Gender Group Differences in Coping with Chronic Terror: The Israeli Scene

Gender group differences in terror–stress, cognitive appraisals, ways of coping with terror, and stress reactions were explored in a sample of Israeli adults following prolonged exposure to political violence. Data were gathered at the height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada uprising (May/July 2002) from a sample of 707 adult participants (60% women and 40% men) residing in Haifa and northern Israel. Israeli women reported that they were more distressed by political violence than the men did, and they also appraised the crisis situation as more threatening and less manageable. Women reported using more problem-focused as well as emotion-focused coping than men did; both men and women used a mixture of coping strategies. Compared to men, women reported that they experienced more somatic symptoms and more frequent posttraumatic stress symptoms than men did. Negative affectivity was found to mediate gender differences in appraisals, coping, and outcomes. Overall, the nexus of relations among key variables was found to be highly similar for men and women. These data suggest that women may be more reactive to chronic political violence situations than men are. The data are discussed and explicated in the context of stress and coping theory and prior research on political violence and community disasters.     

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.     

Group Therapy with Terror-Injured Persons in Israel: Societal Impediments to Successful Working Through

This paper describes a group intervention with terror-injured people in Israel to show the parallels between developments in the group and Israeli society's difficulties in working through and mourning its experiences of terror. Despite the development of group cohesion and a sense of empowerment, the group members remained unable to deal with the powerful emotions stemming from the experience of terror and continued to cling to their shared identity as terror victims, irrevocably helpless and isolated from others. Without excluding other explanations, we suggest that these difficulties reflect the defense mechanisms employed by Israeli society in dealing with the threat to its survival that is implicit in the terror to which it is exposed.     

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.     

不确定感管理模型视角下的死亡凸显效应:争论与整合

死亡凸显效应(mortality salience effect)是恐惧管理理论(terror management theory,TMT)中一个最重要的假设,它认为与死亡有关的想法会加强个体的世界观防御。不确定感管理模型(uncertainty management model)对死亡凸显效应做出了新的解释,指出以往的研究忽视了个体的不确定感对防御行为的影响。将这种理论和TMT进行了整合与探讨,可以认为死亡凸显对个体具有双重影响,个体在思考自己的死亡后会启动双重防御体系。未来的研究,应该关注各种防御方式互相影响的关系等。     

Death Goes to the Polls: A Meta‐Analysis of Mortality Salience Effects on Political Attitudes

Terror management theory posits that people are motivated to affirm cultural meaning systems, including political ideologies, to avoid the awareness of mortality. Accordingly, studies show that increasing mortality salience (MS) intensifies people's attitudes toward political issues and figures. However, whereas in some studies MS increases affirmation of preexisting political ideologies, be they liberal or conservative (supporting a “worldview‐defense hypothesis”), in other studies MS elicits a general shift toward conservatism, regardless of preexisting ideology (supporting a “conservative‐shift hypothesis”). The current study used meta‐analysis to assess the overall magnitude of MS effects on explicitly political attitudes and to clarify the nature of these effects by comparing effect sizes for these competing hypotheses. The overall effect of MS on political attitudes was large (r = .50). The effects of MS‐induced worldview defense (r = .35) and conservative shifting (r = .22) were significant and statistically equivalent. We discuss the conditions (e.g., contextual salience of political values) under which conservative shifting or worldview defense occurs.     

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.     

Yet Another Revised DDE? A Note on David K. Chan's DDEd

David K. Chan wants to save the DDE from the considerable criticism levelled against it, by making the moral distinction it refers to rest on a difference in desire instead of in intention. I argue that the revised version, too, is counter-intuitive and confuses the blameworthiness of an actor with the wrongness of the act. It also invites abuse instead of preventing it. Besides, Chan's DDE omits three of the four criteria of the traditional DDE, and it is couched in terms of lesser objectionability, while the traditional DDE is couched in terms of permission. Therefore, Chan's DDE has so little in common with the traditional DDE that it should not even count as a revised version of it.     

Terror,Terror Everywhere? How Terrorism News Shape Support for Anti‐Muslim Policies as a Function of Perceived Threat Severity and Controllability

Terrorist attacks committed by the so‐called Islamic State are rising in Western countries. How the news media portray these attacks may crucially influence emotional responses and support for anti‐Muslim policies such as immigration bans. Based on the Extended parallel response model (EPRM, Witte, 1992), we theorize that specific features of terrorism news such as threat severity (e.g., high vs. low number of potential terrorist offenders) and threat controllability (e.g., nondiffuse, controllable threat vs. diffuse, uncontrollable threat) influence individuals’ emotional reactions and policy support. A quota‐based online experiment (N = 501) reveals that news articles featuring a high number of offenders increase individuals’ fear of terror irrespective of whether the threat is portrayed as controllable or not. News articles featuring a low number of offenders only evoke fear of terror if the threat is portrayed as diffuse. Additionally, news articles emphasizing a high number of offenders combined with a controllable terrorism threat elicit anger on the government. Both anger and fear of terror subsequently increase anti‐Muslim policy support.