Naming the specific enemy country sharply boosts public support for war

Evidence

The findings of a New York Times/CBS News poll lend support to this explanation (Clymer & Elder, 2002). When the source of the potential terrorist threat was called “another country,” 47% of those polled opposed a preemptive strike and 40% favored it. In contrast, when the country was called Iraq, 61% of those polled favored the preemptive attack and only 26% opposed it. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2297

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to framing effects in Kahneman/Tversky and propaganda-as-framing literature, also to the earlier moral disengagement mechanism of euphemistic labeling of the enemy.
• CANDY: A single neat data point: just renaming the threat country swings support from 47% oppose to 61% favor — perfect dinner-table fact.