Empathy and prejudice after attacks in Paris and Beirut
keywords:
terrorism / Construal Level Theory / terror management theory / fear / prejudice / over-generalization / categorization
Empathy and prejudice after attacks in Paris and Beirut
In this blog, I will try to explain why we showed more empathy for victims in Paris than in Beirut, and how feelings of fear after such a terrorist attack can lead to prejudice against out-groups, especially against Muslims. / more
Death and deities: A social cognitive perspective
keywords:
immortality / religion / terror management theory
Death and deities: A social cognitive perspective
The universality of religious belief—in supernatural agents: gods, ghosts, souls, spirits, and their ilk—is, no doubt, the product of a whole host of interacting causal factors. However, the notion that such beliefs are driven by fear of death recurs throughout intellectual history. Although recent social psychological research provides some support for this claim, the relationship between mortality-related concerns and religious belief becomes clearer in light of so-called “dual-process models”, which allow for both conscious and unconscious levels of cognition. Religion,... / more