Saving mortality with immorality A study exploring the justification of immoral characters in movies and series

Being aware of the unpredictable nature of life and the uncontrollable possibility for terror and death is difficult for humans to cope with. Terror Management Theory states that when people’s mortality is salient, they respond more intensively towards people who violate or uphold cultural values (Greenberg et al., 1997). This theory has been studied in relation to media many times, it has for example been shown that meaningful content is more enjoyed under mortality salience and that characters who uphold cultural values are better liked under these circumstances (Rieger & Hofer, 2017). However, media often portray characters that behave morally wrong, but are not necessarily perceived as the bad guy. Studies showed that generally, viewers are able to continue liking the immoral character by morally disengaging (Krakowiak & Tsay-Vogel, 2013). But how would viewers perceive such morally ambiguous characters when their mortality is salient and their cultural values are ought to be protected? This study used an 2x2 online survey experiment to analyze the extent to which mortality salience influences the justification of immoral characters. Participants were either shown a manipulating question, making mortality salient, or a control question. On top of that, participants’ either watched a clip from Game of Thrones containing an immoral character, who performed a justified immoral act, or a clip from the same series containing an unjustified immoral act from an immoral character. Following, participants answered question in a survey measuring their justification of the immoral characters. By the use of analysis of variance and hierarchical regressions, the study found that justified immoral behavior led to a higher justification of the immoral character. However, mortality salience was not shown to have an effect on the justification of immoral characters. Reason for this could be that moral disengagement restrains the effect from mortality salience in the justification of immoral characters (Krakowiak & Tsay-Vogel, 2013). Regression analyses found that the construction of justification of immoral characters does differ between mortality salience and control groups. Findings of this research also resonated with other studies in the fact that it was shown that justified behavior was better able to restore the anxiety buffer system activated by mortality salience than unjustified behavior.