Fear of death=more votes for Bush

[Domitan]

My fiancee who is taking statistics learned of a recent study in the USA.

Two groups: one pro-Kerry/Dems and one pro-Bush.

Pretest (who they chose): obviously following their partylines

Intervention: subliminal messages about death

Posttest (who they chose): more crossovers towards the Rep side than the other way around.

Conclusion: Fear of death can do fucked things to people's minds.

[Domitan]

1. Found a link that supports this theory

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2004/pr041025.cfm

For their current research, the scientists asked students to think about their own death or a control topic and then read campaign statements of three hypothetical political candidates, each with a different leadership style: "charismatic" (i.e. those emphasizing greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil, as described above), task-oriented or relationship-oriented. Following a reminder of death, there was almost an 800 percent increase in votes for the charismatic leader, but no increase for the two other candidates.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Sex, Death and Charisma are linked

The Locus Caeruleus seems to be the culprit!

--bkl

[ElectroPrincess]

4. Yeah, this is some sick stuff, my God have mercy on America

for what we are about to unleash on the rest of the world, i.e., four more years of Bush and Cheney.

[Minimus]

3. but the fundies are looking forward to the rapture - they want death

so they can go be with jesus.

[Dukakis88]

5. The Ernest Becker Foundation is dedicated to spreading the word on this...

That is one of Becker's main theories, that fear of death is behind the worst human crimes.

http://faculty.washington.edu/nelgee/

Some of the Ernest Becker Foundation members (Thomas A. Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, and Jeff Greenberg) wrote a book called "In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror" on precisely this issue. It's available at Amazon.

[Domitan]

6. Thanks for the link

More grim reading for me!