ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the effects of mortality salience (MS) on trust in political figures and institutional trust as dependent on the induction mode. Terror management theory (TMT) traditionally inducts MS either by having participants explicitly write about their own deaths or through less explicit routes, and the chapter examines whether these two induction styles interact with delay length to influence MS effects on the aforementioned variables. Terror management theorists make the prediction that subconscious thoughts of death can elicit anxiety, which motivates individuals to endorse, or defend, their culture's worldviews and cultural values. The investigation of relationships between mortality salience and political attitudes represents a prevalent component in TMT literature. The Implicit MS (IMS) group appeared to have more consistent responses across delay periods than the explicit mortality-salience (EMS) group for presidential support and civic engagement. The dependent variable scales were presented in random order and included measures of presidential support, political interest, and civic engagement.
