An existentialist view on mortality salience effects: Personal hardiness, death-thought accessibility, and cultural worldview defence

2001 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Florian ◽  
Mario Mikulincer ◽  
Gilad Hirschberger
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Death Thought Accessibility

scholarly journals Mindfulness of Death as a Tool for Mortality Salience Induction with Reference to Terror Management Theory

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 353
Author(s):  
Hyun Gong Moon
Keyword(s):  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Mindfulness Of Death

In this article, I argue that “mindfulness of death” (maraṇasati) can be a tool to induce mortality salience and can have a positive psychological impact. The mindfulness of death is described in detail in the early Buddhist texts Aṅguttara Nikāya and Visuddhimagga. The texts stress that death should be consciously connected with temporality and mindfulness. Here, I look at the mindfulness of death in relation to the mortality salience of terror management theory. “Mortality salience” is a term proposed in terror management theory that means “the state of conscious activation of the thoughts of death”. In addition, after conscious activation of the thought of death, I examine the psychological changes, such as the increase of pro-social attitudes which emphasizes ethics and morality, and the emphasis on the intrinsic value of life due to the operation of a cultural worldview and self-esteem. In this paper, I conclude that mindfulness of death can be an effective tool to induce mortality salience.

Contrasting the Effects of Mortality Salience and Future Time Limitation on Goal Prioritization in Older and Younger Adults

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (10) ◽  
pp. 2112-2121
Author(s):  
Helene H Fung ◽  
Steven Tsun-Wai Chu ◽  
Da Jiang ◽  
Amber Xuqian Chen ◽  
Carson Chuen Ng
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cultural Worldviews ◽  
Study Participants

Abstract Objectives This study aims at contrasting the effects of limited future time perspective and mortality salience on goal prioritization across adulthood. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) argues that people increasingly prioritize emotionally meaningful goals when they perceive future time as more limited. Terror management theory (TMT) suggests that mortality salience (i.e., the awareness of one’s mortality) drives people to prioritize the goal of perpetuating own existence through affirming cultural worldview. Method In this study, participants (N = 438) were randomly assigned to six conditions that primed (a) limited future time, (b) mortality salience, (c) death reflection, (d) both limited future time and mortality salience, (e) both limited future time, and death reflection, or (f) none. Results Results showed that older adults allocated significantly more resources to emotionally close recipients who supported their cultural worldviews in conditions involving future time limitation and death reflection. They also allocated less resources to emotionally not close recipients who did not support their cultural worldviews in conditions involving future time limitation. Younger adults did not show these differences. Nor did mortality salience have any effect. Discussion These results suggest that future time perspective and death reflection shift age-related goals more than mortality salience.

Mortality Salience and Symbols of Cultural Worldview Affect the Desirability of a Stressful Job: The Ironic Consequences of Terror Management

2012 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittney Wirth-Petrik ◽  
R. Kim Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Dental Pain ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Health Campaigns ◽  
Job Description ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Public Health Campaigns

In a study of terror management theory, participants first responded to prompts asking them to imagine their own death or dental pain and later rated the desirability of a generic job described explicitly as extremely stressful. The job description included either an American or foreign company logo. As predicted by terror management theory, the participants shown an American logo ironically desired the stressful job more, having been prompted with reminders of death than with reminders of dental pain. This study is the first to examine terror management theory's prediction of the influence of symbols of cultural worldview on health-related decisions. The authors discuss possible implications of the findings for making unintentionally stress-inducing decisions and for public health campaigns.

scholarly journals The Possibility of Self-Determined Death Eliminates Mortality Salience Effects on Cultural Worldview Defense: Cross-Cultural Replications

Psychology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 07 (07) ◽  
pp. 1004-1014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongfei Du ◽  
Immo Fritsche ◽  
Zenobia Talati ◽  
Emanuele Castano ◽  
Eva Jonas
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Worldview Defense ◽  
Cultural Worldview

scholarly journals Are we truly special and unique? A replication of Goldenberg et al. (2001)

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 191114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Rodríguez-Ferreiro ◽  
Itxaso Barberia ◽  
Jordi González-Guerra ◽  
Miguel A. Vadillo
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Aversive Situation

According to the mortality salience hypothesis of terror management theory, reminders of our future death increase the necessity to validate our cultural worldview and to enhance our self-esteem. In Experiment 2 of the study ‘I am not an animal: Mortality salience, disgust, and the denial of human creatureliness’, Goldenberg et al. (Goldenberg et al. 2001 J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 130 , 427–435. ( doi:10.1037/0096-3445.130.3.427 )) observed that participants primed with questions about their death provided more positive evaluations to an essay describing humans as distinct from animals than control participants presented with questions regarding another aversive situation. In a replication of this experiment conducted with 128 volunteers, we did not observe evidence for a mortality salience effect.

Subliminal Exposure to Death-Related Stimuli Increases Defense of the Cultural Worldview

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 379-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Arndt ◽  
Jeff Greenberg ◽  
Tom Pyszczynski ◽  
Sheldon Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Subliminal Stimulus ◽  
Pain Stimuli

Three experiments reported here provide empirical support for the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that unconscious concerns about death motivate allegiance to cultural beliefs Study 1 contrasted exposure to a subliminal death-related stimulus, a standard mortality-salience treatment, and a neutral subliminal stimulus, and found that both the subliminal and the standard reminder of mortality led to more favorable evaluations of people who praised subjects' cultural worldview and more unfavorable evaluations of those who challenged it Study 2 replicated this finding by comparing the effects of exposure to subliminal death stimuli and subliminal pain stimuli Study 3 contrasted subliminal death stimuli, supraliminal death stimuli, and subliminal pain stimuli and found that only subliminal death stimuli produced these effects

Exploitation of mortality salience in communication on climate change

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Akil ◽  
Philippe Robert-Demontrond ◽  
Julien Bouillé
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Consumption Choices ◽  
Cultural Worldviews ◽  
Consumer Choices

This research focuses on the effectiveness of anxiety-inducing communication for mobilizing consumers against climate change. Based on terror management theory (TMT), we show that this register can be counterproductive in generating consumer choices that run counter to pro-environmental logics. In particular, we report the results of an experiment ( N = 132) testing the influence of the type of communication (anxiogenic vs informative) on consumer choices (pro-materialistic vs pro-environmental). The results reveal that people’s consumption choices depend on their cultural worldviews (i.e. materialistic vs environmentalist) and the type of communication used. The effectiveness of communication strategies on climate change is then discussed in terms of people’s cultural worldview.

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