Whose Fault Is it Anyway? Political Orientation, Attributions of Responsibility, and Support for the War in Iraq

Political orientation has been shown to be a strong predictor of attitudes toward war. Specifically, political conservatism has been associated with increased support for war and with decreased attribution of responsibility for war to one’s own government. The present research aims to test whether the relationship between political orientation and support for the war in Iraq is mediated by attributions of government responsibility. In Study 1, survey data showed that the relationship between political orientation and support for the Iraq war was mediated by beliefs about the US government’s motivations for the war. Study 2 provided a conceptual replication of the proposed mediation model and extended the findings from beliefs about US government motivations to perceived threat from the pre-war Iraqi government. Study 3 used an experimental paradigm to manipulate perceived threat to show that such beliefs directly affected support for the war. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.