Diverging effects of mortality salience on variety seeking: The different roles of death anxiety and semantic concept activation

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 112-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongqiang (Tak) Huang ◽  
Robert S. Wyer
Keyword(s):  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Semantic Concept ◽  
Variety Seeking ◽  
Concept Activation

Collective in exile: Utilizing terror management theory to understand women’s wailing performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tova Gamliel
Keyword(s):  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Community Context ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Adaptive Value ◽  
Traditional Performance

Although women’s wailing at death rites in various cultures typically amplifies mortality salience, this ritual phenomenon is absent in the research literature on terror management theory (TMT). This study explored Yemenite-Jewish wailing in Israel as an example of how a traditional performance manages death anxiety in a community context. Observations of wailing events and interviews with Yemenite-Jewish wailers and mourners in Israel were analyzed to understand respondents’ perceptions of the experience of wailing as well as the anxiety-oriented psychotherapeutic expertise involved. The findings are discussed to propose an alternative outlook on the intersubjective adaptive value of death anxiety. After describing TMT’s view on the role of culture in coping with death anxiety, I consider the extent to which Yemenite-Jewish wailing is consistent with the premises of TMT.

Mitigating death anxiety: Identifying music’s role in terror management

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Audrey Berger Cardany
Keyword(s):  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Music Preferences ◽  
Review Analysis ◽  
Ernest Becker ◽  
Denial Of Death ◽  
Social Anthropologist

Based on the ideas of social-anthropologist Ernest Becker, Terror Management Theory (TMT) explains human behavior as being motivated by conscious and unconscious mortality salience. This article examines the role of music in the denial of death and catalogues related literature in the music and social psychology fields. Categories include: TMT and art, music used as control condition in TMT research, and songs and TMT. A brief description of Becker’s theory and TMT and a discussion of the functions of music in culture precede the literature review. Analysis of the literature suggests that (a) music provides a safe window frame through which to examine death, (b) music created for community purposes may buffer death anxiety more readily than that created for individual purposes, and (c) songs prompt mortality salience and simultaneously buffer death anxiety depending on individual music preferences, cultural worldviews, and perceptions of famous others. The review further identifies limitations in TMT studies regarding music and terror management and highlights the need for additional empirical research to untangle the complexity of music’s role in mitigating death anxiety growing out of mortality salience.

Don’t fear the reaper: Trait death anxiety, mortality salience, and occupational health.

2014 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael T. Sliter ◽  
Robert R. Sinclair ◽  
Zhenyu Yuan ◽  
Cynthia D. Mohr
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Mortality Salience

scholarly journals Death, ideology, and worldview: Evidence of death anxiety but not mortality salience effects on political ideology and worldview

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artur Nilsson ◽  
Samantha Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Worldview Defense ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Core Components

Research has suggested that the sense of threat aroused by reminders of death can lead to worldview defense and elevated conservatism. The current studies disentangled the effects of mortality salience and death anxiety on two core components of conservatism—resistance to change and acceptance of inequality—and on the broader worldviews of normativism and humanism. Study 1 (N = 186), which used a mortality salience manipulation, and Study 2 (N = 354), which measured self-reported death anxiety, suggested that existential threat was associated particularly with resistance to change and normativism, consistent with theoretical expectations, in samples of Swedish adults. The results indicated that conservative shift had occurred predominantly among left-wingers. However, Study 3, which was a pre-registered online replication of Study 1 with respondents from the United Kingdom, yielded no evidence for any effects of mortality salience on ideology (N = 319) or worldview (N = 199). An internal pre-registered meta-analysis of mortality salience effects indicated that mortality salience had a marginally significant effect only on normativism. Taken together, the results provided little clear evidence of mortality salience effects on ideological preferences and worldviews, but dispositional death anxiety was associated with resistance to change, normativism, and acceptance of inequality particularly among leftists.

Desire to Work as a Death Anxiety Buffer Mechanism

2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erez Yaakobi
Keyword(s):  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Work Values ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Mechanism ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Moderating Role

Four studies were conducted to examine the death anxiety buffering function of work as a terror management mechanism, and the possible moderating role of culture. In Study 1, making mortality salient led to higher reports of participants’ desire to work. In Study 2, activating thoughts of fulfillment of the desire to work after mortality salience reduced the accessibility of death-related thoughts. In Study 3, activating thoughts of fulfillment of the desire to work reduced the effects of mortality salience on out-group derogation. In Study 4, priming thoughts about obstacles to the actualization of desire to work led to greater accessibility of death-related thoughts. Although two different cultures with contrasting work values were examined, the results were consistent, indicating that the desire to work serves as a death anxiety buffer mechanism in both cultures.

Attachment Security

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-52
Author(s):  
Gary Rodin ◽  
Sarah Hales
Keyword(s):  
Therapeutic Relationship ◽  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Attachment Security ◽  
Advanced Disease ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Secure Base ◽  
Attachment Relationships ◽  
Urgent Task ◽  
Emotional Equilibrium

This chapter provides an overview of the construct of attachment security and describes the threat to this security that may arise in response to the diagnosis or progression of advanced disease. The heightened mortality salience that occurs in this context activates the attachment system, and increased dependency and caregiving needs frequently require an adjustment or renegotiation of attachment security. Attachment security protects from death anxiety and other forms of distress, and so the renegotiation of attachment relationships is often an urgent task that is needed to maintain or restore emotional equilibrium. This chapter explains the central role of attachment security in the Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully (CALM) intervention, in which the therapeutic relationship can provide a secure base to process distressing thoughts and feelings and to face the challenges that inevitably occur.

Why Does Ingroup Identification Shield People from Death Anxiety?

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 320-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Herrera ◽  
Fabio Sani
Keyword(s):  
Mediation Analysis ◽  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Moderated Mediation ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Need For Closure ◽  
Ingroup Identification

Research to date guided by terror management theory has demonstrated that mortality salience increases ingroup identification. However, the process that leads from death reminders to group investment has remained underinvestigated. We tested a model in which mortality salience increased the perceived continuity of the group while at the same time strengthening the perception of group entitativity. In turn, higher perceived group entitativity led to enhanced ingroup identification. Three-path mediation analysis showed that mortality salience transmitted its effects onto ingroup identification indirectly, progressing first through perceived collective continuity and then through ingroup entitativity. Moderated mediation analysis revealed that personal self-esteem and the need for closure did not moderate this effect of mortality salience on ingroup identification.

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