Individual aggression, national attachment, and the search for peace: Psychological perspectives

Abstract

The primary question addressed is the role of affect related factors, particularly values, as possible mediators of individual differences in attitudes towards nuclear armament-disarmament issues. One such factor is value placed on children, those individuals who have greater affection for children or who are more supportive of devoting national resources toward meeting children's needs being more supportive of nuclear disarmament and a nuclear test moratorium. This relationship was found in a well-educated group of adults with a special interest in foreign affairs as well as in college student populations. A significant and strong relationship between the value placed on war as an instrument of foreign policy and a pronuclear armament stance was also found in each of these two samples. Measures of individual aggression, however, were minimally and inconsistently related to the attitude towards nuclear armament-disarmament and the attitude towards war measures. The possible role of patriotic and nationalistic values was also explored. Patriotism or love of and pride in one's country was shown to be functionally distinct from nationalism or the view that one's country is superior to and should be more powerful than other nations. Patriotism but not nationalism was found to be positively correlated with early paternal sattachment while nationalism but not patriotism, was found to be significantly related to pronuclear armament views. The findings from this series of studies indicate that the analysis of individual differences in nuclear armament-disarmament policy attitudes has heuristic usefulness and may be useful for social policy in this area.