Citation

Abdollahi A, Henthorn C, Pyszczynski T. Behav. Sci. Terrorism Polit. Aggres. 2010; 2(1): 30.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/19434470903319466

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The present experiment examined the effects of mortality salience and social consensus on attitudes toward members of an out-group. One-hundred and fifty participants from two universities in Iran took part in a 2 (mortality salience or dental pain) times 3 (social consensus for, consensus against or no information) between-subjects design. Participants were primed with either death or pain, and then read that the majority of Iranians supported martyrdom attacks against the United States, the majority was against these types of attacks or no information was provided. Results indicated that mortality salience led to more support for violence martyrdom attacks in the no information and high social support for martyrdom conditions, but had no effect on support for such attacks when participants were led to believe that most of the people in their country opposed such tactics. Implications for terror management theory and peaceful solutions to intergroup conflict are discussed.