Humans rule! The effects of creatureliness reminders, mortality salience and self-esteem on attitudes towards animals

This research paper presents findings from an experimental investigation of the attitudes that people hold towards animals when they are reminded of the fact that humans and animals are creatures alike. We tested the hypothesis that mortality salience (MS) would lead participants reminded of human creatureliness to evaluate animals more negatively, especially when they reported lower self-esteem. Student participants were randomly assigned to conditions in which MS was made salient and thoughts about human creatureliness were manipulated. Participants then reported their attitudes towards animals. Lending support to the hypothesis of this study, MS led participants with lower self-esteem to rate animals more negatively, when they were reminded of human-animal similarity. The implications of these results for understanding people's attitudes towards animals were discussed.

Two decades of terror management theory: a meta-analysis of mortality salience research

A meta-analysis was conducted on empirical trials investigating the mortality salience (MS) hypothesis of terror management theory (TMT). TMT postulates that investment in cultural worldviews and self-esteem serves to buffer the potential for death anxiety; the MS hypothesis states that, as a consequence, accessibility of death-related thought (MS) should instigate increased worldview and self-esteem defense and striving. Overall, 164 articles with 277 experiments were included. MS yielded moderate effects (r = .35) on a range of worldview- and self-esteem-related dependent variables (DVs), with effects increased for experiments using (a) American participants, (b) college students, (c) a longer delay between MS and the DV, and (d) people-related attitudes as the DV. Gender and self-esteem may moderate MS effects differently than previously thought. Results are compared to other reviews and examined with regard to alternative explanations of TMT. Finally, suggestions for future research are offered.

Creative terror management: creativity as a facilitator of cultural exploration after mortality salience

Research indicates that people respond to the elicitation of death thoughts by dogmatically defending their cultural worldviews. The current research examines the potential for conditions of creativity, a construct associated with open-mindedness, to promote a more explorative reaction to the threat of death thoughts. In Studies 1 and 2, thoughts of death or a control topic were activated and then participants engaged in either a creative or a control task. In Study 3, thoughts of death or a control topic were activated and then participants were presented with information suggesting that creativity is or is not culturally valued. After these conditions, social, intellectual, and environmental exploration (Study 1) and cultural worldview exploration (Studies 2 and 3) were measured. Results indicated that both engaging in a creative task and being informed that creativity is culturally valued facilitated exploration in response to thinking about death. Conceptual and applied implications are discussed.

Mortality salience increases adherence to salient norms and values

Four studies indicate that mortality salience increases adherence to social norms and values, but only when cultural norms and values are salient. In Study 1, mortality salience coupled with a reminder about cultural values of egalitarianism reduced prejudice toward Blacks among non-Black participants. In Studies 2 through 4, a mortality salience induction (e.g., walking through a cemetery) increased self-reported and actual helping behavior only when the cultural value of helping was salient. These results suggest that people may adhere to norms and values so as to manage awareness of death.

Terror Management and Stereotyping: Why Do People Stereotype When Mortality Is Salient?

Three studies examine two routes by which mortality threats may lead to stereotyping. Mortality salience may activate both a comprehension goal and an enhancement goal. Enhancement goals are likely to be more active in situations where intergroup competition or conflict is salient. If this is not the case, then a comprehension goal will predominate. In line with a why-determines-how logic, when mortality salience activates a comprehension goal, both positive and negative stereotyping occur. In contrast, the activation of an enhancement goal only increases negative stereotyping.

On the Compatibility of Terror Management Theory and Perspectives on Human Evolution

Terror management theory (TMT) posits that the uniquely human awareness of death gives rise to a potential for debilitating terror, which is averted by the construction and maintenance of cultural worldviews. Over 300 studies have supported hypotheses derived from TMT. In a recent critique of TMT, Navarrete and Fessler (2005) argued that TMT is inconsistent with contemporary evolutionary biology and that the evidence supporting TMT can be better accounted for by an alternative “coalitional psychology” (CP), which posits a domain general mechanism whereby a wide range of adaptive threats activate an even wider range of judgments and behaviors all directed toward sustaining unspecified coalitions. In this paper, we argue that: a) Navarrete and Fessler do not adequately present either TMT or the empirical evidence in support of it; b) TMT is in no way inconsistent with modern evolutionary biology; and c) CP is not theoretically plausible and cannot provide a convincing empirical account of evidence supporting TMT. The broader goal of this paper is to encourage evolutionary theorists to move beyond overly simplistic alternatives that target superficial portrayals of TMT and the evidence supporting it, and contribute to a more useful integration of TMT and its findings with evolutionary thinking about culture and human social behavior.

Windows into nothingness: Terror management, meaninglessness, and negative reactions to modern art

Why do people dislike art that they find meaningless? According to terror management theory, maintaining a basic meaningful view of reality is a key prerequisite for managing concerns about mortality. Therefore, mortality salience should decrease liking for apparently meaningless art, particularly among those predisposed to unambiguous knowledge. Accordingly, mortality salience diminished affection for modern art in Study 1, and this effect was shown in Study 2 to be specific to individuals with a high personal need for structure (PNS). In Studies 3 and 4, mortality salient high-PNS participants disliked modern art unless it was imbued with meaning, either by means of a title or a personal frame of reference induction. Discussion focused on the roles of meaninglessness, PNS, and art in terror management.

From the Grave to the Cradle: Evidence That Mortality Salience Engenders a Desire for Offspring

On the basis of terror management theory, the authors hypothesized that reminders of mortality (mortality salience) should promote the desire for offspring to the extent that it does not conflict with other self-relevant worldviews that also serve to manage existential concerns. In 3 studies, men, but not women, desired more children after mortality salience compared with various control conditions. In support of the authors' hypothesis that women's desire for offspring was inhibited as a function of concerns about career success, Study 3 showed that career strivings moderated the effect of mortality salience on a desire for offspring for female participants only; furthermore, Study 4 revealed that when the compatibility of having children and a career was made salient, female participants responded to mortality salience with an increased number of desired children. Taken together, the findings suggest that a desire for offspring can function as a terror management defense mechanism.

Social identity and worldview validation: the effects of ingroup identity primes and mortality salience on value endorsement

In this article, the authors report an investigation of the relationship between terror management and social identity processes by testing for the effects of social identity salience on worldview validation. Two studies, with distinct populations, were conducted to test the hypothesis that mortality salience would lead to worldview validation of values related to a salient social identity. In Study 1, reasonable support for this hypothesis was found with bicultural Aboriginal Australian participants (N = 97). It was found that thoughts of death led participants to validate ingroup and reject outgroup values depending on the social identity that had been made salient. In Study 2, when their student and Australian identities were primed, respectively, Anglo-Australian students (N = 119) validated values related to those identities, exclusively. The implications of the findings for identity-based worldview validation are discussed.

Does Gender Identity Influence Children's Psychological Well-Being?

This study examined influences of gender identity on change in preadolescents' adjustment over time. In each of two successive years, three measures of gender identity (felt gender typicality, contentment with gender assignment, and felt pressure for gender conformity) and four measures of adjustment (self-esteem, internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and acceptance by peers) were collected. Low gender typicality, low gender contentedness, and high felt pressure all foreshadowed deterioration on one or more indexes of adjustment. The combination of low gender typicality with high felt pressure was especially conducive to internalizing problems, underscoring the importance of the cognitive organization of the gender identity variables. The advantages of a multidimensional perspective on gender identity are discussed.

Why Do People Need Self-Esteem? A Theoretical and Empirical Review

Terror management theory (TMT; J. Greenberg, T. Pyszczynski, & S. Solomon, 1986) posits that people are motivated to pursue positive self-evaluations because self-esteem provides a buffer against the omnipresent potential for anxiety engendered by the uniquely human awareness of mortality. Empirical evidence relevant to the theory is reviewed showing that high levels of self-esteem reduce anxiety and anxiety-related defensive behavior, reminders of one's mortality increase self-esteem striving and defense of self-esteem against threats in a variety of domains, high levels of self-esteem eliminate the effect of reminders of mortality on both self-esteem striving and the accessibility of death-related thoughts, and convincing people of the existence of an afterlife eliminates the effect of mortality salience on self-esteem striving. TMT is compared with other explanations for why people need self-esteem, and a critique of the most prominent of these, sociometer theory, is provided.

Literal and symbolic immortality: the effect of evidence of literal immortality on self-esteem striving in response to mortality salience

Three studies investigated the effect of encouraging participants to believe in an afterlife on the relationship between mortality salience and self-esteem striving. Participants were exposed to essays arguing either in favor of or against the existence of an afterlife, and reminded about death or a control topic. Mortality salience led to increased accuracy ratings of a positive personality description (Studies 1 and 2) and increased striving for and defense of values (Study 3) among participants who read the essay arguing against an afterlife, but not among participants who read the essay in favor of it. The implications for the terror management analysis of self-esteem, the appeal of immortality beliefs, and the interplay between self-esteem striving and spiritual pursuits are discussed.

Mortality salience and the spreading activation of worldview-relevant constructs: exploring the cognitive architecture of terror management

Seven experiments assessed the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that reminding people of their mortality would increase accessibility of constructs central to their worldview. Experiment 1 found that mortality primes, relative to control primes, increased accessibility of nationalistic constructs for men but not for women. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and also found that mortality salience increased romantic accessibility for women but not for men. Four subsequent experiments supported the role of unconscious death-related ideation in producing these effects. A final experiment demonstrated that situational primes can increase the accessibility of nationalistic constructs for women after mortality salience. The roles of situational cues and individual differences in the effects of exposure to death-related stimuli on worldview-relevant construct accessibility are discussed.