Question

Bradley narrowly escapes a head-on collision while driving from home. once he arrives, he turns on the television and sees a political ad for the challenger in the local mayoral race, which focuses on how the challenger will change city policies if elected. according to research on terror management, how will he evaluate this ad?

Answer 1

Terror management theory refers to how humans will defend worldviews that help them cope with the possibility of death – even though it may be counterproductive for them to believe in them.

In Bradley’s case, because he narrowly managed to escape the car collision, he would be more against the political candidate who is advocating for change in the city policy, because Bradley believes that the status quo right now is good enough for him to survive – the change that might occur in the city policy may be perceived by him as threatening his safety due to possible degradation of current condition that he perceives might occur.