Forming and changing opinions about hostage negotiations during war: Early attitudes, political orientation and emotional connection to hostages’ families

On 7 October 2023, Hamas invaded Israel and took 251 hostages into Gaza, resulting in a drawn-out war and a hostage crisis that involved complex life-and-death related dilemmas. Using longitudinal data collected from a representative sample of Israeli Jews across two years (Total N = 902), we examined cognitive and emotional bases for how people formed opinions about the hostage crisis. Participants rated the importance of releasing hostages, how connected they felt to the hostages’ families and their opinions about three concrete Hostage Deals (HDs). Almost all participants expressed that releasing hostages (88.6%) was highly important, a significant minority felt very connected to hostages’ families across waves (34.9–40.4%) and most participants supported the HDs, with increased support over time (56.8–72.0%). Attitudes towards releasing hostages predicted HD support a year later and beyond. Political orientation predicted attitudes towards releasing hostages and HD opinions across time. Feeling connected to hostages’ families predicted HD support independently of politics-related variables. Although definitive causal conclusions cannot be made, findings suggest people may rely simultaneously on both cognitive and emotional processes when forming opinions about decisions involving complex tradeoffs with life-and-death implications.