Defensive or Existential Religious Orientations and Mortality Salience Hypothesis: Using Conservatism as a Dependent Measure

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between the defensive versus existential religious orientation and mortality salience hypothesis in a country where the predominant type of religion is Islam. It was predicted that the mortality reactions of participants would not differ in accordance with their religious orientations within a Muslim sample. The dependent variable tested in the study was conservatism and it was expected that within the Muslim sample both defensively and existentially oriented participants would react to mortality salience manipulation. The defensive participants became more conservative in the mortality salient condition as opposed to failure salience and TV salience conditions. However, contrary to the authors’ hypothesis, existential participants did not react to mortality salience manipulation. The results were discussed in accordance with the self-relevance of the conservatism variable, which is the dependent variable of the study. Research implications and suggestions for future studies were also provided.