This paper will employ techniques of content analysis to examine some features of top-level communications between national policy makers during a momentous period of stress. It is concerned with the effects of stress upon: (1) the manner in which decision-makers perceive time as a factor in their formulation of policy; (2) the contrasting ways in which they view policy alternatives for their own nations, for their allies, and for their adversaries; and (3) the flow of communications among them.Specifically, the following hypotheses will be tested with data from the 1914 crisis leading up to the Great War in Europe:Hypothesis 1. As stress increases in a crisis situation:(a) time will be perceived as an increasingly salient factor in decision-making.(b) decision-makers will become increasingly concerned with the immediate rather than the distant future.
This study tests some hyp's re the 'belief system,' nat'l images, & decision-making, through the analysis of J. F. Dulles & his images of the USSR. The belief system of which nat'l images is a subpart, is defined as the total/sum world view of the individual. To test the general hypothesis that information concerning the USSR tended to be perceived & interpreted in a manner consistent with the belief system, the analysis was focussed on the relationship which Dulles perceived between Soviet hostility &: Soviet success, Soviet capabilities, & his general evaluation of the USSR. Specifically, it was hyp'ed that Dulles' image of the USSR would be preserved by associating decreases in perceived hostility with: (1) increasing Soviet frustration in the conduct of its foreign policy; (2) decreasing Soviet capabilities; & (3) no signif change in his general evaluation of the USSR. The sources used included all of Dulles' publicly available statements concerning the USSR during the 1953-1959 period, derived from a content analysis of 434 documents. These documents (transcribed, coded, & scaled according to the 'evaluative assertion analysis' devised by C. E. Osgood),yielded 3584 assertions re the USSR: (A) 2,246 re Soviet policy, assessed on a friendship-hostility continuum; (B) 732 re Soviet capabilities, assessed on a strength-weakness continuum; (C) 290 re Soviet success, assessed on a satisfaction frustration continuum; & (D) 316 general evaluation of the USSR, assessed on a good-bad continuum. is computed according to Spearman's rank-order formula) yielded the following results: (a) the r between perceived Soviet friendship & Soviet frustration (& conversely, between perceived Soviet hostility & Soviet satisfaction), was signif at the 0.01 level; (b) the r between perceived Soviet friendship & Soviet weakness (& conversely, between perceived Soviet hostility & Soviet strength),was signif at the 0.01 level; & (c) the r between perceived Soviet friendship & the evaluation of the USSR on a good-bad scale was not signif. is were computed for results aggregated into 3, 6, & 12 month time periods, with no diff in the significance level. The evidence supports the hypothesis that information concerning the USSR was interpreted so as to preserve Dulles' original image of Soviet inherent bad faith; that image was sustained by attributing decreasing Soviet hostility & specific non-hostile acts to the necessity of adversity, rather than to any genuine change of intent. These results suggest the difficulty, as long as major protagonists in internat'l conflict are committed to rigid images of each other (such as `totalitarian Communism' or `monopolistic capitalism'),of making effective bids to break the increasingly deadly spiral of internat'l tensions; in such a situation, interaction between the parties is dominated by `mirror images' in which self-conforming misperceptions feedback into the system. AA.
