Terrorism, Violence, and Hope for Peace ATerror Management Perspective

ABSTRACT—Terror management theory (TMT) is used to explore psychological forces that act to promote or dis-courage support for terrorism and violent counterterrorist policies. According to TMT, domination, humiliation, and perceived injustice threaten the self-esteem and cultural worldviews that protect people from death-related anxi-ety; the result may be hostility and violence directed against the threatening out-group as away of defusing this threat. We review research documenting the role of terror management processes in promoting and discouraging support for terrorism and violent counterterrorist policies and discuss the implications of this research. The studies we review suggest that the same psychological forces that promote support for terrorist violence also promote sup-port for aggressive counterterrorist policies and that thes