According to terror management theory, the annihilation of people who threaten one's worldview should serve the function of defending that worldview. The present research assessed this hypothesis. A sample of Christian participants read either a worldview-threatening news article reporting on the Muslimization of Nazareth or a non-threatening article about the aurora borealis. Half of the participants in the worldview-threat condition were informed at the end of the article that a number of Muslims had died in a plane crash on their way to Nazareth. Although reading the threatening news article increased death-thought accessibility and worldview defense relative to reading the neutral article, these increases were not observed among participants who learned that a number of Muslims were dead. Implications for understanding protracted intergroup conflict are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BeckerE. (1971). The birth and death of meaning (2nd ed.). New York: Free Press.
2.
BeckerE. (1973). The denial of death. New York: Free Press.
3.
BeckerE. (1975). Escape from evil. New York: Free Press.
4.
BergerP.L.LuckmannT. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York: Anchor Books.
5.
Central Intelligence Agency. (2007). The world factbook. Washington, DC: Author.
6.
FestingerL. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
7.
GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS.SimonL.BreusM. (1994). The role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 627–637.
8.
GreenbergJ.SimonL.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS.ChatelD. (1992). Terror management and tolerance: Does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one's worldview?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 212–220.
9.
GreenbergJ.SolomonS.PyszczynskiT. (1997). Terror management theory of self-esteem and cultural worldviews: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. InZannaM.(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 61–139). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
10.
HayesJ.SchimelJ.FaucherE.H.WilliamsT.J. (2008). Evidence for the DTA hypothesis II: Threatening self-esteem increases death-thought accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 600–613.
11.
LandauM.J.JohnsM.GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT.MartensA.GoldenbergJ.L.SolomonS. (2004). A function of form: Terror management and structuring the social world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 190–210.
12.
LandauM.J.SolomonS.PyszczynskiT.GreenbergJ. (2007). On the compatibility of terror management theory and perspectives on human evolution. Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 476–519.
13.
LiebermanJ.D.ArndtJ.PersoniusJ.CookA. (2001). Vicarious annihilation: The effect of mortality salience on perceptions of hate crimes. Law and Human Behavior, 25, 547–566.
14.
MartensA.KosloffS.GreenbergJ.LandauM.J.SchmaderT. (2007). Killing begets killing: Evidence from a bug-killing paradigm that initial killing fuels subsequent killing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1251–1264.
15.
McGregorH.A.LiebermanJ.D.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.ArndtJ.SimonL.PyszczynskiT. (1998). Terror management and aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 590–605.
16.
MikulincerM.FlorianV.BirnbaumG.MalishkevichB. (2002). The death-anxiety buffering function of close relationships: Exploring the effects of separation reminders on death-thought accessibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 287–299.
17.
MikulincerM.FlorianV.HirschbergerG. (2003). The existential function of close relationships: Introducing death into the science of love. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 20–40.
18.
NavarreteD.C.FesslerD.M.T. (2005). Normative bias and adaptive challenges: A relational approach to coalitional psychology and a critique of terror management theory. Evolutionary Psychology, 3, 297–325.
19.
PyszczynskiT.AbdollahiA.SolomonS.GreenbergJ.CohenF.WeiseD. (2006). Mortality salience, martyrdom, and military might: The Great Satan versus the Axis of Evil. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 525–537.
20.
PyszczynskiT.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.ArndtJ.SchimelJ. (2004). Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 435–468.
21.
PyszczynskiT.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.MaxfieldM. (2006). On the unique psychological import of the human awareness of mortality: Theme and variations. Psychological Inquiry, 17, 328–355.
22.
PyszczynskiT.SolomonS.GreenbergJ. (2003). In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
23.
SchimelJ.HayesJ.WilliamsT.JahrigJ. (2007). Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 789–803.
24.
SimonsL.M. (2006). Genocide and the science of proof. National Geographic, 209, 28–35.
25.
SolomonS.GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT. (1991). A terror management theory of social behaviour: The functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. InZannaM.(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 93–159). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
