In two studies, the authors examined how threat induced by reminders of mortality would moderate the effect of political orientation on moral judgments. In Study 1, university students (n = 113) categorized their political orientation, were randomly assigned to complete a fear of death or public speaking scale, and then completed a moral foundations questionnaire. In Study 2, university students (n = 123) rated their political orientations, were randomly assigned to write about their own death or dental pain, and then completed a moral foundations questionnaire. In both studies, mortality salience intensified the moral differences between liberals and conservatives. These findings were primarily the result of the reactions of liberals, who responded to mortality salience with increased ratings of the fairness/cheating virtue in Study 1 and the care/harm virtue in Study 2.

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The paper examines the hypothesis that the effects of mortality salience on attitudes toward illegal immigrants are moderated by individual differences predisposing participants toward prejudice or intolerance. A total of 122 university students completed measures of political orientation, authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation prior to being randomly assigned to a mortality salience or control condition. Political conservatism, authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation were all associated with more negative attitudes toward illegal immigrants. Although there was no main effect for mortality salience, there was an interaction between mortality salience and social dominance orientation. Higher social dominance orientation was associated with more negative attitudes toward illegal immigrants, albeit only in the mortality salience condition.

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The author attempts to integrate Terror Management Theory (TMT) and R. W. Firestone's Separation Theory (1984, 1994). Both theories emphasize defense against death anxiety as a key human motive. Whereas TMT focuses extensively on self-esteem and cultural worldview, Firestone posited additional defenses such as gene survival, self-nourishing behaviors, addictive couple bonds, and adopting an anti-sexual approach to life. TMT offers a strong base of experimentally validated ideas and the experimental paradigms to test the broad array of defenses enumerated in Firestone's Separation Theory. Therefore, an integration of the two theories would be beneficial to a fuller understanding of psychological defenses against death anxiety.

The present article describes a portable version of the go/no-go association task (GNAT) that runs on Palm Pilot and Handspring personal digital assistant (PDA) devices. The PDA version of the GNAT was modeled after a portable version of the Implicit Association Test (Dabbs, Bassett, & Dyomina, 2003) and was designed to facilitate measurement of implicit social cognition in field settings and among difficult-to-reach populations. The PDA version of the GNAT was used to assess implicit attitudes about smoking among 11 smokers and 28 nonsmokers. Support for the validity of the PDA version of the GNAT was provided by findings that smokers showed less negative implicit attitudes toward smoking, as measured by the GNAT, than did nonsmokers and that these implicit attitudes were positively correlated with self-reported smoking attitudes among both groups.

The authors examine the idea, derived from Terror Management Theory, that concerns about undocumented immigrants stem from the need to protect death-buffering cultural values against the symbolic threat posed by dissimilar others. It is hypothesized that reminders of death will intensify aversion to culturally dissimilar immigrants. Forty-six university students were randomly assigned to a mortality salience or a control condition prior to evaluating either an illegal alien named Ben Johnson from Vancouver or Carlos Suarez from Mexico City. Consistent with the hypothesis, reactions to the Canadian target did not differ in the control and mortality salience conditions, whereas reactions to the Mexican immigrant were more negative in the mortality salience than in the control condition.