Promoting Violence: Terror Management Theory and Campus Safety Campaigns

A new wave of campus safety campaigns have been implemented on high school and college campuses across the nation since the Virginia Tech shootings. Some of these campaigns are trying to increase awareness that violence can happen anywhere by reducing optimistic bias in students and faculty. This study poses that these campaigns have the potential to increase mortality salience and anxiety in individuals who already feel like cultural outcasts, and that these individuals are more likely to act out because of these feelings. We argue that some safety campaigns have the potential to widen the gap between conflicting cultural worldviews by reducing optimistic bias, and thereby, increase the likelihood of a violent act. Violent acts on high school and college campuses have increased in the last decade. National statistics show at least 20% of public schools across the nation experience at least one violent crime on their campus (DeVoe et al., 2004). According to a National Crime Survey Report, teens between the ages of 12 to 17 are two times more likely to be victimized by a serious crime than adults and three times more likely to be assaulted. Research suggests 40% of all violent crimes take place on or around school grounds for children between the ages 12 to 19 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2000). Defining school related violence is difficult because many definitions are broad and not well operationalized (Johnson et al., 2002). Hernandez and Seem (2004) define school violence as any harmful act, which results in a negative impact on the internal school climate. The California Commission of Teacher Credentialing suggests school violence is both a “public health and safety condition . . . including physical and nonphysical harm which causes damage, pain, injury or fear” (Johnson et al., 2002, p. 5). Some of the most extreme violent acts like the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings have raised awareness of the threat of violence academic settings face. These violent acts have also raised awareness of school safety issues, and in most cases, encouraged much needed changes in policy and warning systems. In addition, public awareness and safety campaigns have been developed and implemented on high school and college campuses across the nation. A goal these campaigns is to reduce the common perception that shootings only happen at other schools. Optimistic bias is the notion that “bad things happen to other people, but not to me” (Chapin & Coleman, 2006, p. 381). Chapin and Coleman (2006) found that most students believe they are “less likely than others to become victims” of school violence and that the chance of violence occurring at their school is “less likely than other schools around the country” (p. 384). While the awareness campaigns no doubt are trying to increase safety in schools, the outcome of these campaigns can actually have the opposite effect. This study places rampage school shootings in the context of terrorism and critically examines the promotion of school safety through the lens of terror management theory. School safety campaigns are analyzed to expose the potential for these campaigns to decrease safety as cultural outcasts are further ostracized by the defense of cultural worldviews and self-esteem needed to decrease mortality salience. School violence and terrorism are reviewed, terror management theory is explained, and campaigns aimed at reducing optimistic bias are analyzed to make recommendations for future research and campus safety campaigns.