Disease, death, morality, and politics: Pathogen prevalence, terror management, and conservatism as motivated social cognition

We examined the effect of pathogen and mortality salience on moral values and political orientation, testing competing hypotheses derived from three relevant perspectives. While Terror Management Theory (TMT) predicts a delayed shift toward preexisting moral values and political orientation, Pathogen Prevalence Hypothesis (PPH) anticipates a shift toward binding moral foundations, and Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (PCMSC) posits a shift toward political Principlism. This was an experimental study with salience type (mortality, pathogen, control) and delay (immediate, delayed) as independent variables. The effect of pathogen salience on moral foundations and political orientation was consistent with TMT. Also, there was a delayed PPH-directed effect of pathogen salience on moral foundations, and a PCMSC-consistent effect of pathogen salience on political orientation. Findings are discussed in light of possible differences in the timeline of effects and provided insight to reconcile contradictory predictions of the three perspectives.