Deliver Us from Evil: Terror Management and Support for President George W

According to terror management theory (Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, 1997), one factor that increases the tendency to support leaders is the need to quell mortality concerns. The present research applied this analysis to investigate how thoughts about death and the 9/11 terrorist attacks (a death prime) influence attitudes toward the current president of the United States, George W. Bush. Results indicated that mortality-salient (MS) participants were more supportive of Bush and reported being more likely to vote for him in the upcoming election, although MS had the opposite effect on ratings of Presidential candidate John Kerry. Discussion focused on the role of terror management processes in allegiance to leaders and political decision-making.