A Preregistered Study on Israelis' Attitude Structure Following the October 7th Massacre and During the War in Gaza

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was a national tragedy, and the war in Gaza that followed it changed the reality in the area. This distinctive setting allowed us to examine attitude structure in an uncertain existential context compared to previous studies conducted in relatively more mundane settings. We conducted a preregistered study (N = 565) in which we hypothesized that actual-desired attitude discrepancies and objective attitude ambivalence would both positively predict subjective attitude ambivalence and that actual and desired attitudes would independently predict congruent biases in information interest. We also predicted that Israelis' conservative political ideology would negatively predict objective attitude ambivalence, subjective attitude ambivalence, and actual-desired attitude discrepancy, and positively predict attitude certainty. The results supported nearly all of these hypotheses. Furthermore, we found evidence consistent with ideological projection. Participants' political ideology predicted the direction and strength with which they perceived political ideology change in the country.