An Anger-Based Framework for Understanding Terrorism-Driven “Shifts to the Right”: How and Why Islamist-Focused Threats Produce Narrow Changes in Political Preferences

Terrorism represents one of the most commonly studied types of threat in the social and political psychology literature. Of particular note, many studies (along with national polls) have shown that the threat of Islamist fundamentalism increases the appeal of conservativism. However, there are some important—and unresolved—questions regarding these threat-driven “shifts to the right.” Our primary focus was on the role of emotion. Are these conservative shifts due to the activation of fear, as long assumed by researchers in this area? Or might other emotions, such as anger, play the more central role? Wealso sought additional clarity on the relative breadth of these ideological shifts. When such threats are salient, is their impact relatively narrow, that is, constrained to political preferences specifically linked to terrorism? Or do these effects generalize to relatively distal political preferences, such as those related to abortion or affirmative action? This article proposes and tests an integrative model stipulating that (a) anger plays the primary role in driving these shifts and that (b) these anger-driven shifts are relatively narrow. Across three experiments, two of which were preregistered (total N = 2,395), we found strong support for both predictions. We discuss the implications of these findings for several well-known models in the social and political psychology literature. Our work also considers contrasts between the dynamics triggered by these acts of terrorism and their relation to other threats, including environmental disasters as well as mass shootings.