magazine issue 9 2008 / Issue 8

Penetrating the Circle of Death: Why People are Dying (and Killing) Not to Die

• written by Daniel Sullivan & Jeff Greenberg
• edited by Tila Pronk

The effect of death reminders on the proclivity to strive after self-esteem or engage in worldview defense has been established in over 300 studies conducted in countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Israel, Iran, and China. In some of the earliest TMT experiments (Greenberg et al., 1990), American college students who were reminded of their own death subsequently demonstrated significantly more positive reactions toward the author of an essay praising the U.S., and more negative reactions toward the writer of a U.S.-critical essay (compared to control participants who, rather than receiving MS, contemplated a neutral topic). A similar process was observed when Christians for whom mortality had been made salient provided more positive evaluations of a Christian and more negative evaluations of a Jewish target (Greenberg et al., 1990). More recently, Jonas, Fritsche, and Greenberg(2005) found that although Germans interviewed in front of retail stores showed no pro-German bias, Germans interviewed at a cemetery greatly preferred German products and locations over foreign ones. These and many other studies have shown that MS leads people to cling to and defend important aspects of their cultural worldview and derogate those with alternative worldviews.

Unfortunately, MS effects have been shown to go beyond the realm of mere cognition into defensive behaviors that could prove dangerous for both the actor and those around him. For instance, one classic study showed that after contemplating death, Israeli soldiers who based their self-esteem partly believed their driving skills took more risks to show off on a driving simulator after contemplating death (Taubman, Florian, & Mikulincer, 1999). Another showed that for people who derive self-worth from a nice tan, MS leads to a preference for less cancer-protective sunscreen (Routledge, Arndt, & Goldenberg, 2004). Even more disturbingly, research has linked MS to actual aggressive behavior taken towards members of an outgroup (McGregor et al.,1998). Only after a death reminder did participants believing they were taking part in product testing research dole out greater quantities of painfully intense hot sauce to be consumed by a target, simply because they believed her to belong to a different political party from their own!

More recent studies have found that terror management plays a role in important political preferences. From a TMT perspective, politicians who confidently advocate the greatness of one’s own group should be most appealing in the wake of reminders of death. In research in the U.S. conducted prior to the 2004 Presidential Election, participants showed more approval of an essay supporting George W. Bush’s Iraq policy, and were more willing to vote for Bush than opposing candidate John Kerry (regardless of their political orientation), after being reminded of either their own death or the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 (Landau et al., 2004). These results suggest that an important reason why Bush eventually won the favor of the American public a second time was his campaign’s emphasis on protecting the nation from threats of terrorism that might prove deadly if not quelled. The Bush Administration likely initiated widespread worldview defense processes in the public – removing any hope of immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq – by constantly reminding Americans of 9/11 and their vulnerability through rhetorical emphasis on the deadly threat posed by terrorists and "Axis of Evil" states.

Broaching the subject of terrorism brings us to what is perhaps the most alarming – and potentially revealing – piece of TMT evidence yet uncovered. In a recent study (Pyszczynski, Abdollahi et al., 2006), Iranian college students who had thought about their own death subsequently showed greater favor for a fellow student’s advocacy of suicidal attacks against Americans, and even a tendency to consider such actions themselves. There is perhaps no purer example of terror management than sacrificing oneself for Allah to attain eternal life in heaven. In parallel fashion, American conservatives reminded of death were especially supportive of the use of extreme military violence, even nuclear weapons, to eradicate "evil-doers" in the Middle East.