Effects Of Mortality Salience Research Articles

The role of mortality salience in tourism marketing messages during a global health crisis

Terror Management Theory suggests that health messages can trigger mortality thoughts, influencing consumer behavior. Two studies were conducted to explore this mortality salience effect in the context of travel marketing during a pandemic. Findings from Study 1 showed that health-focused travel ads led to more mortality thoughts and increased travel intentions. Both low and high levels of these thoughts boosted travel intentions, while moderate levels deterred them. Drawing on Protection Motivation Theory, Study 2 examined the roles of trust in destination and perceived health risk in the effects of message-induced mortality-related thoughts on travel intentions. Travel ads that evoked mortality thoughts encouraged both domestic and international travel when health risks were perceived as low, but discouraged it when risks were high. Furthermore, the findings suggest that trust in the destination can mitigate the negative effects of mortality-related thoughts. This study offers insights into consumer reactions to health-related travel ads, with both theoretical and practical implications.

Queer terror management theory on trial: an initial test for the effects of death attitudes on gender stereotypes

This research puts queer terror management theory to an initial test by drawing upon sex, gender and desire as aspects of a queer gender construct. Death acceptance was expected to inhibit the activation of gender-related stereotypes when controlled for mortality salience. To test the theory, we ran a quasi-experiment with 75 US participants in two waves. Results of Implicit Association Tests and surveys did not sufficiently support the idea of a queer gender construct, but indicated the imprecision of binary measures for gender and desire. As expected, more implicit death acceptance was associated with less gender stereotypes. However, ambivalent sexism towards women increased with explicit death acceptance. Positive death valence – as a precursor of death acceptance – reduced implicit stereotypes on sex, gender and desire. Against our expectations, no experimental mortality salience effect was found. In conclusion, death attitudes beyond acceptance or denial may better serve for intervention in gender-related stereotypes.

Childhood poverty and its impact on financial decision making under threat: A preregistered replication of Griskevicius et al. (2011b).

We investigated the influence of childhood poverty on financial decision making under threat by replicating the findings of Griskevicius et al. (2011b), which found that individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to make riskier financial decisions and prefer immediate over delayed gratification when exposed to mortality cues. Following an extension of life history theory to individual behaviors, the original research argued that these behaviors reflect a faster and riskier strategy to cope with survival threats. In a preregistered replication using the same procedures and instruments as the original study, we tested this hypothesis with a sample size 14.2 times larger than the original (1,010 vs. 71). We replicated the effect of mortality salience on risk-taking for people who experienced childhood poverty but with a substantially smaller effect size (η² = 0.004 vs. η² = 0.17 in the original). We failed to find any effect on time preferences in contrast to the original study's medium effect size (η² = 0.046). Although our findings partially support the results of Griskevicius et al. (2011b) on poverty and financial decision making, the drastically reduced effect sizes challenge the practical significance of these findings. Our replication results underscore the importance of large sample studies in understanding the effects of childhood socioeconomic status on future life decisions. They also suggest that frameworks beyond life history theory may be needed to reliably capture such relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Self-Control Buffers the Mortality Salience Effect on Fairness-Related Decision-Making.

Fairness-related decision-making often involves a conflict between egoistic and prosocial motives. Previous research based on Terror Management Theory (TMT) indicates that mortality salience can promote both selfish and prosocial behaviors, leaving its effect on fairness-related decision-making uncertain. This study integrates TMT with the strength model of self-control to investigate the effects of mortality salience on fairness-related decision-making and to examine the moderating role of dispositional self-control. Participants were primed with either mortality salience or negative affect and then asked to make a series of binary choices (equal allocation vs. unequal allocation favoring themselves) to distribute monetary resources. In both studies, mortality salience heightened selfish tendencies, leading to less equitable monetary allocation. Study 2 further revealed that this effect occurred among participants with low, but not high, self-control. These findings indicate that mortality salience promotes selfishness and inequitable monetary allocation, but that self-control can buffer these effects.

The effect of mortality salience on intertemporal choice: the role of flavor perception

The effect of mortality salience on intertemporal choice: the role of flavor perception

Disease, death, morality, and politics: Pathogen prevalence, terror management, and conservatism as motivated social cognition

ABSTRACT We examined the effect of pathogen and mortality salience on moral values and political orientation, testing competing hypotheses derived from three relevant perspectives. While Terror Management Theory (TMT) predicts a delayed shift toward preexisting moral values and political orientation, Pathogen Prevalence Hypothesis (PPH) anticipates a shift toward binding moral foundations, and Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition (PCMSC) posits a shift toward political Principlism. This was an experimental study with salience type (mortality, pathogen, control) and delay (immediate, delayed) as independent variables. The effect of pathogen salience on moral foundations and political orientation was consistent with TMT. Also, there was a delayed PPH-directed effect of pathogen salience on moral foundations, and a PCMSC-consistent effect of pathogen salience on political orientation. Findings are discussed in light of possible differences in the timeline of effects and provided insight to reconcile contradictory predictions of the three perspectives.

Do Pandemics Trigger Death Thoughts?

The current article aims to investigate the effects of pandemics of varying severity on death-thought accessibility in two studies while controlling for health anxiety. Study 1 ( n = 203) examined the effect of standard mortality salience (MS), severe pandemic, mild pandemic, and dental conditions on death-thought accessibility as assessed by the death word fragment task (DWFT). Study 1 did not find significant effects of MS and delay on death-thought accessibility, which could be attributable to the less-sensitive nature of the DWFT. Thus, Study 2 ( n = 163) was conducted with more sensitive death-thought accessibility measures. Results from Study 2 found that response time toward death and positive words on the lexical-decision task was significantly faster than in standard MS and dental conditions. Both studies recruited predominantly Americans (Study 1) and Europeans (Study 2), which limits the generalizability of the results to other populations. Future studies can consider replicating the studies in other populations.

The effects of mortality salience on perceived risk and trust in the managing bodies of nuclear power: The moderating effect of nuclear power support

AbstractPublic concern regarding nuclear power has arisen due to accidents involving radiation leakages, natural disasters, terrorism, war and other incidents. That is, people's concerns regarding the use of nuclear power have grown as situations that threaten their survival have increased. This study uses terror management theory to examine how mortality salience affects people's risk perception and trust in the managing bodies of nuclear power. The results of Study 1 and Study 2 revealed that when the level of support for nuclear power is low, the effect of mortality salience increases trust in the managing bodies. Study 2's findings reveal mortality salience leads to decreased risk perception of nuclear power. In the case of risks that are managed by others and that are difficult to understand, such as nuclear power, people tend to place higher value on the managing bodies because they cannot handle the risk themselves. These results highlight the changes in people's perceptions of nuclear power managing bodies when they are conscious of death and provide important information on the nature of communication between citizens and experts regarding nuclear power.

Enough Terror to Belong: The Nonlinear Association of Death Anxiety with Group Identification

Death anxiety is presumed to be positively associated with group identification; however, recent evidence of a null correlation between the two constructs raises questions regarding this assumption. In contrast to the traditional linear perspective, we proposed and tested a J-shaped curvilinear association that only death anxiety beyond a certain threshold predicts group identification. Using two-wave longitudinal data from the UK, study 1 (N=1,402) revealed that only after reaching a moderate-to-high level could death anxiety measured during the COVID-19 pandemic positively predict later identification with the community, one’s country, and all humanity. Furthermore, using World Values Survey data, study 2 (N=56,871) found that death-related anxiety (i.e., worry about a terrorist attack) was only positively associated with perceived closeness to one’s village, county, and country after reaching a moderate-to-high level. Our findings provide a novel insight into the process of managing terror and the replication failure of the mortality salience effect.

Effects of Mortality Salience and Religion on Aggression

The current study aimed to examine the effects of mortality salience (MS) and religion on aggression. Participants were 120 students (58.3% females; 73.3% with religion) from a private university in Singapore. They were randomly assigned to either the MS condition or the control condition, asked to remember a time when they were deeply hurt or offended by a person, and provided an opportunity for revenge by sticking pins into a voodoo doll that represented the person. The results showed that participants in the MS condition inserted a significantly higher number of pins into the voodoo doll than participants in the control condition. However, this effect was not moderated by religion and extent of belief in God. Limitations include the consideration of participants with religion as one group for data analysis. Future research directions include recruiting a larger and more diverse group of participants.

The stuff that nightmares are made of: Israeli dreams in times of the Israel-Hamas war

This qualitative study explored the mortality salience effect as it manifested in the dreams of Israelis in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, and during the ensuing war. Over a two-month period, a sample of 242 dreams was collected via an online survey. Two forms of thematic analysis, namely, inductive and deductive, were utilized. Viewed through the theoretical lens of terror management theory, the findings suggest that exposure to the attack’s horrors and the resulting strong mortality salience were reflected in the participants’ dream contents. This indicates that the anxiety-buffering roles of the three psychological coping mechanisms—cultural worldviews, self-esteem, and close personal relationships—have been compromised. The examination of collective dream content offers a glimpse into subtle human psychic processes and how they might be affected during times of national trauma that necessitate robust psychological mechanisms to cope with the heightened mortality salience.

Effects of Mortality Salience on Racism in Singapore

This article aims to examine the effects of mortality salience on explicit racism (Studies 1 and 2) and implicit racism (Study 3) in Singapore. There was no significant effect of mortality salience on both explicit racism and implicit racism (Studies 1–3). Furthermore, while social dominance orientation was associated with higher explicit racism, it did not moderate the effects of mortality salience on explicit racism (Study 2). In contrast, while social dominance orientation was not associated with implicit racism, it moderated the effects of mortality salience on implicit racism (Study 3). The results might be explained by the adoption of a superordinate Singaporean identity, the strict laws against explicit racism in Singapore, and a lack of mortality salience effects. Future research directions include examining the effects of mortality salience on racism in countries with lenient laws against racism and examining right-wing authoritarianism as a potential moderator.

Eliciting Mortality Salience in Dark Tourism and its Influence

While dark tourism research has increasingly emphasized mortality salience’s role in exploring dark tourists’ experiences, little is known regarding the triggers and effects of mortality salience. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 tourists visiting the Xuankou Middle School (Wenchuan earthquake site), revealing that both the objective and constructive authenticity of tourism objects can trigger mortality salience. Mortality salience can prompt tourists to seek to increase their self-esteem, family connectedness, and sense of national identity to cope with their inevitable deaths. A second survey-based study found a positive relationship between mortality salience and the identified triggers and effects. Theoretical contributions include advancing terror management theory’s development in dark tourism research, enhancing the understanding of dark tourism’s meanings, and inspiring research on dark tourism’s death education. Practical implications include suggesting managers continuously collect and display authentic objects related to the site’s disaster and provide message areas for tourists to share their experiences.

The captain of my soul: Self-determination and need-satisfaction help manage death-related cognition, anxiety, and well-being.

The present research tested the idea that a self-determined orientation may help people manage death-related thoughts and anxieties, and mitigate the effects of death awareness on well-being. Seven studies (N = 3,331), using a diversity of measures and manipulations, were consistent with that idea. First, mortality salience (vs. other topic primes) increased death-thought accessibility, but not if participants had high need-satisfaction (Study 1, n = 160; Study 2, n = 216) or were prompted to recall self-determined experiences (Study 3, n = 188). Second, need-satisfaction was associated with reduced death anxiety (Study 4a, n = 301; Study 4b, n = 1,848), and priming self-determined concepts eliminated the effect of mortality salience on death anxiety (Study 5, n = 119). Third, heightened death-thought accessibility was related to lower satisfaction with life (Study 6, n = 271) and happiness (Study 7, n = 228), but not among those with high need-satisfaction. Supplemental analyses suggested the effects of need-satisfaction were not due to associations with affect (Studies 1, 6, 7), epistemic certainty (ideological dogmatism, Study 4a), or mindfulness (Studies 5b and 6); need-satisfaction mitigated the effects of existential concern via self-esteem but not via growth orientation (Study 4b) nor due to its relationship with Openness (Studies 6 and 7). Together, these findings suggest a self-determined orientation can help buffer existential concern and buoy well-being and point to a potential existential protective function beyond its known growth-oriented functions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of death anxiety on fear of missing out

Death Anxiety (DA) and Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) are two psychological phenomena that have distinct implications for individuals and their overall quality of life. The Terror Management Theory (TMT) is utilized to bridge the gap between these constructs and extends its understanding to everyday behaviors and psychopathology. The present 2-part study examined the effects of DA and Mortality Salience (MS) on FOMO, respectively. Study 1 included (N = 220; 53% females) participants aged 18 to 38 years (M = 21.48, SD = 3.80) and Study 2 included (N = 175; 53% females) participants aged 20 to 63 years (M = 32.23, SD = 9.43). Results supported the hypotheses, where (1) a strong and positive correlation exists between FOMO and DA; the strength of the correlation weakens, after self-esteem was partially out, and (2) participants in the MS condition who reported higher self-esteem, reported significantly lower levels of FOMO. Practical implications include broadening the TMT literature to advance clinical psychological practice, where new interventions that addresses the effects of FOMO and future translational research are needed to mitigate DA and its detrimental effects. Overall, this novel discovery which involves FOMO serves as a precedent for future TMT studies.

Terror Management: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Desire for Money Among Singaporeans

Terror management theory has been used to explain our penchant for materialism. While materialism includes both the desire for products and the desire for money, research has generally examined the former. Consequently, this article aimed to examine the effects of mortality salience on desire for money in Singapore. Study 1 found that mortality salience did not increase self-reported desire for money but increased the size of a drawn coin. Study 2 found that mortality salience did not increase the preferred selling price of a used laptop. Finally, Study 3 found that mortality salience did not increase the willingness to listen to unpleasant sounds in exchange for money. Furthermore, attitudes toward money did not moderate the effects of mortality salience on desire for money. The nonsignificant results could be due to data collection during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the use of a Singaporean sample. Future research directions include examining the effects of the pandemic on terror management theory research and examining both the desire for products and the desire for money concurrently as dependent variables.

Diverging effect of mortality salience on risk taking: the moderating role of time horizon

Diverging effect of mortality salience on risk taking: the moderating role of time horizon

Reminders of Mortality: Investigating the Effects of Different Mortality Saliences on Somatosensory Neural Activity.

The Terror Management Theory (TMT) offered a great deal of generative hypotheses that have been tested in a plethora of studies. However, there is a still substantive lack of clarity about the interpretation of TMT-driven effects and their underlying neurological mechanisms. Here, we aimed to expand upon previous research by introducing two novel methodological manipulations aimed to enhance the effects of mortality salience (MS). We presented participants with the idea of the participants' romantic partner's death as well as increased the perceived threat of somatosensory stimuli. Linear mixed modelling disclosed the greater effects of MS directed at one's romantic partner on pain perception (as opposed to the participant's own mortality). The theta event-related oscillatory activity measured at the vertex of the scalp was significantly lower compared to the control condition. We suggest that MS aimed at one's romantic partner can result in increased effects on perceptual experience; however, the underlying neural activities are not reflected by a classical measure of cortical arousal.

Prospects of Mortality Salience for Promoting Sustainable Public Sector Management: A Survey Experiment on Public Service Motivation

The United Nations has established 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global initiative to achieve a more sustainable future. Within these goals, SDG16 emphasizes the significance of sustainable public sector management, which profoundly influences the accomplishment of other SDGs. Enhancing public service motivation is a critical element in advancing sustainable public sector management. This study explores the potential of mortality salience as an intervention to bolster public service motivation, aiming to provide valuable insights for SDG16. Specifically, the study investigates the varied effects of mortality salience on public service motivation using a survey experiment and employs machine learning techniques. The findings reveal a significant positive impact of mortality salience on public service motivation. Furthermore, this study highlights that this impact is more prominent in organizations characterized by high levels of servant leadership and extrinsic rewards, as well as low levels of organization-based self-esteem. These findings have practical implications for fostering sustainable public sector management in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.

No significant effect of mortality salience on unconscious ethnic bias among the Japanese

ObjectiveTerror management theory posits that when mortality is salient, individuals attempt to defend their cultural worldviews. Although numerous studies have confirmed this hypothesis, some recent studies have suggested that East Asians do not engage in worldview defense. We conducted a pre-registered experiment with 895 Japanese adults to investigate whether they exhibited worldview defense at an unconscious level. Participants performed the Implicit Association Test using Japanese and Korean surnames as stimuli after being primed with thoughts about mortality.ResultsThe results revealed that mortality salience had no influence on implicit ethnic bias. These findings support the notion that East Asians do not engage in worldview defense, in accord with recent criticism of the validity of terror management theory. We discuss the limitations and implications of our findings.