Terror Management and Civic Engagement

Abstract

Stories of death flood the media, making mortality a salient theme in American news. Research shows that subconscious reminders of death influence a range of behaviors associated with charitable giving and a bolstered sense of patriotism ( Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010 , Personality & Social Psychology Review, 14, 155–195). Terror management theory (TMT) explains this relationship by positing that subconscious mortality salience motivates individuals to embrace their cultural worldviews (e.g., engaging in volunteerism or politically oriented activities). Moreover, collectivistic, relative to individualistic, self-construals motivate individuals to serve others and meet group needs. In a first-known attempt to understand the relationship between TMT, self-construals, and civic engagement, a 2 (mortality salience: high or low) × 2 (self-construal: individualistic or collectivistic) experiment (N = 124) revealed that counter to common findings, increased mortality salience was negatively related to civic engagement intentions. However, as predicted, collectivism was positively associated with such intentions. Results also indicated that mortality salience and self-construals may not interact to influence civic engagement.