Terror Management Theory (Psychology explains republicans)

[clonebot]

terror management theory assumes that, not unlike animals, human first and foremost have a biological desire to extend our lives. the constant awareness that, one day, our lives will end apparently causes extreme terror and anxiety in our mind, but it is repressed by coping mechanisms so that we don't spend 24/7 in a state of panic, facing our inevitable deaths. the two basic coping mechanisms are our "cultural worldview" and upholding the values of that culture. our worldview gives us order and meaning in the world, and following its values improves our self esteem, and in some cases promotes the concept of death trancendence (i'm speaking about religon of course).
The concept that our behavior is somehow affected by this anxiety, and the mind's defenses against it forms into Terror Management Theory.

The somewhat dark side of this theory however is the Mortality Salience hypothesis, which has been validated time and time again not only in controlled enviornments, but now with the actions and behaviors of our society. Mortality Salience experiments have shown that when subjects are reminded of their mortality (referred to as death reminders), they begin to evalute those outside of their group or society very negatively. In addition, those liberal members of their group or society that criticize it are also met with hostility. Subjects even go as far as to suggest harsh punishments for those who do not conform to the values of their society, or indentify with their cultural worldview.

So people develop very strong attachments to their cultural values when their are frightened, and it is obvious much of the united states is no exception. alot of research in this field has boomed in the last couple years for obvious reasons, and if you are interested the published articles are in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology - which is one of the major peer review journals in the united states (for psychology)

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Are any of the articles published online?

And, if so, do you have a link?


Tansy Gold, who is more into sociology than psychology but still finds this fascinating

[clonebot]

2. unfortuantely no

not for public viewing, not that I know of, at least not the full texts - you have to get them through a university or a document retrival service. but it all exists in bound format somewhere. im suprised it hasn't come up though in the more popular and widely available psychology "magazines" like psychology today or something like that (not that i advocate reading that trash)

[Tansy_Gold]

5. Sometimes the info can be found through

referencing the titles and authors in a google search or something. If you have any titles, authors, or keywords, would you mind posting them here for those insatiably curious DUers?

Thanks!

Tansy Gold, insatiably curious. . . . .

[bhunt70]

3. I've been thinking of this exact phenomena for a while now...

edit - except I wouldn't have known how to express it.

[clonebot]

4. glad i could help

also, this isn't a brand new post-9/11 concept .. it was tossed around for a while in the mid to late 90's. now there is much research done connecting mortality salience to things like risk taking behavior, gender and ethnicity values, reckless driving, sexual intrest, stereotyping (obvious)...