Political orientation moderates worldview defense in response to Osama bin Laden's death

The current study examines Americans' psychological responses to Osama bin Laden's death. We tracked changes in how different participants responded to dissimilar others from the night of bin Laden's death for five weeks. Liberal participants reported lower worldview defense (i.e., a defensive reaction to uphold one's cultural worldview) immediately after bin Laden's death but then returned to similar levels as their conservative counterparts over time. Conservative participants reported greater worldview defense during each point of the study and did not significantly change over time. These temporal differences between liberals and conservatives were only present in the year of bin Laden's death and not one year prior before. The current findings demonstrate that liberals and conservatives may react differently after major societal events in predictable ways considering their moral foundations.