Bicultural terror management: The role of personal need for structure and bicultural experience

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Erik H. Faucher ◽  
Jeff Schimel ◽  
Kim A. Noels
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management ◽  
Personal Need For Structure

Physical Warmth Attenuates Ethnocentric Bias under Mortality Salience: An Embodied Terror Management Perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armand Chatard ◽  
Margaux Renoux ◽  
Jean Monéger ◽  
Leila Selimbegovic
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Defensive Reaction ◽  
Worldview Defense ◽  
Management Perspective ◽  
Physical Warmth ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
First Time

Research indicates that individuals often deal with mortality salience by affirming beliefs in national or cultural superiority (worldview defense). Because worldview defense may be associated with negative consequences (discrimination), it is important to identify alternative means to deal with death-related thoughts. In line with an embodied terror management perspective, we evaluate for the first time the role of physical warmth in reducing defensive reaction to mortality salience. We predicted that, like social affiliation (social warmth), physical warmth could reduce worldview defense when mortality is salient. In this exploratory (preregistered) study, 202 French participants were primed with death-related thoughts, or an aversive control topic, in a heated room or a non-heated room. The main outcome was worldview defense (ethnocentric bias). We found no main effect of mortality salience on worldview defense. However, physical warmth reduced worldview defense when mortality was salient. Implications for an embodied terror management perspective are discussed.

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.

scholarly journals The great escape: The role of self-esteem and self-related cognition in terror management

2015 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 121-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnaud Wisman ◽  
Nathan Heflick ◽  
Jamie L. Goldenberg
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management ◽  
Self Esteem

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.

Inter‐ and intrapersonal processes underlying authoritarianism: The role of social conformity and personal need for structure

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 607-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Jugert ◽  
J. Christopher Cohrs ◽  
John Duckitt
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Interpersonal Process ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Conformity ◽  
Right Wing Authoritarianism ◽  
Personal Need For Structure ◽  
Order Factor ◽  
The Impact

Several personality constructs have been theorised to underlie right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA). In samples from New Zealand and Germany (Ns = 218, 259), we tested whether these constructs can account for specific variance in RWA. In both samples, social conformity and personal need for structure were independent predictors of RWA. In Sample 2, where also openness to experience was measured, social conformity and personal need for structure fully mediated the impact of the higher‐order factor of openness on RWA. Our results contribute to the integration of current approaches to the personality basis of authoritarianism and suggest that two distinct personality processes contribute to RWA: An interpersonal process related to social conformity and an intrapersonal process related to rigid cognitive style. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

scholarly journals Terror Management Theory and the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
pp. 002216782095948
Author(s):  
Tom Pyszczynski ◽  
McKenzie Lockett ◽  
Jeff Greenberg ◽  
Sheldon Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Focal Attention ◽  
The Many ◽  
A Minor ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior ◽  
Threat To Life

Terror management theory is focused on the role that awareness of death plays in diverse aspects of life. Here, we discuss the theory’s implications for understanding the widely varying ways in which people have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that regardless of whether one consciously believes that the virus is a major threat to life or only a minor inconvenience, fear of death plays an important role in driving one’s attitudes and behavior related to the virus. We focus on the terror management theory distinction between proximal defenses, which are activated when thoughts of death are in current focal attention and are logically related to the threat at hand, and distal defenses, which are activated when thoughts of death are on the fringes of one’s consciousness and entail the pursuit of meaning, personal value, and close relationships. We use this framework to discuss the many ways in which COVID-19 undermines psychological equanimity, the diverse ways people have responded to this threat, and the role of ineffective terror management in psychological distress and disorder that may emerge in response to the virus.

Self-Esteem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey J. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Reciprocal Effects ◽  
Disability Sport ◽  
Mastery Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multidimensional Models

Self-esteem has a long history in psychological research and sport psychology researchers are often interested in whether sport builds self-esteem. This chapter traces the history of self-esteem research in sport and provides definitions of and distinguishes between self-esteem and self-concept, and unidimensional and multidimensional models of self-esteem. The reciprocal effects model of self-esteem is examined, which suggests mastery experiences and self-esteem both exert influences on each other and can be viewed as causes and effects of each other. Antecedents of self-esteem, such as feelings of mastery and favorable judgments of worth from significant others, are also discussed, along with developmental aspects of self-esteem. Related areas of research that might be relevant to disability and disability sport are also discussed, such as terror management theory, the role of discounting and devaluing in psychological disengagement, how self-esteem might act as a mediator, and metacognitive properties of self-esteem.

Role of Social Detachment in Coping With Death Anxiety

2017 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saurabh Maheshwari ◽  
Tuheena Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Adaptive Strategy ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Coping With Death

The present research examines the strength of terror management theory in an indigenous Indian context of religious fair called Magh Mela. It explores how elderly Hindu people deal with death anxiety through practicing Kalpvas in Magh Mela. The research explores the role of social detachment and self-esteem in coping with terror of death. Study 1, a field experiment on 150 Kalpvasis (practitioners of Kalpvas) confirms the significant role of social detachment as an adaptive strategy for coping with death terror. The role of self-esteem did not emerge in the study. Study 2, another field experiment on 62 Kalpvasis confirms results of study 1. Significant role of years of Kalpvas on fear of death shows importance of the religious practices in managing terror related to death. The relation of terror management theory and death anxiety thus follows a different explanation for more indigenous contexts.

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