Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T20:22:38.011Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Think Ahead: Cost Discounting and External Validity in Foreign Policy Survey Experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2018

R. Joseph Huddleston Open the ORCID record for R. Joseph Huddleston [Opens in a new window]
R. Joseph Huddleston*
Affiliation:
School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, U.S.A. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper considers the implications of construal level theory in the context of survey experiments probing foreign policy opinion formation. Psychology research demonstrates that people discount the long-term consequences of decisions, thinking about distal or hypothetical events more abstractly than immediate scenarios. I argue that this tendency introduces a bias into survey experiments on foreign policy opinion. Respondents reasoning about an impending military engagement are likelier to consider its costs than are those reasoning in the abstract hypothetical environment. I provide evidence of this bias by replicating a common audience costs experimental design and introducing a prompt to consider casualties. I find that priming respondents to articulate their expectations about casualties in a foreign intervention reduces support and dampens the experimental effect, thereby cutting the estimated absolute audience cost substantially. This result suggests a gap between how survey respondents approach hypothetical and real situations of military intervention.

Keywords

Audience cost theorysurvey experimentsexternal validityconstrual level theoryinternational securitymilitary interventionforeign policypublic opinion
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Summer 2019 , pp. 108 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Nicholas Weller for his tireless help, extensive brainstorming, and numerous read-throughs in developing this project. I also appreciate the helpful comments from Patrick James, Youssef Chouhoud, Tom Jamieson, and all the participants in the University of Southern California's Center for International Studies’ working paper series. I also greatly appreciate the grant provided by USC-CIS to carry out the experiment. The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available at the Journal of Experimental Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: doi: 10.7910/DVN/5KM8VO. I had no conflicts of interest in the creation of this article.

References

REFERENCES

Bar-Anan, Yoav, Liberman, Nira, and Trope, Yaacov. 2006. “The Association Between Psychological Distance and Construal Level: Evidence from an Implicit Association Test.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 135 (4): 609–22. doi: http://doi.org10.1037/0096-3445.135.4.609.Google Scholar
Boettcher, William A. and Cobb, Michael D.. 2006. “Echoes of Vietnam? Casualty Framing and Public Perceptions of Success and Failure in Iraq.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 50 (6): 831–54.Google Scholar
Chaudoin, Stephen. 2014. “Audience Features and the Strategic Timing of Trade Disputes.” International Organization 68 (04): 877–911. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818314000174.Google Scholar
CNN. 2013. CNN | ORC Poll. (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2013/images/05/28/syriapoll.pdf), accessed May 19, 2013.Google Scholar
Dafoe, Allan, Zhang, Baobao, and Caughey, Devin. 2018. “Informational Equivalence in Survey Experiments.” Political Analysis. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2018.9.Google Scholar
DellaVigna, Stefano and Malmendier, Ulrike. 2006. “Paying Not to Go to the Gym.” The American Economic Review 96 (3): 694–719.Google Scholar
Eichenberg, Richard C. 2005. “Victory Has Many Friends: U.S. Public Opinion and the Use of Military Force, 1981–2005.” International Security 30 (1): 140–77.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1994. “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes.” American Political Science Review 88 (3): 577–92.Google Scholar
Flores-Macías, Gustavo A. and Kreps, Sarah E.. 2015. “Borrowing Support for War The Effect of War Finance on Public Attitudes toward Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61 (5): 997–1020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002715600762.Google Scholar
Frederick, Shane, Loewenstein, George, and O'Donoghue, Ted. 2002. “Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review.” Journal of Economic Literature 40 (2): 351–401.Google Scholar
Gabaix, Xavier, Li, Hongyi, and Laibson, David Isaac. 2005. Extreme Value Theory and the Effects of Competition on Profits. (http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/clalevrem/784828000000000656.htm). Accessed September 8, 2017.Google Scholar
Gartner, Scott Sigmund. 2008. “The Multiple Effects of Casualties on Public Support for War: An Experimental Approach.” The American Political Science Review 102 (1): 95–106.Google Scholar
Gelpi, Christopher, Feaver, Peter, and Reifler, Jason Aaron. 2009. Paying the Human Costs of War: American Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Geys, Benny. 2010. “Wars, Presidents, and Popularity: The Political Cost(s) of War Re-Examined.” Public Opinion Quarterly 74 (2): 357–74. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfq001.Google Scholar
Green, Leonard and Myerson, Joel. 2004. “A Discounting Framework for Choice with Delayed and Probabilistic Rewards.” Psychological Bulletin 130 (5): 769–92. doi: http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.5.769.Google Scholar
Huddleston, R. Joseph. 2018. “Replication Data for: Think Ahead: Cost Discounting and External Validity in Foreign Policy Survey Experiments.” Harvard Dataverse, V1. doi: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/5KM8VO, UNF:6:NeJwZwmlcAA29xwvccOXLA==Google Scholar
Karol, David and Miguel, Edward. 2007. “The Electoral Cost of War: Iraq Casualties and the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election.” The Journal of Politics 69 (3): 633–48. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00564.x.Google Scholar
Kertzer, Joshua D. and Brutger, Ryan. 2016. “Decomposing Audience Costs: Bringing the Audience Back into Audience Cost Theory.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (1): 234–49. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12201.Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas L. 2006. “Examining Variance in Presidential Approval: The Case of FDR in World War II.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 70 (1): 23–47.Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas L. and Shen, Francis X.. 2012. “How Citizens Respond to Combat Casualties: The Differential Impact of Local Casualties on Support for the War in Afghanistan.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (4): 761–70. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfs048.Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas, Lechase, Breanna, and Zielinski, Rosella Cappella. 2015. “Self-Interest, Partisanship, and the Conditional Influence of Taxation on Support for War in the USA.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 35 (1): 43–64. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0738894215611133.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew S. and Horowitz, Michael C.. 2012. “When Backing Down Is the Right Decisions: Partisanship, New Information, and Audience Costs.” The Journal of Politics 74 (2): 323–38.Google Scholar
Levy, Jack S., McKoy, Michael K., Poast, Paul, and Wallace, Geoffrey P. R.. 2015. “Backing Out or Backing In? Commitment and Consistency in Audience Costs Theory.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (4): 988–1001. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12197.Google Scholar
Liberman, Nira and Trope, Yaacov. 1998. “The Role of Feasibility and Desirability Considerations in near and Distant Future Decisions: A Test of Temporal Construal Theory.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75 (1): 5–18. doi: http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.5.Google Scholar
Murphy, James G., Vuchinich, Rudy E., and Simpson, Cathy A.. 2001. “Delayed Reward and Cost Discounting.” The Psychological Record; Heidelberg 51 (4): 571–88.Google Scholar
Odum, Amy L. 2011. “Delay Discounting: I'm a k, You're a K.” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 96 (3): 427–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.1901/jeab.2011.96-423.Google Scholar
O'Donoghue, Ted and Rabin, Matthew. 1999. “Doing It Now or Later.” The American Economic Review 89 (1): 103–24.Google Scholar
Potter, Philip B. K. and Baum, Matthew A.. 2014. “Looking for Audience Costs in All the Wrong Places: Electoral Institutions, Media Access, and Democratic Constraint.” The Journal of Politics 76 (01): 167–181. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381613001230.Google Scholar
Schelling, Thomas C. 1960. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
The Economist. 2013. YouGov | Economist/YouGov Poll.(https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/dtqk62b7do/econToplines.pdf). Accessed October 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael. 2007. “Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations: An Experimental Approach.” International Organization 61 (4): 821–40.Google Scholar
Trager, Robert F. and Vavreck, Lynn. 2011. “The Political Costs of Crisis Bargaining: Presidential Rhetoric and the Role of Party.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (3): 526–45.Google Scholar
Trope, Yaacov. 2012. “Construal Level Theory.” In Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology, eds. Van Lange, Paul A. M., Kruglanski, Arie W., and Higgins, E. Tory. Los Angeles: SAGE, 118–34.Google Scholar
Trope, Yaacov and Liberman, Nira. 2000. “Temporal Construal and Time-Dependent Changes in Preference.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (6): 876–89. doi: http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.6.876.Google Scholar
Trope, Yaacov and Liberman, Nira. 2010. “Construal-Level Theory of Psychological Distance.” Psychological Review 117 (2): 440–63. doi: http://doi.org/10.1037/a0018963.Google Scholar
Walsh, James Igoe. 2015. “Precision Weapons, Civilian Casualties, and Support for the Use of Force.” Political Psychology 36 (5): 507–23. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12175.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Huddleston supplementary material

Appendices A-E

Download Huddleston supplementary material(File)
File 103 KB