Terror Management Theory

Greenberg et al. (1990). Evidence for Terror Management TheoryII: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those WhoThreaten or Bolster the Cultural Worldview. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology. 58(2): 308-318.

Florian, V. & Mikulincer, M. (1997). Fear of Death and theJudgement of Social Transgressions: A Multidimensional Testof Terror Management Theory. Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology. 73(2): 369-380.

Relevant Implications

∞ Culture as an anxiety-buffer

“Culture minimizes this anxiety by providing a conception of the universe (cultural worldview) that imbues the world with order, meaning, and permanence; by providing a set of standards of valued behavior that, if satisfied, provide self-esteem; and by promising protection and, ultimately, death transcendence to those who fulfill the standards of value.” (Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992, p. 212)

As Becker (as cited in Pyszczynski, 2003) puts it:

“Psychologically, then, the function of culture is not to illuminate the truth but rather to obscure the horrifying possibility that death entails the permanent annihilation of the self”

Study 1

The effects of mortality salience on the reactions to those with similar or dissimilar religious worldviews

Prediction: Mortality salience would increase liking for a member of one’s own religious group and decrease liking for a member of a religious out-group.

Procedure

1) “Preliminary Questionnaire Packet”

∞ Background information

∞ Attitude and personality questionnaires

∞ Mortality Salience Manipulation

Mortality Salience Manipulation

(a) Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your death arouses in you.

(b) Please write down, as specifically as you can, what you think physically will happen to you as you die.

Procedure

2) Read a set of questionnaires supposedlyfrom two different targets…

3) Evaluate the targets∞ Interpersonal Judgement Scale (Byrne, 1971)

Jew and Christian

Impression Assessment

Interpersonal Judgement Scale (Byrne, 1971)

e.g. rate the target’s intelligence, knowledge of current events, mortality, andthe extent to which they would like and enjoy working with the target.

How applicable each of 20 characteristics are to the target (1 = not at all applicable to 9 = extremely applicable):

∞ Stingy, manipulative, arrogant, snobbish, obnoxious;

∞ Honest, cheerful, reliable, trustworthy, argumentative, intelligent, warm, patient, kind, ambitious, stable, sleazy, introverted, and impulsive.

Results

∞ Inducing Christian subjects to think about theirmortality led them to give more positive IJS ratings of fellow Christians and more negativeIJS ratings of Jews.

∞ Across all measures, the Christian target was rated more positively than the Jew target only in the mortality salient condition.

Study 2

Mortality salience intensifies the similarity-attraction relationship (Byrne, 1971)

Therefore, when reminded of theirmortality, participants should show greater preference for similar others over dissimilarothers.

Study 3

Mortality salience should have a stronger effect on reactions to those who directly validate or threatenaspects of subjects’ cultural worldviews

∞ Cover page∞ Few background questions∞ Mortality salience manipulation∞ Interview∞ Interviewee credentials page∞ Primary dependent variables (in order to

assess reactions to the interview)

Interview

3 versions: Political Science Quarterly

Pro-US: “In this country, the people and not the government willbe the final judges of the value in which to be a free thinker.”

Mixed: “Morality has nothing to do with our foreign policy. That’s why the idea that the U.S. is a promotor of worlddemocracy and freedom is a total sham.”

Anti-US: “Violent overthrow is the only way the people will ever wrest control of their own nation from the capitalist powerbrokers.”

Dependent Measure

Differential Emotions Scale (Izard, 1977)

Indicate from 1 (not feeling the emotions at all) to 9 (feeling the emotion a great deal)

∞ How much did you like the interviewee?∞ Would you like to meet him?∞ How knowledgeable do you think he is?

∞ Do you agree with the interviewee’s opinions?∞ How much truth do you think there was in what he

said?

Results

Mortality salience encourages positive reactions to someone who praises the culture and negative reactions to those who criticize it.

However, the credentials of the interviewee did not alter the primary effects of mortality salience.

Florian, V. & Mikulincer, M. (1997). Fear of Death and the Judgement of Social Transgressions: A Multidimensional Test of Terror Management Theory. Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology. 73(2): 369-380.

Fear of Personal Death Scale (Florian & Kravetz, 1983)

7-point scale ranging from 1 (totally incorrect for me) to 7 (totally correct for me)

The Intrapersonal subscale is composed of two factors:∞ Fear of Loss of Self-Fulfillment (i.e., “Death frightens me because my

life will not have been properly used“ )

∞ Fear of Self-Annihilation (i.e., "I am afraid of death because of the decomposition of my body” or “Loss and destruction of the self).

The Interpersonal subscale is composed of two additional factors:

∞ Fear of Loss of Social Identity (i.e., “I will be forgotten” or “Absence will not be felt”)

∞ Fear of Consequences to Family and Friends (i.e., “Because I won’t beable to provide for my family” or “Relatives will not overcome sorrow”)

Hypothesis

(1) Making death salient will lead people who fear death because of its intrapersonal consequences to react more negatively (as compared with people in the death non-salient condition) only to a social transgression with intrapersonal consequences. These people will not react more negatively to a social transgression with mainly interpersonal consequences.

(2) In addition, the induction of death salience will lead people who fear death because of its interpersonalconsequences to react more negatively to a social transgression with interpersonal consequences but not to a transgression with intrapersonal consequences.

Florian, V. & Mikulincer, M. (1997)

2 x 2 x 2 design

∞ Mortality salience (salient vs. nonsalient)

∞ Intrapersonal Fear of Death (high vs. low)

∞ Interpersonal Fear of Death (high vs. low)

Dependent Variable: (1) ratings of transgressions with intrapersonal consequences; (2) ratings of transgressions with interpersonal consequences.

Multidimensional Social Transgression Scale (MSTS)

Evaluate the severity of the transgression from 1 (not severe at all) to9 (very severe).

Interpersonal Transgressions:

“The vehicle hit me, but my son is the victim” said the teacher whowas hit in front of his son’s eyes while a young driver drove throughthe residential area at a speed of 100 mph. “Half a year after the accident, I have totally recovered, and he is still afraid of the sound of a car. He can’t travel in a moving vehicle. He walks to and fromschool, which is two miles from our house, trying to avoid all roads. The boy who was happy and carefree has turned anxious andparanoid.”

Multidimensional Social Transgression Scale (MSTS)

Evaluate the severity of the transgression from 1 (not severe at all) to9 (very severe).

Personal Transgressions:

“A frustrated burglar destroyed the life masterpiece of the renownedsculptor, one week before its completion and display to the public. The burglar, disappointed from the small booty, tied up the sculptorand in front of his eyes hit the ceramic sculpture with a heavy hammer until it shattered. The stunned sculptor: “Nineteen years of work – the best of my talent, turned into a pile of rubble.”

Results

∞ Death salience leads to harsher evaluations of moral transgressions independent of the type of death fear or transgression

∞ Independent of mortality salience, peoplerespond most harshly to transgressions thatcoincide with the aspects of death they most fear.

Discussion

∞ Does thinking about death really makes people genuinely more concerned about death?

∞ Another causal explanation for the fact that

people prefer similar others over dissimilar others?

― People may fear the unknown and the strange(r) more than they fear death.

― Evolution alert! Similar people are more likely to be genetic relatives therefore we tend to like them more.

"Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret."

-- Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic