The Effects of Stakes and Threat on Foreign Policy Decision‐Making

Abstract

Decision research demonstrates that individuals adapt decision processing strategies according to the characteristics of the decision task. Unfortunately, the literature has neglected task factors specific to foreign policy decisions. This paper presents experimental analyses of the effects of the decisional stakes (i.e., salience of the values at issue) and threat (risk of loss on those issues) on decision‐makers' information acquisition patterns and choice rules with respect to one of four hypothetical foreign policy scenarios. Contrary to the notion that normative (rational) decision‐making is more likely in less dramatic settings, the results indicate that elevated threat encourages rational decision processing, whereas heuristic processing was more prevalent in less threatening situations. Interestingly, the added presence of high stakes magnified both threat effects. These results, although preliminary, suggest that stakes‐threat effects are not direct reflections of stress and/or complexity effects, but should be considered independently in foreign policy analyses.

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