Why Hawks (Almost Always) Win: The Cognitive Psychology of the Use of Force

In this excellent article in Foreign Policy, Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon argue that human psychology explains the tendency for hawks to win out over doves on decisions to go to war. As decisions makers weigh arguments for and against the use of force, psychological biases — rather than politics or strategy — may pre-dispose them toward hawkishness:

Social and cognitive psychologists have identified a number of predictable errors (psychologists call them biases) in the ways that humans judge situations and evaluate risks. Biases have been documented both in the laboratory and in the real world, mostly in situations that have no connection to international politics. For example, people are prone to exaggerating their strengths: About 80 percent of us believe that our driving skills are better than average. In situations of potential conflict, the same optimistic bias makes politicians and generals receptive to advisors who offer highly favorable estimates of the outcomes of war. Such a predisposition, often shared by leaders on both sides of a conflict, is likely to produce a disaster. And this is not an isolated example.

In fact, when we constructed a list of the biases uncovered in 40 years of psychological research, we were startled by what we found: All the biases in our list favor hawks. These psychological impulses—only a few of which we discuss here—incline national leaders to exaggerate the evil intentions of adversaries, to misjudge how adversaries perceive them, to be overly sanguine when hostilities start, and overly reluctant to make necessary concessions in negotiations. In short, these biases have the effect of making wars more likely to begin and more difficult to end.

FP has posted a follow-on discussion of the article (“Should Hawks Win?”) with Matthew Continetti (Weekly Standard) and Matthew Yglesias (American Prospect, Yglesias blog). Continetti notes that the biases described by Kahneman and Renshon are “exhibited by doves just as often as they are exhibited by hawks,” citing the fundamental attribution error (failing to understand the true motives of an adversary) as an example. Hawks treat hostility at face value; doves treat docility the same way. Ygelsias agrees with the tenor of the Kahneman and Renshon conclusions, noting that “most decisions to go to war have been mistakes” either for both sides (WWI) or for at least one side (Milosevic in Kosovo; Hussein in Gulf War I). Diplomatic entreaties are frequently and mistakenly rebuffed on the basis of “reactive devaluation,” which is defined as “the very fact that a concession is offered by somebody perceived as untrustworthy undermines the the content of the proposal.”

Legal scholars like Cass Sunstein have drawn on the work of cognitive psychology to address decision making and behavior in the domestic legal and political context. It is interesting to see the work applied to international relations and it suggests that there may be some rich opportunities to apply these lessons to some central international law questions, in particular to the use of force and the rules governing self-defense.