A theoretical and empirical review of the death-thought accessibility concept in terror management research.

Abstract

Terror management theory (TMT) highlights the motivational impact of thoughts of death in various aspects of everyday life. Since its inception in 1986, research on TMT has undergone a slight but significant shift from an almost exclusive focus on the manipulation of thoughts of death to a marked increase in studies that measure the accessibility of death-related cognition. Indeed, the number of death-thought accessibility (DTA) studies in the published literature has grown substantially in recent years. In light of this increasing reliance on the DTA concept, the present article is meant to provide a comprehensive theoretical and empirical review of the literature employing this concept. After discussing the roots of DTA, the authors outline the theoretical refinements to TMT that have accompanied significant research findings associated with the DTA concept. Four distinct categories (mortality salience, death association, anxiety-buffer threat, and dispositional) are derived to organize the reviewed DTA studies, and the theoretical implications of each category are discussed. Finally, a number of lingering empirical and theoretical issues in the DTA literature are discussed with the aim of stimulating and focusing future research on DTA specifically and TMT in general.

The role of mortality awareness in hero identification

“…TMT has inspired considerable research suggesting, for example, that reminders of mortality motivate people to identify with their cultural beliefs and strive to enhance their selfworth, and that defense of these structures then reduces cognitions about mortality (see e.g., Greenberg, 2015, andHayes, Schimel, Arndt, &Faucher, 2010 for conceptual reviews; Burke, Martens, &Faucher, 2010 andSteinman &Updegraff 2015 for metaanalytic reviews). However, despite the many different directions of terror management research, very little work has examined heroism.…”

“…DTA was assessed after the writing task with a word fragment completion task used in many previous TMT studies (Hayes et al, 2010). Participants completed 25 word fragments, 7 of which could be completed with either a death-related word or a non-death word (e.g., the fragment CO_ _ _ _ could be completed as COFFIN [a death-related word] or as COFFEE [a non-death word]).…”

“…Further, participants who had their heroism or positive personality confirmed (vs. disconfirmed) by false feedback showed lower death thought accessibility (DTA; as assessed by a word completion task where some words could be completed with death or non-death words, e.g., COFF_ _ could be COFFIN or COFFEE [see Hayes et al, 2010]). While this study suggests perceptions of being heroic can confer existential security, questions remain concerning the role of mortality awareness in motivating identification with heroes, and whether such identification also serves an existential function.…”

The Anxiety-Buffering Properties of Cultural and Subcultural Worldviews: Terror Management Processes among Juvenile Delinquents

“…Reminding participants of their mortality leads to support for more restrictive punishment for a man who left his wife and children (Oschmann & Reichelt, 1994 as reported in Pyszczynski et al, 1997), a person accused of prostitution (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989), perpetrators of various moral offenses (Florian & Mikulincer, 1997), as well as to greater respect for cultural symbols (Greenberg, Porteus, Simon, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1995) increased prosocial behavior, especially towards charities aiding one's own culture (Jonas, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002) and attributed stronger humanness to the ingroup (Vaes, Goldenberg, Heflick (2010). The recent review of research on TMT presents Hayes et al (2010) and Lukaszewski (2010) in Polish literature.…”

Visual reminders of death enhance nociceptive-related cortical responses and event-related alpha desynchronisation

“…For example, some studies have shown that other types of psychological threats such as thoughts of being uncertain (van den Bos and Miedema, 2000) or not having control (Fritsche et al, 2008) can cause effects similar to reminders of mortality. Yet, there seems to be still a larger body of empirical work advocating for unique and specific effects of thinking about death (Hayes et al, 2010 andBurke et al, 2010 for a metanalytic assessment).…”