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Scared To Death: Capital Punishment As Authoritarian Terror Management, Donald P. Judges

Donald P. Judges

American capital punishment poorly serves its stated goal of deterrence, retribution, and incapacitation. It is outrageously expensive, morally troubling, and widely repudiated. Why and how, then, does it flourish here? Drawing on a social psychological theory known as “terror management,” I argue there that it is best understood as a largely non-conscious, symbolic defense against the incipient terror provoked by awareness of death. According to terror management theory, when reminded of their own mortality, people deploy a mostly non-conscious defensive process that reduces anxiety by enhancing self-esteem through identification with and protection of cultural worldview. This defense manifests in hyperpunitiveness, …