Asymmetrical Perceptions of Power in Crises

A Comparison of 1914 and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Bibliographic Data

ID3917436
AuthorsDavid G Winter (0000-0002-6490-7467, University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume40
Issue3
Pages251-270
Publication date2003-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Peace Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022343303040003001
OpenAlexW2141304750
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited38

Archival content analysis studies of British and German newspapers and diplomatic documents in 1914 showed an increasingly asymmetrical pattern of perceived intentions. Levels of power motive imagery in reports or paraphrases of statements by the `other' side were accentuated, while levels in reports or paraphrases of statements by one's own (favored) side were diminished. As a result, the overall sense of threat was increased. In contrast, an archival study of US and Soviet newspapers during the peacefully resolved 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis showed no such pattern of asymmetrical accentuation-diminution. These results confirm a pattern of perceived intentions previously found in other escalating conflict situations, and are consistent with many related social psychological phenomena and experimental results. These findings suggest that comparing mutual perceptions of power imagery is a precise, operational way to measure `threatening' intentions and thus an important mechanism of conflict escalation

Computer security · Epistemology · German · Mechanism (biology) · Missile · Newspaper · Perception · Political science · Power (physics) · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression · Computer Science · Cultural Differences and Values · History · Law · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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