terror management theory provides a framework for investigating social responses likely to occur in the event of an influenza pandemic. the study predicted that where the threat of death from a pandemic was made salient in a relevant context involving a social outgroup, people would be more likely to behave aggressively toward those they perceived as threatening to their physical and symbolic existence. concurrently, it was predicted that moderating personality traits--specifically personal need for structure (pns), self-esteem, and support for vaccination--would exaggerate or mitigate the likelihood of such aggression. the study involved 180 世界杯2022赛程表淘汰赛 randomly assigned to one of 3 mortality salience prime conditions and one of two worldview defence scenarios, who completed measures of self-esteem, personal need for structure, and worldview defence. results indicated that high pns individuals were affected by both mortality salience primes equally and significantly greater than the control. this suggests a basic mortality salience effect in high pns individuals, with the threat of a pandemic at least as provocative as standard mortality salience.