Effects of Worldview and Mortality Salience in Persuasion Processes

Abstract

Individual differences in media effects research have yielded a trove of insights into how media content can have varying effects. One such variable is worldview—a philosophy of life that enables a person to make sense of one's experience—but the notion has largely been unexamined in media effects research. A person's worldview can moderate the way a persuasive message is processed—sometimes in the opposite direction of that intended by communicators. Building on the construct of worldview and terror management theory, two experiments (N = 149 and N = 151) examined the question with worldview as a measured variable and mortality salience as a two-level factor. Worldview had a main effect on global evaluations of ads, as participants who tended toward a relativist worldview had lower evaluations of the ads and lower behavioral intentions, while participants who tended toward a positivist worldview had higher evaluations of the ads and higher behavioral intentions. Also, mortality salience was found to moderate participants' worldview, presumably making their worldview more accessible to exert a greater influence. The importance of worldview as a construct in media effects research, as well as theoretical implications for persuasion and terror management theory, are discussed.