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Twenty years after 9/11, the impact of terrorism on social and political attitudes remains unclear. Several large-scale surveys suggest that terrorism has no discernible effects on direct, self-report measures of prejudice toward Arab-Muslims. However, direct measures may lack the sensitivity to detect subtle underlying attitudes that are considered socially unacceptable to openly express. To tap these subtle reactions, we assessed more sensitive and implicit measures of the cognitive-affective aspects of prejudice. Building on the justification-suppression model of prejudice, we hypothesized that terrorist attacks increase implicit bias toward Arab-Muslims, especially among individuals who are unable to regulate automatic hostile reactions due to personality or situational variables. Study 1, using data from Project Implicit ( N = 276,311), showed that terrorist attacks increased implicit bias but not expressed prejudice toward Arab-Muslims. Study 2, using data from Google Trends, showed that terrorist attacks increased anti-Islamic searches on the internet. Four studies that collected original data (total N = 851) showed that the effects of reminders of terrorism on anti-Islamic implicit bias are moderated by individual differences in prejudice and automaticity (Studies 3-4), by the strength of implicit Muslim-terrorist associations (Study 5), and by momentary self-control depletion (Study 6). Overall, the present research indicates that despite little evidence for elevated overt expression of prejudice against Arab-Muslims following terrorist attacks, terrorist attacks increase anti-Islamic implicit bias whenever individuals are unlikely to control automatic hostile reactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

In 8 studies, we examined the terror management function of self-sacrifice and the moderating role of attachment orientations. Studies 1-5 focused on readiness to self-sacrifice for a cause, whereas Studies 6-8 focused on self-sacrifice to save a relationship partner's life. In Studies 1-3 and 6, we examined whether mortality salience increases readiness to self-sacrifice. In Studies 4-5 and 7-8, we examined the defensive nature and anxiety-buffering role of self-sacrifice-that is, whether providing another terror management defense reduces the readiness to self-sacrifice following mortality salience and whether thoughts about self-sacrifice mitigate death-thought accessibility. Findings indicated that self-sacrifice for a cause served a terror management function mainly among attachment-anxious participants, whereas self-sacrifice for a relationship partner served this defensive function mainly among participants scoring low on avoidant attachment. Attachment-avoidant participants reacted to mortality salience with reluctance to self-sacrifice for another person. Discussion focuses on attachment orientation as a basis for using self-sacrifice as an existential defense. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

In this article, 4 studies test the hypothesis that reminders of personal death bias the normative attribution process and increase the motivation to blame severely injured, innocent victims. In Studies 1 and 2, primes of death led to greater attributions of blame to severely injured victims but did not significantly influence attributions of blame to either mildly injured victims or negatively portrayed others. In Study 3, primes of death led to greater attributions of blame to victims of circumstance but did not influence attributions of blame to victims who were explicitly responsible for their condition. In Study 4, innocent victims who were severely injured elicited more death-related cognitions than did victims who were responsible for their condition or who were only mildly injured. These findings indicate that the predictions of normative models of attribution may be moderated, and even overturned, when observers are reminded of their personal death such that defensive needs override rational inferential processes.

Three studies examined the terror management function of romantic commitment. In Study 1 (N = 94), making mortality salient led to higher reports of romantic commitment on the Dimensions of Commitment Inventory (J. M. Adams & W. H. Jones, 1997) than control conditions. In Study 2 (N = 60), the contextual salience of thoughts about romantic commitment reduced the effects of mortality salience on judgments of social transgressions. In Study 3 (N = 100), the induction of thoughts about problems in romantic relationships led to higher accessibility of death-related thoughts than did the induction of thoughts about either academic problems or a neutral theme. The findings expand terror management theory, emphasizing the anxiety-buffering function of close relationships.

Using an affective priming procedure (S. T. Murphy & R. B. Zajonc, 1993), 7 studies examined the effects of the contextual activation of representations of attachment security (secure base schema) on the evaluation of neutral stimuli under either neutral or stressful contexts. In all the studies, participants also reported on their attachment style. Results indicated that the subliminal priming of secure base representations led to more positive affective reactions to neutral stimuli than did the subliminal priming of neutral or no pictures under both neutral and stressful contexts. Although the subliminal priming of positively valued, attachment-unrelated representations heightened positive evaluations under neutral contexts, it failed to elicit positive affect under stressful contexts. The results also revealed interesting effects of attachment style. The discussion focuses on the affective component of the secure base schema.