Personality measures were predicted to be susceptible to response distortion above and beyond volitional strategies of impression management. A 2 (Instruction Set) x 2 (Personality Feedback) x 2 (Mortality Salience) factorial design addressed social desirability biases in responding to personality measures. There were significant changes in all measures due to volitional (Fake Good) strategies. Thoughts of death lead to decreased distortion, but only on the measures sensitive to social desirability bias. Mortality Salience interacted with personality feedback, such that test responses were distorted in the opposite direction of the feedback, supporting Optimal Distinctiveness Theory. A significant interaction between Mortality Salience and Instruction Set suggests further attention be given to unconscious distortion in personality scores and that Terror Management Theory incorporate further research on individual differences. / Master of Science

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Licenciado en artes con mención en teoría e historia del arte

Com o objetivo de identificar a diferença entre o uso da Internet por terroristas e o uso do ciberespaço com fins políticos para o terror, a pesquisa proposta se desenvolve em cinco capítulos, além da introdução e conclusão. O capítulo 2 busca elucidar como os mundos físico e virtual se entrelaçam, explicando a vulnerabilidade das Infraestruturas Críticas aos ataques cibernéticos que geram o medo sobre o ciberterrorismo. Seguindo, no capítulo 3 explica-se o debate sobre a percepção acadêmica acerca do uso do ciberespaço por terroristas e, no capítulo 4, uma amostra de países relevantes para o combate ao terrorismo é posta em comparação, a fim de se entender as percepções políticas acerca do uso terrorista do ciberespaço. Nesse sentido, o estudo em voga, hipotético-dedutivo com caráter qualitativo em meio às análises e comparações, validou a hipótese de que, embora pertencentes a paletas do mesmo escopo, o uso da Internet por terroristas e o ciberterrorismo possuem diferenças significativas, sendo elas elencadas dentro de quatro categorias analíticas: Utilidade do ciberespaço, Foco Operacional, Uso de violência e Objetivo Último. Por fim, essas diferenças foram postas na conclusão como propostas de tipologias para a definição do fenômeno do ciberterrorismo e do uso terrorista da Internet, partindo da conceituação de terrorismo proposta por Eugênio Diniz (2002). / In order to identify the difference between the use of the Internet by terrorists and the use of cyberspace for political purposes for terror, this research developes itself in five chapters, in which, in addition to the introduction and conclusion, in chapter 2, it seeks to elucidate how the physical and virtual worlds intertwine, explaining the vulnerability of Critical Infrastructures to cyberattacks that generate fear about cyberterrorism. Chapter 3 explains the debate about the academic perception of the use of cyberspace by terrorists and, chapter 4, a sample of countries that are relevant to the fight against terrorism is compared in order to understand the perceptions about the terrorist use of cyberspace. In this sense, the present hypothetical-deductive study with a qualitative character, in the midst of the analyzes and acquisitions validated the hypothesis that although belonging to palettes of the same scope, the use of the Internet by terrorists and cyberterrorism have significant differences, and they are listed within four analytical categories: Usefulness of cyberspace, Operational Focus, Use of violence and Last Objective. Finally, these differences were put in the conclusion as typology proposals for the definition of the phenomenon of cyberterrorism and the terrorist use of the Internet, rooted in the conceptualization of terrorism proposed by Eugênio Diniz (2002).

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of self-construal and religious fundamentalism on terror management processes. It was found that both interdependent self-construal and religious fundamentalist beliefs offer protection against death-related thoughts and worldview defense following mortality salience. The implications for terror management theory are discussed.

Nazi persecution was not uniform and could be negotiated by the groups being targeted based on a number of factors including the racial status of the group being persecuted, the willingness of the group members to cooperate with the regime, the services and skills the group had to offer and the willingness of the regime to allow cooperation. The experience of Freemasons under the Third Reich provides an example of the ability of targeted groups to negotiate Nazi persecution based on these factors. As members of the educated and professional class, Freemasons belonged to the demographic that most strongly supported Hitler from the late 1920s until war's outbreak in 1939. For Hitler, the skills these men possessed as doctors, lawyers, businessmen and bankers were essential to the success of the regime. So what would have otherwise been a mutually beneficial relationship eagerly sought after by both parties was prevented by the fact that the men were Freemasons and thus had ties to an organization whose ideology stood in complete contrast to that of National Socialism. However, because the identifier "Freemason" was not one based on biology or race, Freemasons had the ability to shed their identity as Freemasons by leaving the regime, an ability that they willingly and eagerly exercised. In return, the Nazi Party had to decide to what extent former Freemasons, whose professional skills and talent were so essential, could be allowed to work with the regime. Thus began the complex dance of compromise as each side tested the limits of what it could and couldn't do in order to cooperate with the other. For former Freemasons, the goal was trying to prove loyalty to the regime in the face of their previous lodge membership. For the regime the goal was finding a balance between ideological purity and practical necessity. Though the Nazis destroyed Freemasonry as an institution, the success of former Freemasons in aligning with the party as individuals shows the ability of Germans, even those in targeted groups, to escape persecution and even benefit from the regime that had previously targeted them.

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of self-construal and religious fundamentalism on terror management processes. It was found that both interdependent self-construal and religious fundamentalist beliefs offer protection against death-related thoughts and worldview defense following mortality salience. The implications for terror management theory are discussed.

Following World War II the novel faced a crisis in its mode of address. How could the human and humane function of language and artistic representation be lent to the depiction of historical terror or trauma? Who has the right to speak on behalf of – or to assume the voice of – victims of such real atrocity? And to what extent can a writer attend to another's pain without aestheticising extreme vulnerability, or losing the reader to indifference or repulsion? The difficulties confronted by the writer of fictional works when addressing such issues as war, rape, domestic abuse, colonisation, slavery, even genocide are not rooted in an inadequacy of syntax; rather they are borne out of the disjunction between the idealistic assumptions that linked language to a sense of humanity, intelligence and the pursuit of goals beneficial to society as a whole, and the extremity of recent acts of human atrocity as conducted not by the savage Other but by modern societies with which the reader would otherwise identify. Since the mid-twentieth century a number of writers have responded to these challenges by forgoing the traditional dialogic form of the novel and electing characters that cannot or will not speak in order to convey, through their speechlessness and – at times – their damaged physicality, the extent of the violence and oppression to which they have been subjected, and the difficulty of assimilating such violence into the stories by which communities, indeed whole nations, define themselves. The unexpectedly large cast of mute characters suggests that silence has a vital role in the literary portrayal of historical trauma. The prevalence of silence in contemporary fiction related to the Holocaust, for example, shows how this group of writers recognises the extent to which this event tested and continues to test literary exploration. Writers the world over continue to refuse to ignore these subjects – indeed, the broken images and fragmented forms common to many of the novels studied in the following pages can be seen as an apt response to the chaos of war and human aggression – but, as is evident from the number of contemporary works of fiction incorporating a mute character, silence has become an accepted and effective tool for the portrayal of historical events of terror or trauma that continue to challenge the ethical boundaries of the imagination.

Diss--Universität Mannheim.

Univ., Diss.--Freiburg (Breisgau), 1993.