Terrorism after 9/11: Reactions to simulated news reports

ALICE F. HEALY, ALISON G. AYLWARD, LYLE E. BOURNE JR., and FRANCIS A. BEER
University of Colorado, Boulder

Two experiments examined participants' responses to simulated news reports of terrorist attacks. Participants were told that a nondemocratic nation had sponsored strikes on military and cultural or educational sites in the United States. Participants in both experiments reacted more conflictually to terrorist attacks on military sites than to those on cultural or educational sites. Their conflictual responses on a thermometer scale escalated after repeated attacks. When tested in 2002 and 2004, 1 and 3 years after the real World Trade Center attacks, participants' reactions were more conflictual than those of participants examined before September 11, 2001. Furthermore, current participants' fear and anger increased, and forgiveness decreased, over repeated simulated attacks. Participants lower in masculinity showed more fear and less anger than did those higher in masculinity. This study shows that terrorist attacks produce more than simple terror.