When You Become a Superman: Subliminal Exposure to Death-Related Stimuli Enhances Men's Physical Force

Research based on terror management theory (TMT) has consistently found that reminders to individuals about their mortality engender responses aimed at shoring up faith in their cultural belief system. Previous studies have focused on the critical role that the accessibility of death-related thought plays in these effects. Moreover, it has been shown that these effects occur even when death-related stimuli are presented without awareness, suggesting the unconscious effects of mortality salience. Because one pervasive cultural ideal for men is to be strong, we hypothesized that priming death-related stimuli would lead to increasing physical force for men, but not for women. Building on self-escape mechanisms from TMT, we propose that the mechanism that turns priming of death-related stimuli into physical exertion relies on the co-activation of the self with death-related concepts. To test this hypothesis, we subjected 123 participants to a priming task that enabled us to combine the subliminal priming of death-related words with briefly presented self-related words. Accordingly, three different conditions were created: a (control) condition in which only self-related stimuli were presented, a (priming) condition in which death-related words were subliminally primed but not directly paired with self-related stimuli, and a (priming-plus-self) condition in which death-related words were subliminally primed and immediately linked to self-related stimuli. We recorded handgrip force before and after the manipulations. Results showed that male participants in the priming-plus-self condition had a higher peak force output than the priming and control conditions, while this effect was absent among female participants. These results support the hypothesis that unconscious mortality salience, which is accompanied with self-related stimuli, increases physical force for men but not for women. The gender difference may reflect the cultural belief system, in which individuals are taught that men should be strong. Thus, the unconscious mortality salience produced by exposure to the death-related stimuli motivates need to conform to this internalized cultural standard.

An Experimental Evaluation of Competing Age-Predictions of Future Time Perspective between Workplace and Retirement Domains

Future time perspective (FTP) is defined as "perceptions of the future as being limited or open-ended" (Lang and Carstensen, 2002; p. 125). The construct figures prominently in both workplace and retirement domains, but the age-predictions are competing: Workplace research predicts decreasing FTP age-change, in contrast, retirement scholars predict increasing FTP age-change. For the first time, these competing predictions are pitted in an experimental manipulation of subjective life expectancy (SLE). A sample of N = 207 older adults (age 45-60) working full-time (>30-h/week) were randomly assigned to SLE questions framed as either 'Live-to' or 'Die-by' to evaluate competing predictions for FTP. Results indicate general support for decreasing age-change in FTP, indicated by independent-sample t-tests showing lower FTP in the 'Die-by' framing condition. Further general-linear model analyses were conducted to test for interaction effects of retirement planning with experimental framings on FTP and intended retirement; While retirement planning buffered FTP's decrease, simple-effects also revealed that retirement planning increased intentions for sooner retirement, but lack of planning increased intentions for later retirement. Discussion centers on practical implications of our findings and consequences validity evidence in future empirical research of FTP in both workplace and retirement domains.

Searching for God: Illness-Related Mortality Threats and Religious Search Volume in Google in 16 Nations

We tested predictions about religiosity and terror management processes in 16 nations. Specifically, we examined weekly variation in Google search volume in each nation for 12 years (all weeks for which data were available). In all 16 nations, higher than usual weekly Google search volume for life-threatening illnesses (cancer, diabetes, and hypertension) predicted increases in search volume for religious content (e.g., God, Jesus, prayer) in the following week. This effect held up after controlling for (a) recent past and annual variation in religious search volume, (b) increases in search volume associated with religious holidays, and (c) variation in searches for a non-life-threatening illness ("sore throat"). Terror management threat reduction processes appear to occur across the globe. Furthermore, they may occur over much longer periods than those studied in the laboratory. Managing fears of death via religious belief regulation appears to be culturally pervasive.

The Existential Underpinnings of Intergroup Helping: When Normative and Defensive Motivations Collide

Five studies examined defensive intergroup helping—when responsibility for an out-group victim’s injury decreases helping, whereas lack of responsibility increases helping when death is salient. In Study 1 ( N = 350), implicit death primes increased petition signings to allow a Palestinian child to receive medical treatment in Israel, when the child was a victim of Palestinian fire. When the child was a victim of Israeli fire, however, death primes decreased petition signings. Study 2 ( N = 200) partially replicated these effects on commitment to donate blood to an injured Palestinian child. Study 3 ( N = 162) found that moral affirmation primes moderate defensive helping effects. Study 4 ( N = 372) replicated defensive helping, but failed to replicate the moral affirmation effect found in Study 3. Study 5 ( N = 243) partially replicated defensive helping and found that different framings of existential threat moderate the effect. Overall, results indicate that self-protective concerns underlie prosocial responses to out-group members in need.

5-HTTLPR moderates the association between interdependence and brain responses to mortality threats

While behavioral research suggests an association between cultural worldview and decreased anxiety of death, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain unclear. Using functional MRI, we investigated whether and how the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR), which has been associated with mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, moderates the associations between a cultural trait (i.e., interdependence) and self-report of death anxiety/depression and between interdependence and brain responses to mortality threats. Long/long and short/short allele carriers of the 5-HTTLPR were scanned using fMRI while they performed a one-back task on death-related, death-unrelated negative, and neutral words. Participants' interdependence and death anxiety/depression were assessed using questionnaires after scanning. We found that participants who assessed themselves with greater interdependence reported lower death anxiety/depression and showed decreased neural response to death-related words in emotion-related brain regions including the anterior cingulate, putamen, and thalamus. However, these results were evident in long/long allele carriers of the 5-HTTLPR but not in short/short allele carriers who even showed positive associations between interdependence and neural activities in the anterior cingulate, putamen and thalamus in response to death-related words. Our findings suggest candidate mechanisms for explaining the complex relationship between genotype, cultural traits, and mental/neural responses to mortality threats. Hum Brain Mapp 38:6157-6171, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Evil Animal: A Terror Management Theory Perspective on the Human Tendency to Kill Animals

This research tested whether support for the killing of animals serves a terror management function. In five studies, death primes caused participants to support the killing of animals more than control primes, unless the participants' self-esteem had been elevated (Study 4). This effect was not moderated by gender, preexisting attitudes toward killing animals or animal rights, perceived human-animal similarity, religiosity, political orientation, or by the degree to which the killing was justified. Support for killing animals after subliminal death primes was also associated with an increased sense of power and invulnerability (Study 5). Implications and future directions are discussed.

From Threat to Relief: Expressing Prejudice toward Atheists as a Self-Regulatory Strategy Protecting the Religious Orthodox from Threat

We claim that religious orthodoxy is related to prejudice toward groups that violate important values, i.e., atheists. Moreover, we suggest that expressing prejudice may efficiently reduce the threat posed by this particular group among people who hold high levels, but not low levels, of orthodox belief. We tested these assumptions in an experimental study in which, after being exposed to atheistic worldviews (value-threat manipulation), high and low orthodox participants were allowed (experimental condition) or not (control condition) to express prejudice toward atheists. Threat was operationalized by cardiovascular reactivity, i.e., heart rate (HR); the higher the HR index, the higher the threat. The results found that people who hold high (vs. low) levels of orthodox belief responded with increased HR after the threat manipulation. However, we observed decreased HR after the expression of prejudice toward atheists among highly orthodox participants compared to the control condition. We did not find this effect among people holding low levels of orthodox belief. Thus, we conclude that expressing prejudice toward this particular group may be an efficient strategy to cope with the threat posed by this group for highly orthodox people. The results are discussed in light of previous findings on religious beliefs and the self-regulatory function of prejudice.

Distinct effects of reminding mortality and physical pain on the default-mode activity and activity underlying self-reflection

Behavioral research suggests that reminding both mortality and negative affect influences self-related thoughts. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we tested the hypothesis that reminders of mortality and physical pain decrease brain activity underlying self-related thoughts. Three groups of adults underwent priming procedures during which they answered questions pertaining to mortality, physical pain, or leisure time, respectively. Before and after priming, participants performed personality trait judgments on oneself or a celebrity, identified the font of words, or passively viewed a fixation. The default-mode activity and neural activity underlying self-reflection were identified by contrasting viewing a fixation vs. font judgment and trait judgments on oneself vs. a celebrity, respectively. The analyses of the pre-priming functional MRI (fMRI) data identified the default-mode activity in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), and parahippocampal gyrus, and the activity underlying instructed self-reflection in both the ventral and dorsal regions of the MPFC. The analyses of the post-priming fMRI data revealed that, relative to leisure time priming, reminding mortality significantly reduced the default-mode PCC activity, and reminding physical pain significantly decreased the dorsal MPFC activity during instructed self-reflection. Our findings suggest distinct neural underpinnings of the effect of reminding morality and aversive emotion on default-mode and instructed self-reflection.

Effect of media presentations on willingness to commit to organ donation

We examine how presentations of organ donation cases in the media may affect people's willingness to sign organ donation commitment cards, donate the organs of a deceased relative, support the transition to an "opt-out" policy, or donate a kidney while alive. We found that providing identifying information about the prospective recipient (whose life was saved by the donation) increased the participants' willingness to commit to organ donation themselves, donate the organs of a deceased relative, or support a transition to an "opt-out" policy. Conversely, identifying the deceased donor tended to induce thoughts of death rather than about saving lives, resulting in fewer participants willing to donate organs or support measures that facilitated organ donation. A study of online news revealed that identification of the donor is significantly more common than identification of the recipient in the coverage of organ donation cases-with possibly adverse effects on the incidence of organ donations.

Re-examining the relationship between mortality salience and prosocial behavior in Chinese context

Given the mixed findings regarding the relationship between mortality salience (MS) and prosocial behavior, the present research retested how MS influences prosocial behaviors in Chinese culture. Results showed that although participants have different levels of death thought accessibility between an organ donation scenario and a general charity scenario, their willingness for prosocial behaviors were not significantly different between the two scenarios, indicating that under the influence of Chinese culture MS did not decrease prosocial behaviors. The findings point to the importance of uncovering the role of Chinese philosophy about death and life in shaping people's positive death reflection.

Mortality salience reduces the discrimination between in-group and out-group interactions: A functional MRI investigation using multi-voxel pattern analysis

As a fundamental concern of human beings, mortality salience impacts various human social behaviors including intergroup interactions; however, the underlying neural signature remains obscure. Here, we examined the neural signatures underlying the impact of mortality reminders on in-group bias in costly punishment combining a second-party punishment task with multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI data. After mortality salience (MS) priming or general negative affect priming, participants received offers from racial in-group and out-group proposers and decided how to punish proposers by reducing their payoffs. We revealed that MS priming attenuated in-group bias and dampened the discriminated activation patterns pertaining to group identities in regions previously implicated in costly punishment, including dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporo-parietal junction, anterior cingulate cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The group identity represented in multivariate patterns of activity of these regions predicted in-group bias for the control condition, i.e., the stronger discriminative representations of group identities in these regions; the larger was the in-group bias. Furthermore, the in-group bias was reliably decoded by distributed activation patterns in the punishment-related networks but only in the control condition and not in the MS condition. These findings elucidate the neural underpinnings of the effects of mortality reminders on intergroup interaction. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1281-1298, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Inside the earthquake: Perceived disaster exposure and helping intentions among Italian and immigrant victims of the 2012 Italian earthquakes

The aim of the present research was to investigate the psychological processes driving outgroup helping intentions among ethnic groups actually involved in natural disasters. We proposed that disaster exposure would be associated with different degrees of outgroup helping intentions depending on victim’s ethnic group of belonging. Specifically, based on an integration between the common ingroup identity model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000) and the integrated threat theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000), we hypothesized that perceived disaster exposure would be negatively associated with ethnic majorities’ altruistic intentions via increased outgroup threat, and it would be positively associated with ethnic minorities’ altruistic intentions via enhanced one-group perception. The findings of our research conducted with Italian natives (i.e., majority group) and immigrants (i.e., minority group) struck by the 2012 Northern Italian earthquakes fully supported our predictions. Implications of these findings for developing “altruistic” communities in postdisaster contexts are discussed together with the importance of considering the combined contribution of different psychological theories.

The “Frozen in Time” Effect in Evaluations of the Dead

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that evaluations of the dead are more resistant to change than are evaluations of the living. In Experiment 1, perceivers formed an impression of a target person who performed either a moral or an immoral action and then either died or remained alive. Perceivers were later given new inconsistent information about the target's morality. The results revealed that perceivers’ original impressions of the target were significantly less likely to change in response to the inconsistent information when the target was believed to be dead than when she was believed to be alive. Experiment 2 replicated the effect in impressions of real-world targets. The implications of these findings for research on posthumous impression processes are discussed.

Play It Safe or Go for the Gold? A Terror Management Perspective on Self-Enhancement and Self-Protective Motives in Risky Decision Making

Terror management theory (TMT) posits that bolstering self-esteem buffers mortality concerns; accordingly, in past research, heightening mortality salience (MS) increases self-enhancement. However, risky self-esteem-relevant decisions often present a choice between enhancing self-esteem by striving for excellence and protecting self-esteem by avoiding potential failure. Which strategy is preferred under MS? Combining TMT with insights from Steele, Spencer, and Lynch's (1993) resource model, the authors hypothesized and found that MS leads high, but not low, self-esteem participants faced with a risky decision to pursue opportunities for excellence despite substantial risk of failure (Studies 1 and 2); in Study 3, using a more impactful decision, this effect was replicated and it was furthermore found that mortality-salient low-self-esteem participants become more risk-averse. Furthermore, in Study 2, a self-affirmation prime, previously shown to reduce MS-induced defenses, eliminated the self-enhancement effect among high-self-esteem participants. Implications for understanding self-esteem, TMT, and risky decision making are briefly discussed.

Mother Teresa Versus Ebenezer Scrooge: Mortality Salience Leads Proselfs to Endorse Self-Transcendent Values (Unless Proselfs Are Reassured)

Recently, Jonas, Schimel, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) increased contributions to (an ingroup) charity (i.e., the Scrooge effect). The authors examined whether individual differences in social value orientations would moderate the Scrooge effect. In line with an Ebenezer shift hypothesis, proselfs were less likely than prosocials to endorse self-transcendent values in a dental pain control condition but were indistinguishable from prosocials in an MS condition as proselfs increased endorsement of self-transcendent values under MS (Experiments 1 and 2a). However, when participants gave their impressions of an unfavorable prosocial or a favorable proself prior to the MS manipulation, proselfs were again less likely than prosocials to endorse self-transcendent values (Experiments 2a and 2b), suggesting that proselfs are unlikely to transform into prosocials under conditions of MS when given reasons to disidentify with prosocial values or identify with proself values.

Greed, Death, and Values: From Terror Management to Transcendence Management Theory

Research supporting terror management theory has shown that participants facing their death (via mortality salience) exhibit more greed than do control participants. The present research attempts to distinguish mortality salience from other forms of mortality awareness. Specifically, the authors look to reports of near-death experiences and posttraumatic growth which reveal that many people who nearly die come to view seeking wealth and possessions as empty and meaningless. Guided by these reports, a manipulation called death reflection was generated. In Study 1, highly extrinsic participants who experienced death reflection exhibited intrinsic behavior. In Study 2, the manipulation was validated, and in Study 3, death reflection and mortality salience manipulations were compared. Results showed that mortality salience led highly extrinsic participants to manifest greed, whereas death reflection again generated intrinsic, unselfish behavior. The construct of value orientation is discussed along with the contrast between death reflection manipulation and mortality salience.

Question order sensitivity of subjective well-being measures: focus on life satisfaction, self-rated health, and subjective life expectancy in survey instruments

PURPOSE

This study examines the effect of question context created by order in questionnaires on three subjective well-being measures: life satisfaction, self-rated health, and subjective life expectancy.

METHODS

We conducted two Web survey experiments. The first experiment (n = 648) altered the order of life satisfaction and self-rated health: (1) life satisfaction asked immediately after self-rated health; (2) self-rated health immediately after life satisfaction; and (3) two items placed apart. We examined their correlation coefficient by experimental condition and further examined its interaction with objective health. The second experiment (n = 479) asked life expectancy before and after parental mortality questions. Responses to life expectancy were compared by order using ANOVA, and we examined interaction with parental mortality status using ANCOVA. Additionally, response time and probes were examined.

RESULTS

Correlation coefficients between self-rated health and life satisfaction differed significantly by order: 0.313 (life satisfaction first), 0.508 (apart), and 0.643 (self-rated health first). Differences were larger among respondents with chronic conditions. Response times were the shortest when self-rated health was asked first. When life expectancy asked after parental mortality questions, respondents reported considering parents more for answering life expectancy; and respondents with deceased parents reported significantly lower expectancy, but not those whose parents were alive.

CONCLUSION

Question context effects exist. Findings suggest placing life satisfaction and self-rated health apart to avoid artificial attenuation or inflation in their association. Asking about parental mortality prior to life expectancy appears advantageous as this leads respondents to consider parental longevity more, an important factor for true longevity.

Life-after-death beliefs and self motivations

An experimental study was designed to ascertain whether three self-motives (death-thoughts avoidance, self-uncertainty reduction, and need-for-control) are irreducible motives or examples of a more basic primary motive with regard to their relationship to life-after-death (LAD) beliefs. The study explored the impact of the three self-motives on adherence to LAD beliefs through three mediators: self-esteem, feelings of disquiet, and thoughts-accessibility (thoughts of death, need-for-control, and uncertainty). Participants were randomly assigned to write about their own death, a time they felt uncertain, a time they felt powerless, or about a toothache episode. The mediators (accessibility of disturbing thoughts, feelings of disquiet-uncertainty, and self-esteem) were measured next. The dependent variable selected was endorsement of LAD beliefs. Results showed that the cognitive and emotional responses produced by the activation of the three motives were similar. The three motives increased the accessibility of uncertain-related thoughts that, in turn, increased the adherence to LAD.

When Death Is Compelling

Abstract. Research on terror management theory has found evidence that people under mortality salience strive to live up to activated social norms and values. Recently, research has shown that mortality salience also increases adherence to the norm of reciprocity. Based on this, in the current paper we investigated the idea that mortality salience influences persuasion strategies that are based on the norm of reciprocity. We therefore assume that mortality salience should enhance compliance for a request when using the door-in-the-face technique – a persuasion strategy grounded in the norm of reciprocity. In a hypothetical scenario (Study 1), and in a field experiment (Study 2), applying the door-in-the-face technique enhanced compliance in the mortality salience condition compared to a control group.

Increasing skepticism toward potential liars: effects of existential threat on veracity judgments and the moderating role of honesty norm activation

With the present research, we investigated effects of existential threat on veracity judgments. According to several meta-analyses, people judge potentially deceptive messages of other people as true rather than as false (so-called truth bias). This judgmental bias has been shown to depend on how people weigh the error of judging a true message as a lie (error 1) and the error of judging a lie as a true message (error 2). The weight of these errors has been further shown to be affected by situational variables. Given that research on terror management theory has found evidence that mortality salience (MS) increases the sensitivity toward the compliance of cultural norms, especially when they are of focal attention, we assumed that when the honesty norm is activated, MS affects judgmental error weighing and, consequently, judgmental biases. Specifically, activating the norm of honesty should decrease the weight of error 1 (the error of judging a true message as a lie) and increase the weight of error 2 (the error of judging a lie as a true message) when mortality is salient. In a first study, we found initial evidence for this assumption. Furthermore, the change in error weighing should reduce the truth bias, automatically resulting in better detection accuracy of actual lies and worse accuracy of actual true statements. In two further studies, we manipulated MS and honesty norm activation before participants judged several videos containing actual truths or lies. Results revealed evidence for our prediction. Moreover, in Study 3, the truth bias was increased after MS when group solidarity was previously emphasized.

Understanding the Vital Human Quest for Self-Esteem

Authors have long noted the human penchant for self-esteem. Experimental research has revealed that this desire for self-esteem has wide-ranging effects on cognition, emotion, and behavior. Terror management theory explains that this desire for self-esteem results from a fundamental need for psychological security, which is engendered by humans' awareness of their own vulnerability and mortality. A large body of evidence has supported this explanation. Specifically, substantial lines of research have shown that self-esteem buffers anxiety and reduces defenses against death and that reminders of mortality increase efforts to defend and bolster self-esteem. Complementary findings have helped clarify the role of culture in self-esteem striving and the ways in which people can vary in their level, stability, and sources of self-esteem. I conclude by briefly considering how this contemporary knowledge regarding the quest for self-esteem informs current events and daily life.

The multidimensional mortality awareness measure and model: development and validation of a new self-report questionnaire and psychological framework

For each of eight literature-identified conceptual dimensions of mortality awareness, questionnaire items were generated, producing 89 in all. A total of 359 participants responded to these items and to questionnaires measuring health attitudes, risk taking, rebelliousness, and demographic variables. Multivariate correlational analyses investigated the underlying structure of the item pool and the construct validity as well as the reliability of the emergent empirically derived subscales. Five components, rather than eight, were identified. Given the item content of each, the associated mortality awareness subscales were labeled as legacy, fearfulness, acceptance, disempowerment, and disengagement. Each attained an acceptable level of internal reliability. Relationships with other variables supported the construct validity of these empirically derived subscales and more generally of this five-factor model. In conclusion, this new multidimensional measure and model of mortality awareness extends our understanding of this important aspect of human existence and supports a more integrative and optimistic approach to mortality awareness than previously available.

Mortality salience enhances racial in-group bias in empathic neural responses to others' suffering

Behavioral research suggests that mortality salience (MS) leads to increased in-group identification and in-group favoritism in prosocial behavior. What remains unknown is whether and how MS influences brain activity that mediates emotional resonance with in-group and out-group members and is associated with in-group favoritism in helping behavior. The current work investigated MS effects on empathic neural responses to racial in-group and out-group members' suffering. Experiments 1 and 2 respectively recorded event related potentials (ERPs) and blood oxygen level dependent signals to pain/neutral expressions of Asian and Caucasian faces from Chinese adults who had been primed with MS or negative affect (NA). Experiment 1 found that an early frontal/central activity (P2) was more strongly modulated by pain vs. neutral expressions of Asian than Caucasian faces, but this effect was not affected by MS vs. NA priming. However, MS relative to NA priming enhanced racial in-group bias in long-latency neural response to pain expressions over the central/parietal regions (P3). Experiment 2 found that MS vs. NA priming increased racial in-group bias in empathic neural responses to pain expression in the anterior and mid-cingulate cortex. Our findings indicate that reminding mortality enhances brain activity that differentiates between racial in-group and out-group members' emotional states and suggest a neural basis of in-group favoritism under mortality threat.

Being modest makes you feel bad: effects of the modesty norm and mortality salience on self-esteem in a collectivistic culture

Terror management research shows that existential terror motivates people to live up to social norms. According to terror management theory (TMT), people can achieve a sense of self-worth through compliance with social norms. However, this has not yet been empirically tested. Modesty has long been known as an important social norm in Eastern cultures, such as China, Japan, and Korea. The current research examined whether conforming to the modesty norm in response to reminders of death concerns increases self-esteem for Chinese. In Study 1, following the modesty norm (i.e., explicit self-effacement) led to decreased implicit self-esteem, however, this was only the case if mortality was salient. In Study 2, violating the modesty norm (i.e., explicit self-enhancement) increased implicit self-esteem - however - again, this was only the case when mortality was salient. These findings indicate that self-esteem cannot be maintained through compliance with the modesty norm. Implications of this research for understanding the interplay between self-esteem and social norms in terror management processes are discussed.

Increases in Generative Concern among Older Adults following Reminders of Mortality

According to terror management theory, people are motivated to protect themselves from the potential for anxiety resulting from awareness of mortality. It was hypothesized that increased concern for future generations, and the symbolic immortality this produces, may be particularly important to older adults when awareness of their mortality is increased. In two studies, older and younger adults' generative concern was examined following mortality or control primes. As hypothesized, older adults' generative concern and preference for pro-social over pro-self generativity were greater following reminders of mortality, whereas neither effect was observed among younger adults. For both studies, age differences were only observed when mortality salience was heightened; older and younger adults' generative concern did not differ in control conditions. Results provide support for the hypothesis that younger and older adults differ in their responses to increased awareness of mortality and suggest that older adults respond to death reminders by adopting a more pro-social generative orientation.

Reminders of mortality decrease midcingulate activity in response to others' suffering

Reminders of mortality influence human social cognition, but whether and how reminders of mortality affect brain activity underlying social cognition remains unclear. To test whether increasing mortality salience modulates neural responses to others' suffering, we scanned healthy adults who viewed video clips showing others in pain using functional magnetic resonance imaging. One group of participants were primed to increase mortality salience and another group were primed with negative affect in terms of fear/anxiety. We found that perceiving painful vs non-painful stimuli in the pre-priming session activated the midcingulate/dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (MCC/dMPFC), bilateral anterior insula/inferior frontal cortex, bilateral secondary somatosensory cortex and left middle temporal gyrus. However, MCC/dMPFC activity in response to perceived pain in others was significantly decreased in the post-priming session by the mortality salience priming, but was not influenced by the negative affect priming. Moreover, subjective fear of death induced by the priming procedures mediated the change in MCC/dMPFC activity across the priming procedures. Subjective fear of death also moderated the co-variation of MCC/dMPFC and left insular activity during perception of others in pain. Our findings indicate that reminders of mortality decrease neural responses to others' suffering and this effect is mediated by the subjective fear of death.

Cerebral lateralization of pro- and anti-social tendencies

Mounting evidence suggest that the right-hemisphere (RH) has a relative advantage, over the left-hemisphere (LH), in mediating social intelligence - identifying social stimuli, understanding the intentions of other people, awareness of the dynamics in social relationships, and successful handling of social interactions. Furthermore, a review and synthesis of the literature suggest that pro-social attitudes and behaviors are associated with physiological activity in the RH, whereas unsocial and anti-social tendencies are mediated primarily by the LH. This hemispheric asymmetry is rooted in several neurobiological and functional differences between the two hemispheres. (I) Positive social interactions often require inhibiting one's immediate desires and considering the perspectives and needs of others. Given that self-control is mediated by the RH, pro-social emotions and behaviors are, therefore, inherently associated with the RH as it subserves the brain's self-restraint mechanisms. (II) The RH mediates experiences of vulnerability. It registers the relative clumsiness and motor weakness of the left limbs, and it is involved, more than the LH, in processing threats and mediating fear. Emotional states of vulnerability trigger the need for affiliation and sociality, therefore the RH has a greater role in mediating pro-social attitudes and behaviors. (III) The RH mediates a holistic mode of representing the world. Holistic perception emphasizes similarities rather than differences, takes a long-term perspective, is associated with divergent thinking and seeing other points-of-view, and it mediates a personal mode of relating to people. All these features of holistic perception facilitate a more empathetic attitude toward others and pro-social behaviors.

Why Does Ingroup Identification Shield People from Death Anxiety?

Research to date guided by terror management theory has demonstrated that mortality salience increases ingroup identification. However, the process that leads from death reminders to group investment has remained underinvestigated. We tested a model in which mortality salience increased the perceived continuity of the group while at the same time strengthening the perception of group entitativity. In turn, higher perceived group entitativity led to enhanced ingroup identification. Three-path mediation analysis showed that mortality salience transmitted its effects onto ingroup identification indirectly, progressing first through perceived collective continuity and then through ingroup entitativity. Moderated mediation analysis revealed that personal self-esteem and the need for closure did not moderate this effect of mortality salience on ingroup identification.

Who cries wolf, and when? Manipulation of perceived threats to preserve rank in cooperative groups

People perform greater within-group cooperation when their groups face external threats, such as hostile outgroups or natural disasters. Researchers and social commentators suggest that high-ranking group members manipulate this "threat-dependent" cooperation by exaggerating threats in order to promote cooperation and suppress competition for their position. However, little systematic research tests this claim or possible situational moderators. In three studies, we use a cooperative group game to show that participants pay to increase others' perceptions of group threats, and spend more on manipulation when holding privileged positions. This manipulation cost-effectively elicits cooperation and sustains privilege, and is fostered by competition over position, not only position per se. Less cooperative people do more manipulation than more cooperative people do. Furthermore, these effects generalize to broader definitions of privilege. Conceptually, these results offer new insights into an understudied dimension of group behavior. Methodologically, the research extends cooperative group games to allow for analyzing more complex group dynamics.