Abstract

Edward Snowden has made significant personal sacrifices by revealing the truth about secret surveillance activities by the National Security Agency. According to research on terror management theory, reminding people of their own death strengthens worldview-bolstering reactions, such as following cultural standards and supporting people who uphold those standards. Assuming Snowden’s disclosures were motivated by fighting for the truth and for the value of honesty, and further that cultural values become more important under mortality salience, we hypothesized that reminding people on their own death increases heroic perceptions of Snowden. As predicted, results of our study indicated that participants in the mortality salience condition reported stronger heroic perceptions compared to a control group. This effect was found to be independent of patriotism or political orientation.

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