For the past 25 years three experiential social scientists have collaborated on the study of human aggression from a biological perspective as well as a cultural one. Their Terror Management Theory is based on the work of the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker -- who theorized that humans' awareness and denial of death is the guiding force in human behavior -- and their own research which provides evidence to the theory that humans' innate fear of death is the basis for aggression. Their theory has been supported in more than 300 published studies in more than 14 countries, including numerous studies in Iran and Israel.
Terror Management Theory
TMT suggests that humans' awareness of the inevitability and finality of death may lead to existential terror. Humans control their fear of death by adopting a cultural worldview and by acquiring self-esteem. Self esteem is achieved by living up to one's cultural standards. Cultural worldviews are symbolic psychological constructions and because people are aware that there are many different ways of construing reality, confidence in one's worldview, and the protection from anxiety that it provides, depends on consensual validation from others.
Sheldon Solomon, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College; Tom Pyszcynski, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs; and Jeff Greenberg, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, outlined TMT in the book: In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror in 2002. TMT is widely known in academic psychology and related research circles in the United States, is routinely taught in many introductory psychology and social psychology courses, and has been cited in about 1,000 papers. Now the researchers' goals are to encourage national policymakers to transfer the empirical data supporting the theory and apply it to public policy so as to sabotage humanity's seemingly unyielding march toward self-obliteration.
Drs. Pyszcynski and Greenberg presented the theory and related papers at the American Psychological Association annual meeting in New Orleans in August. (Dr. Solomon, unable to attend, was interviewed by phone.)
TMT and Present World Violence
In current studies, the researchers are focusing on the role of terror management in political attitudes and violence in the Middle East.
Using a "mortality salience" paradigm whereby study participants are given subtle reminders of death (through open-ended questions, gory accident pictures, interviews in front of funeral parlors, and subliminal exposure to the words "death" or "dead") participants are then asked to complete questionnaires about social and political issues. The researchers claim that fears of mortality arising from the mortality salience initiate a defense of participants' cultural worldview.
In one study (American Roulette: the Effect of Reminders of Death on Support for George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election) researchers hypothesized that a mortality salience induction would increase support for President Bush and decrease support for Sen. John Kerry. Registered voters were asked in September 2004 to indicate which candidate they intended to vote for. Sen. Kerry received substantially more votes among the control subjects, while Bush was favored over Kerry following a reminder of death, even among some self-identified Democrats. The findings suggest that the election may have been facilitated by nonconscious concerns about mortality in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing reminders of death in the guise of government-issued terror warnings. The studies were replicated among diverse groups including university students, municipal court judges, senior citizens, and passers-by on the street, according to Dr. Greenberg.
The reactions to mortality salience appear to be universal, Greenberg said. "Studies in the U.S. that involved showing people images of 9/11 or other scenes of death have resulted in a high percentage of people being willing to support the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. In Iran, the reminder of death increased support for suicide bombers."
Terror warnings spur patriotism
A researcher at Cornell University tested the TMT when analyzing the change in presidential approval ratings reported in Gallup poll data following government terror warnings issued between February 2001 and May 2004 and reported in the Washington Post. Robb Willer, a PhD candidate, hypothesized that government-issued terror warnings have a positive effect on presidential approval ratings and that government-issued terror warnings also have a positive impact on ratings of specific aspects of the president unrelated to terrorism, such as the president's handling of the economy. A time-series analyses of 26 terror warnings issued by government agencies over a 3-1/2 year period showed a consistent positive relationship between terror warnings and presidential approval. Each terror warning from the previous week corresponded to a 2.75 point increase in the percentage of Americans expressing approval for President Bush. The most significant jump in presidential approval occurred immediately after 9/11, when ratings increased from 51% approval on September 10 to 86% approval on September 15.
A study conducted by Abdolhossein Abdollahian, PhD, a Professor at Zarand Islamic Azad University in Tehran, Iran, Dr. Pyszczynski, and colleagues at Skidmore College and the University of Arizona, investigated the effect of mortality salience on support for martyrdom attacks among 40 Iranian college students. Participants were randomly assigned to answer questions about either their own death or an aversive topic unrelated to death. Participants then evaluated materials from fellow students who either supported or opposed martyrdom attacks against the United States. While control participants preferred the student who opposed martyrdom, said Dr. Pyszcynski, participants reminded of death were more likely to approve the actions of suicide bombers following mortality salience and they also indicated they were more likely to consider such activities themselves. "These findings provide the first experimental evidence documenting the psychological determinants of the appeal of martyrdom," wrote the study authors.
In a study of 127 Rutgers University students, participants were asked whether they would support nuclear and chemical weapons and pre-emptive attacks against countries that might be a threat to the United States. The students who were first asked to think about their own deaths expressed support for extreme measures against other countries. "Despite their differences, Americans and Iranians have something in common-thoughts of death increase the willingness of people from both nations to inflict harm on citizens of the other nation," according to the authors.
In another Middle East study conducted three months prior to the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the Northern West Bank, Gilad Hirschberger, PhD, and Tsachi Ein-Dor, PhD, of Bar-Han University in Rabat Gan, Israel, examined whether reminders of death would lead conservative Israelis to support violent resistance against the disengagement plan. The researchers hypothesized that support for violent resistance would be particularly strong among participants that were in denial and unable to come to terms with the Israeli withdrawal.
Kathlyn Stone is a Minnesota-based writer covering science and medicine, health care and related policies. She publishes www.fleshandstone.net, a health and science news site.
Brain maturation integrates 'death' fear & cognition. Or not
Here is a landmark research report, from 2003, finding there is something undeveloped in the brain of 'conservative' dogma-thinking. No surprise, it's been media suppressed since 2003.
Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, John T. Jost, (Stanford University), Jack Glaser, (University of California, Berkeley), Arie W. Kruglanski, (University of Maryland at College Park), Frank J. Sulloway, (University of California, Berkeley)
Precis: Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, Terror Management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r .50); system instability (.47); dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (–.32); uncertainty tolerance (–.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (–.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (–.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification
of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat.
And as you read the report, it goes on to say the highest correlating (predictive) indicator of 'conservative brain' is abnormal fear of death, unameliorated. As measured in self-responding psychological profile tests.
And where there's a psychological profile contortion, there's an anatomy blemish in the brain that brainscans can see ... not 'if,' only 'when.'
Either education needs can develop maturation in such brains, (synapse proliferation and density, usually fine-motor control repetitions promote this), or we can disenfranchise such voters.
by
meremark (1 articles, 3 quicklinks, 26 diaries, 506 comments)
on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 4:06:57 AM
Basic therapy for the disabilty is dogma-free education, engagement with others from different cultures, and limitating exposure to Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and Glenn Beck.
by
Kathlyn Stone (42 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 663 comments)
on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 7:33:49 AM
This is precisely the function of war, to terrorize ones own domestic population in accepting exploitation from the members of the dominant class.
Most all of the true terrorist acts in this world are from the leading members of our societies.
The intention is to get the injured victims to counter attack, and this is what is then called terrorism. A more apt term could be counter terrorism in that the States are the originators of the true terrorism.
Placing people in harms way brings them around to their predator leaders positions.
The reason that alternative technologies for energy have been blocked is because our enemy fiend leaders decided long ago to continue on with a human predator strategy.
They have placed humanity into a can of gasoline and have "Ben" throwing sparks with the intent to detonate the planet and kill us all.
The 'Powers that be' decided that to maintain their predator to prey relationship with their fellow humans, they would have to keep us all in a resource base struggle for survival.
The war on terror is merely another in a long line of frauds by our enemy fiend nuclear war fighting criminal elite.
Oh; by the way, our nuclear war fighting fiend enemy criminal elite decided a long time ago that to save us, they would have to kill us. Same strategy is still in play today.
Starvation, mistreatment and murder are the tools of our fiend elite. When they "Stress the organism," that is humanity, they can pick over the remains for what they want.
The overall strategy is to trigger violence, so that the predator class can have some fun, and, make a profit at the same time.
The thing that needs to be understood is that our nuclear war fighting criminal fiend elite are planning on sitting out the nuclear war that has been repeatedly attempted on us, underground.
We exist only due to the fact of an intervention into our world by some high level power. At the moment, "ET" is throwing a mutilated cow once again. In 1975 "ET" threw a mutilated cow, many of them for that matter, in the 23000 sq mile nuclear missile launch facility of Malmstrom nuclear terror genocidal war crime committing air base, in Montana.
At that time our nuclear war fighting criminal fiend elite, were trying to get a full scale nuclear holocaust underway.
It is basically all over folks. Our nuclear war criminals are on the ground with us now, though many have faked their deaths and fled.
We need to maybe take a look at the terror management theory and see if we can find something in it that explains why our nuclear war fighting criminal fiend elite are still trying to kill us all.
.
by
Patrick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 415 comments)
on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 11:58:36 PM
but it's a fact that the powerful have had the capability to destroy every person on earth for a few decades now.
Thanks for your comment and for driving home the point who the real terrorists are.
My friend Frieda wrote about "Nukes in Context" and how membership in the nuclear club is growing to include more countries. click here
While the US sinks lower in international rankings in education, environmental standards and quality, health care and life expectancy, press freedom, and other measureables, the USA is still Number 1 in something, and that's nuclear warheads.
Where the bombs are: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
click here In total, we estimate that the United States deploys and stores nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons at 18 facilities in 12 states and six European countries (see below). The Pentagon developed this extensive network of installations over the past six decades in order to ensure the survivability of its nuclear arsenal. Post-Cold War base closures and arms reductions led to the consolidation of weapons at the current facilities; the number of weapons and their locations will change as the Pentagon implements the June 2004 Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan and the "New Triad."
by
Kathlyn Stone (42 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 663 comments)
on Thursday, December 28, 2006 at 2:08:03 PM
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