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Hawkish Biases and the Interdisciplinary Study of Conflict Decision-Making

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Advancing Interdisciplinary Approaches to International Relations

Abstract

Psychological biases strongly affect foreign policy decision-making. The authors argue that the biases recently uncovered by psychological research favor hawkish decisions in conflict situations. By “hawkish,” they refer to a propensity for suspicion, hostility and aggression in the conduct of conflict, and for less cooperation and trust when the resolution of a conflict is on the agenda. While much extant work examines links between cognitive biases and conflict, they offer a new and developed formulation based on the excellent insight of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman in the field of psychology and Jonathan Renshon’s knowledge of IR and conflict.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Jonathan Renshon

  2. Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Daniel Kahneman

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  1. Jonathan Renshon
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  2. Daniel Kahneman
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Correspondence to Jonathan Renshon .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of International Relations, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Steve A. Yetiv

  2. Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA

    Patrick James

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Renshon, J., Kahneman, D. (2017). Hawkish Biases and the Interdisciplinary Study of Conflict Decision-Making. In: Yetiv, S., James, P. (eds) Advancing Interdisciplinary Approaches to International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40823-1_3

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