Mortality salience increases death-anxiety for individuals low in personal need for structure

Research derived from terror management theory suggests that death cognition does not lead to death-anxiety because people respond to thoughts of death by turning to social and cultural structures that provide a sense of psychological security. However, recent research indicates that it is people high, but not low, in personal need for structure that turn to social and cultural structures in response to heightened death cognition. Such findings suggest that people low in PNS may be vulnerable to experiencing death-anxiety when death thoughts are activated. The current study explored this possibility. Individual differences in personal need for structure were measured and death cognition (mortality salience) was manipulated. Subsequently, death-anxiety was assessed. Mortality salience increased death-anxiety, but only among individuals low in personal need for structure.     

Structured Terror: Further Exploring the Effects of Mortality Salience and Personal Need for Structure on Worldview Defense

ABSTRACT Previous research indicates that people respond to heightened death‐related cognition with increased defense of predominant cultural beliefs (cultural worldview defense). However, recent research indicates that individual differences in personal need for structure (PNS) impact responses to threatening thoughts of death such that those high, but not low, in PNS respond to death thoughts by seeking a highly structured, clear, and coherent view of the world. Research has yet to fully consider the extent to which PNS affects the cultural worldview defenses typically exhibited after death is rendered salient. The current 3 studies examine the potential for PNS to determine the extent to which people respond to mortality salience with increased worldview defense. In all three studies PNS was measured and mortality salience induced. Subsequently, university‐related (Study 1) or religious (Studies 2 and 3) worldview defense was assessed. Only individuals high in PNS responded to mortality salience with increased worldview defense.     

The Roles of Shared Stereotypes and Shared Processing Goals on Mock Jury Decision Making

Some research on creativity has linked higher levels of neuroticism with greater creative achievement, whereas existential psychology sees the neurotic as incapable of channeling anxiety through creativity. The current research examines how levels of neuroticism affect individuals' creative responses in coping with existential threats. Drawing from terror management theory and creativity research, this research conceptualizes creative endeavors as a means to ameliorate existential anxiety that possesses varying degrees of appeal to different individuals. All three experiments found an interaction between levels of neuroticism and mortality salience in determining levels of creative interest, with neuroticism either measured or primed. Specifically, mortality salience is less likely to boost creative interest among more neurotic individuals.     

Windows into nothingness: terror management, meaninglessness, and negative reactions to modern art

Why do people dislike art that they find meaningless? According to terror management theory, maintaining a basic meaningful view of reality is a key prerequisite for managing concerns about mortality. Therefore, mortality salience should decrease liking for apparently meaningless art, particularly among those predisposed to unambiguous knowledge. Accordingly, mortality salience diminished affection for modern art in Study 1, and this effect was shown in Study 2 to be specific to individuals with a high personal need for structure (PNS). In Studies 3 and 4, mortality salient high-PNS participants disliked modern art unless it was imbued with meaning, either by means of a title or a personal frame of reference induction. Discussion focused on the roles of meaninglessness, PNS, and art in terror management.     

Hopelessly mortal: The role of mortality salience,immortality and trait self-esteem in personal hope

Do people lose hope when thinking about death? Based on Terror Management Theory, we predicted that thoughts of death (i.e., mortality salience) would reduce personal hope for people low, but not high, in self-esteem, and that this reduction in hope would be ameliorated by promises of immortality. In Studies 1 and 2, mortality salience reduced personal hope for people low in self-esteem, but not for people high in self-esteem. In Study 3, mortality salience reduced hope for people low in self-esteem when they read an argument that there is no afterlife, but not when they read “evidence” supporting life after death. In Study 4, this effect was replicated with an essay affirming scientific medical advances that promise immortality. Together, these findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of mortality interact with trait self-esteem to cause changes in personal hope, and that literal immortality beliefs can aid psychological adjustment when thinking about death. Implications for understanding personal hope, trait self-esteem, afterlife beliefs and terror management are discussed.     

Can Creativity Beat Death? A Review and Evidence on the Existential Anxiety Buffering Functions of Creative Achievement

The relationship between creativity and symbolic immortality had been long acknowledged by scholars. In a review of the literature, we found 12 papers that empirically examined the relationship between creativity and mortality awareness using a Terror Management Theory paradigm, overall supporting the notion that creativity plays an important role in the management of existential concerns. Also, a mini meta‐analysis of the impact of death awareness on creativity resulted in a small‐medium weighted mean effect. We examined the existential anxiety buffering functions of creative achievement as assessed by the Creative Achievement Questionnaire in a sample of 108 students. It was found that at high, but not low, levels of creative goals, creative achievement was associated with lower death‐thought accessibility under mortality salience in comparison to controls. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical report of the anxiety buffering functions of creative achievement among people for whom creativity constitutes a central part of their cultural worldview. The current findings support the notion that creative achievement may be an avenue for symbolic immortality, particularly among individuals who value creativity. Implications for understanding death‐related creativity motivations and their impact on individuals and society and for the promotion of creative achievement and creative motivation are discussed.     

Moderators of the Relationship Between Leadership Style and Employee Creativity: The Role of Task Novelty and Personal Initiative

Transformational leadership is supposed to enhance employees' creativity. However, results of meta-analytic research on the relationships between transformational leadership and creativity fell short of expectations. In addition, the coefficients showed a huge variability. In this study, it was argued that relevant task and employee characteristics have been neglected in previous research. The benefit of transformational leadership may be limited in a context with routine tasks. Therefore, the moderating effects of task novelty and personal initiative on the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and creativity were examined. In an experimental setting, 241 undergraduate students were instructed to act like a trainee of a management consulting company and to generate ideas. The results largely supported the hypotheses. Transformational leadership led to higher creativity than transactional leadership, and high task novelty produced higher creativity than low task novelty. As predicted, the effect of transformational leadership on creativity was stronger when task novelty was high than when task novelty was low. Moreover, the effect of transformational leadership was higher when persons were high in personal initiative than when they were low in personal initiative, indicating that the influence of transformational leadership depends on task and follower characteristics. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Task engagement after mortality salience: The effects of creativity,conformity and connectedness on worldview defence

Terror management research has shown that activating thoughts about mortality (mortality salience) increases defence of one's worldview. This study investigated how worldview defence is affected by engaging in a task that fosters creativity, conformity, or sharing values after being reminded of death. After writing about death or a control topic, participants were randomly assigned to design a t‐shirt with the goal of being as creative as possible, trying to please others but not oneself, or trying to connect with others via shared values. After mortality salience, conforming to others led to increased worldview defence whereas sharing values did not. Further, engaging in a creative task decreased worldview defence after mortality salience. Implications for understanding the interface between different forms of social connectedness, creativity and the management of existential fears are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of personal and collective mortality salience on individualism: Comparing Australians and Japanese with higher and lower self-esteem

The cross-cultural generality of terror management theory was examined in Australia and Japan. Based on previous research suggesting that individualism is stronger in Australia than in Japan, mortality salience was predicted to enhance individualism in Australia, but to reduce it in Japan. The results supported this prediction. Consistent with the theory, the cultural pattern of worldview defense was found only among Australians and Japanese with low self-esteem. We also found preliminary evidence that collective mortality (death of one’s in-group) has a greater impact than personal mortality (personal death) in Japan. Although the cultural worldview and self-esteem may serve terror management functions in both cultures, there may be differences between cultures in the type of mortality that produces the greatest levels of anxiety and the manner in which a given worldview is used to cope with anxiety about mortality.     

Personal need for structure and creative performance: the moderating influence of fear of invalidity

Previous research has suggested that personal need for structure (PNS) is negatively related to creative performance. In this article, it is argued that this relation, in fact, depends on another personality variable: personal fear of invalidity (PFI). When PFI is high, PNS should indeed be negatively associated with creativity. However, PNS should be positively associated with creativity when PFI is low, because this combination enables people to take a structured approach to creative tasks and this can be helpful to overcome their reliance on conventional and accessible task strategies. In four studies, this hypothesis is tested using different measures of creative performance. The expected interaction effect is found for measures of ideational fluency and measures of originality but not for measures of flexibility. Moreover, it is shown that the interaction effect between PNS and PFI is mediated by perseverance within thought categories.     

The protective identity: Evidence that mortality salience heightens the clarity and coherence of the self-concept

Research guided by terror management theory has shown that self-esteem provides a buffer against mortality concerns. The current research extends the theory to examine whether clarity and coherence in the structure of the self-concept serve a terror management function independent of enhancing self-esteem. Specifically, five studies tested whether mortality salience (MS) heightens diverse tendencies to clarify and integrate self-relevant knowledge, especially in individuals predisposed to seek structured knowledge. MS led high, but not low, structure-seeking participants to prefer coherent (Study 1) clearly-defined (Study 2), and simply organized (Study 3) conceptions of their personal characteristics. Also, MS led high structure-seeking participants to prefer causal coherence in recent experience (Study 4) and meaningful connections between past events and their current self (Study 5). Supporting the specificity of these effects on self-concept structuring, MS increased self-enhancement in Studies 1, 4, and 5 but these effects were not moderated by preference for structured knowledge.     

The thrust of the problem: bodily inhibitions and guilt as a function of mortality salience and neuroticism

We argue that existential concerns underlie discomfort with the physicality of the body and that activities likely to make individuals aware of their physical body (e.g., sex, dancing) may be inhibited and cause guilt. Further, individuals high in neuroticism may be especially vulnerable to such difficulties. To test this, individuals high and low in neuroticism were primed with thoughts about their mortality or a control topic and then engaged in an exercise designed to promote body awareness before self-reporting guilt. A comparison group engaged in non-body-oriented behavior. The results revealed that high neuroticism participants inhibited their body-oriented behavior when mortality was salient and that they experienced a marginal increase in guilt after performing the behavior in conjunction with mortality salience. Discussion focuses on the relationship between neuroticism, mortality salience, inhibition surrounding the body, and guilt.     

匹配对创造性的影响: 集体主义的调节作用

以305名大学生为研究对象, 检验创造性氛围的供给-期望匹配、个人创造性能力的要求-能力匹配与个人创造性的关系, 考察集体主义价值观对这种关系的影响。结果显示供给-期望匹配中实际创造性氛围、要求-能力匹配中的实际创造性能力对个人创造性有显著作用。对于高集体主义价值观的个人, 环境因素(实际创造性氛围和要求创造性能力)对他们创造性影响作用更为显著, 展现出集体主义价值观对创造性的间接积极作用。     

Taking a Turn Toward the Masculine: The Impact of Mortality Salience on Implicit Leadership Theories

The present research investigates the influence of subtle death-related thoughts (i.e., mortality salience) on people's images of effective leaders (i.e., their implicit leadership theories [ILTs]). We test the prediction that mortality salience will change the content of these implicit theories to be more gender stereotypical such that individuals will conceive of effective leaders in a significantly more masculine, or agentic, manner. To test this prediction, we assessed the communal and agentic components of participants' ILTs after they were presented with a mortality salience or control manipulation. Results show that priming individuals to think about their mortality with two open-ended questions resulted in a significant shift in their ILTs such that an effective leader is described in significantly more agentic terms compared to the control condition. This masculine shift in people's ILTs was demonstrated in both women and men, and mortality salience did not influence perceptions of effective leaders' communal traits. This work contributes to research on gender bias in leadership, ILTs, and terror management theory and has implications for female leaders.     

Illuminating the dark side of creative expression: assimilation needs and the consequences of creative action following mortality salience

Previous research indicates that mortality salience and creative behavior combine to increase feelings of guilt, presumably over the disruption to social connection elicited by the call for innovative expression. The present studies examined whether satiating assimilation motives by highlighting conformity to others reduces this effect (Study 1) and facilitates positive psychological engagement (Study 2). Study 1 used a 2 (conformity vs. neutral feedback)x2 (mortality salience vs. control)x2 (creative task vs. noncreative task) design and had participants complete a self-report measure of guilt. Study 2 used a 2 (mortality salience vs. control)x2 (other goal task vs. self-goal task) design, and after a creativity exercise, had participants complete measures of positive mood, vitality, and creative problem solving. Results indicated attending to assimilation needs reduced the elevated guilt that follows the juxtaposition of mortality salience and creative behavior and also increased a sense of positive engagement. Implications are briefly discussed.     

Making and Unmaking Prejudice: Religious Affiliation Mitigates the Impact of Mortality Salience on Out‐Group Attitudes

Research inspired by terror management theory has established that being reminded of the inevitability of death (i.e., “mortality salience”) leads people to express more negative attitudes toward out‐groups. We examined the hypothesis that being affiliated with a religion may buffer individuals against this negative impact of mortality salience. Two studies, conducted in two cultures that differ in their emphasis on religiosity (the United Kingdom and Italy), supported this hypothesis. Specifically, we found that mortality salience resulted in more negative out‐group attitudes only among participants not affiliated with any religion. Further, this buffering effect of religious affiliation was not moderated by participants’ specific religious orientations or by their levels of social dominance orientation. In addition, the buffering effect did not hold when prejudice against the target out‐group was not proscribed by religious authorities. Implications for research on religion, prejudice, and terror management are discussed.     

死亡凸显对消费者体验性消费选择偏好的影响及其作用机制

消费者的决策心理与购买行为会受到周边环境暴露的死亡信息的影响发生变化。本文从意义维持模型出发,通过4个实验探讨了死亡凸显对消费者体验性消费选择偏好的影响及其作用机制。结果发现,死亡凸显情境下消费者更倾向选择体验性消费。进一步分析发现,死亡凸显通过降低消费者的生命意义感提高了其对体验性消费的选择偏好。同时,社会支持对此间接效应起到了缓冲作用。研究结果初步揭示,补偿生命意义感的缺失是死亡凸显增加体验性消费选择的潜在机制,这也为新冠疫情背景下的消费者决策行为干预提供了一定参考。     

Is It Me or Is It Mine? Body-self Integration as a Function of Self-esteem,Body-esteem,and Mortality Salience

This research was designed to explore the extent to which the physical body is integrated into individuals' conceptualizations of self. We hypothesized that body-self integration would vary as a function of level of general self-esteem, specific self-evaluations for the body, and also mortality salience due to existential implications of the physical body's certainty of eventual death. In a neutral condition (no mortality reminder), individuals with high self-esteem were found to hold conceptualizations of the self that include the body to the extent that they had high body self-esteem, whereas individuals low in self-esteem did not exhibit these self-serving body-self representations. In addition, mortality salience led to a distancing of the self from the body, but only for people lacking the protection provided by high general or body-specific self-esteem. Our discussion focused on individual difference in low and high self-esteem and implications of bodily threats to conceptualizations for self.     

Ideological and personal zeal reactions to threat among people with high self-esteem: motivated promotion focus

After a mortality salience manipulation, participants completed measures of either ideological zeal (Study 1) or personal project zeal (Study 3). Mortality salience increased both kinds of zeal but only among participants with high self-esteem. High self-esteem was positively correlated with dispositional tendencies toward promotion focus, action orientation, and behavioral activation; it was negatively correlated with behavioral inhibition and rumination (Study 2). These findings clarify the role of dispositional self-esteem in mortality salience research and confirm that, as has been found with various other threats, zealous reactions to mortality salience are most pronounced among participants with high self-esteem. Results support a regulatory focus perspective on zealous reactions to threat. Ideological and personal zeal reflect motivated promotion focus reactions that are rewarding because they decrease the motivational relevance, regulatory fit, and subjective salience of threats.     

The Postself and Terror Management Theory: Reflecting on After Death Identity Buffers Existential Threat

In contemporary secular societies, ideas of an afterlife have become quite diverse, ranging from secular to religious and spiritual conceptions. In this article, an experimental study is reported in which the postself, a person's imagination of an after-death reputation, is tested as a protective buffer against mortality salience effects within a largely secular sample of participants. Before inducing mortality salience, the postself was affirmed or not affirmed. Results show that this reflection on personal continuity after death eliminates the effects of mortality salience on the accessibility of death-related thoughts. The discussion focuses on how the postself (the self will succeed death) relates to the more general concept of symbolic immortality (the self is part of a cultural worldview that will succeed death). Moreover, the relation between the postself and religiosity is discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided.