There has been plenty of scary news in recent years, and even more so in recent days. Some of us try to look away, others can't get their eyes off the news about the various wars raging in the world—some further away from us than others, some more violent than others, and some taking up more of the headlines of newspapers and social media than others. But exposure to war news is not without psychological consequences, as findings on terror management theory show.

Terror management theory is about how we react to confronting the possibility of our mortality. And the main lesson of terror management theory is that confronting the possibility of our mortality makes us rely more on a meaning-giving worldview.

Here is an example. In a famous experiment, American subjects were primed (unconsciously) with death-related words. They were not aware of this, but they nonetheless showed increased preference for pro-US essays and decreased........

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