ATLANTA — The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 have dramatically hardened the hearts of a majority of Americans, making us more hawkish about war and more zealous about punishing criminals, a researcher meeting in Atlanta said.
"Our work suggests these attitudes changed after Sept. 11 and may not change back for many years," said Craig Anderson, a psychologist at Iowa State University and one of several researchers at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society who presented studies on the impact of Sept. 11. "People are now more willing to go to war, and to favor harsher treatment for people convicted of crimes."
His study involved hundreds of people who were questioned a year before the attacks on attitudes toward war and criminal punishment. On a five-point scale, the average response was 2.8. Ten days after the terrorist strike, the same people were questioned, and the average jumped to 3.1, "which is statistically significant," he said.