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Terrorism incites fear designed to coerce governments to act, according to definitions of 鈥渢errorism鈥� in U.S. law, in U.N. resolutions and elsewhere. But terrorism often prompts as much anger and retaliation as fear and intimidation.

That鈥檚 one conclusion of two decades of research by a team of professors at the University of baby直播app.

The researchers have also found that simulated news reports of attacks on military sites evoked a stronger desire for retaliation than did attacks on cultural or educational sites, even after Sept. 11, 2001. They found that anger in response to a terrorist attack was more likely among masculine people and less likely among feminine people, irrespective of gender.

And while women tended to be more fearful and men angrier in response to simulated terrorist attacks, there was one notable exception: When attacks were reported to have come from enemy nations, women reacted more harshly than did men. But when attacks came from countries that were U.S. allies, men reacted more punitively and women more leniently.

In short, the response to terrorist attacks appears differential among genders and personality types. It also appears dynamic, becoming harsher after repeated attacks and decaying over time without reinforcement from subsequent attacks.

Alice Healy, a CU college professor of distinction in psychology, has helped lead this team of researchers since the 1980s. It was then that Francis A. Beer, now a professor emeritus of political science, told Healy about a theory: that the way people respond to current events could be primed by images of history.

That view contradicted the theory that people and nations make mostly rational decisions about waging war.

鈥淚 said, 鈥榃e could do an experiment on that,鈥欌�� Healy recalls. She recruited Lyle E. Bourne Jr., now a professor emeritus of psychology, to join the team.

The idea was to gain a better grasp of how citizens鈥攁nd countries鈥攎ake decisions about whether to go to war or maintain peace. In a 1987 paper published in the American Political Science Review, Beer, Healy, Bourne and Grant Sinclair outlined an experiment on 60 psychology students asked to make decisions on peace and war.

The team found that historical images played a significant role in students鈥� decisions on whether to wage war or keep peace. 鈥淎 popular aphorism holds that those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it,鈥� the authors wrote. 鈥淥ur perspective suggests that those who do remember history apply it selectively.鈥�

Later, Healy鈥檚 team turned its attention to terrorism. In 1997 and 鈥�98, it conducted experiments to gauge how students responded to simulated reports of terrorism. The students鈥� reactions were recorded after each of five simulated reports of terrorist attacks.

They found that students鈥� reaction to simulated terrorist attacks did not elicit fear across the board, that responses varied. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have very many people melting down in a puddle,鈥� Beer said recently.

The researchers tested the reaction of subjects to terrorist attacks vs. military attacks on America, tested gender differences in response to terrorist attacks emanating from friendly vs. unfriendly nations, and tested the different reactions to attacks on military vs. cultural or educational targets.

鈥淲e had anticipated 9-11, essentially,鈥� Healy said recently. The results from these experiments were published in a 2002 edition of Political Psychology that was devoted to research on terrorism.

What they had not yet done, though, was to test the effect of 9-11 on post-terrorism decision-making. Healy, Beer, Bourne and former psychology student Alison Aylward conducted simulated-terrorism experiments one and three years after the actual attacks. Those results were reported in the summer 2009 edition of the American Journal of Psychology.

Not surprisingly, students responded with a greater inclination to retaliate to terrorist attacks one year after 9-11. But three years after the attacks, students responding to simulated terrorist attacks showed less desire to retaliate.

鈥�9-11 has changed our lives, but we鈥檙e kind of forgetting about it,鈥� Healy observed recently. Three years after the attacks, students鈥� 鈥渃onflictual鈥� responses to reports of terrorism had declined nearly to pre-9-11 levels.

As before, however, the research subjects responded to each subsequent simulated attack with a greater inclination to retaliate. Also as before, subjects responded more harshly to attacks on military sites than on cultural or educational sites. That result might be surprising, given that the World Trade Center, where most of the 9-11 victims died and which became a focal point of national outrage, was not a military site.

Healy, Beer and Bourne suggest that historical images such as the attack on Pearl Harbor may help explain this result. Attacks on military sites, they say, may be seen as more of an act of war鈥攕omething that partly disables our national defenses and leaves us more vulnerable to further attack.

The team鈥檚 work did uncover a significant gender difference. In a 1995 journal article and in the 2002 article, the team noted that men responded more harshly than women to attacks by nations with which the United States had a peace treaty. Especially after repeated attacks, women responded more harshly than men to attacks by nations with which the United States had no treaty.

The difference, Healy鈥檚 team postulated, reflected women鈥檚 tendency to be more forgiving within established political (and romantic) relationships, whereas men tend to view transgressions in such relationships as more unforgivable.

Terrorist attacks do much more than cause fear, Beer noted. 鈥淭he complex effects of terrorist attacks are a major finding of our research.鈥�

But Beer also underscored a limitation of the team鈥檚 research: Experiments are conducted on students in a classroom setting, not on the general population or on decision-makers.

In a journal article that is still in press in Clio鈥檚 Psyche, Beer, Healy and Bourne offer an overview of this work. They write: 鈥淭errorism, by definition, is designed to produce terror, but it does not actually do so all the time, in all circumstances, for all individuals.鈥�

鈥淧sychological experiments and real-world experiences inform each other and broaden our knowledge about the effects of terrorist attacks,鈥� they write. 鈥淚n a different world, this is not knowledge that we should wish to have. In our times, however, it can be useful.鈥�

One use, they suggest, is that such knowledge increases political leaders鈥� ability to cope with the 鈥渧ery complex web of terrorist effects on their populations and to connect with various types of citizens whom terrorism may affect very differently.鈥�

鈥淓ven more importantly, we are better able to shape long-term strategies for democratic responses to terrorism in the emerging, dangerous environment of the 21st century.鈥�