“He who believes is not afraid”: Effects of Religion on Engagement in Conflict

Religiosity versus neutral prime in the survey experiment

2024-08-22

2024-09-19

Fear; Aggressive security policy

I construct indices for measuring related dimensions of fear of political violence. I measure fear with three different indices: fear of experiencing political violence, fear of experiencing other unfortunate events, and simulated decisionmaking reflecting fear of political violence. 
1. Fear
Fear of political violence: I adopt the scale validated in the Israeli context by Cohen-Louck and Levy (2018). Respondents are asked to state their agreement with the statements “Terrorist attacks pose a personal threat to me” and “Terrorist attacks pose a threat to my close friends” (in the Israeli context, all political violence is frequently referred to as “terrorism”). I drop one similar item in the scale about terrorist attacks posing a threat to one’s family to conserve space in the survey.  

I also include an alternative measure of worry about political violence with the question “Regarding yourself and your immediate family members are you worried or not worried in the near future about your physical security?” (the question is asked periodically in the Israel Democracy Institute polling). Since this question asks more explicitly about the emotional experience of fear, I will analyze both the three questions as one scale, and this question separately as self-reported emotional experience. 

Fear of other unfortunate events: I theorize that both the religious prime and high levels of religious faith are associated with lower fear generally, not only lower fear of political violence. I modify one item of Cohen-Louck and Levy’s (2018) scale to ask whether “Car accidents pose a personal threat to me” to test whether religious salience has a similar effect on fear of other unfortunate events. 

Prioritizing security funding: I include a question capturing whether people make simulated decisions reflecting fear of political violence. This question avoids some potential social desirability related to shame around expressing fear, and captures strength of fear of political violence in relation to other priorities. The following questions comprise this index:
* Government funds can be spent on many different important services for the community. What percent of the budget do you think should be allocated to the following areas: Infrastructure, education, security, health [order randomized]
The variable will code the portion of a budget the respondent chooses to allocate to security spending. 

2. Political behavior outcomes
Willingness to move: I create an index measuring whether people are willing to move to a different location because of the risk of political violence. In a conflict over land, people refusing to leave contested territories despite high levels of political violence is an important strategic matter, and reflects a form of civilian involvement in the conflict. I theorize that greater fear of political violence is associated with greater willingness to leave an area due to political violence, and greater understanding of others who do so. The scale is comprised of the following items:

* Would you consider moving to an area of the country with fewer terrorist attacks?
* To what extent do you understand people who leave their area due to terrorism?
* [West Bank sample only] Do you think you will live in Judea and Samaria for the next five years?
One question in the scale asks respondents whether they understand people who choose to move to a safer area in order to minimize social desirability bias of stating the intention themselves. 

Preference for aggressive security policy: I theorize that lower personal fear is associated with preference for more aggressive security policies. I create an index out of two questions asking respondents to state preference for military versus diplomatic solutions and aggressive preemptive strikes in the two ongoing conflicts. 
* Should Israel continue fighting in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed, or agree to a deal that will release the hostages but leave Hamas in power?
* Hezbollah has fired on northern Israel over recent days. With which of the following two statements do you agree more? a. Israel should make every effort to refrain from opening another front in the north against Hezbollah b. Israel should strike against Hezbollah now in prevent to avoid a similar attack from the north” [asked in Israel Democracy Institute polling”

Religiosity versus neutral prime in the survey experiment

I randomly assign respondents to receive a religiosity prime or a neutral prime, and measure outcome variables related to fear and political behavior outcomes. All respondents complete a word search task. In the religious condition, the hidden words relate to faith, whereas in the neutral condition, the words relate to household items. Word search puzzles to prime religiosity have been validated in the Israeli context (Shamoa-Nir and Razpurker-Apfeld 2020). The religiosity prime word search will include the terms “Mezuzah,” “Torah,” “Kippah,” and “Faith” (terms validated by Shamoa-Nir and Razpurker-Apfeld 2020 to prime religion in the Israeli context, with the addition of “faith” to stress spirituality). The neutral prime condition will include the terms “Flower pot,” “Rice,” “Table,” and “Telephone," (following Shamoa-Nir and Razpurker-Apfeld 2020). The word search grid in each condition is a 6X5 grid.

Qualtrics will randomly assign respondents to the treatment or control groups

Individual

No

870

870

435

Requiring a minimum treatment size of 7% and a power target of .9, with .05 level significance, and a maximum standard deviation of .316, I need a minimum of 857 responses.