To better understand how desires to avenge the September 11 terror attacks affected U.S. public support for the 2003 Iraq War, we integrate data from two uncoordinated surveys–one measuring revenge motivations and the other beliefs about Iraqi complicity–completed by overlapping samples from the same online panel. Citizens who mistakenly blamed Iraq for 9/11 were more likely to say that going to war would satisfy their desires for revenge, which in turn predicted greater war support, controlling for political orientations and the perceived security incentives and costs of war. But a substantial proportion of those who said Iraq was not involved in 9/11 also expected war to satisfy desires for revenge, to an extent that appreciably affected war support. These findings suggest that mistaken revenge and a revenge “spillover” effect both contributed to war support, testify to the importance of emotion and moral motivation in public opinion, and demonstrate the utility of integrating data from online panel surveys.

中文翻译：

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美国公众支持对伊拉克战争的报复

为了更好地了解为 9 月 11 日的恐怖袭击复仇的愿望如何影响美国公众对 2003 年伊拉克战争的支持，我们整合了两项未经协调的调查数据——一项是衡量报复动机，另一项是关于伊拉克共谋的信念——由来自同一在线的重叠样本完成控制板。错误地将 9/11 事件归咎于伊拉克的公民更有可能说发动战争会满足他们复仇的愿望，这反过来又预测了更多的战争支持，控制了政治倾向以及感知到的安全动机和战争成本。但是，很大一部分表示伊拉克没有参与 9/11 的人也预计战争会满足复仇的愿望，在一定程度上影响了对战争的支持。