Deterrence under Stress: Time Pressure, Overconfidence and the Escalation of Conflicts

“New Developments in Signaling and Game Theory” Conference, Monte

Verità, Ascona, October 17, 2012

Hanja Blendin & Gerald Schneider Universität Konstanz

Deterrence Success Thomas C. Schelling 2006, An

astonishing 60 years: The legacy of Hiroshima [Nobel Prize Lecture]: “The most spectacular event of the past half century is one that did not occur. We have enjoyed 60 years

without nuclear weapons exploded in anger. ...we may come to a new

respect for deterrence”

Deterrence Success?

This new contest, however (so proceeds the explanation), is not being played by the rules of rationality. The Russians made survival … the least negotiable demand. The Islamist terrorists, on the other hand, are nothing about survival, either at the individual level (this life is as nothing compared with the life after death) or at the national level (Islam is larger than the nation; God will not allow Islam to be defeated). Nor do such terrorists follow the rationalist calculus of costs and benefits: to deal a blow to God´s enemies is enough, the cost of that blow, material or human, is unimportant. J.M. Coetzee 2008. Diary of a Bad Year. London, Vintage, p. 20

“In everyday life, the idea of deterrence arises in the following situation: A is expected to take some action x whose consequences B does not like. B therefore announces that if A does x, B will take some action y whose consequences A does not like…If so, B can be said to have deterred A from doing x.” (p. 115)

R. Harrison Wagner 1992. Rationality and Misperception in Deterrence Theory. Journal of Theoretical Politics

Deterrence in the Nuclear Age: Brinkmanship or “A Threat that Leaves Something to Chance”

"If I say, "Row, or I'll tip the boat over and drown us both," you'll say you don't believe me. But if I rock the boat so that it may tip over, you'll be more impressed. If I can't administer pain short of death for the two of us, a "little bit of death", in the form of a small probability the boat will tip over, is near equivalent". Thomas Schelling 1960. Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Source: James D. Fearon 1994, Journal of Conflict Resolution

The Rational Deterrence Controversy • Ned Lebow/Janice Gross Stein 1989 World Politics: “Rational

deterrence theories are accordingly "theories" about nonexistent decision makers operating in nonexistent environments“ (p. 224) “All of these core assumptions are unrealistic and contradicted by empirical evidence” (p. 223)

• Anatol Rapoport 1992 Journal of Theoretical Politics: “,,,I cannot take seriously any normative theory of decision in the context of international relations that builds on the principle of individual rationality, especially if the term ‘rationality’ is used to suggest that it has an unambiguous meaning in situations of this sort.”

Evidence for Overconfidence Saddam Hussein, 7 August 1990

• Saddam ... I really don´t know what Bush plans to do in this regard!

• Male 1: Even if they engage in a fight with us, so what?

• Saddam: I mean, what will they do if they engage in a fight? All they can do is bring their airplanes and start bombing: boom, boom, boom ... Nothing will happen, we will give them hell. Give me one instance when an airplane has settled any situation.. Quoted in Kevin M. Wood, Kevin M.; Palkki, David P. and Mark E. Stout (Eds.) The Saddam Tapes. The Inner Workings of a Tyrant´s Regimes, 1978-2001. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 176-177.

Time pressure, over-confidence, and escalation

• High level of time pressure: Risk of escalation: - pos. effect: e.g. Janis (1971) - no effect: e.g. Herrmann (1978, Political Psychology) Decision making quality: - negative effect: e.g. Janis (various years), Baker, Blendin, Schneider (2012, under review)

• Over-confidence Increase in level of aggression (e.g. Johnson et al. 2012, Human Nature)

“Deterrence under stress” I: Groupthink

Steffen, Schneider, Rockstroh (2012, submitted)

“Deterrence under stress” II: Crisis Bargaining

• Outcome variable: does a “defender” counter a (monetary) demand by an “aggressor”?

• Two treatments: Time pressure (stopping clock), over-confidence (based on outcome in IQ test)

• Controls: Risk aversion, ambiguity aversion, two forms of narcissism

• Conducted 2012 in the lakelab of the University of Konstanz (programmed in z-tree)

• 86 subjects of all faculties, 5/7/10 rounds (only the first three reported)

Complete Model

Chance assignment IQ test rank assignment

Model 1

Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Model 6

Model 7

Model 8

Model 9

Model 10

Model 11

Model 12

Time pressure 0.71*** (0.08)

0.74*** (0.08)

0.69*** (0.06)

0.70 (0.16)

0.65*** (0.10)

0.44** (0.15)

0.71*** (0.09)

0.78 (0.12)

0.87 (0.15)

Overconfidence

1.61*** (0.13)

1.53*** (0.12)

1.68*** (0.16)

0.70 (0.31)

0.63 (0.26)

0.88 (0.45)

3.96** (2.34)

3.86** (2.30)

3.34** (2.05)

Risk aversion 0.27*** (0.10)

0.12***

(0.08) 0.49

(0.32)

Ambiguity aversion

0.91 (0.06)

0.65 (0.23)

1.32 (0.52)

Narcissism: self-grandiosity

0.52* (0.18)

0.37 (0.24)

0.67 (0.22)

Narcissism: Self-reliance ideal

1.79*** (0.37)

1.58***

(0.12) 1.95**

(0.51)

Log likelihood -156.71 -156.52 -155.96 -143.98 -80.98 -81.13 -80.54 -70.64 -75.70 -72.52 -72.35 -68.56

Correctly classified 68.25

68.25 68.25 68.25 67.44 67.44 67.44 69.77 69.11 69.11 69.11 69.92

N 252 252 252 252 129 129 129 129 123 123 123 123

Conclusion

• Non-rational factors are determinants of crisis decision making behavior

• Accounting for attitudes to risk is not sufficient; decision making context (stress, evaluation of other decision makers) and psychological profile of decisin makers are important

• Some convergence between groupthink and individualistic crisis bargaining model