Toward a greater understanding of the emotional dynamics of the mortality salience manipulation: Revisiting the “affect-free” claim of terror management research.

2014 ◽  
Vol 106 (5) ◽  
pp. 655-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Lambert ◽  
Fade R. Eadeh ◽  
Stephanie A. Peak ◽  
Laura D. Scherer ◽  
John Paul Schott ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Emotional Dynamics

scholarly journals Nothing or the opposite: intersecting terror management and objective self‐awareness

2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Silvia
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
The Self ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Relevant Word ◽  
Eventual Death ◽  
Word Completion

The human capacity for self‐awareness allows people to envision their eventual death and thus creates the potential for debilitating anxiety. Terror management research has shown that self‐awareness exacerbates the experience of mortality salience. I suggest that self‐awareness alone can induce mortality salience through dialectical thinking. If constructs include a concept and its opposite, then focusing on one aspect should also increase awareness of the opposite. Focusing on the existing object self should thus lead to the recognition of the non‐existent self that is implied. In study 1, participants experienced one of two self‐awareness manipulations (exposure to a mirror, perceiving the self as distinctive) or no manipulation; mortality salience was measured using a death‐relevant word completion task. Both self‐awareness conditions reported significantly higher mortality salience than the control condition. In study 2, participants exposed to their reflection reported increased death salience and life salience (as measured by death‐ and life‐relevant word completion tasks) than a control group, which directly suggests that self‐awareness leads people to dialectically consider opposing facets of the self. Terror management and objective self‐awareness theories might thus be more intimately tied than was previously thought. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Follow the Norm!

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Jonas ◽  
Immo Fritsche
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Injunctive Norms ◽  
Descriptive Norms ◽  
World Championship ◽  
Cultural Standards

Terror management research shows that mortality salience (MS) increases people’s attempts to live up to cultural standards. However, as cultures value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, it is often difficult to derive specific predictions. Previous research identified the salience of injunctive norms (norms based on moral prescriptions) as an important moderator. We tested whether the influence of MS also depended on the salience of descriptive norms, which refer to what most people actually do in a particular situation. We, indeed, found that only when showing people that fellow ingroup members were optimistic (as opposed to pessimistic) that Germany would win the soccer world championship, did MS increase participants’ tendency to likewise express optimism about the team.

When Death Is Compelling

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 352-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Schindler ◽  
Marc-André Reinhard
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Hypothetical Scenario ◽  
The Face ◽  
Scenario Study ◽  
Norm Of Reciprocity

Abstract. Research on terror management theory has found evidence that people under mortality salience strive to live up to activated social norms and values. Recently, research has shown that mortality salience also increases adherence to the norm of reciprocity. Based on this, in the current paper we investigated the idea that mortality salience influences persuasion strategies that are based on the norm of reciprocity. We therefore assume that mortality salience should enhance compliance for a request when using the door-in-the-face technique – a persuasion strategy grounded in the norm of reciprocity. In a hypothetical scenario (Study 1), and in a field experiment (Study 2), applying the door-in-the-face technique enhanced compliance in the mortality salience condition compared to a control group.

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.

Perceived Consensus, Uniqueness, and Terror Management: Compensatory Responses to Threats to Inclusion and Distinctiveness Following Mortality Salience

1997 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1055-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Simon ◽  
Jeff Greenberg ◽  
Jamie Arndt ◽  
Tom Pyszczynski ◽  
Russell Clement ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Compensatory Responses

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.

Considering the roles of affect and culture in the enactment and enjoyment of cruelty

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spee Kosloff ◽  
Jeff Greenberg ◽  
Sheldon Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Cultural Framework

Research on aggression and terror management theory suggests shortcomings in Nell's analysis of cruelty. Hostile aggression and exposure to aggressive cues are not inherently reinforcing, though they may be enjoyed if construed within a meaningful cultural framework. Terror management research suggests that human cruelty stems from the desire to defend one's cultural worldview and to participate in a heroic triumph over evil.

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