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The current research examined the role of retributive justice and cost-benefit utility motivations in the process through which mortality salience increases support for violent responses to intergroup conflict. Specifically, previous research has shown that mortality salience often encourages political violence, especially when perceptions of retributive justice are activated. The current research examined whether mortality salience directly activates a justice mindset over a cost-benefit utility mindset, and whether this justice mindset is associated with support for political violence. In Study 1 (N = 209), mortality salience was manipulated among Israeli participants who then read about a Hamas attack on Israel with either no casualties or many casualties, after which justice and utility motivations for retribution were assessed. Study 2 (N = 112), examined whether the link between death primes and support for an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is mediated by justice or cost-benefit utility considerations. Results of both studies revealed that primes of death increased justice-related motivations, and these motives, rather than utility motives, were associated with support for violence. Findings suggest that existential concerns often fuel violent intergroup conflict because they increase desire for retributive justice, rather than increase belief that violence is an effective strategy. These findings expand our knowledge on the motivations for intergroup violence, and shed experimental light on real-life eruptions of violent conflict indicating that when existential concerns are salient, as they often are during violent conflict, the decision to engage in violence often disregards the utility of violence, and leads to the preference for violent solutions to political problems – even when these solutions make little practical sense.

Attachment research to date has focused mostly on individuals and dyads and has demonstrated the disadvantages of attachment insecurities. The present study focuses on the potential positive effects of team-level heterogeneity of attachment orientations on team functioning (suggested by social defense theory) and examines the role of team cohesion in facilitating these effects. Students enrolled in courses that included a team project ( N = 178 students comprising 52 teams) completed measures of attachment anxiety and avoidance, team cohesion, and team functioning. Their team performance evaluations were also assessed. Regression analyses revealed that when team cohesion was high, team heterogeneity in anxiety and avoidance scores was associated with better performance evaluations, and team heterogeneity in anxiety was also associated with better perceived functioning. Results highlight potential contributions of insecure team members to project teams' functioning, which were heretofore overlooked in the literature, and suggest benefits of teams with heterogeneity in attachment orientations.

Existential threat lies at the heart of intergroup conflict, but the literature on existential concerns lacks clear conceptualization and integration. To address this problem, we offer a new conceptualization and measurement of existential threat. We establish the reliability and validity of our measure, and to illustrate its utility, we examine whether different existential threats underlie the association between political ideology and support for specific political policies. Study 1 (N = 798) established the construct validity of the scale, and revealed four distinct existential threats: personal death (PD), physical collective annihilation (PA), symbolic collective annihilation (SA), and past victimization (PV). Study 2 (N = 424) confirmed the 4-factor structure, and the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale. Study 3 (N = 170) revealed that the association between a hawkish political ideology and support for hardline policies was mediated by PV, whereas the association between a dovish political ideology and conciliatory policies was mediated by concerns over collective symbolic annihilation. Study 4 (N = 503) conceptually replicated the pattern of findings found in Study 3, and showed that at times of conflict, PA concerns also mediate the relationship between hawkish ideologies and support for hardline policies. In both Studies 3 and 4, when controlling for other threats, PD did not play a significant role. These results underscore the need to consider the multidimensional nature of existential threat, especially in the context of political conflict.

A person's ability to form relationships and seek and attain social status affects their chances of survival. We study how anxious and avoidant-attachment styles and subsequent winning or losing affects the testosterone (T) levels of team members playing two status contests. The first is a management game played by teams striving to earn the most profits. Winners and losers emerge due to the cognitive endeavor of the players, which provokes intense status dynamics. Avoidant-attached winners do not show higher T levels whereas anxious-attached winners do. The second is an economic game which is rigged and favors some teams to become richer than others; teams have the option though to trade with each other and reduce the self-perpetuating rich-poor dynamics embedded in the game. Besides attachment styles, we here also explore how authentic pride as a self-conscious emotion affects team members' T levels as players trade with others to create more fairness. As in the first status contest, players' T levels are not significantly affected by their avoidant attachment style, neither as a main effect nor in interaction with winning or losing the game. However, similar to the first game, players' anxious attachment style affects their T levels: anxious-attached players generate significantly higher T levels when winning the game, but only when experiencing high authentic pride during the game. In short, the moderating effects of attachment style on winners' T levels are partly replicated in both status games which allows us to better understand the functioning of working models of attachment styles during and after status contests and gives us a better understanding of working models of attachment styles in general.

This research tested whether chronic or contextually activated Holocaust exposure is associated with more extreme political attitudes among Israeli Jews. Study 1 (N = 57), and Study 2 (N = 61) found that Holocaust primes increased support for aggressive policies against a current adversary and decreased support for political compromise via an amplified sense of identification with Zionist ideology. These effects, however, were obtained only under an exclusive but not an inclusive framing of the Holocaust. Study 3 (N = 152) replicated these findings in a field study conducted around Holocaust Remembrance Day and showed that the link between Holocaust exposure, ideological identification, and militancy also occurs in real‐life settings. Study 4 (N = 867) demonstrated in a nationally representative survey that Holocaust survivors and their descendants exhibited amplified existential threat responses to contemporary political violence, which were associated with militancy and opposition to peaceful compromises. Together, these studies illustrate the Holocaustization of Israeli political cognitions 70 years later.