Terror Management in a Multicultural Society: Effects of Mortality Salience on Attitudes to Multiculturalism Are Moderated by National Identification and Self-Esteem Among Native Dutch People.

Mandy Tjew-A-Sin,Sander Leon Koole

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00721

Abstract

Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg et al., 1997) proposes that mortality concerns may lead people to reject other cultures than their own. Although highly relevant to multiculturalism, TMT has been rarely tested in a European multicultural society. To fill this void, two studies examined the effects of mortality salience (MS) among native Dutch people with varying levels of national identification and self-esteem. Consistent with TMT, MS led to less favorable attitudes about Muslims and multiculturalism among participants with high (rather than low) national identification and low (rather than high) self-esteem (Study 1). Likewise, MS led participants with high national identification and low self-esteem to increase their support of Sinterklaas, a traditional Dutch festivity with purported racist elements (Study 2). Together, these findings indicate that existential concerns may fuel resistance against multiculturalism, especially among people with low self-esteem who strongly identify with their nationality.

Highlights

With modern societies becoming increasingly multicultural, growing numbers of people are regularly exposed to a diversity of cultural worldviews (Verkuyten, 2005, 2006, 2010)
Mortality salience interacted with national identification and self-esteem to predict attitudes toward Muslims and multiculturalism
The observed lack of mortality salience effects among participants with low national identification suggests that low national identification should not be equated with positive attitudes toward multiculturalism

Summary

Introduction

With modern societies becoming increasingly multicultural, growing numbers of people are regularly exposed to a diversity of cultural worldviews (Verkuyten, 2005, 2006, 2010). TMT seems highly relevant to the psychology of living in a multicultural society. TMT has been researched in hundreds of studies (for an extensive overview, see Solomon et al, 2015), the theory has been applied mostly to intergroup settings (Castano and Dechesne, 2005) international conflict (Pyszczynski et al, 2008) and multicultural issues in North America (Dupuis and Safdar, 2010; Bassett and Connelly, 2011; Motyl et al, 2011; Cohen et al, 2013). Only few studies have rarely tested the implications of TMT for living in a European multicultural society (Das et al, 2009). We seek to fill this important gap, by examining the impact of existential concerns on multicultural attitudes among native Dutch people

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion