The Impact Of an Individual's Self-Monitoring Tendency on War Termination Decisions

This research project is part of a dissertation project that looks at the decision-making process of US Presidents during protracted conflict. I categorize a select group of US Presidents based on their monitoring tendency, and rely on their monitoring tendency to explain (in part) decisions they made to either escalate or terminate a protracted conflict where there was no clear winner or loser. The survey experiment has respondents take a shortened version of Mark Snyders 1979 Self-Monitoring Scale, and then they are presented with a hypothetical vignette where they are asked to imagine they are President of the United States and are presiding over a war. The treatment group will receive the 'eyes effect', which should trigger high-self monitors to adjust their response to align with public expectations. The control group will just see the vignette with no mention of an audience or their behavior being observed. I anticipate that in the treatment group, high self-monitors will be more likely to choose to continue the war. I expect low self-monitors, in both the treatment and control group, to be more likely to decide to end the war when compared to high self-monitors. In other words, high self-monitoring individuals are expected to adjust their behavior based on the knowledge they are being observed and that their decision will be judged by an audience.