about 5.4 percent less afraid

(p<.05), all else being equal. This is interesting as it is commonly thought that terrorist groups

use women terrorists for the “shock” value, or to elicit more fear in the target population. It

clearly is not having this effect.

Where we do see a significant effect of sex in emotional reactions to terrorism is not in

the sex of the terrorist, the focus of much women and terrorism scholarship, but in the sex of the

respondent. Women respondents were much more likely to respond as being afraid and sad;

being a woman increases one’s fear by 10.6 percent (p<.0001) and increases sadness about 4

percent (p<.05), all else being equal. Thus, even as the sex and parental status of the terrorist

decreases fear (as seen above), the respondent’s own reaction is strongly influenced by her sex.

While approximately 44 percent of our sample were parents, the parental status of respondents

did not affect emotional reactions (we would have expected an in-group response from parents to

the parent scenarios), but respondents who were mothers were more likely to feel anxious

(p<.10), all else being equal. Thus, irrespective of the terrorist cue, women react more

emotionally to terrorism than men.8 This finding mirrors past findings by Huddy, Feldman, and

Cassese (2009).

                                                                                                               7 Spost analysis in Stata using the command prchange was used to determine magnitude of effect

for certain results.

8 In analyses not presented here, we tried several ways to account for in-group and out-group

reactions statistically. None of the interaction variables proved significant.

  22  

We also find that the strongest predictor of emotional response is the degree to which the

respondent holds authoritarian values. Those who hold authoritarian values are more likely to be

anxious (p<.001), afraid (p<.001), angry (p<.01), and sad (p<.05), all else being equal.

Authoritarianism increases emotions by a magnitude of 10.7 percent for anxiety, 12.5 percent for

afraid, 6.8 percent for angry, and 4.3 percent for sadness as one moves from least authoritarian to

most authoritarian. Thus, these results show us that the internal characteristics of respondents

rather than the identity of the perpetrator drive emotional responses, with the strongest predictors

being the sex of the respondent and the respondent’s level of authoritarian values. In one way,

this supports Terror Management Theory, in that terrorism is emotional, period, no matter the

perpetrator, and authoritarians react more strongly because they are more rigid and less able to

adapt to terror scenarios. However, women herein are more emotional than men, perhaps

challenging TMT and indicating that they are more harm avoidant when faced with adverse

stimuli. These findings reflect those of other scholars who have found that authoritarianism and

sex drive emotional reactions (Brader, Valentino, and Karl 2012; Das et al 2009; Huddy,

Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2003). In fact, we can see in Figures 1a and 1b regarding

respondents who ranked their fear as “afraid” or “very afraid”, scores of 4 and 5, respectively, as

someone becomes more authoritarian, they become more afraid, with women consistently

becoming more afraid than men. In short, all else being equal, women and authoritarians react

more emotionally to all terrorists, and this has a stronger impact than the sex or parental identity

of the terrorist herself.

<<Figures 1a and 1b about Here>>

  23  

We also find that more educated individuals are less likely to be afraid (p<.10), all else

being equal, and more conservative individuals are more likely to be angry (p<.001) and sad

(p<.05), all else being equal. Past scholarship that shows more education is related to less

emotion (Huddy, Feldman, Cassese 2009) lends credence to our findings that internal respondent

identities play a greater role in reactions to terrorism than the characteristics of the terrorist.

<<Table 4 About Here>>

Policy Responses

While we did not find strong evidence to suggest that people have emotional reactions to

terrorism based upon the sex, parental, and/or gender representations of the terrorist, do these

cues influence the policy responses people are willing to support when it comes to terrorism? In

answering this question, we find that the terrorist scenario cues have no impact on the policy

preferences of respondents. That is, who the terrorist is makes no difference in people’s

assessments of acceptable policy responses to terrorism. Instead, emotions, ideology and

authoritarian values have the largest impact9. For this equation, we took the emotional responses

from the dependent variables in the equation above and flipped them, using them as independent

variables, together with the terrorist scenario variables, and the independent control variables

                                                                                                               9 Other demographic controls like age, and education level did not have an effect.

             

  24  

from the first equation, to see the degree to which emotions drive policy preferences, leading to

some interesting and unexpected results, presented in Table 5.

<<Table 5 About Here>>

We find that emotions are strongly related to which policies the respondents were willing

to support. We find that fear has the largest impact on policy preferences. The more afraid

respondents were, the more likely they were to support increased surveillance (p<.001) and

searches (p<.001) and the less likely they were to oppose military intervention (p<.01) and

decreases in homeland security funding (p<.001), all else being equal. As one moves from least

to most afraid, the magnitude of effect is quite strong with those indicating the most fear being

22.7 percent more likely to support surveillance, 21 percent more likely to support searches, 12.6

percent less likely to oppose military intervention, and 28 percent less likely to oppose homeland

security funding. Thus, fear strongly predicts which policies individuals are willing to support,

all else being equal. These findings challenge the past literature, which claims that sadness and

fear produces risk avoidance and a tendency to retreat. Alternatively, our data show that these

emotions may spur individuals to support a variety of policy actions.

Anger is also an important motivator of policy preferences. Those respondents who

reported feeling more angry after reading the articles were less likely to oppose military

intervention (p<.001), more likely to oppose humanitarian intervention (p<.05) and less likely to

oppose homeland security funding (p<.05), all else being equal. In terms of magnitude of effect,

moving from the least feelings of anger to most feelings of anger, the angriest respondents were

13 percent less likely to oppose military intervention, 16.77 percent more likely to oppose

humanitarian intervention, and 10 percent less likely to oppose homeland security funding. On

the other hand, in those respondents indicating sadness, increased sadness increased support for

  25  

humanitarian intervention (p<.01), with those expressing the most sadness 9.23 percent more

likely to support humanitarian intervention than those expressing the least amount of sadness, all

else being equal.

The degree to which respondents held authoritarian values also was an important

predictor of policy preferences. Authoritarians are more likely to support increased surveillance

(p<.001) and searches (p<.001), less likely to oppose military intervention (p<.10), more likely

to oppose humanitarian intervention (p<.05), and less likely to oppose homeland security

funding (p<.001). The most authoritarian respondents were about 19 percent more likely to

support surveillance, 18.25 percent more likely to support searches, 1.3 percent less likely to

oppose military funding, 5 percent less likely to support humanitarian intervention than the least

authoritarian respondents, and 15 percent more less likely to oppose homeland security funding.

This finding mirrors what others have found about authoritarians being willing to support strong

measures, either toward outgroups or regarding military action (Brader, Valentino, and Karl

2012; Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav 2003), thereby strengthening our findings. Similar to

Huddy, Feldman, Taber, and Lahav (2003), we show that when it comes to humanitarian policies

authoritarians tend toward isolationism. Additionally, our data support results that those who are

more conservative are less likely to oppose military intervention (p<.001), more likely to oppose

humanitarian intervention (p<.001) and less likely to oppose homeland security funding

(p<.001), all else being equal.

Quite interestingly, we do not find that the sex of the respondent significantly influences

policy preferences. But, what does it mean to say the sex of the respondent does not have an

impact? Conventional wisdom and previous empirical work suggest that women are more

dovish when it comes to foreign policy and men more hawkish (see Fite, Genest and Wilcox

  26  

1990). However, our results suggest that, all else being equal, men and women react similarly to

foreign and domestic policies related to terrorism. That is, women are no less likely to support

military action to curtail terrorism than are men (Figures 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d), with increases in

military support linked instead to increased levels of fear in both men and women. Additionally,

as women become more fearful, they are more likely to support invasions on civil liberties such

as increased searches and increased surveillance and less likely to support humanitarian relief.

Thus, when women are afraid (and our earlier results show them to be more afraid), they are

more likely to support more hawkish policy responses to terrorism. These results seem to

support a more “security mom” scenario than past evaluations of women’s foreign policy

attitudes. Figures 2a through 2d support this claim as we see that across different levels of

“afraid”, men and women’s responses to preference for military action are practically identical.

<<Figures 2a to 2d about here>>

Thus, sex is not a driving factor in determining whether or not someone supports military

intervention to curtail terrorism – instead, the mechanism is fear. While women may be more

afraid of terrorism in the first place, regardless of the characteristics of the terrorist, when we

control for sex, we see that fear becomes the motivating factor in policy choices. Interestingly,

this suggests sex differences in policy preferences are driven by sex differences in emotion;

because women have more emotional reactions of fear to terrorism, this increased fear drives

increased support for anti-terrorism policies, and thus, obscures traditional differences between

women and men on defense policies.

CONCLUSION

  27  

Our research has shown that media descriptions of terrorism produce significant

emotional reactions in the American public. However, the theorized emotional impact of

terrorists who are women and mothers largely did not materialize in our study (see Table 6 for a

summary of our findings). With the exception of the sensationalized mother scenario making

respondents sadder, all else being equal, our results do not support the notion that women as

suicide bombers produce greater emotions than men bombers. Moreover, though the

sensationalized mother scenario proved somewhat significant for sadness, some women and

mother scenarios either did not significantly influence emotions or they made respondents less

fearful and anxious. Thus, we can conclude that the sex, gender, and parental status of the

terrorist perpetrator do not influence the public in consistent ways. What matters the most in our

study is the individual identity of respondents, the so-called indirect victims of terrorism.

Women and authoritarians have stronger responses to terrorism, and those who have stronger

emotions prefer more hawkish policies. Our findings tend to support the extant literature yet

update the mechanism through which respondents support anti-terrorism policies. The

consistency of our results with previous work is particularly interesting to us given that many

studies were conducted in the immediate aftermath of 9-11; emotional responses to terrorism,

thus, do not necessarily follow just because of the immediacy of an actual terror attack.

<<Insert table 6 about here>>

These findings are relevant to discussions in several of the aforementioned literatures as

well as in policy circles. First, the literature that most often discusses women and terrorism,

feminist IR, benefits from our findings about women bombers. On one hand, we have shown

  28  

that sensationalized mother bombers likely make people sad. This relates closely to the

literature’s discussion of women terrorists being portrayed in the press and in society as victims,

not agents, who sadly get caught up into terrorism (Narozhna 2012). Rather than blaming the

mother, as a “monster,” and feeling anger or being scared of her, the public may see her as a

“desperate figure” (Alvanou 2007, 13). However, we must note that only the sensationalized

mother scenario garnered this result (and only with a generous confidence interval) and the other

women scenarios did not. Thus, the effect of women as suicide bombers is complex, and more

research needs to be completed in order to know how the so-called consumers of sensationalized

narratives receive them.

It may be the case that a different medium, like television, would more effectively convey

the emotions produced by the paradoxical, woman suicide bomber. Past research shows TV

media elicit stronger emotions than print media. Our scenarios did not include photos of the

bombers and the respondents were not bombarded with footage of the women, their families, or

their homes. If given the opportunity to see media humanize or vilify women bombers through

captivating footage, respondents may have experienced greater emotions. It is also possible that

because this was presented as a thwarted attack, we see less of an emotional reaction than if

people believed that a real attack was imminent; however, the human subjects implications of

leading people to believe that an attack is imminent are manifold. The fact that we do find

consistent emotional and policy preference results even with the “weaker” test of print media is

interesting and suggests further investigation into this area would be fruitful. Therefore, this

study opens up a new line of inquiry in gender and media studies. Further, in cases with

repeated, visible threats from suicide terrorism (e.g. the Middle East or Russia), repeated

exposure to media stimuli about women suicide bombers might elicit a stronger reaction. It is

  29  

likely that what we have provided here is a weak test of media effects, although one with quite

interesting results concerning respondents.

Given that the gendered effects in this paper relate most strongly to the respondents, we

turn now to these effects. First, we elaborate on women’s stronger emotional responses. Our

findings reiterate a common trope about women: that they are more emotional than men.

However, a deeper gender analysis leads us to research by Ferraro (1995), who showed that in

the United States,

“women are more fearful, engage in more avoidance behaviors (such as not going to

crowded locations or avoiding flying), and are more likely to seek information in

response to terrorism-related incidents. In part, this may be because women are nearly

twice as fearful than men of crime” (Quoted in Poloni-Staudinger and Ortbals 2012, 99).

A reason why are women more fearful in these ways is likely due to the fact that they are

socialized to feel more vulnerable in society (Nellis, 2009), given their fear of bodily harm and

rape (May et al 2011). On the other hand, men are socialized to be strong. As a result, we find

that the gender apparatus that structures society prompts women to be fearful, including fear of

terrorism.

What women do with their emotions both breaks gender norms in society and challenges

the extant literature. Women as respondents are not stereotypically peaceful, as they were no

more likely to prefer humanitarian policies than men. Just as feminist scholars have challenged

the social construction of women and mother terrorists as peaceful victims being duped into

violence (Sjoberg 2013; Sjoberg and Gentry 2007), we too show that women can be political

actors, and ones who have policy preferences that are no more peacemaking than men. That

said, our findings also suggest how fear can be manipulated in order to achieve policy aims. If

  30  

the public is more fearful, it is willing to support harsher actions both militarily and in the

curtailing of civil liberties. Scholars largely have not studied whether politician’s fear-

mongering works to change the public’s policy preferences (Brader, Marcus, and Miller 2011),

yet we have shown through experimental work that raising emotions through media may

influence acceptance for strong policy measures (see also Gadarian 2010).

Our final comments pertain to practical matters. At the beginning of the paper, we noted

that terrorist organizations increasingly consider women as bombers a particularly successful

tactic in their asymmetric warfare. Though scholars and commonsense make us believe that

“terrorists are quite successful in getting the attention of the publics they target” (Nacos and

Bloch-Elkon 2011, 700), our findings partially dispute this belief. While it is true that women

bombers can be successful in carrying out their missions, are certainly visible in world affairs,

and may be considered a cheaper resource than men combatants, this paper challenges whether

women bombers serve as a tactic that more acutely terrorizes the international community of

indirect victims more so than men bombers. And, if the tactic is disputed, possibly terrorists will

no longer prioritize it. According to Nacos, because sensationalized “news frames reflect and

reinforce deep-seated societal attitudes, terrorist groups are able to take advantage of their target

societies’ gender prejudices” (2005, 448). Given our findings, we call for further research that

reexamines news frames and the extent to which the public latches on to these societal attitudes

and emotionally responds accordingly.

  31  

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Stenner, Karen. 2005. The Authoritarian Dynamic. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  39  

Tuman, Joseph S. 2010. Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of

Terrorism. 2nd ed. London: Sage.

Victor, Barbara. 2003. An Army of Roses: Inside the World of Palestinian Women Suicide

Bombers. New York: Rodale Press.

TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Characteristics of Survey Experiment Data

Variable Mean Std. Deviation Min Max R Sex 0.475 0.499 0 1 R ideology 3.394 1.622 1 7 R kid under 18 0.591 0.492 0 1 Author values 1.449 1.378 0 4 Education 5.129 1.378 2 7 n=587

  41  

Table 2: Emotional Responses to Terrorism Scenarios

Terrorist Scenario

Emotions Anxious Afraid Sad Angry

% of Total % of Total % of Total % of Total Generic Terrorist

26.58 24.05 40.50 44.30

Man

25.61 20.73 29.27 32.93

Woman

19.18 19.18 27.40 36.99

Generic Parent

12.89 10.53 32.89 34.21

Father

16.12 17.39 31.89 37.68

Mother

16.46 15.19 25.32 35.44

Sensationalized Mother

20.00 22.86 42.85 40.00

Sensationalized Young Woman

30.51 22.03 37.28 38.98

Cells represent respondents who answered they felt this emotion “quite a bit” and “extremely”

  42  

Table 3: ANOVA Analysis of Key Emotion Variables by Treatment

Variable=Anxious Treatment Men Women Partial SS F Partial SS F Young Woman 1.092 0.99 +3.202 2.72 Woman +3.394 3.06 0.289 0.25 Soccer Mom 0.268 0.24 0.472 0.40 Parent 2.257 2.04 2.147 1.83 Mother *6.444 5.82 1.008 0.86 Father 2.182 1.97 0.417 0.35 Man 1.698 1.53 0.776 0.66 R-sq=.025 R-sq=.04 Variable=Afraid Treatment Men Women Partial SS F Partial SS F Young Woman 1.652 1.59 0.538 0.46 Woman 1.819 1.76 0.346 0.30 Soccer Mom 0.003 0.00 0.248 0.21 Parent 1.840 1.78 *4.464 3.82 Mother *4.969 4.80 0.937 0.80 Father 0.379 0.37 0.513 0.44 Man 0.686 0.66 0.107 0.09 R-sq=.026 R-sq=.032 Variable=Angry Treatment Men Women Partial SS F Partial SS F Young Woman 2.992 2.09 1.252 0.80 Woman 0.069 0.05 0.010 0.01 Soccer Mom 0.355 0.25 0.345 0.22 Parent 0.002 0.00 3.336 2.13 Mother 0.088 0.06 0.997 0.64 Father 0.015 0.01 1.826 1.16 Man 0.453 0.32 0.416 0.27 R-sq=.106 R-sq=.023 n=308 n=279

***p<.001; **p<.01; *p<.05; +p<.10

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Table 4: Ordered Logit Models of Treatment Conditions

Emotion DV: Anxious Afraid Angry Sad Ind. Vars: Young Woman -0.049 -0.173 -0.219 -0.083 (0.321) (0.317) (0.321) (0.324) Woman +-0.564 -0.278 -0.157 -0.230 (0.299) (0.296) (0.300) (0.298) Soccer Mom -0.264 -0.156 -0.091 +0.501 (0.300) (0.299) (0.301) (0.304) Parent -0.466 +-0.509 -0.367 -0.020 (0.294) (0.296) (0.299) (0.299) Mother **-0.813 **-0.757 -0.411 -0.260 (0.292) (0.294) (0.290) (0.290) Father -0.415 -0.293 -0.327 -0.105 (0.295) (0.298) (0.300) (0.298) Man -0.096 -0.081 -0.263 -0.121 (0.282) (0.280) (0.286) (0.284) Sex of R 0.271 ***1.106 0.287 *0.455 (0.236) (0.245) (0.236) (0.238) Ideology of R -0.001 -0.007 ***0.206 +0.080 (0.048) (0.049) (0.049) (0.049) R has kids -0.350 0.161 -0.206 -0.154 (0.220) (0.226) (0.216) (0.219) R is mother +0.502 -0.229 -0.102 0.344 (0.308) (0.313) (0.305) (0.308) Author Values ***0.273 ***0.324 **0.179 *0.113 (0.059) (0.059) (0.057) (0.057) Education 0.055 +-0.100 -0.014 -0.021 (0.058) (0.058) (0.057) (0.058) Pseudo R2 0.0320 0.052 0.027 0.021 n=587

Note: Entries are unstandardized ordered logit coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses. Dependent variables have five categories, from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). ***p<.001; **p<.01; *p<.05; +p<.10

  44  

Note: Entries are unstandardized ordered logit coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses. Dependent variables have four categories, from 1 (strongly oppose) to 4 (strongly support). ***p<.001; **p<.01; *p<.05; +p<.10

Table 5: Ordered Logit Models of Policy Opinions, Controlling for Treatment and Emotions

Policies: Increased Increased Military Humanitarian Homeland Ind. Vars: Surveillance Searches Intervention Intervention Sec Funds Afraid ***0.535 ***0.451 **-0.290 0.044 ***-0.543 (0.099) (0.098) (0.096) (0.096) (0.100) Angry -0.053 0.083 ***-0.286 *0.184 *-0.219 (0.088) (0.089) (0.087) (0.088) (0.088) Sad 0.108 +0.152 -0.082 **-0.236 0.081 (0.089) (0.092) (0.088) (0.089) (0.090) Young Woman -0.488 -0.310 0.157 -0.151 0.081 (0.337) (0.345) (0.327) (0.335) (0.346) Woman -0.241 -0.365 -0.163 0.159 0.250 (0.317) (0.325) (0.309) (0.316) (0.318) Soccer Mom -0.394 -0.242 0.033 -0.299 0.022 (0.311) (0.327) (0.314) (0.320) (0.321) Parent -0.021 -0.125 0.344 0.069 -0.072 (0.314) (0.333) (0.313) (0.316) (0.316) Mother -0.460 -0.264 0.005 0.307 -0.026 (0.311) (0.317) (0.304) (0.308) (0.317) Father -0.029 0.082 -0.045 0.140 -0.237 (0.310) (0.317) (0.313) (0.319) (0.325) Man -0.187 -0.091 0.332 -0.003 0.012 (0.301) (0.314) (0.299) (0.302) (0.305) Sex of R 0.352 -0.046 0.313 -0.268 -0.074 (0.260) (0.264) (0.254) (0.254) (0.263) Ideology of R -0.053 0.049 ***-0.236 ***0.277 **-0.158 (0.054) (0.056) (0.054) (0.054) (0.055) R has kids -0.345 -0.281 0.292 +-0.429 0.514 (0.244) (0.248) (0.233) (0.235) (0.240) R is mother 0.289 0.387 -0.330 0.105 -0.425 (0.333) (0.342) (0.325) (0.327) (0.336) Author Values ***0.440 ***0.385 +-0.110 *0.126 ***-0.298 (0.065) (0.065) (0.063) (0.063) (0.065) Education 0.040 -0.019 -0.022 -0.012 0.015 (0.062) (0.064) (0.062) (0.062) (0.063) Pseudo R2 0.110 0.100 0.080 0.060 0.130 n=587

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Table 6: Hypotheses and Results Hypothesis Results 1) We expect that respondents will react with fear and anger to the man attacker. Moreover, We expect that emotional reactions to the man attacker and father will not differ dramatically from the control groups (parent and terrorist).

✗ Respondents do not react with anger or fear to man scenarios nor to parent and terrorist scenarios.

2) We expect that people will react with sadness and anger to the woman, mother and sensationalized mother attackers. We expect the intensity of these reactions to be least for the woman scenario and strongest for the sensationalized mother scenario. Thus, we expect the degree to which gender and motherhood is sensationalized to influence emotional reactions to the articles.

✔ People react with sadness to the sensationalized mother ✗ People do not react with anger to scenarios, regardless of woman or mother scenario

3) We expect the emotion of fear to be stronger for women respondents than for men.

✔ Women express more fear and anxiousness than men

4) We expect women respondents to react with stronger anger emotions to the women attackers (all scenarios) than men respondents. Particularly, we expect mothers to be angry at the mother attacker scenarios.

✗ Women do not react with stronger anger emotions to women attackers ✗ Mothers do not react with stronger anger emotions to mother attackers

5) We expect those with authoritarian values to react with more anger to all scenarios, irrespective of sex of the respondent.

✔ Those who hold authoritarian values are more likely to be anxious, afraid, angry, and sad

6) We expect that women will support more peaceful (humanitarian) policy options, while men will be more willing to support military action. We expect this to vary based upon the sex of the attacker, with men attackers eliciting preferences for stronger policy measures, such as military action and curtailment of civil rights (H6).

✗ Women are not more dovish on anti-terror policies than men. Emotion, rather than sex, drives a respondent’s willingness to support anti-terror policies, with more fearful respondents more likely to support stronger policies.

  46  

Figures 1a and 1b: Predicted Probabilities for “Angry” Across Authoritarianism at the 4 “quite a bit” and 5 “extremely” levels.

Figures 2a-2d: Support for Military Action

0.1

.2.3

.4Pr

(Mila

ctio

n==1

)

1 2 3 4 5Afraid

Male Female

Predictive Margins with 95% CIs

.35

.4.4

5.5

.55

Pr(M

ilact

ion=

=2)

1 2 3 4 5Afraid

Male Female

Predictive Margins with 95% CIs

.1.2

.3.4

.5Pr

(Mila

ctio

n==3

)

1 2 3 4 5Afraid

Male Female

Predictive Margins with 95% CIs

0.0

5.1

.15

Pr(M

ilact

ion=

=4)

1 2 3 4 5Afraid

Male Female

Predictive Margins with 95% CIs

  47  

Appendix 1: News Article Scenarios

a) Basic article for generic terrorist

Date for story: 20 February 2014

Name of press: International Daily News

Terrorist arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot

A suspected terrorist was arrested Friday trying to carry out a suicide attack on the US Capitol

under the watch of the FBI, which was conducting a sting, officials said.

The FBI said it conducted an undercover operation as part of a longstanding terrorism probe of

the suspect, who was arrested blocks from the Capitol building allegedly hoping to detonate live

explosives.

"Explosives the suspect allegedly sought to use in connection with the plot had been rendered

inoperable by law enforcement and posed no threat to the public," the Federal Bureau of

Investigation said in a statement.

US officials identified the suspect as a 29-year-old Moroccan from Bethesda Maryland. The

suspect was arrested after accepting a suicide vest, believed to be filled with explosives, but that

actually contained harmless material.

  48  

Authorities briefed US lawmakers -- who gather in the Capitol building to debate and vote on

legislation -- on the arrest. “The brazen nature of this plot -- targeting the US Capitol building

with the aim of killing innocent people and desecrating a symbol of our democracy -- is

disturbing," Republican Senator Susan Collins said in a statement. "While we are still learning

details, this plot appears to be yet another example of radicalized extremists attempting to

attack Americans from within our borders." Collins, the ranking Republican on the Homeland

Security Committee, said she was "alarmed at the growth of homegrown terrorist plots," and

pointed to figures which show a sharp rise in such thwarted plots in recent years.

According to the Congressional Research Service, between May 2009 and February 9, 2012

arrests were made in connection with 36 homegrown plots by Americans or legal permanent US

residents, compared to 21 such plots between September 11, 2001 and May 2009.

Friday's arrest was startling in that it marked a plot by a US-based terrorist apparently intent on a

suicide attack, whereas several previous sting operations foiled plots that did not necessarily

involve a suicide attack. While US authorities have been on alert to terrorism plots in the wake of

the 9/11 attacks, in which terrorists flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon, "I think we have this false sense that a suicide bombing... is unlikely to happen here,"

said Frances Townsend, former homeland security advisor to president George W. Bush.

"We shouldn't assume that we're immune from it here," she told CNN. The police force

responsible for security at the Capitol said it was intimately involved in the "lengthy and

  49  

extensive" operation from the start, and "at no time was the public or congressional community

in any danger."

b) Man version (lists changes to base article

Man arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot

A Moroccan man was arrested Friday …

US officials identified the man as Amin El Khalifi. US media reported that the 29-year-old, from

Bethesda Maryland, was arrested …

c) Woman version

Woman arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot

A Moroccan woman was arrested Friday …

US officials identified the woman as Aminah El Khalifi. US media reported that the 29-year-old,

woman from Bethesda Maryland, was arrested …

d) generic parent

Terrorist arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot

  50  

A suspect terrorist was arrested Friday …

US officials identified the suspect as a 29-year-old Moroccan and parent of two from Bethesda…

e) Father

Father of two arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot

A Moroccan man was arrested Friday …

US officials identified the man as Amin El Khalifi. US media reported that the 29-year-old,

father of two from Bethesda…

Friday's arrest was startling in that it marked a plot by a US-based family-man and father of two

young children apparently intent on blowing himself up…

f) Mother

Mother of two arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot

A Moroccan woman was arrested Friday …

US officials identified the woman as Aminah El Khalifi. US media reported that the 29-year-old,

mother of two from Bethesda …

Friday's arrest was startling in that it marked a plot by a US-based soccer mom and mother of

  51  

two young children apparently intent on blowing herself up, whereas several previous sting

operations foiled plots that did not necessarily involve a suicide attack.

g) exaggerated mother

Soccer mom and mother of four arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot

A Moroccan woman was arrested Friday as she sought to carry out a suicide attack on the US

Capitol…

US officials identified the woman as Aminah El Khalifi. US media reported that the 29-year-old,

mother from Bethesda …Described by a family friend as an average girl who was “empty in

confidence,” Khalifi is also the mother of four children who are all under the age of 10.

Friday's arrest was startling in that it marked a plot by a US-based soccer mom and mother of

four young children apparently intent on blowing herself up, whereas several previous sting

operations foiled plots that did not necessarily involve a suicide attack.

New details about Khalifi are emerging from a diary found at her residence. In it, she describes

her need to murder disbelievers and inciting others – including her children – to do the same.

The nine-page document revealed how she was grooming her four children to follow in the

footsteps of suicide bombers. She also relates how the need for jihad is stronger than the need

for her children stating “if I leave them behind, so be it. They will be cared for by Allah, and we

will be reunited in paradise. This struggle is bigger than me or [the children]”.

  52  

h) exaggerated young woman

Young woman arrested in thwarted US Capitol suicide bomb plot  

 

A young Moroccan woman was arrested Friday …

US officials identified the woman as Aminah El Khalifi. US media reported that the attractive

and petite 19-year-old, from Bethesda …. Khalifi’s neighbor, Abdel Khan, who attended her

mosque and knew her family socially in Bethesda, spoke about his amazement at Khalifi’s

involvement in terrorism. “She was an average American, young, ordinary girl,” Khan

recounted. “She had a very great personality. She didn’t have very good confidence. She was not

strong-headed and that’s why I find it absolutely amazing that she is involved in this”.

Authorities believe Khalifi was recruited to the terrorism in 2011 through a boyfriend. The

boyfriend was killed in Yemen by a US-drone earlier this year.

Friday's arrest was startling in that it marked a plot by a young, US-based woman apparently

intent on blowing herself up, whereas several previous sting operations foiled plots that did not

necessarily involve a suicide attack. As details emerge from the plot we learn that Khalifi was

radicalized by a boyfriend, killed by a recent drone attack. It appears that the boyfriend and

those around him, convinced the pretty, young woman to consider suicide bombing and

radicalized her into terrorism.