| Summary/Abstract |
Americans’ low level of support for intervening in Syria presents a puzzle, raising questions about how democracies approach conflict. Scholars have noted that the US’s public may need to view opponents in conflict as different from themselves before military force is used. But what is the tipping point between perceiving someone as “one of us” or “one of them?” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s actions fit the model of a villain, but his appearance represents a divergence from recent leaders cast as enemies of the United States. Using a unique experiment examining citizen evaluations of the Syrian crisis, we demonstrate that a subtle manipulation, darkening Assad’s skin tone, led respondents to view him more negatively, as well as increasing support for US intervention to effect regime change. The effect was magnified among subjects with more ethnocentric beliefs. Our experiment’s findings have implications for racial priming, ethnocentrism, and American foreign policy.
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