Terror and Collateral Damage: Are they Permissible?*

This article begins by comparing terror and death and then focuses on whether killing combatants and noncombatants as a mere means to create terror, that is in turn a means to winning a war, is ever permissible. The role of intentions and alternative acts one might have done is examined in this regard. The second part of the article begins by criticizing a standard justification for causing collateral (side effect) deaths in war and offers an alternative justification that makes use of the idea of group liability. * This article is a shortened version of my “Failures of Just War Theory: Terror, Harm, and Justice,” Ethics 114 (July 2004), pp. 650–694, with the addition of new material on the use of terror in Section 2.     

Stereotypical thinking as a mediating factor in the association between exposure to terror and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among Israeli youth

Background and Objectives: The negative impact of exposure to terror on mental health, as well as on the perceptions of each side of the conflict toward the other, is well-documented. However, the association between stereotyping, concomitant with perceived threat, and anxiety, was rarely investigated. The current study examined information processing attributes and exposure to terror as predictors of PTSD symptoms among youth at inter-group conflict, with stereotypical thinking toward a threatening out-group as a possible mediator. Design: Cross-sectional, with exposure to terror, need for cognitive structure (NCS), efficacy at fulfilling the need for closure (EFNC) and self-esteem, predicting stereotypical thinking and PTSD symptoms. Method: Ninth graders (N?=?263) from two residential areas in Israel, varying in their degree of exposure to terror, responded to a self-report questionnaire tapping the above variables. Results: Stereotypical thinking was found to mediate the association between exposure to terror and PTSD symptoms, but not the association between the NCS and EFNC interaction and PTSD symptoms. Conclusions: The findings support terror management theory, so that a negative and rigid perception makes it difficult to construct coherent world-view, thus contributing to aggregation of existential anxiety and PTSD symptoms.     

Terrifying Thoughts,Terrible Materialism? Contemplations on a Terror Management Account of Materialism and Consumer Behavior

This article provides a commentary on Arndt, Solomon, Kasser, and Sheldon's (2004) article on terror management theory and materialism. We focus our response on the two key linkages in their article: (a) the link between death anxiety and materialism and (b) the link between materialism and well‐being. Based on our own research, as well as concepts and findings from other scholars across a broad domain of disciplines, we offer a set of ideas and questions in regard to both linkages. In addition, we point to the changing nature of materialism and the implications that these changes hold for consumer psychologists.     

In case of death,cling to the ingroup

An experiment investigated whether the enhanced importance of the ingroup as a consequence of the salience of death thoughts is a unconscious defense mechanism. Scottish participants were subliminally primed with either the word death or field. Subsequently, they were asked to classify a series of pictures as either English or Scottish, and to state whether a series of negative traits applied to the English or not. Results showed that participants primed with the word death were more likely to exclude targets that looked more like outgroup than ingroup members, than participants in the field (control) prime condition. The pattern observed on the categorization‐latency also supported the claim that death‐prime participants are more careful in classifying targets. Finally, death‐prime participants also conveyed more negative, stereotypical judgments of the English in a trait attribution task. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to terror management theory and social identification phenomena. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Terror in time: extending culturomics to address basic terror management mechanisms

Building on Google's efforts to scan millions of books, this article introduces methodology using a database of annual word frequencies of the 40,000 most frequently occurring words in the American literature between 1800 and 2009. The current paper uses this methodology to replicate and identify terror management processes in historical context. Variation in frequencies of word usage of constructs relevant to terror management theory (e.g. death, worldview, self-esteem, relationships) are investigated over a time period of 209 years. Study 1 corroborated previous TMT findings and demonstrated that word use of constructs related to death and of constructs related to patriotism and romantic relationships significantly co-vary over time. Study 2 showed that the use of the word “death” most strongly co-varies over time with the use of medical constructs, but also co-varies with the use of constructs related to violence, relationships, religion, positive sentiment, and negative sentiment. Study 3 found that a change in the use of death related words is associated with an increase in the use of fear related words, but not in anxiety related words. Results indicate that the described methodology generates valuable insights regarding terror management theory and provide new perspectives for theoretical advances.     

The worm at the core: A terror management perspective on the roots of psychological dysfunction

A growing body of research derived from terror management theory [e.g., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1991). A terror management theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology: vol. 24 (pp. 93–159). New York: Academic Press] suggests that the human struggle with the awareness of inevitable death can greatly impact people's physical and psychological well-being. The current article reviews converging lines of research that investigate the role of terror management processes in physical and mental health. Specifically, we present research that elucidates the role of death concerns in (1) conscious threat-focused defenses, (2) self-esteem striving, (3) depression, (4) anxiety disorders, (5) discomfort with the physicality of the body and (6) neuroticism. We conclude that terror management theory builds upon the work of other existential scholars and mental health perspectives to provide a broad conceptual and empirically based account of how deeply rooted existential fears manifest in ways that prove both psychologically and physically problematic. We also suggest how future research and social interventions can be employed to help individuals manage basic fears in ways that do not compromise their psychological and physical health.     

Do people need self-esteem? Comment on Pyszczynski et al. (2004)

In spite of impressive empirical evidence consistent with aspects of terror management theory (TMT) reviewed by T. Pyszczynski, J. Greenberg, S. Solomon, J. Arndt, and J. Schimel (2004), several fundamental assumptions of the theory remain untested or lack support. Specifically, Pyszczynski et al. (2004) have not demonstrated that (a) people need self-esteem, (b) pursuing self-esteem is an effective means for reducing anxiety, (c) pursuing self-esteem helps people achieve their important goals, (d) having or pursuing self-esteem is the only way to deal with anxiety to achieve important goals, or (e) death is the real issue driving the pursuit of self-esteem. The authors suggest there is a different paradigm for thinking about death, one in which awareness of one's mortality serves as a precious reminder of the limited time one has to accomplish one's most important goals. All of these questions can be addressed with empirical research.     

Terror management among Chinese: Worldview defence and intergroup bias in resource allocation

Management of terror of death and its subsequent reactions has been held to be universal. However, with only a few exceptions empirical efforts have so far been focused on people from North American and European countries. Would Eastern philosophical traditions render differential management of the terror of death? The present research aimed at testing the generality of terror management in Hong Kong Chinese samples. Across four studies, we found robust and consistent mortality salience effects, which attest to the generality of terror management. As in previous studies, compared to control participants, mortality salient participants displayed a stronger ingroup bias in person evaluation (Studies 1, 3). Additionally, we found a robust mortality salience effect on intergroup bias in resource allocation (Studies 2A, 2B, 3), which has not been examined in previous terror management research.     

Making Sense of Life: The Existential Self Trying to Deal with Personal Uncertainty

This article is about how people make sense of life and focuses on one core threat that may play a pivotal role in people's lives as existential meaning makers: personal uncertainty. Personal uncertainty is defined as the aversive feeling that you experience when you feel uncertain about yourself. Drawing on an uncertainty management perspective, it is hypothesized that cultural worldviews may provide a means to cope with personal uncertainty and that this may explain why under conditions of personal uncertainty people may respond especially positively to events that bolster their cultural norms and values and particularly negatively to persons and events that violate these norms and values. Findings are reviewed that support the uncertainty management model's predictions. Furthermore, the uncertainty management model may explain why terror management theory is not always about terror, but (at least partly) about personal uncertainty. Finally, conceptual implications, conflicting findings, and loose ends are noted, and testable hypotheses are formulated, which may further insight into the psychological processes pertaining to sense-making, worldview defense, and self-regulation.     

Death without God: religious struggle, death concerns, and depression in the terminally ill

ABSTRACT— Religious worldviews often provide comfort near the end of life, but they can cause distress if life circumstances are perceived as evidence of God's disfavor. This study, the first to test terror management theory (TMT) with terminally ill participants, examined the hypothesis that concerns about death mediate the relationship between religious struggle (and religious comfort) and depression in the terminally ill. Ninety-eight patients with end-stage congestive heart failure (CHF) completed measures of religious comfort, religious struggle, belief in an afterlife, concerns about death, and depression. In separate hierarchical linear regression models that controlled for degree of belief in an afterlife, death concerns fully mediated the relationships between religious struggle and depression and between religious comfort and depression. These findings suggest that religious struggle is a breakdown in the terror management system that leaves the individual vulnerable to the terror of death, and that properly functioning religious worldviews offer comfort by buffering the individual against death concerns.     

A time to tan: proximal and distal effects of mortality salience on sun exposure intentions

According to the dual defense model of terror management, proximal defenses are engaged to reduce the conscious impact of mortality salience, whereas thoughts of death outside of conscious awareness motivate distal defenses aimed at maintaining self-esteem. Two experiments examined these ideas by assessing women's intentions to engage in tanning-related behavior. In Study 1, when concerns about death (relative to dental pain) were in focal attention, participants increased intentions to protect themselves from dangerous sun exposure. In contrast, when thoughts about death were outside of focal attention, participants decreased interest in sun protection. In Study 2, participants primed to associate tanned skin with an attractive appearance responded to mortality concerns outside of focal attention with increased interest in tanning products and services. These findings are discussed in relation to the dual-defense model of terror management, societal determinants of self-esteem, and implications for health risk and promotion.     

Terror Management Theory: Implications for Understanding Prejudice,Stereotyping, Intergroup Conflict,and Political Attitudes

Terror management theory posits that to maintain psychological security despite the awareness of personal mortality, humans must maintain faith in cultural worldviews. These worldviews provide ways for humans to believe they are significant enduring beings in a world of meaning rather than mere animals fated only to obliteration upon death. We review basic support for terror management theory and research exploring the implications of terror management theory for understanding prejudice, stereotyping, intergroup conflict, and political attitudes. This research shows that when the psychological need to defend these worldviews is heightened by reminders of death (mortality salience), prejudice, stereotyping, and support for charismatic leaders and aggression against outgroups is increased. Terror management concerns also lead targets of prejudice to disidentify with their ingroup and confirm negative stereotypes of their group. We conclude by considering the implications of terror management theory and research for the alleviation of prejudice and intergroup conflict.     

From the grave to the cradle: evidence that mortality salience engenders a desire for offspring

On the basis of terror management theory, the authors hypothesized that reminders of mortality (mortality salience) should promote the desire for offspring to the extent that it does not conflict with other self-relevant worldviews that also serve to manage existential concerns. In 3 studies, men, but not women, desired more children after mortality salience compared with various control conditions. In support of the authors' hypothesis that women's desire for offspring was inhibited as a function of concerns about career success, Study 3 showed that career strivings moderated the effect of mortality salience on a desire for offspring for female participants only; furthermore, Study 4 revealed that when the compatibility of having children and a career was made salient, female participants responded to mortality salience with an increased number of desired children. Taken together, the findings suggest that a desire for offspring can function as a terror management defense mechanism.     

Windows into nothingness: terror management, meaninglessness, and negative reactions to modern art

Why do people dislike art that they find meaningless? According to terror management theory, maintaining a basic meaningful view of reality is a key prerequisite for managing concerns about mortality. Therefore, mortality salience should decrease liking for apparently meaningless art, particularly among those predisposed to unambiguous knowledge. Accordingly, mortality salience diminished affection for modern art in Study 1, and this effect was shown in Study 2 to be specific to individuals with a high personal need for structure (PNS). In Studies 3 and 4, mortality salient high-PNS participants disliked modern art unless it was imbued with meaning, either by means of a title or a personal frame of reference induction. Discussion focused on the roles of meaninglessness, PNS, and art in terror management.     

Terror management and adults' attachment to their parents: the safe haven remains

Six studies examined the role of young adults' parental attachment in terror management. Studies 1-3 revealed that activating thoughts of one's parent in response to mortality salience (MS) reduced death-thought accessibility and worldview defense and increased feelings of self-worth. Studies 4-5 demonstrated that MS led to greater ease of recalling positive maternal interactions and greater difficulty recalling negative interactions, and increased attraction to a stranger who was described as being similar to one's parent. If reliance on parents for terror management purposes reflects the operation of attachment mechanisms, then such effects should vary on the basis of an individual's attachment style. Study 6 demonstrated that, after MS, insecure individuals were more likely to rely on relationships with their parents, whereas secure individuals were more likely to rely on relationships with romantic partners.     

Avoidance Behavior Following Terror Event Exposure: Effects of Perceived Life Threat and Jewish Religious Coping

The current research was designed to examine associations of perceived life threat (PLT) and religious coping with the development of avoidance behavior following terror event exposure. Based upon the terror management theory (TMT), we hypothesized that religious coping, through its effect on religious beliefs as a meaning system, would moderate the impact of threat, as expressed in PLT, on an individual's reaction to terror event exposure, as manifested in avoidance behavior. Participants were 591 Israeli Jewish students who were vicariously or directly exposed to a terror event in the past. We report a significant interaction between PLT and negative religious coping. PLT was positively associated with avoidance behavior but this relationship was more profound among persons who reported high negative religious coping. Secular students reported higher rates of avoidance behavior and negative religious coping and were more likely than religious students to report intrapersonal religious conflict. Our findings suggest that terror event exposure is associated with an elevated sense of threat, which is, at least in part, associated with a weakening of prior religious beliefs.     

Religious Fundamentalism and Responses to Mortality Salience: A Quantitative Text Analysis

Investigating an issue of critical importance for the psychology of religion and for terror management theory, this study examines the relationship between religious fundamentalism and beliefs about death as articulated during a mortality salience (MS) manipulation. Participants wrote about the emotions and events surrounding their own death (MS), or a control topic, and linguistic content in the essays was related to levels of self-reported fundamentalism of the essay authors. Higher levels of fundamentalism were associated with responses to MS that were less cognitively complex, contained more positive emotion, and were more future and socially oriented. There was virtually no relationship between fundamentalism and linguistic properties of writings about a control topic. The discussion centers on the influence of fundamentalist belief systems on attitudes toward death and suggests how the current results might aid future study of religious belief and of terror management.     

The function of self-esteem in terror management theory and sociometer theory: comment on Pyszczynski et al. (2004)

By applying different standards of evidence to sociometer theory than to terror management theory (TMT), T. Pyszczynski, J. Greenberg, S. Solomon, J. Arndt, and J. Schimel's (2004) review offers an imbalanced appraisal of the theories' merits. Many of Pyszczynski et al.'s (2004) criticisms of sociometer theory apply equally to TMT. and others are based on misconstruals of the theory or misunderstandings regarding how people respond when rejected. Furthermore, much of their review is only indirectly relevant to TMT's position on the function of self-esteem, and the review fails to acknowledge logical and empirical challenges to TMT. A more balanced review suggests that each theory trumps the other in certain respects, both have difficulty explaining all of the evidence regarding self-esteem, and the propositions of each theory can be roughly translated into the concepts of the other. For these reasons, declaring a theoretical winner at this time is premature.     

Terror management in Japan

Do terror management effects generalize to non‐Western cultures? This question is significant because terror management theory offers an explanation of the origin of self‐esteem, whereas other research finds divergent self‐esteem motivations across cultures. The effects of mortality salience (MS) on the dual‐component anxiety buffer were investigated in Japan. A control group and a MS group were given an opportunity: (i) to defend their cultural worldview by derogating an anti‐Japan essay writer; and (ii) to boost their value within their cultures by indicating a greater desire for high‐status over low‐status products. Replicating past research with Western samples, Japanese in a MS condition were more critical of the anti‐Japan essay writer and they indicated a marginal tendency to prefer high‐ over low‐status products, compared with a control group. The theoretical implications are discussed.     

Self‐transcendence as a psychological parenthood motive: When mortality salience increases the desire for non‐biological children

Reminders of existential threat increase people's desire for offspring. In line with terror management theory, we explain these effects by the motivation to transcend the self via offspring that complements biological accounts of reproduction motivation under threat. Accordingly, Study 1 shows that mortality salience increases self‐transcendence motivation but not other parenthood motivations. Furthermore, mortality salience increased willingness to adopt children (Study 2) or a 14‐year‐old child (Study 3) only for those participants who were told that the personality of children is the product of nurture (and thus determined by their parent's self). In addition, mortality salience increased general willingness to adopt, irrespective of whether nurture or genetic influence was made salient in Study 3, where participants imagined being unable to have biological offspring. We discuss how these findings contribute to explaining increased reproduction intentions under existential threat and processes of terror management.