The impact of the politicization of grief on warmongering and pacifist attitudes / El impacto de la politización del duelo en las actitudes belicistas y pacifistas

Abstract

Bereavement discourses about military casualties are often loaded with rhetorical messages focused on heroism, honour and sacrifice. This research aims to examine experimentally whether the politization of grief through those sacred values reinforces warmongering attitudes and reduces pacifist ones. To that end, we conducted an experimental study in which we presented a story of a soldier who dies on a mission, either in neutral or in politicized terms. Then, we measured pacifist and warmongering attitudes. Participants exposed to the politicized information about the death of the soldier showed stronger warmongering attitudes and weaker pacifist attitudes than those exposed to the neutral information about his death. These findings suggest that the rhetorical framework used to communicate the soldiers’ death critically affects the attitudes of the population towards armed conflicts.