Emotional responses and attitudes to peace talks with ETA.

In this study, two questions are analyzed: (1) what the
emotions provoked by the Spanish government’s declaration
of its intention to negotiate a peace process with the terrorist
group ETA are; (2) how these emotions relate to different
attitudes to this negotiation. A questionnaire was applied
to a sample of 263 university students. A confirmatory
factor analysis was conducted to verify how emotions were
organized and an ANOVA was subsequently conducted to
analyze the relationship between emotions and attitudes
to negotiation. With respect to the first question, the
emotions which are linked to the negotiation process are
classified in a three factor model (enthusiasm, anger and
anxiety), and with respect to the second, it became clear
that the emotion of anger is associated with subjects who
are against negotiation. At the same time, enthusiasm
and anxiety were associated with different attitudes to
negotiation, support and rejection respectively; however,
both these emotions were also found to be present among
those who wanted the different political parties to reach
an agreement and face the process of negotiation with a
common policy.