War As A Method Of Conflict Resolution: The Link Between Social Beliefs, Ideological Orientations And Military Attitudes In Russia

Peace and Conflict. 2020. No. 26(2). P. 192–201.

Gulevich O., Nevryuev A. N., Sarieva I.

When international conflicts arise, there are numerous ways of resolving them – one of which is war. The study of attitudes toward war as a method of conflict resolution can therefore reveal interesting and valuable information. Previous research has shown a strong positive relationship between right-wing authoritarianism and attitudes toward war. However, the relationship between social dominance orientation, which predicts social and political attitudes, and attitudes toward military campaigns varies from one research study to another. In this study, we used a modified method of measuring social dominance orientation, taking into account the specifics of international relations. Using the Cognitive–Motivational Dual-Process Model of Prejudices, we hypothesized that dangerous and competitive world beliefs are linked to right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation in international relations, which, in turn, are related to attitudes toward war as a method of international conflict resolution. We measured social world views, ideological orientations and attitudes toward war among Russian adults (N = 897). Structural equation modeling confirmed the hypotheses, but also revealed that social world views are linked to attitudes toward war not only through ideological orientations, but also directly. In addition, it showed that the link between social world views, ideological orientations and attitudes toward war is moderated by the gender and age of the study’s participants. The implications of the results for conceptions of the Cognitive–Motivational Dual-Process Model of Prejudices are discussed.

Keywords: dangerous world belief, attitudes toward war, right-wing authoritarianism, competitive world belief, social dominance orientations