The Threat of Nuclear War: Risk Interpretation and Behavioral Response

This study examines the psychological antecedents of behavioral responses to the threat of nuclear war. Two groups known to have responded behaviorally to the threat of nuclear war—nuclear freeze activists and survivalists—are compared to a sample of members of the general public. The influence of four types of psychological antecedents was explored. The antecedents studied were: judgments of risk, efficacy judgments, attributions of causality and moral responsibility, and general political orientations. The results suggest that citizens' behaviors in response to the threat of war are influenced by rational factors, i.e., by judgments of the potential efficacy of actions and by judgments of their potential causal role in preventing war. In addition, judgments concerning citizens' moral responsibility for preventing war exercise an independent effect upon behavior. These results suggest the importance of exploring citizens' psychological interpretations of social and political events as a means of understanding behavioral reactions to those events.