Worldview defense
Reminders of death make people cling harder to their beliefs and their group.
What it means
Worldview defense is the tendency, central to terror management theory, to bolster and defend one's cultural worldview and self-esteem after being reminded of one's own mortality. The theory holds that humans manage the existential terror of knowing they will die by investing in a cultural worldview that confers meaning and the promise of literal or symbolic immortality, so when death is made salient people shore up that buffer. Empirically, mortality-salience reminders lead people to react more favorably toward those who validate their worldview and more harshly toward those who challenge it — increasing in-group favoritism, out-group hostility, punitive judgments, and adherence to cultural norms and leaders. The reaction is specific to threats to the meaning-providing worldview, not general negativity, and it can operate without conscious awareness of the death thoughts driving it. It matters for understanding prejudice, nationalism, political polarization, religious zeal, and consumer behavior, since subtle reminders of mortality can intensify defense of one's group and values.
Examples
People asked to reflect on their own death subsequently rate an essay praising their country more positively and one criticizing it more negatively than people in a control condition.
Judges asked first to reflect on their own death set much higher bail for a defendant accused of flouting community norms than judges given no such reminder — a classic courtroom demonstration.
After a mass-casualty attack fills the news for weeks, flags appear on porches, support for tough-talking leaders climbs, and patience with dissenters thins.
First described in Terror management theory; Greenberg, Pyszczynski & Solomon (1986).