Real-life study on „Terror Management Theory“ in the war zone of Ukraine. Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences shows effects of war on mental health, somatic symptoms and well-being.
Krems (Austria), 29. November, 2023 – A theoretical concept of how people deal with the certainty of their mortality (Terror Management Theory TMT) has now been evaluated with data from an acute war zone. Hundreds of people from war zones in Ukraine provided personal data on their reactions to air alarms, explosions, power and water shortages and other war-related stress situations. The now published real-life data, which was analyzed at the Karl Landsteiner University for Health Sciences (KL Krems) in Austria, among others, confirms important aspects of TMT. However, it was also found that mitigating the effects of war experiences through a resilient personality or habituation was not as pronounced as theoretically assumed.
The awareness of their finiteness frightens people and determines many of their actions. The Terror Management Theory (TMT – in which „terror“ means the fear of one’s own death) is based on this fundamental assumption. It states that the awareness of one’s own mortality triggers anxiety and influences general well-being. Further assumptions are that personal traits (e.g. strong self-esteem) or circumstances (habituation) mitigate these psychological effects. Almost all studies evaluating TMT to date have been conducted experimentally by encouraging subjects to confront their mortality. Genuine real-life data was largely lacking. A team from the Department of Psychology and Psychodynamics at KL Krems, Division of Psychological Methodology has now changed this with colleagues from Salzburg (Austria) and Kiev (Ukraine) and published the results in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Scientific Surveys in a War Zone
In fact, a research team led by department head Prof. Stefan Stieger succeeded in recruiting 307 people in war-affected areas of Ukraine – in the midst of the war – to participate fully in the study. Over a period of four weeks, they completed a daily questionnaire on mental health, physical condition, mood and the war events of the day, which was provided via an app.
„After extensive statistical evaluations, the results then clearly showed that the war events had the strongest impact on the perception of anxiety,“ explains Prof. Stieger. „The impairment of well-being was also very pronounced. There was an increase in psychosomatic problems. These results are consistent with TMT.“ However, other aspects of TMT could not be confirmed on the basis of the data obtained, or at least not to the extent predicted.“
The Role of Personality and Habituation
TMT postulates that certain personality traits and habituation effects can help to buffer the effects of „terror“. According to TMT, resilience, the general ability to withstand adverse circumstances, would be expected to help people cope better with direct confrontation with their own mortality in a war zone. TMT also assumes that the ongoing threat to one’s own life is associated with a habituation effect that leads to a reduction in psychological stress.
Prof. Stieger comments: „However, the analysis of our data shows no such buffer effect for the resilience of individuals. We were also only able to demonstrate such an effect to a small extent for habituation.“ For Prof. Stieger’s team, this means that further real-life studies would be helpful in order to refine the TMT. But the team is not „only“ interested in TMT. „In the current study, we looked at the negative effects of war,“ explains Prof. Stieger, „but there are theories that also assume positive psychological effects from war experiences – albeit only in a post-war period.“ In fact, the Post Traumatic Growth theory (PTG) postulates that surviving traumatic war experiences has a positive influence on self-perception and awareness of one’s own abilities and leads to closer bonds with fellow human beings. „It would be scientifically valuable to put this theory to the test in a post-war society,“ says Prof. Stieger.
Overall, the Department of Psychology and Psychodynamics at KL Krems, together with the Department of Psychology at the University of Salzburg and the corresponding faculty at the National University of Kiev, has made an important contribution to an important psychological theory with this study on TMT. The study is proof of the importance of international cooperation in basic psychological research, as successfully pursued by Prof. Stieger and his team at KL Krems.
Original publication: https://kris.kl.ac.at/de/publications/examining-terror-management-theory-in-ukraine-impact-of-air-raid-
About Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences (2023)
At Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences (KL) in Krems, the comprehensive approach to health and disease is a fundamental objective for research and teaching. With its Europe-wide recognized bachelor-master system, KL is a flexible educational institution that is tailored to the needs of students, the requirements of the labor market as well as the scientific challenges. Currently KL hosts about 700 students in the fields of medicine and psychology. The three university hospitals in Krems, St. Poelten and Tulln as well as ion beam therapy and research centre MedAustron in Wiener Neustadt and the Psychosomatisches Zentrum Waldviertel in Eggenburg ensure clinical teaching and research at the highest quality level. In research, KL focuses on interdisciplinary fields with high relevance to health policy – including medical technology, molecular oncology, mental health and neuroscience, as well as water quality and related health aspects. KL was founded in 2013 and accredited by the Austrian Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation (AQ Austria). www.kl.ac.at/en
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