APPLETON, WIS. — Was it commonality of values or a non-conscious fear aroused by reminders of the events of September 11, 2001 that fueled George W. Bush’s re-election as president in 2004?
Sheldon Solomon, professor of psychology at Skidmore College, discusses the role subtle reminders of death may play in voting patterns in the Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium “Fatal Attraction: Fear of Death and Political Preference” Thursday, May 17 at 4:30 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. The event is free and open to the public.
While many pollsters, pundits and Republican Party officials felt Americans voted for Bush because he shared their moral and traditional values or were comfortable with Bush’s approach to the war on terror, Solomon argues in favor of John Kerry’s assertion that the terrorist attack on 9/11 was the “deciding” issue of the presidential election.
Solomon will present research demonstrating that reminders of death or the events of 9/11 increased Americans’ support for President Bush and his policies in Iraq. The research is based on the idea that reminders of death “increase the need for psychological security and the appeal for leaders who emphasize the greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil.”
He also will examine recent studies that document the psychological commonalities between conservative Americans and Islamic fundamentalists and discuss the implications these findings have for democratic political institutions.
Co-author of the 2002 book “In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror,” Solomon was one of three psychologists who developed the Terror Management Theory in the late 1980s, which held that people deal with death through two distinct modes of defense: direct and rational, which reduce an individual’s perception of his or her vulnerability to life-threatening conditions; or symbolic and cultural, which embed an individual as a valuable part of an eternal conception of reality that is bigger, stronger and more enduring than any single individual.
The Courtney and Steven Ross Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore, Solomon earned a bachelor’s degree from Franklin and Marshall College and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.
