Mortality Salience, Martyrdom, and Military Might: The Great Satan Versus the Axis of Evil

Abstract

Study 1 investigated the effect of mortality salience on support for martyrdom attacks among Iranian college students. Participants were randomly assigned to answer questions about either their own death or an aversive topic unrelated to death and then evaluated materials from fellow students who either supported or opposed martyrdom attacks against the United States. Whereas control participants preferred the student who opposed martyrdom, participants reminded of death preferred the student who supported martyrdom and indicated they were more likely to consider such activities themselves. Study 2 investigated the effect of mortality salience on American college students' support for extreme military interventions by American forces that could kill thousands of civilians. Mortality salience increased support for such measures among politically conservative but not politically liberal students. The roles of existential fear, cultural worldviews, and construing one's nation as pursing a heroic battle against evil in advocacy of violence were discussed.

The Shadows of the Past

“…For example, religiosity was shown to be positively related to support for political violence (e.g., Canetti, Hobfoll, Pedhazur, & Zaidise, 2010) and military acts (e.g., Froese & Mencken, 2009). A Right-wing political orientation was found to be negatively related to group-based guilt (e.g., Roccas, Klar, & Liviatan, 2004), and positively related to exonerating cognitions in response to ingroup transgressions (e.g., Figueiredo, Valentim & Doosje, 2011) and to endorsement of unintentional killing of outgroup civilians (e.g., Kimhi, 2014;Pyszczynski et al, 2006;Uhlmann, Pizzaro, Tannenbaum & Ditto, 2009).…”

History of Social Psychology: Insights, Challenges, and Contributions to Theory and Application

“…Although some limiting conditions have been cited (Jonas, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002), the theory is offered as an explanation for everything from suntanning (Greenberg et al, 2007) to the terrorist attacks in the United States on 9/11/01 (Pyszczynski et al, 2006). But the long history emphasizing the contextual nature of social psychological phenomena tends to circumscribe such grand theorizing.…”

The effect of mortality salience on weapon bias

“…States and American participants were more supportive of attacks that could kill thousands of civilians in foreign countries (Pyszczynski, Abdollahi, Solomon, Greenberg, Cohen, & Weise, 2006). "pleasant" quicker than they can associate "insect" and "pleasant."…”