Today I learned about terror management theory. This theory is very interesting, especially with the implications that social psychologists link to it. Terror management was developed by Ernest Becker in the 1970's in his book called Denial of Death. Basically, it is that we all fear death and have great anxiety over dieing. In order to manage this fear we engage in cultural worldviews that aim to protect us. We adopt cultural prescriptions that shield us from our fears. Such as cultural beliefs in God, religion, family, morality, and ethics.
Other theorists have argued that people will gravitate towards leaders with the same worldview of God and faith and with slogans that will symbolically deliver us from death...usually with dreams and hopes of prosperity. The theorists argue that the conservative movement exploits death with the war on terror and that they can protect us. So I thought if this was true that maybe a good campaign slogan for one of our many conservative candidate's could be Victory Over Death. I may have just been very tired in class today as I had been up since 5:45 but I thought it was funny. I mean why beat around the bush. Just declare it as such if that is the case. Well, except most people don't know that they are being manipulated by change and influence agents. So this might be way over the top. Nevertheless, I am going to pay close attention to this campaign cycle and see if it is true that the conservative candidates use the terror management theory.
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