The effects of psychological security and insecurity on political attitudes and leadership preferences

@article{Gillath2009TheEO,
  title={The effects of psychological security and insecurity on political attitudes and leadership preferences},
  author={Omri Gillath and Joshua Hart},
  journal={European Journal of Social Psychology},
  year={2009},
  volume={40},
  pages={122-134}
}
  • O. GillathJ. Hart
  • Published 25 February 2009
  • Psychology
  • European Journal of Social Psychology
Recent research from different perspectives suggests that uncertainty, mortality salience (MS), and other fundamental threats that cause feelings of insecurity motivate people to adhere to specific kinds of anxiety-reducing political attitudes and values. In the current studies, we examined a complementary prediction that providing people with an alternative source of security would reduce their need to defend against insecurity, resulting in lower endorsement of the anxiety-reducing political… 
View via Publisher
42 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
3
Background Citations
17
Methods Citations
5
Results Citations
3

42 Citations

The Influence of Psychological Security Maintenance on Political Decision Making

    J. Hart
    Political Science
    Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
  • 2019
People are strongly motivated to maintain psychological security, or equanimity, which causes them to process and act on information in ways that are favorable to protecting against anxiety (i.e.,…

Romantic intimacy and terror management: Examining the mediating roles of felt security, relational self-esteem, and relational worldview defense

Terror management theory posits that close relationships assuage existential mortality concerns because they foster attachment-based felt security, enhance self-esteem, and validate shared cultural…

Understanding the Process of Radicalization: Review of the Empirical Literature

Abstract : Radicalization to violence is a clear and present threat to public safety and security in Canada. Radicalization is defined by the RCMP as the process by which individuals are introduced…

Attachment Security Priming: A Meta-Analysis

Attachment security priming has important theoretical and practical implications. We review security priming theory and research and the recent concerns raised regarding priming. We then report the…

Moving toward greater security: The effects of repeatedly priming attachment security and anxiety

The Political Psychology of Counterterrorism

In the past decade, legal scholars have developed an extensive corpus of doctrinal and normative work on national policy responses to terrorism. At the same time, political and social psychologists…

Shyness and self-disclosure among college students: the mediating role of psychological security and its gender difference

Self-disclosure, as an important and indispensable behavioral expression in social interaction, refers to the process in which individuals voluntarily expresses their behavior, thought, and feeling…

When autocratic leaders become an option--uncertainty and self-esteem predict implicit leadership preferences.

It is proposed that the conjunction of self-esteem level and stability is an important moderator in this regard and people with high and stableSelf-esteem should be confident of achieving self-determined amelioration of the situation and should show a stronger preference for democratic leadership under conditions of uncertainty.

The Role of Close Relationships in Terror Management: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

    Nicholas PlusninC. PeppingE. Kashima
    Psychology, Business
    Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc
  • 2018
A range of dispositional and situational moderating factors influence either the activation or inhibition of relational strivings to manage heightened death awareness, the most influential being attachment, gender, and relationship-contingent self-esteem.

Exploring Psychological Factors Influencing Deliberation

In contemporary societies there is a growing need to coordinate and legitimize different perspectives. Instead of a dialogical search for consensus polarizing communication still prevails. The…

37 References

Interpersonal Politics

The interaction of TMT processes and individual differences in attachment in shaping political preferences is discussed and a secure-relationship prime following a mortality-salience manipulation engendered a less violent approach to the problem of terrorism than did a neutral- Relationship prime.

Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview.

Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis, derived from terror management theory, that reminding people of their mortality increases attraction to those who consensually validate their…

Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews: Empirical Assessments and Conceptual Refinements

Attachment, caregiving, and altruism: boosting attachment security increases compassion and helping.

5 experiments were reported, replicated in 2 countries, testing the hypothesis that increases in security (accomplished through both implicit and explicit priming techniques) foster compassion and altruistic behavior, and the hypothesized effects were consistently obtained.

Attachment, self-esteem, worldviews, and terror management: evidence for a tripartite security system.

Four studies are presented that support the prediction derived from the model that threats to one component of the security system result in compensatory defensive activation of other components and that individual differences in attachment style moderate the defenses.

Psychological Needs and Values Underlying Left-Right Political Orientation: Cross-National Evidence from Eastern and Western Europe

According to previous research conducted mainly in the United States, psychological needs pertaining to the management of uncertainty and threat predict right-wing conservatism, operationally defined…

Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects.

Findings suggest that mortality salience effects are unique to thoughts of death and occur primarily when such thoughts are highly accessible but outside of consciousness.

Reliance on leaders and social institutions: An attachment perspective

Abstract The ramifications of attachment processes in adulthood at the societal level are explored, specifically, why and under what circumstances followers form attachment relationships with a…

The mask of zeal: Low implicit self-esteem, threat, and defensive extremism

Theorists have long proposed that vulnerable people turn to zeal in the face of perceived self-threats because doing so somehow masks the threats. The present study supports this idea, and suggests…

Deliver us from Evil: The Effects of Mortality Salience and Reminders of 9/11 on Support for President George W. Bush

Investigation of how thoughts about death and the 9/11 terrorist attacks influence Americans’ attitudes toward current U.S. President George W. Bush found that reminding people of their own mortality increased support for Bush and his counterterrorism policies.