Differentiating the effects of self-control and self-esteem on reactions to mortality salience

Whereas many previous studies suggest that self-esteem may buffer against the psychological threat of death, recent research has begun to suggest that self-control also may serve as a buffer. Two studies examined the possibility that dispositional self-control uniquely predicts responses to mortality salience, above and beyond self-esteem. In Study 1, an initial exercise in emotion regulation increased subsequent accessibility of death thoughts. In Study 2, mortality salience increased worldview defense. Both of these effects were moderated by dispositional self-control, such that the effects occurred among participants with low but not high self-control. More importantly, these moderating effects were observed over and above the moderating effects of self-esteem. Findings suggest that self-control may serve as an important and unique buffer against thoughts of death.     

Uncertainty management: the influence of uncertainty salience on reactions to perceived procedural fairness.

On the basis of fairness heuristic theory, it is argued in this article that people especially need fairness when they are reminded about aspects of their lives that make them uncertain. It is therefore proposed that thinking about uncertainty should make fairness a more important issue to people. The findings of 3 experiments support this line of reasoning: Asking (vs. not asking) participants 2 questions that solicited their thoughts and feelings of being uncertain led to stronger effects of perceived procedural fairness on participants' affective reactions toward the way they were treated. It is argued that these findings suggest that fairness matters to people especially when they are trying to deal with things that make them uncertain. An implication of the current findings therefore may be that fairness is important to people because it gives them an opportunity to manage uncertain aspects of their lives.     

The creative spark of death: The effects of mortality salience and personal need for structure on creativity

Previous research indicates that the awareness of death can be a barrier to creative expression. Specifically, when mortality is rendered salient, creativity is inhibited. However, no studies have considered how individual differences may impact the effect of mortality salience on creativity. Past research has found that mortality salience increases explorative thought processes for individuals low in personal need for structure. Thus, for these people, mortality salience may increase, not decrease, creativity. The current study examined this possibility. Personal need for structure was measured, mortality salience was experimentally manipulated, and creativity was assessed. As predicted, mortality salience increased creativity amongst individuals low in personal need for structure. No effect of mortality salience was observed amongst individuals high in personal need for structure.     

The life and death of creativity: The effects of mortality salience on self versus social-directed creative expression

Research in terror management theory suggests that our connections to others function, in part, to provide protection from the anxiety associated with the awareness of inevitable death. The individuating nature of creative expression can potentially undermine these connections, making creativity particularly problematic when one is dealing with mortality concerns. Consistent with this, a number of findings have elucidated emotional consequences associated with creativity when mortality concerns are active. However, to date, research has not focused on how mortality awareness may impact levels of creativity. The present study assessed the hypothesis that mortality concerns will inhibit creative behavior that threatens social connections but will not undermine and may even facilitate creative behavior that bolsters social connections. The results showed that amplified concerns about mortality decreased creativity when the act was self-directed but not when it was community-directed. Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.     

Adjusting to death: the effects of mortality salience and self-esteem on psychological well-being, growth motivation, and maladaptive behavior

This research builds on terror management theory to examine the relationships among self-esteem, death cognition, and psychological adjustment. Self-esteem was measured (Studies 1-2, 4-8) or manipulated (Study 3), and thoughts of death were manipulated (Studies 1-3, 5-8) or measured (Study 4). Subsequently, satisfaction with life (Study 1), subjective vitality (Study 2), meaning in life (Studies 3-5), positive and negative affect (Studies 1, 4, 5), exploration (Study 6), state anxiety (Study 7), and social avoidance (Study 8) were assessed. Death-related cognition (a) decreased satisfaction with life, subjective vitality, meaning in life, and exploration; (b) increased negative affect and state anxiety; and (c) exacerbated social avoidance for individuals with low self-esteem but not for those with high self-esteem. These effects occurred only when death thoughts were outside of focal attention. Parallel effects were found in American (Studies 1-4, 6-8) and Chinese (Study 5) samples.     

Mortality salience and morality: thinking about death makes people less utilitarian

According to the dual-process model of moral judgment, utilitarian responses to moral conflict draw on limited cognitive resources. Terror Management Theory, in parallel, postulates that mortality salience mobilizes these resources to suppress thoughts of death out of focal attention. Consequently, we predicted that individuals under mortality salience would be less likely to give utilitarian responses to moral conflicts. Two experiments corroborated this hypothesis. Experiment 1 showed that utilitarian responses to non-lethal harm conflicts were less frequent when participants were reminded of their mortality. Experiment 2 showed that the detrimental effect of mortality salience on utilitarian conflict judgments was comparable to that of an extreme concurrent cognitive load. These findings raise the question of whether private judgment and public debate about controversial moral issues might be shaped by mortality salience effects, since these issues (e.g., assisted suicide) often involve matters of life and death.     

Toward understanding why fairness matters: the influence of mortality salience on reactions to procedural fairness

This article focuses on the question of why fairness matters to people. On the basis of fairness heuristic theory, the authors argue that people especially need fairness when they are uncertain about things that are important to them. Following terror management theory, the authors focus on a basic kind of human uncertainty: fear of death. Integrating these two theoretical frameworks, it is proposed that thinking about their mortality should make fairness a more important issue to people. The findings of three experiments support the authors' line of reasoning: Asking participants to think about their mortality led to stronger fair process effects (positive effects of perceived procedural fairness on subsequent reactions) than not asking them to think about mortality. It is argued that these findings suggest that fairness especially matters to people when they are uncertain about fundamental aspects of human life such as human mortality.     

The nature of death and the death of nature: The impact of mortality salience on environmental concern

According to terror management theory, individuals are motivated to distinguish themselves from the rest of nature because doing so facilitates the denial of human mortality. However, based on an integration of terror management and contingencies of self-worth perspectives, the present research hypothesized that existential insecurities about death may differentially influence environmental concern depending on whether or not an individual derives self-esteem from environmental action. Results demonstrated that heightened mortality awareness led to less concern for the environment among those not deriving self-esteem from an environmental domain, but fostered environmental concern among those who do acquire self-esteem from environmental action. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Terror management and reactions to undocumented immigrants: mortality salience increases aversion to culturally dissimilar others

The authors examine the idea, derived from Terror Management Theory, that concerns about undocumented immigrants stem from the need to protect death-buffering cultural values against the symbolic threat posed by dissimilar others. It is hypothesized that reminders of death will intensify aversion to culturally dissimilar immigrants. Forty-six university students were randomly assigned to a mortality salience or a control condition prior to evaluating either an illegal alien named Ben Johnson from Vancouver or Carlos Suarez from Mexico City. Consistent with the hypothesis, reactions to the Canadian target did not differ in the control and mortality salience conditions, whereas reactions to the Mexican immigrant were more negative in the mortality salience than in the control condition.     

Of wealth and death: materialism, mortality salience, and consumption behavior

Theoretical work suggests that feelings of insecurity produce materialistic behavior, but most empirical evidence is correlational in nature. We therefore experimentally activated feelings of insecurity by having some subjects write short essays about death (mortality-salience condition). In Study 1, subjects in the mortality-salience condition, compared with subjects who wrote about a neutral topic, had higher financial expectations for themselves 15 years in the future, in terms of both their overall worth and the amount they would be spending on pleasurable items such as clothing and entertainment. Study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that subjects exposed to death became more greedy and consumed more resources in a forest-management game. Results are discussed with regard to humanistic and terror-management theories of materialism.     

A time to tan: proximal and distal effects of mortality salience on sun exposure intentions

According to the dual defense model of terror management, proximal defenses are engaged to reduce the conscious impact of mortality salience, whereas thoughts of death outside of conscious awareness motivate distal defenses aimed at maintaining self-esteem. Two experiments examined these ideas by assessing women's intentions to engage in tanning-related behavior. In Study 1, when concerns about death (relative to dental pain) were in focal attention, participants increased intentions to protect themselves from dangerous sun exposure. In contrast, when thoughts about death were outside of focal attention, participants decreased interest in sun protection. In Study 2, participants primed to associate tanned skin with an attractive appearance responded to mortality concerns outside of focal attention with increased interest in tanning products and services. These findings are discussed in relation to the dual-defense model of terror management, societal determinants of self-esteem, and implications for health risk and promotion.     

The relation of perceived situation similarity to perceived behavior similarity: Implications for social learning theory

A number of theories suggest that people behave similarly in similar situations. Social learning theory in particular suggests that people behave similarly in situations perceived to be similar in their pattern of reinforcement contingencies. This study used two measures of perception of behavior similarity and three measures of perception of situation similarity for 20 situations chosen by each of II female subjects as beingss characteristic of her current life. Measures of perceived behavior similarity included paired comparison judgments and analyses of similarity of ratings of behavior probabilities. Measures of perceived situation similarity included paired comparison judgments and analyses of similarity of ratings of outcome or reinforcement contingencies for the specified behaviors, including both internal and external reinforcers. In addition, reliability estimates were obtained on some tasks. Results indicated the following: (1) Generally there was a statistically significant relationship between measures of perceived situation similarity and measures of perceived behavior similarity. The magnitude of the relationship varied considerably from subject to subject. (2) Measures of the same variables did not show better agreement with one another than they did with measures of the different variables, despite evidence of adequate reliability. The data suggested general support for social learning theory but also evidence that factors other than perceived reinforcers in the situation influence how situations are perceived and how people behave in them.     

Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values

On the basis of terror management theory, it was hypothesized that when mortality is made salient, Ss would respond especially positively toward those who uphold cultural values and especially negatively toward those who violate cultural values. In Experiment 1, judges recommended especially harsh bonds for a prostitute when mortality was made salient. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with student Ss and demonstrated that it occurs only among Ss with relatively negative attitudes toward prostitution. Experiment 3 demonstrated that mortality salience also leads to larger reward recommendations for a hero who upheld cultural values. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that the mortality salience effect does not result from heightened self-awareness or physiological arousal. Experiment 6 replicated the punishment effect with a different mortality salience manipulation. Implications for the role of fear of death in social behavior are discussed.     

I control therefore I am: effects of mortality salience on control attributions

Terror Management Theory posits that when individuals are faced with their own mortality, they use several defense mechanisms to reduce the existential anxiety caused by the thought of their own death. In this paper, we examined one such mechanism: Control attributions. To do so, we ran an experiment (n = 140) in which we manipulated mortality salience and type of failure (relevant vs. irrelevant consequences) with which participants were faced. Participants were then instructed to evaluate the possible causes of their failure. The results indicated that participants assigned to the mortality salience condition, compared to those assigned to the control group, were more prone to making controllable attributions. That is, even in situations in which individuals are motivated to avoid responsibility (i.e., a relevant failure), mortality salience increased perceived controllability. These results suggest that attributions might serve as a control mechanism to compensate for the sheer uncontrollability of death.     

The effects of psychological gender orientations on the perceived salience of conversational constraints

This study investigated psychological gender differences in the salience of conversational constraints. It was hypothesized that feminine self-orientations would correlate positively with concern for the hearer’s feelings and concern for avoiding negative evaluation by the hearer, and that masculine self-orientations would correlate positively with concern for clarity. Furthermore, we hypothesized that of the various gender-orientation patterns, androgynous individuals (maintaining high masculine as well as high feminine self-identity simultaneously) will have the highest importance ratings of all the constraints added together; i.e., higher than either undifferentiated (low masculine as well as low feminine self-identity simultaneously) or gender-typed individuals (either low masculine-high feminine or high masculine-low feminine). Partkipants consisted of undergraduate students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. After being presented with four conversational situations, participants rated the perceived importance of each constraint in relation to each situation. They then completed the Bem’sSex- Role Inventory to measure their psychological gender orientation. The results were mostly consistent with the hypotheses. Furthermore, the study showed that one’s psychological gender-role orientation is superior to biological sex categories in accounting for the perceived importance of conversational constraints.     

Age-related differences in responses to thoughts of one's own death: mortality salience and judgments of moral transgressions

Two experiments explored age differences in response to reminders of death. Terror management research has shown that death reminders lead to increased adherence to and defense of one's cultural worldview. In Study 1, the effect of mortality salience (MS) on evaluations of moral transgressions made by younger and older adults was compared. Whereas younger adults showed the typical pattern of harsher judgments in response to MS, older adults did not. Study 2 compared younger and older adults' responses to both the typical MS induction and a more subtle death reminder. Whereas younger adults responded to both MS inductions with harsher evaluations, older adults made significantly less harsh evaluations after the subtle MS induction. Explanations for this developmental shift in responses to reminders of death are discussed.     

The effects of culture and gender on perceived self-other similarity in personality

Gender and culture may influence individuals’ perceptions of their similarity to others. 391,454 individuals from 20 countries rated their own personality traits and the personality traits they attribute to other people in general. A multilevel analysis on distinctive profile similarity (Furr, 2008) demonstrated that both gender and culture play a role in perceived self-other similarity. Specifically, women and those from highly collectivistic cultures saw themselves as more similar to others. Country-level analysis based on self-other similarity correlations (e.g., Srivastava, Guglielmo, & Beer, 2010) within each country revealed that cultural assertiveness uniquely predicted this assumed similarity. The findings shed light on how people construe themselves in relation to others and contribute to the understanding of personality within cultural contexts.     

The effects of mortality salience on political preferences: The roles of charisma and political orientation

Research has shown that mortality salience (MS) heightens liking for certain political candidates. Yet the particular qualities that make candidates more appealing after MS has been subject to debate. This study tested three possibilities: MS increases liking for charismatic candidates independent of participants’ or candidates’ political orientation; MS increases liking for conservative candidates independent of participants’ or candidates’ political orientation; and MS increases liking only for charismatic candidates who support the individual’s pre-existing political orientation, whether liberal or conservative. Following a MS manipulation, liberal and conservative participants evaluated two hypothetical gubernatorial candidates who differed both in their political orientation and level of charisma. MS heightened liking of charismatic candidates who shared the perceiver’s political orientation, whether liberal or conservative. In contrast, MS reduced liking for uncharismatic and opposing-orientation candidates. Results thus indicated that MS heightens regard for same-political orientation charismatic candidates, rather than just any charismatic candidate or conservative candidates. Implications for the influence of death-related concerns on political preference are briefly discussed.     

Foxhole atheism,revisited: The effects of mortality salience on explicit and implicit religious belief

Although fear of death features prominently in many historical and contemporary theories as a major motivational factor in religious belief, the empirical evidence available is ambivalent, and limited, we argue, by imprecise measures of belief and insufficient attention to the distinction between implicit and explicit aspects of cognition. The present research used both explicit (questionnaire) and implicit (single-target implicit association test; property verification) measurement techniques to examine how thoughts of death influence, specifically, belief in religious supernatural agents. When primed with death, participants explicitly defended their own religious worldview, such that self-described Christians were more confident that supernatural religious entities exist, while non-religious participants were more confident that they do not. However, when belief was measured implicitly, death priming increased all participants' beliefs in religious supernatural entities, regardless of their prior religious commitments. The results are interpreted in terms of a dual-process model of religious cognition, which can be used to resolve conflicting prior data, as well as to help explain the perplexing durability of religious belief.     

Dying to be thin: the effects of mortality salience and body mass index on restricted eating among women

Following terror management theory, the authors suggest women's striving to attain a thin physique is fueled in part by existential concerns. In three studies, women restricted consumption of a nutritious but fattening food in response to reminders of mortality (mortality salience; MS). When conducted in private (Study 1), this effect was found among women but not men; when replicated in a group setting in which social comparison was likely (Studies 2 and 3), only women who were relatively less successful attaining the thin ideal (i.e., high body mass index; BMI) restricted eating after MS. In Study 3, MS caused high BMI women to perceive themselves as more discrepant from their ideal thinness; this perceived failure mediated the effects of MS and BMI on eating behavior. Findings are discussed from a self-regulatory framework, which considered in the context of pressures for women to be thin, can shed light on health risk behavior.