Perceiving Threat

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the contribution of political psychology to the analysis of threat perception and assessment by individual leaders in international politics. It focuses on the perception of threat and two analytically distinct but closely related concepts, the perceptions of the credibility of the threat, and the resolve of the threatener. The chapter first examines five non-psychological explanations of threat perception that scholars of international relations have identified and then moves to the analysis of cognitive and emotion-driven theories of threat perception. Perception is closely connected to the predictions and judgments that motivate action. Especially important in processes of threat perception are cognitive patterns and heuristics, information processing, emotional states, patterns of inference and attribution, and patterns of assessment of the likelihood and intensity of threat (Kahneman and Tersky, 1983). The chapter concludes by situating these theories within broader explanations by evolutionary psychologists of threat perception.