Stereotypes and terror management: Evidence that mortality salience enhances stereotypic thinking and preferences.

If stereotypes function to protect people against death-related concerns, then mortality salience should increase stereotypic thinking and preferences for stereotype-confirming individuals. Study 1 demonstrated that mortality salience increased stereotyping of Germans. In Study 2, it increased participants' tendency to generate more explanations for stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent gender role behavior. In Study 3, mortality salience increased participants' liking for a stereotype-consistent African American and decreased their liking for a stereotype-inconsistent African American; control participants exhibited the opposite preference. Study 4 replicated this pattern with evaluations of stereotype-confirming or stereotype-disconfirming men and women. Study 5 showed that, among participants high in need for closure, mortality salience led to decreased liking for a stereotype-inconsistent gay man. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creativity and terror management: Evidence that creative activity increases guilt and social projection following mortality salience.

The present research, based on the ideas of O. Rank (1932/1989) and E. Becker (1973), was designed to test the hypotheses that engaging in creative expression after personal mortality has been made salient will lead to both increased feelings of guilt and a desire to enhance social connectedness. In Study 1, the authors used a 2 (mortality salience vs control)?×?2 (creative pretask vs noncreative pretask) between Ss factorial design and measured self-report guilt. Results indicated that participants who were reminded of their death and completed the creative pretask expressed more guilt than all other participants. In Study 2 this effect was replicated with a modification of the creativity treatment. In Study 3, the same conditions leading to increased guilt also led mortality-salient creative-task participants to express higher levels of social projection, an index of perceived social connectedness. Implications of these results for creativity, the interpersonal nature of guilt, and terror management theory are briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values.

On the basis of terror management theory, it was hypothesized that when mortality is made salient, Ss would respond especially positively toward those who violate cultural values and especially negatively toward those who violate cultural values. In Experiment 1, judges recommended especially harsh bonds for a prostitute when mortality was made salient. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with student Ss and demonstrated that it occurs only among Ss with relatively negative attitudes toward prostitution. Experiment 3 demonstrated that mortality salience also leads to larger reward recommendations for a hero who upheld cultural values. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that the mortality salience effect does not result from heightened self-awareness or physiological arousal. Experiment 6 replicated the punishment effect with a different mortality salience manipulation. Implications for the role of fear of death in social behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview.

Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis, derived from terror management theory, that reminding people of their mortality increases attraction to those who consensually validate their beliefs and decreases attraction to those who threaten their beliefs. In Study 1, subjects with a Christian religious background were asked to form impressions of Christian and Jewish target persons. Before doing so, mortality was made salient to half of the subjects. In support of predictions, mortality salience led to more positive evaluations of the in-group member (the Christian) and more negative evaluations of the out-group member (the Jew). In Study 2, mortality salience led to especially negative evaluations of an attitudinally dissimilar other, but only among subjects high in authoritarianism. In Study 3, mortality salience led to especially positive reactions to someone who directly praised subjects' cultural worldviews and especially negative reactions to someone who criticized them. The implications of these findings for understanding in-group favoritism, prejudice, and intolerance of deviance are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Focus theory of normative conduct and terror-management theory: The interactive impact of mortality salience and norm salience on social judgment.

Research on terror-management theory has shown that after mortality salience (MS) people attempt to live up to cultural values. But cultures often value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, leading to difficulties in predicting behavior as a consequence of terror-management needs. The authors report 4 studies to demonstrate that the effect of MS on people's social judgments depends on the salience of norms. In Study 1, making salient opposite norms (prosocial vs. proself) led to reactions consistent with the activated norms following MS compared with the control condition. Study 2 showed that, in combination with a pacifism prime, MS increased pacifistic attitudes. In Study 3, making salient a conservatism/security prime led people to recommend harsher bonds for an illegal prostitute when they were reminded of death, whereas a benevolence prime counteracted this effect. In Study 4 a help prime, combined with MS, increased people's helpfulness. Discussion focuses briefly on how these findings inform both terror-management theory and the focus theory of normative conduct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mortality salience and the spreading activation of worldview-relevant constructs: Exploring the cognitive architecture of terror management.

Seven experiments assessed the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that reminding people of their mortality would increase accessibility of constructs central to their worldview. Experiment 1 found that mortality primes, relative to control primes, increased accessibility of nationalistic constructs for men but not for women. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and also found that mortality salience increased romantic accessibility for women but not for men. Four subsequent experiments supported the role of unconscious death-related ideation in producing these effects. A final experiment demonstrated that situational primes can increase the accessibility of nationalistic constructs for women after mortality salience. The roles of situational cues and individual differences in the effects of exposure to death-related stimuli on worldview-relevant construct accessibility are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fear of death and the judgment of social transgressions: a multidimensional test of terror management theory

The purpose of the research was to integrate a multidimensional approach to fear of personal death with terror management theory. In Study 1, 190 students were divided according to the manipulation of death salience and the intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects of fear of death and were asked to judge transgressions that have either intrapersonal or interpersonal consequences. Study 2 was a conceptual replication of Study 1, with the exception that the manipulation of mortality salience included conditions that made salient either intrapersonal or interpersonal aspects of death. Findings indicate that the effects of mortality salience depend on the aspect of death that is made salient, the aspect of death that individuals most fear, and the type of the judged transgression. More severe judgments of transgressions after death salience manipulation were found mainly when there was a fit between these 3 factors. Findings are discussed in light of terror management theory.     

Terror management and aggression: evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others

The hypothesis that mortality salience (MS) motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others was tested in 4 studies. In Study 1, the experimenters induced participants to write about either their own death or a control topic, presented them with a target who either disparaged their political views or did not, and gave them the opportunity to choose the amount of hot sauce the target would have to consume. As predicted, MS participants allocated a particularly large amount of hot sauce to the worldview-threatening target. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors found that following MS induction, the opportunity to express a negative attitude toward the critical target eliminated aggression and the opportunity to aggress against the target eliminated derogation. This suggests that derogation and aggression are two alternative modes of responding to MS that serve the same psychological function. Finally, Study 4 showed that MS did not encourage aggression against a person who allocated unpleasant juice to the participant, supporting the specificity of MS-induced aggression to worldview-threatening others.     

Terror management theory and self-esteem: Evidence that increased self-esteem reduced mortality salience effects.

On the basis of the terror management theory proposition that self-esteem provides protection against concerns about mortality, it was hypothesized that self-esteem would reduce the worldview defense produced by mortality salience (MS). The results of Exps 1 (49 undergraduates) and 2 (50 undergraduates) confirmed this hypothesis by showing that individuals with high self-esteem (manipulated in Exp 1; dispositional in Exp 2) did not respond to MS with increased worldview defense, whereas individuals with moderate self-esteem did. The results of Exp 3 (48 undergraduates) suggested that the effects of the 1st 2 experiments may have occurred because high self-esteem facilitates the suppression of death constructs following MS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Terror management and religion: Evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience.

Terror management theory suggests that people cope with awareness of death by investing in some kind of literal or symbolic immortality. Given the centrality of death transcendence beliefs in most religions, the authors hypothesized that religious beliefs play a protective role in managing terror of death. The authors report three studies suggesting that affirming intrinsic religiousness reduces both death-thought accessibility following mortality salience and the use of terror management defenses with regard to a secular belief system. Study 1 showed that after a naturally occurring reminder of mortality, people who scored high on intrinsic religiousness did not react with worldview defense, whereas people low on intrinsic religiousness did. Study 2 specified that intrinsic religious belief mitigated worldview defense only if participants had the opportunity to affirm their religious beliefs. Study 3 illustrated that affirmation of religious belief decreased death-thought accessibility following mortality salience only for those participants who scored high on the intrinsic religiousness scale. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that only those people who are intrinsically vested in their religion derive terror management benefits from religious beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward understanding why fairness matters: The influence of mortality salience on reactions to procedural fairness.

This article focuses on the question of why fairness matters to people. On the basis of fairness heuristic theory, the authors argue that people especially need fairness when they are uncertain about things that are important to them. Following terror management theory, the authors focus on a basic kind of human uncertainty: fear of death. Integrating these two theoretical frameworks, it is proposed that thinking about their mortality should make fairness a more important issue to people. The findings of three experiments support the authors' line of reasoning: Asking participants to think about their mortality led to stronger fair process effects (positive effects of perceived procedural fairness on subsequent reactions) than not asking them to think about mortality. It is argued that these findings suggest that fairness especially matters to people when they are uncertain about fundamental aspects of human life such as human mortality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Uncertainty management: The influence of uncertainty salience on reactions to perceived procedural fairness.

On the basis of fairness heuristic theory, it is argued in this article that people especially need fairness when they are reminded about aspects of their lives that make them uncertain. It is therefore proposed that thinking about uncertainty should make fairness a more important issue to people. The findings of 3 experiments support this line of reasoning: Asking (vs. not asking) participants 2 questions that solicited their thoughts and feelings of being uncertain led to stronger effects of perceived procedural fairness on participants' affective reactions toward the way they were treated. It is argued that these findings suggest that fairness matters to people especially when they are trying to deal with things that make them uncertain. An implication of the current findings therefore may be that fairness is important to people because it gives them an opportunity to manage uncertain aspects of their lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of side effects on hypertension management: a Japanese survey

The purpose of this study was to assess medication compliance and to document side effects among a large number of Japanese patients receiving antihypertensive treatment. A total of 6289 patients being treated for hypertension returned completed questionnaires about their current blood pressure, therapy, side effects, and compliance with physicians' instructions. In addition, 4417 physicians returned completed questionnaires about their prescribing practices, side effects experienced by patients, and patient compliance. The antihypertensive agents they most often prescribed were calcium channel blockers, followed by angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, beta-blockers, and diuretics. The proportion of patients who had well-controlled blood pressure, defined as systolic blood pressure < 160 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure < 95 mm Hg, was similar regardless of the class of antihypertensive agent prescribed. Forty-nine percent of the patients with well-controlled blood pressure reported having at least one side effect while taking their current antihypertensive therapy, whereas a significantly greater percentage of patients (61%) with poorly controlled blood pressure reported side effects. Patients whose blood pressure was poorly controlled tended to have a higher incidence of most side effects than did those with well-controlled blood pressure. Also, the rate of intentional noncompliance was significantly higher in the group with poorly controlled blood pressure. In addition, the rate of noncompliance increased with the number of side effects reported. Although the causal relationship between side effects and non-compliance cannot be determined from this study, further investigation is warranted to better understand the impact these factors may have on overall cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.     

The role of control motivation in mortality salience effects on ingroup support and defense.

Terror management research has shown that mortality salience (MS) leads to increased support and defense of cultural ingroups and their norms (i.e., worldview defense, WD). The authors investigated whether these effects can be understood as efforts to restore a generalized sense of control by strengthening one's social ingroup. In Studies 1-3, the authors found that WD was only increased following pure death salience, compared with both dental pain salience and salience of self-determined death. As both the pure death and the self-determined death conditions increased accessibility of death-related thoughts (Study 4), these results do not emerge because only the pure death induction makes death salient. At the same time, Study 5 showed that implicitly measured control motivation was increased in the pure death salience condition but not under salience of both self-determined death and dental pain. Finally, in Study 6, the authors manipulated MS and control salience (CS) independently and found a main effect for CS but not for MS on WD. The results are discussed with regard to a group-based control restoration account of terror management findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Terror management and tolerance: Does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one's worldview?

Terror management research has shown that reminding Ss of their mortality leads to intolerance. The present research assessed whether mortality salience would lead to increased intolerance when the value of tolerance is highly accessible. In Study 1, given that liberals value tolerance more than conservatives, it was hypothesized that with mortality salience, dislike of dissimilar others would increase among conseratives but decrease among liberals. Liberal and conservative Ss were induced to think about their own mortality or a neutral topic and then were asked to evaluate 2 target persons, one liberal, the other conservative. Ss' evaluations of the targets supported these hypotheses. In Study 2, the value of tolerance was primed for half the Ss and, under mortality-salient or control conditions, Ss evaluated a target person who criticized the US. Mortality salience did not lead to negative reactions to the critic when the value of tolerance was highly accessible. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The anxiety-buffering function of close relationships: Evidence that relationship commitment acts as a terror management mechanism.

Three studies examined the terror management function of romantic commitment. In Study 1 (N=94), making mortality salient led to higher reports of romantic commitment on the Dimensions of Commitment Inventory (J. M. Adams & W. H. Jones, 1997) than control conditions. In Study 2 (N=60), the contextual salience of thoughts about romantic commitment reduced the effects of mortality salience on judgments of social transgressions. In Study 3 (N=100), the induction of thoughts about problems in romantic relationships led to higher accessibility of death-related thoughts than did the induction of thoughts about either academic problems or a neutral theme. The findings expand terror management theory, emphasizing the anxiety-buffering function of close relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring the existential function of religion: The effect of religious fundamentalism and mortality salience on faith-based medical refusals.

Decisions to rely on religious faith over medical treatment for health conditions represent an important but understudied phenomenon. In an effort to understand some of the psychological underpinnings of such decisions, the present research builds from terror management theory to examine whether reminders of death motivate individuals strongly invested in a religious worldview (i.e., fundamentalists) to rely on religious beliefs when making medical decisions. The results showed that heightened concerns about mortality led those high in religious fundamentalism to express greater endorsement of prayer as a medical substitute (Study 1) and to perceive prayer as a more effective medical treatment (Study 2). Similarly, high fundamentalists were more supportive of religiously motivated medical refusals (Study 3) and reported an increased willingness to rely on faith alone for medical treatment (Study 4) following reminders of death. Finally, affirmations of the legitimacy of divine intervention in health contexts functioned to solidify a sense of existential meaning among fundamentalists who were reminded of personal mortality (Study 5). The existential importance of religious faith and the health-relevant implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The body as a source of self-esteem: The effect of mortality salience on identification with one's body, interest in sex, and appearance monitoring.

The present research investigated the role of the physical body as a source of self-esteem and tested the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that reminding people of their mortality increases self-esteem striving in the form of identification with one's body, interest in sex, and appearance monitoring. The results revealed that individuals high in body esteem responded to mortality salience manipulations with increased identification with their physical bodies in Study 1 and with increased interest in sex in Study 2. Study 3 showed that reminders of death led to decreased appearance monitoring among appearance-oriented participants who were low in body esteem. These findings provide insight into why people often go to extreme lengths to meet cultural standards for the body and its appearance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)