Mortality salience, political orientation and minimization of terrorists' secondary emotions

From the framework of Terror Management Theory, the objective of the present research is to analyze the effect of mortality salience (MS) on the minimization of Muslim terrorists’ secondary emotions (MSE, which can be understood as a particular kind of dehumanization), as a function of political orientation.

An experimental design was used, in which the participants (university students, N= 293) were randomly assigned to a control or experimental group, their political orientation was taken note of, and they were asked to attribute emotions to Muslim terrorists.

In accordance with the hypotheses, the results indicate that, among those supporting tenets of the political left, MS originates less minimization of secondary emotions of the terrorists (MSE). However, among people who stand on the right, MS inspires greater MSE (that is, a lower attribution of these emotions).

These results support the thesis that the effects of MS are not to be found exclusively in conservative people, and that they do not necessarily imply a conservative shift, but constitute a polarization in previous ideological tendencies or cultural worldview.