Assessing Public Attitudes toward Random versus Symbolic Terrorist Targets: Survey Experimental Evidence

Abstract

Abstract Do citizens react more adversely to terrorism that strikes random or symbolic targets? Despite the relative neglect of this question by conflict scholars, few attributes of terrorist attacks are more scrutinized by the public. In this article, we field a pair of preregistered, national survey experiments in the United Kingdom that measure the impact of random and symbolic targeting on public demands for armed retaliation. We find that results appear to vary depending on the level of stylization with which the attack is presented. In the abstract, citizens support more retaliation for terrorism directed at random targets. Yet when more concrete details are presented, citizens become similarly defensive of national symbols. We attempt to reconcile this apparent discrepancy by drawing on insights from political psychology, which lead us to propose that changes to the stylization of stimuli may induce citizens to emphasize different cognitive and emotional responses related to random and symbolic targeting. Our results call for more study into how the presentation of terrorist attacks affects public reactions.