Wired for Conflict? Neurocognitive Mechanisms Linking Threat Perception and Support for War
This paper is published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (Q1, Elsevier).
This project investigates the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying pro-war attitudes and conflict-related behaviors. It is a literature review that brings together insights from neurobiology, affective neuroscience, and political psychology. The study examines how different forms of perceived threat shape social and political judgments through distinct yet interacting brain systems.
This work was developed in collaboration with the Moral and Social Brain Lab (Dr. Emilie Caspar) at Ghent University and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (Dr. Valeria Gazzola, Dr. Leonardo Cerliani).
Highlights
Novel conceptual framework links threat typologies to plausible neurocognitive substrates of war support.
Neural distinctions between realistic, symbolic, and existential threats represent descriptive tendencies at the level of task families rather than modular neural signatures.
War support may emerge from flexible coalitions of brain networks that reconfigure based on threat type.
Immediate threats may trigger subcortical responses theoretically associated with biased punitive reactions.
Abstract
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Why do some civilians support war despite its moral cost? Although threat perception seems to be a key psychological driver of this support, the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms remain unclear. This narrative review integrates psychological and neuroscientific evidence to clarify how distinct threat types and temporal profiles shape war-supporting attitudes through specific brain circuits.
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A two-phase narrative review was conducted. Phase I systematically screened psychological literature on threat perception and war support across major databases. Phase II targeted neurobiological studies on threat perception using operationalizations consistent with the psychological research identified in the first phase. Eligible publications included empirical studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses involving human participants.
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By typology, realistic threats may activate amygdala–periaqueductal gray (PAG)–insula circuits linked to defensive reflexes; symbolic threats recruit self-referential and moral appraisal networks that may foster justification of violence; and existential threats engage anterior cingulate cortex–insula–bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) dynamics that may amplify worldview defense and group cohesion. By temporal profile, immediate threats elicit rapid amygdala–PAG responses that may bias punitive reactions, while prolonged threats sustain BNST–insula vigilance and weaken prefrontal regulation, fostering hypervigilance and ideological rigidity.
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War support may emerge from dynamic coalitions of salience, valuation, and control networks that reconfigure with threat type, duration, and context. This synthesis outlines a neurocognitive framework for the political neuroscience of threat, which highlights how threat manipulation can mobilize conflict, entrench group hostility, and mirror dysregulated anxiety circuitry, suggesting translational opportunities for prevention and intervention.