Bicultural Terror Management: Identity Hybridity Moderates the Effect of Mortality Salience on Biculturals’ Familiarity Versus Novelty Seeking Tendency

Abstract

Terror management theory (TMT) shows that familiarity and novelty seeking are two distinct ways of deriving meaning. In the present research, we applied this analysis to individuals with two cultural backgrounds. Three studies examined whether these two divergent responses to mortality salience (MS) correspond with varying degrees of identity hybridity among biculturals. Following MS, low hybridity led to more familiarity seeking in the form of a stronger need for structure (Study 1) and less novelty seeking in the form of reduced willingness to explore (Study 2). In contrast, high hybridity tended to lead to the opposite following MS, particularly heightened interest in educational programs that facilitate exploration (Study 3). Results further clarified that these effects occurred only if bicultural identity was primed first (Study 1) and that they could not be reduced to broad personality traits (Study 2 and 3). We conclude by discussing the implications of expanding TMT's critical insight into the conflictual side of intergroup contact in the globalized world to the hitherto unexplored side of biculturalism.