Mortality salience can instigate real aggression against critics of one’s worldview.

Evidence

MS, Americans derogate American and foreign critics of the United States, Canadians derogate those who criticize Canada, and liberal and conservative Americans derogate those who criticize their political orientation. Furthermore, in three studies, McGregor et al. (1998) found that MS caused conservative and liberal Americans to allocate high levels of painfully spicy hot-sauce to another student who criticized conservatives and liberals, respectively. These latter findings show that MS can instigate actual aggression against those who explicitly threaten one’s beliefs, suggesting that terror management needs may play a role in the far more extreme acts of violence against outgroups that occur all too often out in the much less safe world outside the social psychology lab. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory, 43

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in TMT and intergroup conflict; the hot-sauce paradigm is a classic finding worth cross-referencing. — connects to: Mortality salience increases support for lethal violence against cultural enemies. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 67; Awareness of mortality drives people to defend cultural worldviews that give life meaning. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1488; Mortality awareness drives conflict between competing worldviews (+4 more)
• SHARE: The spicy-hot-sauce aggression measure is a specific, colorful experiment detail a social-psych colleague would appreciate.

Broader Connections

• Mortality salience increases support for lethal violence against cultural enemies. #expands (0.96) — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory, 67
• Mortality reminders make people endorse preemptive attacks on non-threatening countries #corroborates (0.87) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 538
• Awareness of mortality drives people to defend cultural worldviews that give life meaning. #expands (0.85) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1488
• Mortality awareness drives conflict between competing worldviews #expands (0.84)
• Death-awareness drives humans to cling to cultural worldviews and self-esteem #expands (0.83) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 476
• Fear of death drives conflict between competing worldviews #expands (0.82)
• Outgroup difference threatens the death-buffering worldview, driving defensive prejudice #expands (0.80) — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory, 29