"The current research represents a unique attempt to prospectively understand the reactions of people who were about to witness the collapse of their worldview," wrote the authors. "From a terror management perspective, worldviews are "standardized systems of death denial" (Becker, 1975, p. 154), and when worldviews come under threat, their proponents may feel that the road to eternal life has been obstructed. In this case, denial of the threat may be an effective way to shield oneself from existential terror. However, when denial ultimately fails, violence may be a preferred mode of coping because it constitutes a desperate attempt to salvage the disintegrating worldview."
Could understanding TMT deter human aggression?
Dr. Solomon suggested that individuals cling to worldviews because it gives them a sense of security and purpose. "Our position is that we're a unique form of life that builds constructs within our cultures that must be maintained and shared with others in our group. The constructs we build serve to deny death and give us comfort with our role in society. When alternative concepts of reality come along, they undermine our own. When there's panic rumbling beneath the surface, people take that anxiety and dump on someone else."
Social scientists like those who ascribe to TMT will continue to gather evidence that explains the causes of human aggression. At the same time TMT studies are undertaken by an ever expanding group of researchers, public and foreign policy leaders are being sought who will encourage education and understanding so as to mitigate the tendency toward aggression, rather than exploit it.
Recommended Reading:
Becker E, (1973) The Denial of Death. New York: The Free Press.
Cohen F, Ogilvie D, Solomon S, et al. American Roulette: The Effect of Reminders of Death on Support for George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election, Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2005.
Hirschberger G, Ein-Dor G, Defenders of a Lost Cause: Terror Management and Violent Resistance to the Disengagement Plan, PSPB, Vol. 32 No. 6, June 2006 761-769.
Pyszczynski T, Abdollahi A, Solomon S, et al, Mortality Salience, Martyrdom and Military Might: the Great Satan Versus the Axis of Evil, Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 Apr;32(4):525-37.
Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2002). In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror. American Psychological Association.
Willer R, The Effects of Government-Issued Terror Warnings on Presidential Approval Ratings, Current Research in Social Psychology (Vol 10, No. 1) 2004.
This article was first published in Neuropsychiatry Reviews, November 2006
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, 23 diaries, 483 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 (39 articles, 213 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 595 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, 391 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 (39 articles, 213 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 595 comments)
on Thursday, December 28, 2006 at 2:08:03 PM
