Terror Management Perspective Research Articles

Why humans form place attachment: A terror management perspective

Why humans form place attachment: A terror management perspective

Starving off death: Mortality salience impacts women’s body image and disordered eating

From a Terror Management perspective, the pursuit of thinness that characterizes eating disorders (EDs) is arguably a culturally endorsed way to mitigate death anxiety. In the present studies, we used the mortality salience (MS) paradigm to examine whether priming death increases ED symptoms. We recruited two samples of women from undergraduate (Study 1, N = 120), and clinically relevant (Study 2, N = 154) populations. After priming, participants completed measures of potential confounds (e.g., neuroticism, affect). Next, we assessed ED attitudes and behavior using a portion size estimation task, and measures of body dissatisfaction and eating intention. Study 1 findings were inconsistent with the claimed role of death anxiety in ED related behavior. However, in Study 2, MS priming led to increased dissatisfaction with current thinness and smaller portion sizes for high-fat compared to low-fat food. Overall, the results suggest that death anxiety may, at least partially, drive ED symptoms.

Factors Associated with Death Anxiety Among Rural Chinese Older Adults: The Terror Management Perspective.

The aim of this study was to examine how the factors suggested by the Terror Management Theory are associated with death anxiety among rural Chinese older adults. Data were derived from a longitudinal survey of older adults aged 60 and above, had at least one living child, and were living in rural areas of Anhui Province. The working sample included 1,362 older adults. Two-level random effects models were used. Children's financial support was negatively related to death anxiety, whereas emotional closeness with children was positively related to death anxiety. Older women reported more death anxiety than older men. Functional limitations were positively associated with death anxiety, and the widowed reported less death anxiety than the married. We did not find a significant association between religious belief and death anxiety. The study highlights the importance of culture in shaping death anxiety among older adults in rural China.

Behavioral limitations of individuals for coping with COVID-19: A terror management perspective

ABSTRACT Authorities and policymakers have been advocating people to follow the traditional personal protective measures (e.g., social distancing) to avoid COVID-19 disease and to reduce its spread further. Based on terror management theory (TMT) and individuals’ bounded rationality (BR), this study designs a conceptual framework to examine psychological limitations of people for obeying the experts’ instructions—particularly, social distancing—during the pandemic. This is because, contrary to “social distancing,” humans subconsciously use centuries-old defense mechanisms—seeking close relationships, validation or modification of cultural worldviews, and enhancement of self-esteem—by “social gatherings” for the sake of buffering their own paralyzing terror of death in time of a large scale mortality salience (e.g., COVID-19). This study argues that in pandemics in which diseases spread due to human interactions, societies need to trade-off between reducing human or economic losses by imposing immediate stringent restrictions on people movements (e.g., lockdowns) versus mitigating pandemic related psychological or mental issues by allowing them to use anxiety reduction buffering mechanisms (e.g., social gatherings). By studying people’s recent responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and given their BR, this study proposes that governments’ interventions are needed to curtail the disease spreading and its associated costs further. In addition, several recommendations for interventions are suggested.

To be or not to be tolerant? A Terror Management perspective exploring the ideological dilemma of tolerance and prejudice.

Tolerance has been identified as a way to reduce prejudice. However, tolerance has also been posited as an ideological dilemma and may have its limits. The present research explores this idea, utilizing insights from Terror Management Theory. Three studies were conducted using online samples. Study 1 found that a tolerance prime led to less discrimination towards Muslims after being reminded of death, but increased discrimination when reminded of terrorism. Additionally, tolerance did not affect levels of affective prejudice. Study 2 found that reading an essay that threatened the norm of tolerance led to increased levels of death-thought accessibility and worldview defence, particularly amongst liberal participants. Study 3 found that a tolerance prime attenuated mortality salience decreasing support for author rights, but not if the worldview critic was intolerant. Taken together, the present findings suggest that using tolerance to reduce prejudice and foster more positive intergroup relations has its boundaries. If others are perceived to not be tolerant themselves, then people may be more motivated to defend, rather than uphold the norm of tolerance.

(Don't Fear) the Reefer: Cannabis Worldview Beliefs and the Management of Death-Related Existential Concerns Among High Frequency Cannabis Users

Introduction: The current research employed a terror management framework to understand the cognitive effects of frequent drug use. The study focused specifically on cannabis users and tested the hypothesis that frequent cannabis use is associated with the development of cannabis-related worldview beliefs that take on an existential function for frequent users. Method: Participants (N = 226) answered questions about their cannabis use and completed a measure of cannabis worldview investment. Thereafter, they were randomly assigned to a cannabis worldview threat (vs. no threat) condition and completed measures of death-thought accessibility (DTA) and cannabis worldview defense. Results: A positive association between frequency of cannabis use and cannabis worldview investment was observed. Moreover, among high frequency cannabis users, those highly invested in the cannabis worldview evinced significantly more DTA following exposure to the worldview threat than no threat condition. Participants with high investment in the cannabis worldview also showed more derogation of the cannabis worldview threat (vs. no threat) essay-author. However, this relationship was not influenced by DTA or frequency of cannabis use. Discussion: A terror management perspective on drug use is discussed, including implications for understanding drug abuse, addiction, and treatment.

From a terror management perspective: The efficacy of self-affirmation on organ donation-related thoughts and intentions in China

ABSTRACT In 2015, the Chinese government officially abolished the practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners. However, the voluntary donor registration rate among the Chinese population is approximately 2% as of January 2020. Guided by self-affirmation theory and terror management theory, the present investigation examined a number of variables that may be related to donor registration intentions and a method to mitigate death thoughts and misconceptions. An online experiment was conducted in which 352 Chinese participants were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation (i.e., affirming values that are important to the participants) or a no-affirmation condition. Results revealed that self-affirmation lowered death thoughts among the participants, which in turn were positively related to organ donation misperceptions. Inconsistent with terror management theory, the level of death thoughts was not directly related to participants’ intentions to register as organ donors. Instead, the relationship between the two was mediated by misperceptions toward organ donation.

Changing prosocial values following an existential threat as a function of political orientation: Understanding the effects of armed conflicts from a terror management perspective

In two related studies, we explored the joint role of being exposed to existential threat and political orientation in explaining changes in prosocial values. Drawing on Schwartz's value theory and terror management theory, we suggested existential threat causes values change. Specifically, we hypothesized that following an actual or hypothetical threat, the importance of benevolence values, which focus on the welfare of close people, would increase. We further hypothesized that universalism values, which focus on the welfare of humanity, would become more or less important depending on political orientation. We tested our premises in a field study conducted in the context of a large military operation in Israel (Study 1: N = 105, 68.2% female) and in an experiment (Study 2: N = 54, 85.5% female) where we manipulated mortality salience. Following an armed conflict (Study 1) or a mortality salience manipulation (Study 2), those with left and right-wing inclinations showed different patterns of change in universalism. Benevolence increased in importance regardless of political orientation, but only in the experimental study (Study 2). We discuss the idea that defense mechanisms triggered by existential threats can explain different patterns of change in prosocial values following an armed conflict.

Prosocial Attitudes toward Money from Terror Management Perspective: Death Transcendence through Spirituality

ABSTRACTBased on Terror Management Theory (TMT), we suggest that spirituality and prosocial attitudes toward money have a similar defensive function in resisting existential anxiety. In mortality salient (MS) situations, both spirituality and prosocial money attitudes afford symbolic immortality by self-transcendent connections. In four studies, we found that activating death awareness weakened people’s subjective love of money (Study 1) and predicted increased spending willingness on prosocial rather than proself goals (Studies 2, 3, and 4). More importantly, MS effects on money attitudes were smaller when people’s trait spirituality was high (vs. low; Studies 1, 2, 3) and when people were primed to experience spirituality (vs. happiness control condition; Study 4). For low spirituality people, the association between MS and prosocial spending also depended on the capacity of money spending to contribute positively to one’s feelings of self-worth (Study 3). Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.

An Integrative Terror Management Theory Perspective on Media Effects: A Model and 12 Hypotheses for Research

This paper is designed to stimulate theory-driven research on the implications of Terror Management Theory (TMT) for a host of intriguing media phenomena. The paper synthesizes previous research, presents a model of TMT influences, and suggests 12 hypotheses for study in diverse areas, notably, media entertainment, news, advertising, fear appeals, and social media. A terror management perspective, with its emphasis on the novel, counterintuitive ways individuals keep death at bay, can extend knowledge in different areas of the field, illuminate understanding of media influences, and generate a host of studies that chart new pathways for comprehension of contemporary communication.

Smoke Your Troubles Away: Exploring the Effects of Death Cognitions on Cannabis Craving and Consumption

Two studies informed by the terror management health model were conducted to examine the question of how death cognition affects cannabis craving and whether actual cannabis smoking alleviates death cognitions. The first study examined whether priming thoughts of death are associated with subjective cannabis craving among 42 frequent cannabis users randomly assigned to either a mortality salience or control task. When reminded of their death, participants craved cannabis, even though there was no change in their conscious negative mood. The second study examined the effect of cannabis smoking on death cognitions in an exploratory field setting. Fifty frequent cannabis users were randomly assigned to either mortality reminders or control task and completed death-related words accessibility measures before and after smoking cannabis. Results indicate that cannabis served as a buffer and prevented death-related thoughts from entering consciousness, thus acting as a defense mechanism against death anxiety. These findings indicate that death-related concerns may play a hitherto unsuspected role in cannabis craving and consumption. Also discussed are the implications of a terror management perspective in communication of negative health consequences of recreational cannabis smoking and in the use of cannabis for medical purposes among people with terminal illness.

A terror management perspective on the role of death-related anxiety in psychological dysfunction.

Building on previous existential theorizing, terror management theory provides a unique approach to conceptualizing the development, maintenance, and impact of psychological disorders. The theory suggests that awareness of mortality creates the potential for anxiety, which is managed by an anxiety-buffering system consisting of one's cultural worldview, self-esteem, and interpersonal attachments. The pursuit of meaning, personal value, and interpersonal connections that motivates much human behavior is driven, in part, by the need to control this potential for death-related anxiety. This article provides an overview of terror management theory and a discussion of its implications for understanding clinical conditions, along with a review of research exploring the roles of death-related anxiety and the anxiety-buffering system in anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression.

Disaster threat and justice sensitivity: a terror management perspective

AbstractBased on terror management theory, we tested the idea that reminders of death strengthen justice sensitivity. In Study 1, we exposed participants to three different kinds of death‐related pictures (terrorism vs. natural disasters vs. graveyards) or neutral pictures. The results showed that death‐related visual material led to more justice sensitivity from three perspectives (victim, observer, and perpetrator) than neutral visual material. Likewise, Study 2 indicated that fake newspaper articles claiming that the likelihood of terrorism is very high (vs. low) strengthened these three justice sensitivity types. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Self‐Protective Altruism

AbstractProsocial behavior accentuates the tension between two conflicting human motivations, self‐interest and belongingness. Responding to the needs of others may compromise self‐interest. Acting callously, however, may lead to social disproval. These antagonistic responses are existentially meaningful as belongingness and self‐esteem have been found to regulate death anxiety. In this paper I critically examine three possible hypotheses concerning the tension between egotism and prosociality from a terror management perspective. The first hypothesis, the carpe diem hypothesis, suggests that when death is salient egotistic self‐interest overrides other‐oriented responses. The second hypothesis, the norm salience hypothesis, suggests that when death is salient people will respond according to the momentarily accessible social norm. The third hypothesis, the self‐protective altruism hypothesis, argues that when the prosocial cause reminds people of their fragile, mortal nature people will turn away from helping when death is salient, but when the prosocial cause is benign death salience will increase prosocial responding.

Terror Management After a Recent Suicide Attempt

Suicide is a controversial phenomenon that people of different cultures and even of different epochs have had difficulty naming. It used to be an enduring theme of many medical, psychological, philosophical, and moralistic discussions. It is a paradoxical act of ultimate self-destruction, a flight from life to death. To commit suicide is to overcome the fear of personal death and to make a step into nothingness. Such a desperately brave deed requires an abandonment of one’s sense of immortality, which we all have, a change of values and worldviews. But if one’s suicide attempt proves unsuccessful, the question becomes how to explain to oneself and others one’s recent act of self-violence. To discover these explanations, we conducted a study of 319 people, ranging in age from 18 to 25; they were all either students (n = 156) or patients in an emergency toxicology ward (people who had attempted to poison themselves, n = 163). This article summarizes theories of suicidal behavior and of the fear of death together with the ideas of cultural anthropologist E. Becker on these matters and puts suicide into the terror-management perspective. The suicidal act is viewed as a mortality salience, and the hypothesis is that people who deny their recent suicide attempt (n = 33) and who have one (n = 95) or several (n = 35) suicide attempts in their personal history exhibit different terror-management patterns in comparison with each other and with the control group. They fall back on different resources with various degrees of effectiveness. Implications of these results for understanding suicidal and postsuicidal behavior are discussed and suggestions for rehabilitation are made.

Dedicate Your Life to the Company! A Terror Management Perspective on Organizations

Terror management research has examined many institutions and beliefs, which provide people with a sense of psychological security against death awareness. However, one important area has yet to receive attention: the workplace. For many employees, corporate culture is not only connected to earning a salary, but also to a sense of security and even personal transcendence. We present evidence that pro-company judgments can serve as psychological defenses under existential threat. In Study 1, following mortality salience, employees gave a more favorable evaluation of the company-praising essay and a more negative evaluation of the critical one. In Study 2, employees and students at a German university were more likely to endorse aspects of organizational culture under mortality salience.

Self-Consciousness and Death Cognitions from a Terror Management Perspective

Two studies explored the connection between self-consciousness and death cognitions. In Study 1 (n = 56), a positive association was found between accessibility of death-related thoughts and the ruminative dimension of self-consciousness. In Study 2 (n = 212), a mortality salience induction led to higher validation of cultural worldviews (a more severe perception of social transgressions) than a control group, but only among individuals with lower self-consciousness, whereas participants characterized by higher self-consciousness did not make increased use of this cultural anxiety buffer. Rather, their naturally heightened death awareness led them to react to social transgressors in a neutral condition in the way usually found only after a mortality salience induction. Gender could not alternatively account for these findings. The results are explained in terms of terror management theory. It is suggested that a high level of self-consciousness may serve as an internal death reminder, leading to greater cultural worldview validation on a regular basis.

Is the Meaning of Life Also the Meaning of Death? A Terror Management Perspective Reply

The human quality of self-awareness makes individuals aware of their inventible death. How does this knowledge influence meaning in life and is influenced by it? Four studies examined the association between meaning in life and awareness of death, through a Terror Management Theory perspective. Study 1 assessed the effects of a mortality reminder on self-reports of meaning in life, while exploring the moderating role of self-esteem. The findings indicate a trend in which after a mortality salience induction, high self-esteem individuals tend to view their lives as more meaningful. Studies 2 and 3 examined the effect of thinking about the meaning of life on death-thought accessibility, and found it to be higher in both the mortality and meaning salience conditions, as compared to a control condition. Study 4 sought to discover whether reminders of one’s meaning in life would yield cultural worldview validation, and indeed revealed a more severe perception of social transgressions following both mortality and meaning salience. Findings highlight the understanding that meaning in life is a basic existential concept closely related to awareness of death’s inevitability.

The Effects of Mortality Salience on Disgust Sensitivity Among University Students, Older Adults, and Mortuary Students

The present study tested the Terror Management perspective on disgust by examining the effects of mortality salience on disgust sensitivity among 137 university students, 48 older adults, and 44 mortuary students preparing for a career in the funeral service industry. Participants were randomly assigned to a mortality salience, uncertainty salience, or television salience induction. Following a delay, participants completed the core disgust and contamination disgust sub- scales of the Disgust Scale Revised. University students reported more core disgust than did older adults and mortuary students. Women reported more core and contamination disgust than did men. Mortality salience led to increased disgust sensitivity among all three groups but only on a small number of items related to animals. The results suggest a limited role of terror management defenses in the experience of disgust in response to stimuli that remind people of their animal nature.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: On Spirituality: Natural and Non‐Natural

Author’s IntroductionReligious conversations – both scholarly and popular – routinely employ the term ‘spirituality,’ a term whose ubiquity is matched only by its obscurity. ‘Spirituality’ is seldom, if ever, defined. Most people seemingly appeal to commonsense when they speak of ‘spirituality’ as ostensibly referring to something immaterial and by a certain extension non-natural. The spiritual is supposed to transcend the historical. For those working in Religious Studies, such a position ought to be, and finally is beginning to be, looked upon with suspicion because the (substance) dualism informing commonsense definitions of spirituality is no longer viable. As such, the commonsense definition of ‘spirituality’ is untenable for scholarly purposes. We need a new definition of ‘spirituality,’ and this new definition demands a new approach. To be sure, contemporary academic consilience counsels methodological naturalism. Religious Studies rightly abides such academic consilience. Eschewing all appeals to the supernatural, a natural definition of spirituality suggests that it is existential self-esteem. Although there may be multiple manifestations of self-esteem, spirituality is a misrecognized form of self-esteem as the ‘sociometer.’ Existential self-esteem mitigates interpersonal death anxiety. There are two types of ‘spirituality,’ the non-natural and the natural. Non-natural spirituality pursues ‘literal’ immortality; natural spirituality pursues ‘symbolic’ immortality. Methodological naturalism disallows the former and at least countenances the latter. This guide outlines an approach to teaching about and ultimately defining spirituality as a wholly natural phenomenon.