Death penalty support correlates with a general threat-oriented mindset

Evidence

Regional variations in support of the death penalty reflect public attitudes on this matter, as measured by Gallup polls (Saad, 2013). Residents in the Midwest (66%) and South (68%) favor the death penalty at higher rates than those in the East (54%). Religious background does not make a difference, but more gun owners (80%) favor the death penalty than do non–gun owners (55%) (Saad, 2013). This relationship, along with the political correlates, suggests that advocacy of capital punishment may be part of a more general threat-oriented mind-set that tolerates lethal means of curbing perceived dangers. In sum, strong advocates for the death penalty are conservative, older, gun-owning White males living in the Midwest and South. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1843

Residents in the Midwest (66%) and South (68%) favor the death penalty at higher rates than those in the East (54%). Religious background does not make a difference, but more gun owners (80%) favor the death penalty than do non–gun owners (55%) (Saad, 2013). This relationship, along with the political correlates, suggests that advocacy of capital punishment may be part of a more general threat-oriented mind-set that tolerates lethal means of curbing perceived dangers. In sum, strong advocates for the death penalty are conservative, older, gun-owning White males living in the Midwest and South. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1843

Categorization

• XREF: Bandura frames capital punishment as an output of a threat-oriented punitive disposition — directly analogizable to Cooper’s and authoritarianism claims in the vault about how threat perception drives punitive/Islamophobic policy support. — connects to: Mortality salience increases support for lethal violence against cultural enemies. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 67
• SEED: Angle: moral disengagement operates through a pre-existing threat schema that legitimates lethal means across domains — guns, executions, harsh immigration enforcement as one package.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1843