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This paper aims to discuss the dilemma of terrorism as a political phenomenon that many political scientists care about; however, they find themselves incapable of explaining some of its aspects and they resort to other disciplines. The second part of the dilemma is related to the incapability of well-established disciplines to provide political scientists with much help. This raises the following question: Will political scientists be able to enhance their knowledge of terrorism with the help of scholars from consolidated and well-established disciplines or with the help of scholars from interdisciplinary fields?

This research depends on the main theories of psychology and of social psychology and adopts a comparative approach to assess the effectiveness of both disciplines in providing political scientists with the knowledge they lack.

In spite of being a well-established and consolidated discipline, psychology is not the perfect discipline that can help political scientists know who a terrorist is. Social psychological theories of aggression provide political scientists with greater ability to understand what psychological and sociological factors motivate a person to turn to aggression and terrorism. Moreover, social psychology developed the “terror management theory” which clarifies various aspects of the phenomenon.

This research paper calls the attention of scholars of terrorism to the importance of adopting an interdisciplinary approach to understand the various aspects of a complex phenomenon such as terrorism. The interdisciplinary field adopted will differ according to the research question that a researcher needs to answer.

Amidst the exponential spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to explore the evolving dynamics underlying consumers' narratives about luxury-brands over social media. While visualizing these Online Luxury-Brand Self-Narratives (OLBSNs) as a decision-making situation, the authors question the “rational-being” assumption of the Net Valence Model (NVM) during a pandemic situation. Specifically, the authors draw upon Terror Management Theory (TMT) to explicate the role of pandemic-induced mortality salience in rendering the idealistic assumptions of NVM unattainable. The authors uncover evidence of risk-taking behavior among luxury consumers while using OLBSNs as a potential meaning-providing structure during the pandemic.

This study employed a cross-sectional survey method. The authors conducted a structured Qualtrics survey to collect data from 588 respondents. The authors examined the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modeling.

In contrast to the conventional wisdom of NVM, the results suggest a positive influence of not only perceived benefits but also perceived risks on intention to engage in OLBSN and brand advocacy during the ongoing pandemic.

This study explains the emerging dynamics of pandemic-induced mortality salience in OLBSN decision-making and has implications for luxury-brand marketers in designing brand communication strategies over social media.

This study makes an original endeavor to extend NVM beyond rational decision-making context by integrating the theoretical tenets of TMT within NVM while also delineating the decision-making mechanism of OLBSNs during the pandemic.

The proper identification of consumers' risk perception, fear and panic behaviour can help managers to limit consumers' irresponsible behaviour, develop safer shopping experiences and attract consumers to physical stores. Indeed, the risk of contagion might result in shopping anxiety and limit consumers' propensity to visit the physical stores. This chapter aims at supporting retailers by providing a deep understanding of how the uncertainty and risk perceptions coming from emergency awareness impacts consumers' behaviour. Attention is solicited towards new retail strategies and practices to mitigate these consequences.

This study aims to contribute to the healthy eating literature by analyzing whether fear of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), ability to prepare food and the safety-seeking are antecedents of the intention to consume healthy foods during COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors conducted two studies. The first study was done with a sample of 546 valid respondents. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data. The second study was qualitative, in which 40 subjects took part. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

The main findings reveal that ability to prepare food and the safety-seeking are strong antecedents of the intention to consume healthy foods. In addition, safety-seeking mediates the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and intention to consume healthy eating. However, high levels of fear did not influence the ability to prepare food and intention to consume healthy foods. Also, the ability to prepare food does not mediate the relation between fear of COVID-19 and intention to consume healthy food.

This study is among the first to consider terror management propositions to analyze the intention to consume healthy foods during COVID-19 pandemic. From a scientific point of view, it has several contributions to the literature. First, this study provides advances and innovation in the field by identifying new explanatory relations. Second, this study extends the scope of terror management health model (TMHM) by analyzing it in the pandemic context. Third, the findings seem to provide empirical support for recent criticism of TMHM assumptions. Moreover, practical implications are outlined to public health decision-makers and healthy food businesses on increasing consumers’ intention to healthy eating.

Long sales periods (i.e. Christmas time, Black Friday, etc.) and the risk of contagion while shopping (i.e. during pandemics like COVID-19) showed the extent to which crowded shopping environments have negative effects on consumers’ behavior. Hence, using terror management theory (TMT) and stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) approach, the authors aims to develop a new model to investigate the effect of crowd-checking technology on shopping anxiety, the perceived value of shopping experience and willingness to pay.

Using a cross-sectional research design and with a help of an independent research company, the authors collected 1,000 valid responses from individuals residing in the UK.

Results showed that crowd-checking technology cues reduce shopping anxiety, improve value perceptions and increase willingness to pay. In addition, the efficacy of technology in reducing shopping anxiety is moderated by customers’ shopping orientation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first one investigating crowd monitoring systems used at the initial stage of consumers’ journey to show the number of consumers in-store in real-time. It contributes to the literature on technology applications in retailing by providing evidence that technology cues reduce shopping anxiety, which in turn enhances customer-perceived value from the shopping experience and increases the willingness to pay in stores with embedded crowd-checker technology. The study also extends the application of TMT in a new context.

Los largos periodos de rebajas (ej. Navidades, Black Friday, etc.) y el riesgo de contagio durante las compras (ej. durante pandemias como la COVID-19) mostraron hasta qué punto los entornos de compras abarrotados tienen efectos negativos en el comportamiento de los consumidores. Utilizando la Teoría de la Gestión del Terror (TMT) y el enfoque Estímulo-Organismo-Respuesta (S-O-R), desarrollamos un nuevo modelo para investigar el efecto de la tecnología de control de multitudes sobre la ansiedad en las compras, el valor percibido de la experiencia de compra y la disposición a pagar.

Utilizando un diseño de investigación transversal y con la ayuda de una empresa de investigación independiente, recogimos 1.000 respuestas válidas de personas residentes en el Reino Unido.

Los resultados mostraron que las señales de la tecnología de comprobación de multitudes reducen la ansiedad en las compras, mejoran la percepción del valor y aumentan la disposición a pagar. Además, la eficacia de la tecnología en la reducción de la ansiedad de compra está moderada por la orientación de compra de los clientes.

Esta investigación es la primera que estudia los sistemas de seguimiento de multitudes utilizados en la fase inicial del viaje de los consumidores para mostrar el número de consumidores en la tienda en tiempo real. Contribuye a la literatura sobre aplicaciones tecnológicas en el comercio minorista aportando pruebas de que las señales tecnológicas reducen la ansiedad de compra, lo que a su vez mejora el valor percibido por el cliente de la experiencia de compra y aumenta la disposición a pagar en tiendas con tecnología de control de multitudes integrada. El estudio también amplía la aplicación de la Teoría de la Gestión del Terror en un nuevo contexto.

漫长的销售期（即圣诞节时间、黑色星期五等）和购物时的传染风险（即在COVID-19等大流行病期间）显示了拥挤的购物环境对消费者行为的负面影响程度。 因此, 利用恐怖管理理论（TMT）和刺激-组织-反应（S-O-R）方法, 我们建立了一个新的模型来研究人群检查技术对购物焦虑、购物体验的感知价值和支付意愿的影响。

在一家独立研究公司的帮助下, 我们采用横断面研究设计, 从居住在英国的个人中收集了1000份有效的答复。

结果显示, 人群检查技术提示减少了购物焦虑, 改善了价值认知, 并提高了支付意愿。此外, 技术在减少购物焦虑方面的功效受到顾客购物取向的调节。

这项研究是第一个调查在消费者旅程的初始阶段使用的人群监测系统, 以实时显示店内消费者的数量。它为零售业技术应用的文献做出了贡献, 提供了技术线索减少购物焦虑的证据, 这反过来又提高了顾客从购物体验中感知到的价值, 并增加了在有嵌入式人群检查器技术的商店中的支付意愿。该研究还扩展了恐怖管理理论在新环境中的应用。

This study aims to investigate the impacts of pandemic-related media coverage on younger hospitality and tourism employees’ ageist attitudes toward older people by applying the media priming theory and the terror management theory.

This study takes a mixed-method approach through an online survey. A total of 416 usable responses are collected from current US hospitality and tourism employees under 55 years. Qualitative data were analyzed using word cloud. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is then used to test the hypothesized model.

The study’s results show that younger employees' cognitive reaction negatively affects aging anxiety and intergenerational tension, which subsequently influence their willingness to work with older people. Negative media-induced emotions are positively associated with aging anxiety, whereas positive emotions exert no significant impact. Intergenerational contact frequency moderates the effect of intergenerational tension on younger employees’ willingness to work with older people.

This study’s findings contribute to the hospitality and tourism workforce literature by considering the priming effects of media coverage on younger employees’ attitudes toward self-aging and the older group. This study also offers managerial insights on developing effective age-inclusion interventions to reduce workplace ageism in the post-pandemic era.

Existing hospitality and tourism studies on older workers are scant and largely descriptive. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first study that assesses the effects of pandemic-related media coverage on workplace ageism toward older people among the current hospitality and tourism workforce.

The paper introduces a new model, the evolutionary-existential model of organizational decision-making. The purpose of the model is to provide an empirical framework for understanding the context for decision-making under conditions of existential threat to organizations, such as the global COVID-19 pandemic during the year 2020.

The model is built on an extensive interdisciplinary literature review, drawing from research in social psychology, management, behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology and consumer behavior. In general, the authors follow Bargal's (2006) call for action research in the spirit of Lewin (1951).

According to the model, organizational decision-making during the pandemic threat is influenced by (1) existential threat and (2) an unprecedented macroenvironmental context for decision-making. The authors argue that these psychological and macroenvironmental forces may lead to suboptimal decision-making, based on (1) their basic cognitive architecture and (2) specific evolutionary triggers activated by the pandemic. The authors highlight how the interaction between these inputs and the decision context manifest in various social psychological phenomena that are known to impact judgments and decisions.

Simply put, the magnitude and the urgency of the global pandemic call for new and integrative ways of understanding organizational decision-making.

The model is new. Although the authors draw on prior research and theory, the model is uniquely interdisciplinary; further, the authors are able to make specific and unique predictions about the inputs, decision context and their social–psychological consequences for decision-making.

The purpose of this study is to draw on terror management theory (TMT) to explore the impact of pervasive mortality cues on consumer behaviour as a result of residing in a community ravaged by escalating violence.

A qualitative analysis of 27 in-depth interviews of consumers living in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico during the height of the Mexican drug war provides insight into their coping strategies and consumption.

Living under such conditions results in unrelenting mortality salience (MS), as well as the adoption of consumption-related coping strategies that can conflict with cultural worldviews and threaten self-esteem. The normalization of coping strategies severely strains worldviews. Consumers manage their ensuing intrapersonal evaluative tension by developing consumption safe havens and through identity fragmentation. Moreover, permanent proximal defences result from persistent MS.

Although cross-sectional and idiosyncratic to the Mexican culture, the findings broaden TMT by suggesting that consumers facing relentless MS experience altered brand meanings and social interactions, as they were reluctant to acquire prestige brands, while indicating an increase in the value placed on relationships over possessions.

Marketers can help consumers alleviate their death-related anxiety by eliminating telemarketing campaigns, promoting online shopping, using unique customer identification numbers and investing in visible security measures such as gates, security cameras, and guards.

This exploratory study provides a preliminary theoretical framework for consumers’ reactions to persistent MS.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the flood on marriages in flooded households compared to marriages in unaffected households by utilizing the 2010 Pakistani flood as a type of natural experiment.

A difference-in-difference approach is used to estimate the effect of the flood on marriages in 62 flooded districts compared with those in 53 non-flooded districts by utilizing the six waves of the household level surveys data from the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement, 2004-2005 to 2014-2015.

Results show that the flood decreased marriages; by 17 marriages per 1,000 individuals aged 15-50 years in flooded districts during the flood year and the effect disappeared after the flood year. The negative impact of the flood on rural marriages is significantly higher and robust.

The flood seemingly discouraged individuals in flooded districts to be engaged in long term relationship mainly due to the flood related economic and financial losses. In order to acquire and maintain individual overall well-being, sexual health in vital to maintain mental and physical health, so policy makers/humanitarian aid-providers should assist the affected adults financially or by arranging their marriages at least during the flood year. The study also suggests that the delay of marriages means the accumulation of human capital in the form of school attainment of male marriages, so younger adult should be discouraged marrying at early age.

This study contributes to the literature in the following ways: first, the study empirically investigates the impact of flood – both immediate and long term – on marriage rates by using a natural experiment. Second, it examines the relationship based on geographic location and gender. Third, it investigates the impact of natural hazards on child marriage.

This research aims to examine the impact of consumers’ anxiety on the three types of consumption activities (sharing, hoarding and regular buying) during the coronavirus pandemic. Further, it aims to investigate the moderating role of materialism on anxiety and how attitude toward the pandemic affects consumers’ consumption behavior.

An online survey was conducted to test the proposed research model. The data were analyzed using SmartPLS and PROCESS tools.

Higher levels of anxiety lead to less sharing and more hoarding of resources but do not impact consumers’ regular buying intentions. A positive attitude toward an external event such as lockdown and intrinsic materialism can help individuals to cope with the anxiety successfully. Furthermore, consumers are more likely to share and less likely to hoard when they develop a positive attitude toward pandemic.

Future research can explore the role of health-efficacy and attitude toward health as coping strategy toward pandemic. A longitudinal research can explore the gradual changes in consumers’ attitudes and consumption behavior.

Governments, marketers and policymakers should focus on reducing consumers’ anxiety and to build a positive attitude toward pandemic to avoid the issues of hoarding and enable sharing of resources with others.

This study contributes to the literature on terror management theory and crisis management during a pandemic using a consumption context.