Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values.

Abstract

On the basis of terror management theory, it was hypothesized that when mortality is made salient, Ss would respond especially positively toward those who uphold cultural values and especially negatively toward those who violate cultural values. In Experiment I, judges recommended especially harsh bonds for a prostitute when mortality was made salient. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with student Ss and demonstrated that it occurs only among Ss with relatively negative attitudes toward prostitution. Experiment 3 demonstrated that mortality salience also leads to larger reward recommendations for a hero who upheld cultural values. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that the mortality salience effect does not result from heightened self-awareness or physiological arousal. Experiment 6 replicated the punishment effect with a different mortality salience manipulation. Implications for the role of fear of death in social behavior are discussed.Although it is evident that individual behavior is greatly affected by one's culture, relatively little is known about the forces that promote allegiance to particular cultural worldviews. Terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; press) posits that cultural conceptions of reality serve the vital function of buffering the anxiety that results from awareness of human vulnerability and mortality. Consequently, people are highly motivated to maintain faith in the cultural conceptions of reality to which they subscribe and to defend these conceptions against threats. The purpose of the research reported in this article was to test several hypotheses derived from terror management theory concerning reactions to those who uphold and violate cultural worldviews.Terror management theory is based largely on insights gleaned from Ernest Becker's (1962, 1973, 1975) attempts to synthesize contributions from the various social science disciplines into a coherent conception of human motivation and behavior. According to Becker, sophisticated human intellectual abilities lead to an awareness of human vulnerability and mortality, and this awareness creates the potential for overwhelming terror. As these abilities evolved, cultural worldviews began to emerge. The potential for terror put a press on evolving conceptions of reality such that any worldview that was to surviveWe would like to express our appreciation to Lisa Williams for conducting Experiment 5.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jeff Greenberg, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721. needed to provide a means of managing this terror. The conception of reality espoused by any given culture is thus the basis of a cultural anxiety-buffer that serves to protect the individual from the anxiety that results from awareness of his or her vulnerability and ultimate mortality.' According to the theory, however, protection from anxiety requires that one achieve a sense of value or self-esteem within the cultural context. This is because the culture promises secu...

Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview.

“…The three studies reported in this article demonstrate the theory's potential for adding to the understanding of interpersonal and intergroup relations. The present research, along with that reported by Rosenblatt et al (1989), provides support for some terror management hypotheses concerning interpersonal relations, and thereby suggests that it may be fruitful to explore the wide range of additional hypotheses that can be derived from the theory concerning both this and other traditional areas of social-psychological inquiry (see Solomon et al, 1989, for other recent efforts to do so). In addition, the current findings suggest that refinements of the theory are needed regarding personality and situational variables that may influence how mortality salience affects interpersonal judgments.…”

“…Initial evidence supporting this proposition has recently been obtained in a series of six studies by Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, and Lyon (1989). In five of these studies, mortality salience was manipulated by having subjects fill out a mortality questionnaire that asked them to describe what will happen to them as they physically die and what the thought of their own death arouses in them.…”

“…In all three studies, we used the same mortality salience treatment used in five of the Rosenblatt et al (1989) studies. Study 1 concerned reactions to in-groupers and out-groupers; Study 2 dealt with reactions to attitudinally similar and dissimilar others; and Study 3 focused on reactions to those who explicitly criticize or praise the culture (for our subjects, the United States).…”

Finding social benefits after a collective trauma: Perceiving societal changes and well‐being following 9/11

“…Religion serves as a resource for coping with trauma in a wide variety of ways (e.g., Vickberg et al, 2001;Walsh, King, Jones, Tookman, & Blizard, 2002; for a review, see Pargament, 1997), and feeling that religious beliefs are supported may enhance its effectiveness in general. However, a more direct explanation is provided by theory and research on terror management theory (TMT; Pyszczynski et al, 2003;Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1989). Especially in the wake of a terror-inducing event like 9/11, increased national acceptance of religiosity could act as a form of support for a religious cultural worldview, thereby enhancing well-being.…”

Predicting the near and distant future.

“…Participants volunteered to take part in a study titled Psychological Experiments. They read short descriptions of the following five classic findings in psychology: primacy and recency effects in memory (improved memory for items positioned at the beginning or at the end of a list; Robinson & Brown, 1926), encoding specificity (improved memory when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval; Thomson & Tulving, 1970), in-group favoritism (a greater tendency to favor one's own group members after experiencing failure than after experiencing success; Tajfel, 1982), the effects of mortality salience on derogation of moral transgressions (predicted by terror management theory; Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989), and excitation transfer (the transfer of autonomic arousal from one situation to another; Zillmann, 1971).…”