Retaliation

This topic submitted by Jason Harnish, Les Arms, Mike Kleefeld (cynox@innocent.com) at 2:46 pm on 10/22/01. Additions were last made on Friday, April 19, 2002. Section: Myers

LAB PROPOSAL: RETALIATION

Jason Harnish, Les Arms, Mike Klefeld
10/22/2001
NS Proposal
Chris Myers
Lab Packet
Summary (by Les Arms): We will measure people’s desire to retaliate for some harm. We will also be measuring how strong people’s desire for retaliation is on the levels of personal, economical, and national. We believe that personal will have high levels of retaliation. Economical will not be so high. National will be high now, because of the recent incident, but will gradually taper down to normal, somewhat less than economical. We will divide the results into their groups. And then compare them.

Hypothesis (by Jason Harnish: The hypothesis of our group is based significantly on the idea of retaliation. However, our group is studying retaliation on numerous levels. The first level of retaliation we will study is one’s own body. What one’s own body means, is that we are studying the degree of pain and personal degradation it takes the average human before that person is willing to retaliate in a physical manner. Our hypothesis that is based merely on the personal level is that someone must physically be harmed in a manner that affects his/her day-to-day life before one would physically harm that person. For example, if one’s limb were broken or a person were to experience the loss of limb one would retaliate.
Another level of retaliation being studied is an economically induced retaliation. This level involves any attack on a person’s property or economic status. For example, one is sued and loses what he/she sees as a significant amount, that person may retaliate physically and thus it would be an economically based retaliation. Our hypothesis here is that it will take somewhere around one thousand U.S. dollars to create a physical form of retaliation. An important point is that if one were to legally get the money back without physically harming the person who took the money, it would not constitute economic retaliation according to our definition of retaliation for this study.
Finally, we are studying retaliation on a national level. National retaliation is when a person provides support to the government in power to attack any nation for whatever reason. Support shall be defined as any verbal, monetary, or physical support to the government. For example, if one were in the army than one is supporting, or if one is sending extra money to a fund in order to help the government attack (it is important to note this does not include taxes), or if one were to agree verbally to retaliate. A good example of national retaliation is the current problem of the United States of America preparing to attack Middle Eastern countries for “their” role in the attack on the World Trade Center.
Although our study is in a tripartite format our general question is the effects certain events have on humans feeling for retaliation. Our study is also somewhat temporal because we will be studying the effects of the attack on the World Trade Center over time and whether people are less willing to retaliate after a brief (brief meaning a 4-5 months) period of time.

Introduction (by Michael Kleefeld): The purpose of our study is to measure the various retaliatory actions people will do or endorse when faced with various stimuli. Our focus will mainly be on the recent events of September 11, but we will also include various other aspects of life and loss into out study.

Sources:
CNN.com:
10-7-2001; Bush announces opening of attacks: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/07/ret.attack.bush/index.html
Bush announced the commencement of air attacks on al Quaeda and Taliban bases in Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden and close down the terrorist training camps that he operates in the Taliban controlled sections of Afghanistan. America and Great Britain are supplying the actual military hardware for the operation, codenamed Operation: Enduring Freedom, but Bush in his speech stated that 40 nations were participating in various ways, including intelligence, and specifically named France, Germany, Canada, and Australia.
10-3-2001; Sources: Prior plans to capture bin Laden thwarted
This article discuses two plans the US originally had to capture or kill bin Laden before the Sep. 11 attacks. The first was a plan in 1996 when Sudan offered to arrest bin Laden and turn him over to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia would not agree to the plan, for fear of retaliation by bin Laden sympathizers. The second plan was in 1999 when the CIA trained 60 Pakistani intelligence officers for a commando raid to capture or kill bin Laden, but the Pakistani civilian government was overthrown before the plan could be implemented.
Cincinnati Enquirer:
9-18-2001; Bush: Osama bin Laden wanted ‘dead or alive’
A somewhat brief over view of the situation at the time. It goes into some detail about Pakistani efforts to convince the Taliban to hand over bin Laden. It also goes into the early requests of Attorney General John Ashcroft for new anti-terrorist legislation.
Miami Student:
9-25-2001; opinion, Unmitigated retaliation
An opinion written by Mike Ernst, a student at Miami, about the possibility of retaliatory strikes against the Taliban and bin Laden. He cites many historical examples, arguing against retaliation. He tries to make the point that retaliation doesn’t work and that the Us should focus more on trying to deal with what brought about these attacks.
9-18-2001; Local Islamic center threatened
This article talks about threats made against the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati in West Chester. It describes some phone threats made against the center and its members. The article also talks about the potential for such threats and actions in Oxford and Miami University.
Unknown:
9-20-2001; opinion, Retaliation breeds hatred and contempt:
An opinion written by two members of the Indian Students Association about the current climate of hate and mistrust created by the September 11 attacks. They talk about the basic human rights of all people and the legal rights of all Americans according to the Constitution. They describe several disturbing surveys about legal actions against Arabs in general, regardless of citizenship. They urge restraint during these times and remind the readers that they and their brethren are as American as you or I.
Unknown date; opinion. We must counter hateful ideology
An opinion article, written by Mona Charen, a former speech writer for Reagan’s presidency, she wavers between assurances that this is not a war against Islam, and at the same time seemingly condemning Islam for creating the people who perpetrated these attacks.
U.S. News and World Report:
9-24-2001; Search and destroy
The article deals with the attack on the Pentagon and its repercussions. The article speculates on the possible actions that the US might take and lists several plans that military advisors were considering. It also mentions the frustration of the military high-command over how little response all of bin Laden’s other attacks have drawn and how terrorists have been seen as criminals instead of military adversaries.
Far Eastern Economic Review:
12-7-2000; The hard road to revenge. Response to the USS Cole bombing
An article on US attempts to form a coalition against bin Laden and the Taliban after the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen on October 12, 2000. It also deals with assessments from counter-terrorism experts on how the US should form such a coalition.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
3-1999; Conceptualization and treatment of rage in self psychology
An article from a professional psychiatric journal about the diagnoses and treatment of anger. It deals with the causes of anger and goes into various treatment methods used.
The White House, Office of the Press Secretary
10-7-2001; Presidential address to the Nation, the Treaty Room, 1:00p.m. EDT
The official transcript of President Bush’s address to the nation concerning the beginning of attacks on al Quaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bush outlines the current objectives of the attack as vaguely as possible and hints at later attacks elsewhere. He also once again delivers his ultimatum that no country can be neutral in this conflict.
Afro-American Red Star:
8-10-1996; Manager sues over leg bite
A black female shift manager at a Washington DC Roy Rogers Restaurant filed a sexual harassment suit against the food chain on Jul 29, 1996.

Method (Jason Harnish): Our group has developed a few methods for judging the degree of physical and emotional pain it takes before one is willing to retaliate. The first method is a survey that asks nine questions dealing with retaliation. Each question falls under either a personal, economic, or national form of attack. Participants will answer how apt they are to retaliating after the attack has occurred. The answers are on a ten-point scale with one being no intention of retaliation and ten being an extreme form of retaliation. Also included on the survey are a few questions about age, gender, and year in school. The reason these classifications are brought into the study is just in case retaliation is largely affected by age, gender, or year in school. Below is a copy of what the survey participants will take.

Group Survey
Please be as honest as possible. If you do not care about taking this seriously, please do not waste our time. You may hand the survey back and we promise we will not bite you!

Age: 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61 and up

Year: 1st-year 2nd-year 3rd-year 4th-year Above 4th-year

Gender: Male Female

On the scale of 1-10, 10 being murdering someone or the group and 1 being no retaliatory action at all, 5 would constitute a physical attack of some kind on the person or group, answer the following questions. We stress that we are referring to physical action and not what you would want to do or think about doing. On questions involving the United States or symbols of the United States you would not necessarily be the person attacking or murdering the person, rather the a member of the government would carry it out. In other words, for any questions about the U.S. if one were to circle a 10 one is merely showing support for putting the person or group to death.
1. Someone or a group of people vandalized the house you lived in…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. Someone or a group of people burned the flag…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. Someone or a group harmed your boyfriend/girlfriend…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4. Someone or a group destroyed personal property belonging to you…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5. Someone or a group spoke badly about the United States of America…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6. Someone or a group cut off an arm or leg from your body…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. Someone or a group vandalized your car (if you do not have one pretend)…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
8. Someone or a group attacked the United States of America killing many Americans…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
9. Someone or a group of people were going to harm you (not to the extent of death)…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The other way our group will gather data is by researching participants’ reaction to news events going on around the country. What we will do is hand out news documents stating facts about the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. and also what measures have been taken to “bring those responsible to justice.” We will also find articles that talk about people who have “taken the law into their own hands,” and ask participants to answer whether they feel the individual was justified to retaliate in other ways than bringing the perpetrator/s to court.
What we look for in the study is body language as well as what the participants verbal reactions are. A group member will record the words that are said that revolve around the idea of how appropriate the reactions of the U.S. have been as well as how appropriate other countries’ actions have been.
Results (by Les Arms): We will compare the averages of our participants’ desire for retaliation in the three categories of personal, economical, and national.
We will start by grouping the data into the categories. We will divide our results from the survey into their categories. Then we will add our measurements of people’s reactions to the false news stories into their respective categories.
To obtain these measurements, we will judge the extent of their reactions on a ten-point scale using our observations of their body language, facial expressions, and what they say. We will have one person measuring each of these attributes as the subject read the articles.
We will then take the means of each category. Then we compare the different categories to find which is most likely to cause retaliation. Then we average them all together and see how likely people are to retaliate in general.
We will do several tests comparing our methods. We will do the t test on our methods. Then we do the p test comparing the different methods to see if our results are statistically significant.

Next Article
Previous Article
Return to the Topic Menu