Government terrorist warnings boost President Bush's approval rating

[NecessaryOnslaught]

FOR RELEASE: Oct. 4, 2004

ITHACA, N.Y. -- When the federal government issues a terrorist warning, presidential approval ratings jump, a Cornell University sociologist finds. Interestingly, terrorist warnings also boost support for the president on issues that are largely irrelevant to terrorism, such as his handling of the economy.

Robb Willer, assistant director of the Sociology and Small Groups Laboratory at Cornell and a doctoral candidate in sociology who expects his Ph.D. in May 2005, tracked the 26 times that a federal government agency reported an increased threat of terrorist activity in the United States between February 2001 and May 2004. He also tracked the 131 Gallup Polls that were conducted during the same period. He then conducted several time-series and regression analyses on the relationship between government-issued terror warnings and Gallup Poll data on approval ratings of President George W. Bush.

"Results showed that terror warnings increased presidential approval ratings consistently," says Willer. "They also increased support for Bush's handling of the economy. The findings, however, were inconclusive as to how long this halo effect lasts."

Willer points to the aftermath of the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as an example of the tendency. After Sept. 11, 2001, approval of Bush's job performance jumped from 51 percent on Sept. 10, 2001, to 86 percent on Sept. 15, 2001, in a Gallup Poll. Similarly, approval for Bush's handling of the economy jumped from 54 percent on July 11, 2001, to 72 percent on Oct. 5, 2001, says Willer.The findings are consistent with social identity theory, says Willer. The theory postulates that individuals tend to identify with a specific group to the extent that they see themselves as more similar to the members of the group than to its most significant out-group.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Oct04/terrorist.Bush.ssl.html

[DELUSIONAL]

1. When historians look back

on this *ushit era they are going to study psychological manipulation on a vast scale.

Fear is a very primitive emotion -- if I can remember some of the technical studies I've read about the origins of the fear response -- this is one of the most primitive animal responses -- goes back to the tiny reptilian brain which is still part of the human brain.

Then again -- there is the school yard bully . . . . . . . .

Delusional to be a liberal in a rural conservation community