Based on the terror management health model (TMHM), we examined the impact of terrorist attacks as reminders of death on implicit alcohol-related attitudes, including the moderating role of conscious death-related thoughts and alcohol-based self-esteem (ABS). With an online experiment (N = 487), we analyzed how thoughts and memories about a recent terrorist attack unconsciously (with a delay task) and consciously (without a delay task) affected implicit alcohol-related attitudes. We found that such thoughts increased the death-thought accessibility. While no main effect of the salience of the terrorist attack on alcohol-related attitudes existed, respondents with low ABS had more positive attitudes, when unconsciously thinking about the attack as compared to the control group. Respondents with high ABS in the delay task had lower alcohol-IAT scores. Overall, this study provides evidence that thoughts about terrorism that can be provoked through media affect alcohol-related attitudes. Such attitudes may cause negative health consequences through health-related decisions.
Keywords: alcohol; attitudes towards alcohol; death-thought accessibility; implicit association test; terror management health model; terror management theory.