I’m off to SPSP 2010 and will be presenting the below poster at the morality and justice pre-conference. It’s based on a scale I found measuring separate war and peace attitudes (Vander Linden et. al, 2008) at the main political psychology conference 2 years ago. The concept is pretty simple…I found scales that predicted pro-war and pro-peace attitudes, controlling for political ideology and the opposite construct. For example, there are many reasons to be pro-peace….one could think war is a bad thing or one could be echoing one’s political party’s point of view. Theoretically, by controlling for war attitudes and ideology, we get a picture of the kind of person who uniquely likes peace.
Like this Mother Theresa quote:
I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.
There is something powerful about being “for” things rather than “against” things that other people believe in. The opposition that the later strategy creates might just lead to the very same kinds of conflict that anti-war protestors seek to avoid.
- Ravi Iyer
