Terror Management

8/3/2019 Terror Management

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Tom PyszczynskiW hat Are W e So AfraidOf? A Terror ManagementTheory Perspective on thePoiitics of FearFEAR AN D AN XIETY ARE TWO OF THE MOST INTOLERABLE EM OTIONS WEh um an s are capable of experiencing. People will do almost an ything toavoid being afiraid. When, despite their best efforts, these feelings dobrea k thro ug h, people go to incredible length s to shut them down. Eversince Freud's seminal theorizing, psychologists have been fascinatedvd th the role tha t fear and anxiety play in bo th no rm al everyday behav-ior and serious ind ividual and social patholog ies. This article will focuson a theory, and the very large body of research that supports it, thatsuggests tha t fear and anxiety are inh ere nt aspects of the hu m an condi-tion. But althoug h all animals including h um ans experience fearwhen they are faced with clear and present dangers to their survival,only hu m an s exp erience anxiety, a more diffuse form of fear in wh ichit is not always obvious just what it is we are afraid of It is becomingincreasingly clear that this core anxiety inherent in the human condi-tion plays a role in just about everything w e do.

I am not suggesting th at anxiety is the only psychological processthat needs to be understood if we want to understand why people do


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aware of thro ug h simple introspec tion. Because the source of this anxi-ety is usually obscure, kep t hidd en from our aw areness, it is extrem elydifficult to control its effects. This lack of awareness of the source ofour fear and ou r resulting inability to introspectively observe th e way itaffects us m ake it an effective a force wi th w hich politicians, religiousleaders, and jus t about everyone else can man ipulate u s.TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORYAbout 20 years ago, I, along with my colleagues, Sheldon Solomon andJeff Greenberg, stumbled across a couple of books written by the latecultural anthropologist Ernest Becker: The Birth and Death of Meaning(1971), and th e Denial of Death (1973). At that tim e we h ad jus t finishedour doctorates in experimental social psychology and were becom-ing jaded w ith th e highly fragmented state of our field; it seemed tha tsocial psychologists were so wrap ped up in studying the microcompo-nents of very specific aspects of people's thoughts and behavior thatthey were m issing the forest because they were engrossed in the detailsof th e leaves on the trees. Becker's goal was to integrate and com binewhat he saw as the best and most enduring insights that had comeout of the human sciences and humanities over the yearsideas fromDarwin, Freud, Rank, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, G. H. Mead, and manyothe rs. Wh at fascinated us about these books was th at Becker had someideas about why some o fth e motives tha t we social psychologists too kfor granted existwhat they do for us, what functions they serve. Sowe took Becker's ideas and combined them with the ideas that hadbeen com ing out of exp erim en tal laboratories in social, cognitive, clini-cal, and developmental psychology and brought in a good measure ofthe newly emerging field of evolutionary psychology. We then cameup with what we referred to as Terror Management Theory (TMT) (seeGreenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon, 1986; Solomon, Greenberg, andPyszczynski, 1991; PyszczjTiski, Solomon, and Greenberg, 2003). The


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great lengths to get it?; 2) Why do people need to believe that, out ofall the different ways of conceiving reality, their conception is the onethat just happens to bear a one-to-one relation with the truth?; and 3)Why do people have such a hard time getting along with each other,especially those who are different from themselves?THE BASICS OF TMTTMT starts w ith a consideration of how h um an beings are bo th similarto, and different from, all other anim als. We start w ith the assum ptiontha t, like all other anim als, hum ans are bo m with a very basic evolvedproclivity to stay alive and tha t fear, and all the biological struc tures ofthe brain that produce it, evolved, at least initially, to keep the animalalive. This, of course, is highly adaptive, in that it facilitates survival, andan anim al th at does not stay alive very long has little chances of repro-ducing and passing on its genes. But as our species evolved, it developeda wide range of othe r adaptations tha t helped us survive and reprodu ce,the most im portan t being a set of highly sophisticated intellectual abili-ties tha t enable us to: a) th ink and com m unicate w ith S5mibols, wh ichof course is the basis for language, b) project ourselves in time andimagine a future including events that have never happened before,and c) refiect back on ourselves, and take ourselves as an object of ourown attention self-awareness. These are all very adaptive abilities tha tplay central roles in the system through which humans regulate theirbehaviorusually referred to as the self (cf. Carver and Scheier, 1998).These abilities made it possible for us to survive and prosper in a farwider range of environm ents th an any other anim al has ever done, andaccomplish all that we humans have done that no other species everhas been capable of doing. However, these unique intellectual abilitiesalso created a major problem: they made us aware that, although weare biologically program m ed to stay alive and avoid things th at w ouldcut our life short, the one absolute certainty in life is that we must die.


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tor, natu ral disaster, ano ther h ostile hu m an , and an incredible range ofdiseases and natural processes, ranging from heart attacks and cancerto AIDS. If we are "lucky" we realize th at our bodies will jus t we ar outand we will slowly fade away as we grad ually lose our mo st basic func-tions. Not a very pretty picture.

TMT posits tha t this clash of a core desire for life vd th awarenessof th e inevitability of dea th created the po tential for paralyzing terror.Although all animals experience fear in the face of clear and presentdangers to their survival, only humans know what it is that they areafraid of, and that ultimately there is no escape from this ghastly real-ity. We suspect that this potential for terror would have greatly inter-fered w ith ongo ing goal-directed behavior, and life itself, if it were leftunch ecked. It may even have mad e the intellectual abilities tha t m akeour species special unviab le in the long m n as evolu tionary adapta-tionsand there are those who think that the fear and anxiety thatresults from our sophisticated intelligence may still eventually lead tothe extinction of our species. So hum ank ind used their newly emergingintellectual abilities to man age th e po tential for terr or th at the se abili-ties produced by calling the u nde rstand ings of reality tha t were em erg-ing as a result of these abilities in to service as a way of con trolling the iranxieties. The potential for terror put a "press" on emerging explana-tions for reality, what we refer to as cultural worldviews, such that anybelief system tha t was to survive and be accepted by the masses neededto manage this potential for anxiety that was inherent in the recentlyevolved human condition.

Cultural worldviews manage existential terror by providing ameaningful, orderly, and comforting conception of the world thathelps us come to grips vnth th e pro blem of death. Cu ltural worldviewsprovide a meaningful explana tion of life and our place in the cosmos;a set of standards for what is valuable behavior, good and evil, thatgive us the potential of acquiring self-esteem, the sense that w e are valu-


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a literal or symbolic sense, literal immortality refer to those aspects ofthe cultural worldview that promise that death is not the end of exis-tence , tha t some part of us will live on, perh aps in an etherea l heaven,through re incarnation, a merge r of our consciousness vdth God and allothers, or the attainment of enlightenmentbeliefs in literal immor-tality are nearly universal, with the specifics varying widely fromculture to culture. Cultures also provide us vdth the hope of attainingsymbolic immortality, by being part of som ething larger, more significant,and m ore end uring th an ourselves, such as our families, nations, eth nicgroups, professions, and the like. Because these entities will continueto exist long after our deaths, we attain symbolic imm ortality by beingvalued parts of them.

Because the beliefs and values that make up our cultural world-views are abstract linguistic construc tions, and because the re are a virtu-ally infinite number of possible cultural worldviews, our faith in them,and thus their effectiveness in managing anxiety, depends heavily onconsensu al validationfromothe rs. Wh en others view the world or ourselvesin the same way tha t we do, it suggest tha t our view is right; the worldreally was created in seven days, and we really are virtuous and valuab lewhen we give money to charity; or as members of a Christian chu rch inKansas believe, one can increase one's chance of literal immortality bypicketing outside a murdered gay college student's ftineral vnth signsproclaiming that "God Hates Faggots." The point is that we need otherpeople to agree vnth our worldviews and self-concepts in order to main-tain faith in them . A long line of research in social psychology supportsthe im porta nt role played by such consensual validation (for examp le,Festinger, 1954; Swann, 1987). But again there is a rub; when we encoun-ter others who view the world or ourselves in ways that are differentfrom our own views, this threaten s ou r faith in these constructions andundermines their effectiveness as buffers against existential anxiety.As a result, we need to avoid such disagreements at all cost, and when


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people have put down those with different worldviews by viewingthem as ignorant savages, by converting them to their own worldviews(perhaps while incorporating some of the less threatening aspects ofaspects of the deviant worldviews into the ir own), and, if all else fails, bysimply ann ihilating those who have different beliefs about the n atu re ofreality. W hat better way to show tha t our God is be tter th an the ir God?If we simply extermina te those w ho are different, the threat th e deviantothers pose neatly evaporates.

To summarize, TMT posits that the juxtaposition of a desirefor life with awareness of the inevitability of death gives rise to thepotential for paralyzing terror, wh ich is managed by a dual-componentcultural anxiety buffer. This consists of a cultural worldview th at imposesorder, meaning, and permanence on existence, and self-esteem, whichenables us to view ourselves as importan t contributors to this m eaning-ful and eternal reality. The effectiveness of both cultural worldviewsand self-esteem depends heavily on consensual vahdation from o thers,and those with different beliefs, values, and perceptions underminethis effectiveness, thu s leaving us vulnerab le to the core anxiety tha t isinheren t in the h um an condition. Cultural worldviews and self-esteemare thus vitally im po rtan t for relatively anxiety-free living, and peoplego to incredible lengths to maintain and defend them, because of theprotection from existential anxiety tha t they provide.

EMPIRICAL SUPPORTTo date there have been more than 250 experiments that providesupport for various aspects of TMT. These have been conducted inover 13 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom,Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Israel, Iran, Japan, and in the Australianoutback w ith m ulticultural aborigines. In this article I will provide onlya very general overview of this evidence, and th en tur n to research thatbears d irectly on the political uses of fear. For a more tho rou gh review


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Most of the mo st im po rtan t evidence co ncerning TMT can besummarized as supporting the following four converging hypotheses:

1) Increasing self-esteem or fa ith in one 's CW V makes people less prone toanxiety, anxiety-related behavior , and less likely to have death-related thoughtscome close to c o n s d o u s n e s s . In one of our ea rliest studies (Greenberg et al.,1992), college students filled out large packets of personality invento-ries and the n cam e back to our labs a v eek or two later to take par t in astudy of "how people reac t to em otional stimulation." Upon arriving forthe session, they were given a com puterized personality profile suppos-edly derived from the surveys they filled out at the previous session.Actually, participants were randomly assigned to receive personalityfeedback th at was eith er highly favorable (suggesting tha t they showedgreat emotional maturity, superior interpersonal skills, and leadershippotential) o r neu tral (suggesting tha t they w ere qu ite typical in hav ingtheir emotional ups and downs, signs of interpersonal confiict, anda variety of other strengths and liabilities). As expected, participantswho received the positive feedback showed significantly higher scoreson a well-respected self-esteem inventory. They were then shown a 10-m inu te video clip consisting of scenes from a video th at depicted vari-ous gruesom e scenes of dea th or neu tral footage. W hereas participan tsin the ne utra l self-esteem cond ition showed significantly hig her repo rtsof anxiety when shown the death-related video than when shown theneutra l video, the anxiety of those in the increased self-esteem condi-tion was not affected by the frightening video. Later studies replicatedthis finding vdth different m anipu lations of self-esteem and thr ea t andphysiological measures of anxiety (for example, Greenberg et al., 1992,studies 2 and 3). These studies sho wed t ha t self-esteem can ind eedprovide a buffer against anxiety.

2) Rem inding people of the inevi tabil ity of death leads to a broad range ofattempts to maintain faith in their worldviews and self-esteem and defend themagainst threa ts . These studies test the mortality salience hypothesis: if


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should increase their need to keep their worldviews and self-esteemstrong. In the typical study, participants are reminded of death oranother aversive topic that is not related to death (dental pain, failingan exam, giving a speech in front of a large audience, being sociallyexcluded, being uncertain), and then exposed to people or ideas thateither support or challenge their cultural worldviews. For example, inth e first mortality salience study, Rosenblatt et al. (1989) had half of the irsample of municipal court judges in Tucson, Arizona, fill out a ques-tionnaire about death, and then all the judges read a case brief abouta woman accused of prostitution and then set bail for her. Whereascontrol judges who were not rem inded of their mo rtality set an averagebond of $50, those who were first reminded of their mortality set anaverage bond of $455. Later studies have shown th at such rem inders ofmo rtality can lead to increased prejudice, aggression toward tho se w ithdifferent worldviews, estimates of social consensus for one's attitudes,anxiety when treating culturally valued objects in disrespectful ways,help for those with in on e's group, identification w ith valued aspects ofself, affection for those w ho love us, and many other im portant psycho-logical co nsequence s (for more details, see Greenberg, Solomon, andPyszczynski, 1997). What all these effects of m ortality salience have incommon is tha t they e ntail behavior tha t affirms or bolsters one's self-esteem or faith in one 's worldview or behavior tha t diffuses any threa tsthat might be impinging on these two components of one's shieldagainst existential anxiety.3) Increasing people's self-esteem reduces or eliminates the effects ofmortality salience on their self-esteem striving and clinging to their culturalworldviews. This is essentially a com bination of the two previous hypoth-esis: increasing the s tren gth of one aspect of the anxiety-buffer reducesthe effect of reminders of death on clinging to another aspect of theanxiety-buffer. To test th is hyp othesis, Harmon-Jones et al. (1997) gaveparticipants either positive or neu tral feedback on a personality test to


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person who criticized the United States. Whereas neutral self-esteemparticipants showed the usual increase in negativity toward a personwho criticized their country, those whose self-esteem had just beenboosted were relatively im m une to the effects of death rem inder s. Afollow-up study showed that people with high levels of dispositionalself-esteem are similarly less affected by reminders of their mortality.Again, self-esteem defuses th e defensive effects th at occur w hen p eopleare reminded of their mortality, thus providing further evidence thatself-esteem is par t of th e system we use to protect ourselves from death-related fear.

4) Convincing evidence of the existence of some form of an afterlifereduces the effects of mo rtality salience on self-esteem striving and worldviewdefense. If the defensive reactions to thou ghts of dea th dem onstra ted inma ny previous TMT studies reflects an atte m pt to deny one's m ortal-ity, then convincing people that death is not really the end of life, asmany religious belief systems would tell us, should decrease the effectof reminders of mortality on the pursuit of self-esteem and faith inone's worldview. To convince a group of nonreligious college studentsthat death "really is not the end," we had them read a summary ofthe proceedings from a supposed scientifrc conference on the "NearDeath Experience," the widely publicized reports of various experi-ences that occur after one has been declared clinically dead that peoplesometimes report after being revived and surviving such experiences(Dechesne et al., 2003). For some participants, this summary containeda variety of argum ents concluding that the near d eath experience m ustmean that some aspect of ourselves continues to exist and experiencethoughts, images, and emotions after physical death; others read asum mary concluding that these ne ar death experiences most certainlyreflect biological artifacts t ha t accom pany the process of th e brain shut-ting dow n and thu s provide no reaso n to believe in an afterlife; controlparticipants read a neutral article unrelated to the near death experi-ence. Participants then filled ou t ques tionnaires th at rem inded th em of


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the validity of some extrem ely positive feedback they had jus t receivedabout their personality. As in previous studies, the death reminderled control participants to rate the positive personality feedback asespecially valid and perceptive, a good way of maximizing its posi-tive impact on self-esteem, and a sign of increased self-esteem strivingbro ug ht on by m ortality salience. Participants wh o read the a rticle th atconcluded tha t the near death experience w as simply a biological sideeffect of brain death showed the same pattern of increased self-esteemstriving in response to mortality salience. However, participants whoread the article claiming that the near death experience was compel-ling evidence of some form of afterlife were n ot affected by the m ortal-ity salience inductionthey did not increase their self-esteem strivingor other forms of defensiveness. These findings provide yet anotherline of evidence that self-esteem and cultural worldviews combine toprovide protection against death-related fears, and show that the hopeof literal imm ortality is particu larly effective in protecting us from thismo st basic of all hu m an fears.DISTINCT PROCESS FOR COPING W ITH CONSCIOUS AN DUNCONSCIOUS DEATH CONCERNSOne thing that has become very clear from our studies of the effectsof thin kin g about d eath is tha t the problem of dea th affects us in verydifferent ways, depending on whether we are consciously thinkingof it or whether it is on the fringes of consciousness^what cognitivepsychologists would refer to as highly accessible but outside of currentfocal attention (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, and Solomon, 1999). Theclinging to the worldview and pursuit of self-esteem that the studiesdescribed earlier document occur when thoughts of death are on thefringes of consciousnessshortly after being remind ed o fth e problemof death and after a distraction; or wh en d eath-related w ords or symbolsare presented subliminally, so tha t people are not aware of the m . W hat


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relation to the problem of death^what does being a good American haveto do w itb th e fact th at I am going to die someday? In a logical sense,absolutely nothing, but we are socialized early in life to use meaningand self-esteem as ways of pro tectin g ourselves from our fears and anxi-eties. On the other hand, w hen people are consciously thinking aboutdea th, th ey cope in very different ways tha t do have a logical con nectionto dea th. These defenses seem to make sense. We either distract ourselvesfrom the problem of death, by switching the topic or turning up theradio as we drive by an accident scene, or try to convince ourselves tha tdea th is a problem for the distan t future. We remind ourselves that ourgran dm other lived to be 99, tha t we do not sm oke, or we promise to getmo re exercise, start taking that medicine our doctor has been pu shing,or get on the latest fad diet. The point here is that because it is highlyaccessible but unconscious thoughts of death that promote clinging toour worldviews or self-esteem, it is difficult if no t impossible to observethis in ourselves. But the empirical evidence is really very clear now.So let us turn to a consideration of how th is core hum an fear of deathaffects us in ways th at politicians and oth er leaders can m anip ulate.DEATH AND NATIONALISMOne of our earliest and mo st widely replicated findings is that remindersof dea th increase nationalism and o the r forms of group identification,ma king people m ore accepting of those w ho are similar to themselvesand more hostile toward those who are different. For example, in avery early study we found that reminding people of death led them toreact more positively toward a person who praised America and morenegatively toward a person who criticized America (Greenberg et al.,1990). Similar pa ttern s have been found all over the w orld. W hen subtlyreminded of death, Germans sit closer to fellow Germans and fartheraway from Turks (Ochsman and Mathay, 1994) and , more recently, showan increased preference for the d eutsche m ark over the eu ro (Jonas and


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2000); Israelis are more accepting of fellow Israelis and rejecting ofRussian Jews who have immigrated to Israel (Florian and Mikulincer,1998); Italians view Italian identity as more "real," reflecting biggerdifferences between Italians and people from other countries (Castanoet al., 2002); and Scots are m ore discrim inating in judg ing pictures aseith er Scottish or English, viewing fewer faces of Eng lishmen as Scottish(Castano, Yzerbet, and Palladino, 2004). These findings all come fromhighly controlled laboratory experiments.

Recently a group of researchers from the Dutch Royal MilitaryAcademy collaborated with Mark Dechesne of the University ofGroningen to apply these ideas to understand some problems theywere having with multinational troops serving on a peace-keepingmission in Kabul, Afghanistan. The problem was that although Dutchand G erman troop s have been w orking well toge ther for over 10 yearson various joint missions, when they got to Kabul, positive relationsseemed to be breaking down and old national rivalries seemed to becom ing to the surface. The m em bers of the D utch group reasoned th atthe ongoing thre at of death th at th e soldiers faced in Kabul m ight lie atth e roo t of this conflict. In th eir view, althou gh the vast majority of citi-zens of Kabul appreciate their work in building hospital and schools,every now and then members of a small minority will throw a handgrenade at the soldiers or shoot at them. They found that the higherthe soldiers scored on a fear of death scale, the more negative theirattitudes toward wo rking w ith soldiers from other Eu ropean co untries.This is very exciting work, in that it shows us that the findings fromour labs studies do generalize to rea l life situation s whe re life is on th eline. This seems likely to be a major factor for th e soldiers from all thecou ntries deployed in Iraq, and we thin k TMT could shed some usefullight on their stress and ho w they cope with it.

THE AFTERMATH OF 9/11


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to ever occur on Am erican soil. In th e days and weeks after th e attack , itbecam e increasing clear th at TMTm ight have a lot to tell us, both aboutwhy Americans reacted th e way they did to the attacks and wh at migh tbe mo tivating those respon sible. We addressed the se issues in th e bookIn the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror (Pyszczynski , Solomon, andGreenberg , 2003). This section p rovides a brief overview of our analysisof the motivational forces that 9/11 set in motion among Americansand describes some recent research that supports the validity of thisanalysis.

The central thesis of ou r analysis is tha t th e 9/11 terror ist attacksalso were an attack on Americans' psychological equanimity. Thebombings themselves were a dramatic reminder of our vulnerabil-ity and mortality, and the repeated televised depictions of the planescrashing into the trade center towers, imagining what th e thousands ofvictims trapped inside the building must have experienced, the videofootage of people leaping from t he bu ilding to their deaths, the plum eof smoke and the horrified survivors, and the heart-wrenching testi-mony from the victims' loved ones all forced us to confront the realityof death and the fact that this could happen to any of us, at any tim e,almost anywhere. In addition, the attacks on the World Trade Center,a major symbol of American economic power, and on the Pentagon,a major symbol of American military might, and the aborted attackon the White, the seat of American government, struck to the heartof American culture and shattered the myth that such events simply"can't happen here." They also served us with a powerfiil reminderthat there are many people in the world who hate Americans and theAmerican way of life. That the perpetrators of the attack committedthese acts of violence as retribu tion for a m yriad of com plaints againstAm erican foreign pohcy and th e Am erican way of life, and tha t they didthis in the name of their god, made the threat to our cultural anxiety-buffer all the m ore devastating.


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ipants were subliminally presented with the letters WTC (for WorldTrade Center), the num bers 911, or a neutral string of three digits. Thesubliminal WTG and 911 primes led to a significant increase in theaccessibility of death-related tho ugh ts o n a wo rdstem com pletion task(Landau et al., 2004a). Another study demonstrated that self-esteemm odera ted h ow the attacks infiuenced the accessibility of death-relatedthou ghts in the m on th after the attack (Landau et al., 2004b). W hereashigh self-esteem individuals showed h igh levels of death th ou gh t acces-sibility in the week after the attack, this dropped and remained lowtwo, thre e, and four weeks after t he attack. Low self-esteem individuals,however, w ho would be expec ted to be less well-protected against exis-ten tial fear, showed hig h levels of death th ou gh t accessibility one w eekafter the attack that dropped the second week but then dramaticallyincreased both the third and fourth week after the attack. TMT positsthat a lack of self-esteem makes one vulnerable to existential fear, andalthough low self-esteem individuals seem ed to actively suppress death-related thou ghts shortly after th e attack, this suppression seems to havebeen lifted so th at very high levels of death access were observed for upto a month after the attack.

This dramatic reminder of our vulnerabili ty and mortali ty,coupled with the hateful attack on American culture, left us reeling.The parallels between what we have found in our laboratory studiesam ong people rem inded of dea th whose cultural anxiety buffer is threat-ened and what was observed on a mass scale throughout the UnitedStates and much of the world were startling. Very briefiy, Americansresponded w ith greatly heightened anxiety and efforts to protect them -selves (as found in studies of reac tions to conscious th ou gh ts of death).But more dramatically, Americans also behaved in ways refiective ofthe more sjnnbolic terror management defenses of clinging to one'sworldview and shoring up one's self-esteem.

Increased nationalism. Patriotic sentiment and support for the


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95 perc ent. Flags, t-shirts with patriotic slogans, and Am erican symbolsof all kinds virtually flew o ut of the stores. Patriotic songs were sung bymajor pop stars betw een innings of the w orld series, and massive reli-gious com m em orations, political rallies, and rock concerts were hastilyorganized to celebrate America. This of course is highly rem iniscent ofresearch showing that mortality salience (MS) increases nationalistictendencies.

Intolerance for dissent. Another commonly observed result was theanger and hostility with which tho se who questioned o ur g overnm ent'sresponse to the attacks were greeted. Bill Maher's firing from his popu-lar TV show. Politically Incorrect, for ma king a joke ab out the attack, wasone of several high-profile hostile reactions to those who disagreedvd th go vernm ent policy. The oft-parodied question, "W hy do you ha teAm erica?" was directed at m any wh o raised questions or were reservedin the ir displays of patrio tism . This of course is similar to the m any labstudies show ing that MS leads to especially hostile reactions to th osewho question one's beliefs.Hostility toward those who are different. Another unfortunate reactionto the attacks was violence and ha te crimes directed toward Arabs andothers with darker tha n average skin. InArizona, a Sikh Indian wearinga turban w as shot the day after the terrorist attacks, and throu gh ou t th ecountry acts of violence against Mexican-Am ericans, Native-Americans,and those of Middle Eastern descent increased, as did attacks onmosques and o ther symbols of Islamic culture. Thankfully this increasein anti-Arab violence was not as great as many predicted, but manypeople from th at part of the w orld felt the hostility and suspicion fromtheir fellow Americans and, to a somewhat lesser extent, continue todo so to this day.

Desire for vengeance. One of the most prominent reactions was adesire for vengeance. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of Americanssupport the idea that those responsible should be brought to justice.


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to the terrorist attacks bu t wh o represe nt an Islamic worldview that hascome to be closely associated with the attack, such as Saddam Husseinand the people of Iraq. Of course it should be pointed out that only asmall proportion of Muslims actively su pport terrorist violence.

Perhaps not surprisingly, our studies suggest that the desire forvengeance depends on one's level of identification with mainstreamAmerican culture. A series of studies exposed individuals who scoredhigh or low on a measure of estrangement from American culture torem inders of the te rrorist attack, a t5q)icalMS prim e, or ano the r aversivetopic. They were then asked to read two essays, one a rguing for a force-ful military response to the M iddle East in genera l, and one arguing fora more restrained response (Landau et al., 2004). Interestingly, thou ghtsof one 's ovm d eath led to increased desire for vengeance am ong thoseboth identified with and estranged from American culture. However,reminders of the terrorist attacks themselves led those highly identi-fied with American culture to favor harsher retaliation, but led thoseestranged from American culture to prefer an even more restrainedresponse. Apparently, whereas thoughts of one's own death activateda need to defend one's culture among all participants, thoughts of theattacks probably reminded culturally estranged individuals of theirpolitical views and led to a mo re controlled response, in line with the irown cultural worldviews.

A need for heroes. In the days after the attacks, Am ericans wen t togrea t lengths to show the ir appreciation and respect for police officers,firefighters, military personnel, and others who serve and protect us.This is similar to the finding that MS increases attraction toward thosewh o exemplify cultural values, act benevolently, or risk their own well-being to help others.

A desire to help. Another more hopeful set of responses to theattacks was a widespread desire to do whateve r could be done to h elp.Many stood in line for hours to give blood; sadly, th e d earth of survivors


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Penner (2003) and associates found that charitable contributions of alltypes, w he the r or not the cha rity was related to the bomb ings, increasedin the months immediately after the attacks, but gradually tapered offto normal levels by the end of the year. This is similar to studies thathave shown tha t rem inders of one's m ortality increase the tendency tohelp, especially those charities that benefit one's own group (Jonas etal., 2003). Interestingly, a recen t study in Iran showed th at MS increasedthe tendency of children to donate money to a beggar (Abdolhossan,2004). These and oth er findings provide our first evidence th at similarprocesses operate within t he Islamic world.

In sum, many dramatic parallels exist between how Americansreacted to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and what research has shown tohapp en w hen people are reminded of their m ortality and faced with athreat to their cultural worldview. Space limitations prevents a morethorough consideration of the role of the terror management processin reactions to the 9/11 tragedy.^TMT AND POLITICAL PREFERENCESMany studies have shovra that reminders of mortality increase one'stendency to like and support those who share one's political orienta-tion and to dislike and even act violently toward those with differentpolitical views. We recen tly con ducted a series of studies of the role ofterro r m anag em ent processes in the way people respond to politicians.In the first study (Cohen et al., in press), pa rticipan ts w ere ind uced tothink about their own death or another aversive control topic. Theywere th en given brief essays to read by three different political candi-dates and asked to evaluate each candidate and indicate who theywo uld vote for. The results revealed th at r em inde rs of dea th increasedsupport for the charismatic candidate but had no effect on support forcandidates with task-oriented leadership styles and decreased supportfor leaders vth r elationship -oriented leader ship styles. These findings


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involved in politics are aware of these findings I suspect th at w e willsee some dram atic re-enactm ents of these findings in the year to comeas we approach the next presidential election. It is probably no co-incidence that the Republican National Convention is scheduled toby held in New York City, and no d oub t bo th sides will ma ke copiousreferences to the threats from terrorists that face our nation over thecourse of the election.

A mo re recent pa ir of studies looked directly at the effect of exis-tential anxiety on attitudes toward President Bush's military policy inIraq. These studies (Landau et a l , 2004b) showed tha t rem inders of one 'sown mortality or of the 9/11 terrorist attacks led to increased supportfor President Bush. What is especially dramatic about this finding istha t, in th e co ntrol conditions, sup port for Bush's Iraq policy was belowthe midpoint of the scalein other words, the majority opposed thewar. However, after be ing rem inded of the ir ow n m ortality or the eventsof 9/11, support for Bush's Iraq policy increased above the midpoint,suggesting tha t the majority suppo rted his policies. This provides rath erclear evidence that ex istential concerns can have direct effect on politi-cal attitudes and preferences and suggests that these forces are influ-encing attitudes toward our president and his policies today. It seemsclear that fear and anxiety can and do play a major role in politics andare the re to be exploited to influence political outcom es.

FEAR VERSUS FR EEDO MIn an address to the nation shortly after the September 11 terroristattacks. President Bush characterized the current conflict as an epicba ttle of fear ve rsus freedom . This was particularly striking to us becausewe were jus t in the process of finishing a pape r arguing th at one of themajor effects of existential fear is that it interferes with our ability tochange, grow, and develop (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, and Goldenberg,2003). A long tradition of research, o n TMT and in o the r a reas, showstha t fear can interfere with learn ing, complex thinking , and change . Our


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structu re and order, and pushes them to accept quick and easy answersto problem s and forego carefully cons idering all options (Landau et al.,in press). For people to change and grow and engage in the kind ofopen-minded tho ught and problem-solving tha t is necessary for grow thto occur, anxiety m us t be controlled. The irony here is that people typi-cally control the ir anxiety by clinging to the ir old ways of thinkin g andprefer sim ple answ ers to difficult questio ns . Sadly, this so rt of defensiveclinging is antithetical to the kind of thinking necessary for growth,change, and improvement. So ultimately, people are caught betweenthe potential for growth and open-mindedness, but held back by thefears tha t lead them to cling to old, simple-minded answers that main-tain t he status quo. Fear truly is the enem y of freedom.NOTES1. For a more thorough discussion of this and an analysis of how TMT

might help us understand the roots of what inclines individuals toterrorist violence, see Pyszczynski, Greenberg, and Goldenberg(2003).

REFERENCESAbd olhossan, A. Effects ofMortality Salience in Helping Behavior. Unpubl i shed

m anu scr ipt . Zarand Azad Universi ty, Zarand-Kerman, I ran. 2004.Becker, E. The Birth and Death ofMeaning. New York: Basic Books, 19 71 .

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Ca stano , E., V. Yzerb)^, an d M . Palad ino. "Tran scen ding Oneself th ro u ghSocial Identification." Handbook ofExperimental Existential Psychology.Eds. J. Greenberg, S. L. Koole, and T. Pyszcz}Tiski. New York:Guilford, 2004.

C asta no , E., et al. "I Belong, Th erefo re, I Exist: In gro up Iden tificatio n,Ingroup Ent i ta t iv i ty , and Ingroup Bias ." Personality and Sodal


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Cohen, F., et al. "Fatal Attraction: The Effects of Mortality Salience onEvaluations of Charismatic, Task-Oriented, and Relationship-Oriented Leaders." Psychological Science. In press.

Dechesne, M., et al. "Terror Managem ent and Sports Fan Affiliation: TheEffects of Mortality Salience on Fan Identification and Optimism."Europeanjoumal ofSocial Psychology 30 (2000): 813-835 .. "Literal and S5mibolic Immortality: The Effect of Evidence of

Literal Immortality on Self-Esteem Striving in Response to MortalitySalience." Joumai ofPersonality and Social Psychology 84 (2003): 722-737.

Festinger, L. "A Theory of Social Comparison Processes." Human Relations7 (1954): 117-140.

Florian, V., and M. M ikulincer. "Terror Management in C hildhood: DoesDeath Conceptualization Moderate the Effects of Mortality Salienceon Acceptance of Similar and Different Others?" Personality andSodalPsychologyBuUetin 24 (1998): 1104-1112 .

Greenberg, J., T. Pyszczynski, and S. Solomon. "The Causes andConsequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror M anagementTheory." Public Self and Private Self Ed. R. F. Baumeister. New York:Springer-Verlag, 1986.

Greenberg, J., S. Solomon, andT. Pyszczynski. "Terror Management Theoryof Self-Esteem and Social Behavior: Empirical Assessments andConceptual Refinements." Ed. M.P. Zanna. Advances in ExperimentalSocial Psychology 29:9 (1997): 61-139.

Greenberg, J., et al. "Evidence for Terror M anagement II: The Effects ofMortality Salience on Reactions to Those W ho Threaten or Bolsterthe Cultural Worldview." Joumol ofPersonality and Social Psychology 58(1990): 308-318.. "Assessing the Terror Management Analysis of Self-Esteem:

Converging Evidence of an Anxiety-Buffering Function." Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 63 (1992): 913-922.

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Attitudes towards Societal Changes: The Influence of MortalitySalience on Germans' Reactions towards German Reunificationand the Euro." European Journal ofSodal Psychology. In press.

Jonas, E., et al. "The Scrooge Effect: Evidence that Mortality SalienceIncreases Prosocial Attitudes and Behavior." Personality and SodalPsychology Bulletin 28 (2003): 1342-1353.

Landau, M. J., et al. Deliver Us from Evil: The Effects of Mortality Salience anReminders of9ll 1 on Support or President GeorgeW.Bush. Subm itted fpub lication. University of Arizona, Tlicson, 2004a.. "The Nation and Me: Cultural Identifrcation and DefensiveReactions to 9-11." Unpublished manuscript. University of Arizona,

Ibcson. 2004b.. "A Function of Form: Terror Management and Structuring the

Social World." Joumol ofPersonality and Social Psychology. In press.Ochsman, R., and M. Mathay. Depreciating of and Distandngfrom Eoreigners:

Effects of Mortality Salience. Unpublished manusc ript. University ofMainz, Mainz, Germany. 1994.Penner, L. Charitable Giving Increases in Months after September 11, 1954Personal communication. February 2003. Ann Arbor, Mich.

Pyszczynski, T., J. Greenberg, and J. Goldenberg. "Freedom versus Fear:On the Defense, G rowth, and Expansion of the Self."Handbook ofSelfand Identity. Eds. M. R. Leary and J. P. Tangney New York: GuilfordPress, 2003.

Pyszczynski, T., J. Greenberg, and S. Solomon. "A Dual-Process Modelof Defense against Conscious and Unconscious Death-RelatedThoughts: An E xtension ofTerror Management Theory." Psycholo^calReview 106 (1999): 835-845.

Pyszcz5niski, T., S. Solomon, and J. Greenberg. In the Wake of9lll: ThePsychology of Terror. Washington, D.C: American PsychologicalAssociation, 2003.

Rosenblatt, A., et al. "Evidence for Terror Management Theory I: The


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Solomon, S., J. Greenberg, and T. Pyszczynski. "A Terror M anagementTheory of Social Behavior: The Psychological Functions of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews." Advances in Experimental SodalPsychology. Vol. 24. Ed. M. P. Zanna. 1991.

Swann, W. B. "Identity Negotiation: W here Two Roads Meet." foumal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 53 (1987): 103 8-105 1.


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