The Psychology of Martyrdom

Abstract

In recent decades, social scientists' interest for the topic of self-sacrifice has been accentuated by the growing incidence of suicide attacks around the world. The present set of twelve studies aimed to investigate the psychological underpinnings of the readiness to self-sacrifice by (1) creating a new tool to quantitatively assess individuals' propensity toward self-sacrifice (Studies 1-7), (2) investigating the motivational forces potentiating self-sacrifice (Studies 8-10), and (3) finding ways of redirecting these forces in a peaceful direction (Studies 11 and 12). Beyond creating a psychometrically sound measure of self-sacrifice, present research guided by the quest for significance theory (Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman, & Orehek, 2009) indicated that individuals' motivation to self-sacrifice is augmented when their sense of personal worth is lowered. In addition, results indicated that when the quest for personal significance is activated in conjunction with hostile ideologies, individuals are more likely to relinquish their physical and emotional well-being to harm others.