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Journal ArticleDOI

American Roulette: The Effect of Reminders of Death on Support for George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election

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TLDR
In this paper, an experiment was conducted to assess the effect of a subtle reminder of death on voting intentions for the 2004 U.S. presidential election and found that a mortality salience induction would increase support for George W. Bush and decrease support for John Kerry.
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of a subtle reminder of death on voting intentions for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. On the basis of terror management theory and previous research, we hypothesized that a mortality salience induction would increase support for President George W. Bush and decrease support for Senator John Kerry. In late September 2004, following a mortality salience or control induction, registered voters were asked which candidate they intended to vote for. In accord with predictions, Senator John Kerry received substantially more votes than George Bush in the control condition, but Bush was favored over Kerry following a reminder of death, suggesting that President Bush's re-election may have been facilitated by nonconscious concerns about mortality in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions

TL;DR: The authors conducted four experiments in which subjects read mock news articles that included either a misleading claim from a politician, or misleading claim and a correction, and found that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group.
Journal ArticleDOI

Political ideology: Its structure, functions, and elective affinities

TL;DR: This review examines recent theory and research concerning the structure, contents, and functions of ideological belief systems and considers the consequences of ideology, especially with respect to attitudes, evaluations, and processes of system justification.
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The end of the end of ideology

TL;DR: Studies reveal that there are indeed meaningful political and psychological differences that covary with ideological self-placement and are useful for understanding the political divide between "red states" and "blue states".
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Two Decades of Terror Management Theory: A Meta-Analysis of Mortality Salience Research:

TL;DR: A meta-analysis was conducted on empirical trials investigating the mortality salience (MS) hypothesis of terror management theory, finding moderate effects on a range of worldview- and self-esteem-related dependent variables (DVs).
References
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Book

The Denial of Death

Ernest Becker
TL;DR: The Denial of Death as mentioned in this paper is an answer to the "why" of human existence, which sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.
Book

Escape from Freedom

Erich Fromm
Book ChapterDOI

The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory

TL;DR: A review of the research supporting the existence of a need for self-esteem can be found in this article, where a theory that accounts for this need and specifies the role it plays in a variety of phenomena including self-presentation is presented.
Journal ArticleDOI

The denial of death.

TL;DR: The phenomenon of death in Western culture has been described by historians, anthropologists, writers and poets: Death is the greatest evil and Anacreon is terrified by approaching death.
Journal ArticleDOI

Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview.

TL;DR: The authors found that mortality saliency led to positive reactions to someone who directly praised subjects' cultural worldviews and especially negative reactions to those who criticized them, but only among subjects high in authoritarianism.
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