Terror management theory and self-esteem: evidence that increased self-esteem reduces mortality salience effects

Understanding user responses to the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter from a terror management theory perspective: Cultural differences among the US, UK and India

This study uses a new approach to understand people's varied responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Heightened media coverage and surging death tolls undoubtedly increase individuals' death-related thoughts. Thus, this study draws on terror management theory to analyze the general public's reactions during which mortality is salient. Twitter data were collected from three countries—the US, the UK, and India. Topic modeling analysis using Latent Dirichlet Allocation identified a total of seven themes reflecting two types of defenses: proximal defenses and distal defenses. Proximal defenses included calls for behavioral changes in response to COVID-19. Distal defenses included searching for meaning, political polarization and government incompetence, racial division, and sharing up-to-date information. During a prolonged crisis, anxiety-buffering systems can be undermined and lead to either maladaptive defenses (i.e., psychological distress) or new forms of defenses (i.e., adjusting to the new normal). The analysis highlights cultural differences in defenses across the three countries. Theoretical and practical implications for public health practitioners and social media platform managers are then discussed.

The Psychological Consequences of COVID-19 Outbreak Among the German Population

The world is currently facing an unprecedented pandemic crisis. The highly contagious coronavirus, or COVID-19, first occurred in Wuhan (China) in December 2019. The outbreak of the virus quickly spread all over the world, reaching Europe in January 2020. The first case in Germany was reported to be diagnosed on January 27. This study focuses on assessing the mental health consequences of the German public during COVID-19 outbreak. Psychological discomfort, generalized anxiety disorder, sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms and threat perception are especially investigated with respect to demographics, security importance and negative affectivity. The psychological vulnerabilities that go along with the pandemic are evaluated in detail. The cross-sectional online survey conducted in Germany reveals a prevalence of depressive symptoms, psychological discomfort, threat perception, generalized anxiety disorder and sleep disturbances associated with the pandemic crisis. The results also indicate a relationship between mental health issues and negative affectivity as well as the perception of threat. This paper gives an outlook on long-term consequences and what could be the strategies to mitigate the negative mental health outcomes of the crisis.

Defensa de la visión del mundo y motivos identitarios ante la saliencia de mortalidad y la religión en Lima

Justificación. La Teoría del Manejo del Terror (TMT) propone que la saliencia de mortalidad (SM) produce estados de ansiedad que las personas afrontan con la Defensa de la Visión del Mundo (DVM) y la adhesión a Motivos Identitarios (MI). Objetivo. Analizar el efecto de la SM en la DVM y los MI en católicos y ateos de Lima (Perú). Método. Se desarrolló un diseño cuasiexperimental, intersujetos, 2 x 2 [Condición: Experimental vs. Control X Grupo de Creencia: Católicos (n = 30) vs. Ateos (n = 32)]. Los participantes de la condición experimental fueron expuestos a la SM y los de la condición control no, respondiendo posteriormente a cuestionarios de DVM y MI. Resultados. No existen diferencias en la DVM y los MI por condición, ni por la interacción entre condición y grupo de creencia. Sin embargo, analizando las diferencias por grupo de creencia, los ateos muestran mayor DVM y los católicos mayores niveles en los MI de Pertenencia y Continuidad. Discusión. Los hallazgos sobre los efectos de la SM en las variables dependientes son consistentes con resultados en contextos no anglosajones. Adicionalmente, las diferencias entre grupos de creencia se discuten desde un marco de relaciones intergrupales en el contexto peruano.

The prediction of mortality by quality of life assessed with the WHOQOL-BREF: a longitudinal analysis at the domain and item levels using a seven-year follow-up period

PURPOSE

To determine the predictive value of quality of life for mortality at the domain and item levels.

METHODS

This longitudinal study was carried out in a sample of 479 Dutch people aged 75 years or older living independently, using a follow-up of 7 years. Participants completed a self-report questionnaire. Quality of life was assessed with the WHOQOL-BREF, including four domains: physical health, psychological, social relationships, and environment. The municipality of Roosendaal (a town in the Netherlands) indicated the dates of death of the individuals.

RESULTS

Based on mean, all quality of life domains predicted mortality adjusted for gender, age, marital status, education, and income. The hazard ratios ranged from 0.811 (psychological) to 0.933 (social relationships). The areas under the curve (AUCs) of the four domains were 0.730 (physical health), 0.723 (psychological), 0.693 (social relationships), and 0.700 (environment). In all quality of life domains, at least one item predicted mortality (adjusted).

CONCLUSION

Our study showed that all four quality of life domains belonging to the WHOQOL-BREF predict mortality in a sample of Dutch community-dwelling older people using a follow-up period of 7 years. Two AUCs were above threshold (psychological, physical health). The findings offer health care and welfare professionals evidence for conducting interventions to reduce the risk of premature death.

Thinking about My Existence during COVID-19, I Feel Anxiety and Awe-The Mediating Role of Existential Anxiety and Life Satisfaction on the Relationship between PTSD Symptoms and Post-Traumatic Growth

BACKGROUND

The global outbreak of COVID-19set new challenges and threats for every human being. In the psychological field it is similar to deep existential crises or a traumatic experience that may lead to the appearance or exacerbation of a serious mental disorder and loss of life meaning and satisfaction. Courtney et al. (2020) discussed deadly pandemic COVID-19 in the light of TMT theory and named it as global contagion of mortality that personally affected every human being. Such unique conditions activate existential fears as people start to be aware of their own mortality.

OBJECTIVE

The main aim of this study was to test the mediating effect of existential anxiety, activated by COVID-19 and life satisfaction (SWLS) on the relationship between PTSD symptoms and post-traumatic growth (PTG). We also examined the moderated mediating effect of severity of trauma symptoms on life satisfaction and existential anxiety and its associations with PTG.

METHOD

We conducted an online survey during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Poland. The participants completed existential anxiety scale (SNE), life satisfaction scale (SWLS), IES-R scale for measuring the level of PTSD symptoms and post-traumatic growth inventory (PTGI).

RESULTS

The effect of PTSD on PTG was found to be mediated by existential anxiety and life satisfaction. We also confirmed two indirect effects: (1) the indirect effect of PTSD on PTG via existential anxiety and life satisfaction tested simultaneously; (2) the indirect effect of life satisfaction on PTG through severity of trauma symptoms. An intermediate or high level of PTSD level was related to less PTG when low and full PTSD stress symptoms strengthened PTG experiences.

CONCLUSIONS

A therapeutic intervention for individuals after traumatic experience should attempt to include fundamental existential questions and meaning of life as well as the severity of PTSD symptoms. The severity of traumatic sensations may affect the relationship between life satisfaction and post-traumatic growth.

Social curiosity as a way to overcome death anxiety: perspective of terror management theory

Social curiosity has been found to have great benefits in human life, especially in fostering interpersonal relationships. Nevertheless there is indication of other benefit of social curiosity that have not yet been explored, namely overcoming the anxiety of death. This indication is based on previous research which found a positive relationship between anxiety and social curiosity. In this study, social curiosity is framed as representation of symbolic immortality, which people use to overcome the terror of death. To support this conjecture, two studies were conducted using the Terror Management Theory (TMT) framework. Study 1 (N = 352, M age = 19.39) found a positive relationship between death anxiety and social curiosity. In Study 2 (N = 507, M age = 20.68) it was found that intolerance of uncertainty and desire for self-verification mediated the relationship between death anxiety and social curiosity. The results of this study indicate that increasing interest in obtaining information about how other people think, feel, or act is a form of mechanism used by people to control anxiety related to death.

Effects of Mortality Salience on Physiological Arousal

Making the inevitability of mortality salient makes people more defensive about their self-esteem and worldviews. Theoretical arguments and empirical evidence point to a mediating role of arousal in this defensive process, but evidence from physiological measurement studies is scarce and inconclusive. The present study seeks to draw a comprehensive picture of how physiological arousal develops over time in the mortality salience (MS) paradigm, and whether contemplating one's mortality actually elicits more physiological arousal than reflecting on a death-unrelated aversive control topic. In a between-subjects design, participants were asked two open questions about their mortality or about dental pain. Cardiac, respiratory, and electrodermal indicators of arousal were measured both as participants provided written answers to the questions, and during a series of resting intervals surrounding the questions. A Bayes factor analysis indicated support for the hypothesis that the MS paradigm increases physiological arousal, both while answering the two open-ended questions and afterward. Regarding the MS versus dental pain comparison, the null hypothesis of no difference was supported for most analysis segments and signals. The results indicate that the arousal elicited by MS is not different from that elicited by dental pain salience. This speaks against the idea that worldview defense following MS occurs because MS produces higher physiological arousal. Of course, this finding does not rule the importance of other forms of arousal (i.e., subjective arousal) for MS effects.

Taming the Lion: How Perceived Worth Buffers the Detrimental Influence of Power on Aggression and Conflict

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is little empirical evidence that elevated power, by default, fuels conflict and aggression. Instead, previous studies have shown that extraneous factors that decrease powerholders' perceived worth, making powerholders feel inferior or disrespected, seem to be necessary to 'unleash' power's dark side and trigger aggression and conflict. However, this past work has largely neglected that power boosts individuals' perceptions of worth, and as such these variables are not independent. The present research sought to address this oversight, thereby providing a more nuanced account of how perceived worth stifles aggression and conflict tendencies in powerholders. Focusing on self-esteem (Study 1) and status (Study 2) as two interrelated facets of perceived worth, we report primary and secondary data indicating that perceived worth acts as buffer and counters aggression as well as more general conflict tendencies in powerholders. By providing evidence for a suppression effect, the present findings go beyond the moderations identified in prior work and demonstrate that perceptions of worth are critical to understanding the link between power on the one hand, and aggression and conflict on the other. We conclude by discussing the social regulatory function of perceived worth in hierarchical relations.

Primed for death: Law enforcement-citizen homicides, social media, and retaliatory violence

We examine whether retaliatory violence exists between law enforcement and citizens while controlling for any social media contagion effect related to prior fatal encounters. Analyzed using a trivariate dynamic structural vector-autoregressive model, daily time-series data over a 21-month period captured the frequencies of police killed in the line of duty, police deadly use of force incidents, and social media coverage. The results support a significant retaliatory violence effect against minorities by police, yet there is no evidence of retaliatory violence against law enforcement officers by minorities. Also, social media coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement increases the risk of fatal victimization to both law enforcement officers and minorities. Possible explanations for these results are based in rational choice and terror management theories.

The Impact of Topic Characteristics and Threat on Willingness to Engage with Wikipedia Articles: Insights from Laboratory Experiments

A growing body of research aims to identify the factors that motivate people to make contributions in Wikipedia. We conducted two laboratory experiments to investigate the connections between topic characteristics, perception of threat, and willingness to engage with Wikipedia articles. In Study 1 (N = 83), we examined how topic familiarity, topic controversiality, and mortality salience influenced participants' willingness to engage with Wikipedia articles. We presented the introduction parts of 20 Wikipedia articles and asked participants to rate each article with respect to familiarity and controversiality. In addition, we experimentally manipulated participants' level of mortality salience in terms of the amount of threat they experienced when reading the article. Participants also indicated their willingness to engage with a particular article. The results revealed that familiar and controversial topics increased the willingness to engage with Wikipedia articles. Although mortality salience increased accessibility of death-related thoughts, it did not result in any changes in people's willingness to work with the articles. The aim of Study 2 (N = 90) was to replicate the effects of topic characteristics by following a similar procedure. We additionally manipulated uncertainty salience by assigning participants to three experimental conditions: uncertainty salience, certainty salience, and non-salience. As expected, familiar and controversial topics were of high interest in terms of willingness to contribute. However, the manipulation of uncertainty salience did not yield any significant results despite the emergence of negative emotional states. In sum, we demonstrated that topic characteristics were factors that substantially influenced people's willingness to engage with Wikipedia articles whereas perceived threat was not.

The Effect of Psychological Suzhi on Problem Behaviors in Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Subjective Social Status and Self-esteem

In this study, we examined subjective social status (SSS) and self-esteem as potential mediators between the association of psychological suzhi and problem behaviors in a sample of 1271 Chinese adolescents (44.5% male, grades 7–12). The results showed that SSS and self-esteem were fully mediating the relationship between psychological suzhi and problem behaviors. Moreover, the indirect effect was stronger via self-esteem than via SSS. These findings perhaps provide insight into the preliminary effect that SSS and self-esteem underlie psychological suzhi’s effect on adolescents’ problem behaviors, and also are important in helping school-teachers and administrators to develop a better understanding of problem behaviors in their schools as a pre-requisite to the development of more effective behaviors management practices from the perspective of psychological suzhi. Implications and limitations in the present study have also been discussed.

Thinking about Death Reduces Delay Discounting

The current study tested competing predictions regarding the effect of mortality salience on delay discounting. One prediction, based on evolutionary considerations, was that reminders of death increase the value of the present. Another prediction, based in part on construal level theory, was that reminders of death increase the value of the future. One-hundred eighteen participants thought about personal mortality or a control topic and then completed an inter-temporal choice task pitting the chance to gain $50 now against increasingly attractive rewards three months later. Consistent with the hypothesis inspired by construal theory, participants in the mortality salience condition traded $50 now for $66.67 in three months, whereas participants in the dental pain salience condition required $72.84 in three months in lieu of $50 now. Thus, participants in the mortality salience condition discounted future monetary gains less than other participants, suggesting that thoughts of death may increase the subjective value of the future.

Patient and healthcare perspectives on the importance and efficacy of addressing spiritual issues within an interdisciplinary bone marrow transplant clinic: a qualitative study

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to use a qualitative approach to better understand the importance and efficacy of addressing spiritual issues within an interdisciplinary bone marrow transplant clinic from the perspectives of patients and healthcare providers.

SETTING

Participants were recruited from the bone marrow transplant clinic of a large urban outpatient cancer care centre in western Canada.

PARTICIPANTS

Focus groups were conducted with patients (n=7) and healthcare providers (n=9) to explore the importance of addressing spiritual issues across the treatment trajectory and to identify factors associated with effectively addressing these needs.

RESULTS

Data were analysed using the qualitative approach of latent content analysis. Addressing spiritual issues was understood by patients and healthcare providers, as a core, yet under addressed, component of comprehensive care. Both sets of participants felt that addressing basic spiritual issues was the responsibility of all members of the interdisciplinary team, while recognising the need for specialised and embedded support from a spiritual care professional. While healthcare providers felt that the impact of the illness and treatment had a negative effect on patients' spiritual well-being, patients felt the opposite. Skills, challenges, key time points and clinical indicators associated with addressing spiritual issues were identified.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite a number of conceptual and clinical challenges associated with addressing spiritual issues patients and their healthcare providers emphasised the importance of an integrated approach whereby basic spiritual issues are addressed by members of the interdisciplinary team and by an embedded spiritual care professional, who in addition also provides specialised support. The identification of clinical issues associated with addressing spiritual needs provides healthcare providers with clinical guidance on how to better integrate this aspect of care into their clinical practice, while also identifying acute incidences when a more targeted and specialised approach may be of benefit.

Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli

Existential social psychology studies show that awareness of one's eventual death profoundly influences human cognition and behaviour by inducing defensive reactions against end-of-life related anxiety. Much less is known about the impact of reminders of mortality on brain activity. Therefore we explored whether reminders of mortality influence subjective ratings of intensity and threat of auditory and painful thermal stimuli and the associated electroencephalographic activity. Moreover, we explored whether personality and demographics modulate psychophysical and neural changes related to mortality salience (MS). Following MS induction, a specific increase in ratings of intensity and threat was found for both nociceptive and auditory stimuli. While MS did not have any specific effect on nociceptive and auditory evoked potentials, larger amplitude of theta oscillatory activity related to thermal nociceptive activity was found after thoughts of death were induced. MS thus exerted a top-down modulation on theta electroencephalographic oscillatory amplitude, specifically for brain activity triggered by painful thermal stimuli. This effect was higher in participants reporting higher threat perception, suggesting that inducing a death-related mind-set may have an influence on body-defence related somatosensory representations.

Laboratory tests and compliance of dermatologic outpatients

Laboratory tests, including blood tests and urine analysis, are frequently performed in the dermatology outpatient clinic, but doctors often do not consider the cognitive or psychological effect of the examinations. Based on terror management theory, we hypothesized that performing laboratory tests increases the patient’s fear of mortality, and therefore has a positive effect on the patient’s attitude toward the doctor’s recommendations and willingness to accept them. The study employed a single factor between-subjects design, using a questionnaire completed by the patients. One group consisted of patients who had undergone laboratory tests 1 week before the survey, and the other group consisted of patients who had not undergone a laboratory test. Although the differences between two groups were not statistically significant, the patients who had laboratory tests had tendency to show even lower positive attitude toward the doctor’s recommendations and less intention to follow the recommendations. In contrast to our hypothesis, performing laboratory tests does not subliminally increase patients’ fears or anxieties about their disease or their compliance with doctors’ recommendations.

Saving can save from death anxiety: mortality salience and financial decision-making

Four studies tested the idea that saving money can buffer death anxiety and constitute a more effective buffer than spending money. Saving can relieve future-related anxiety and provide people with a sense of control over their fate, thereby rendering death thoughts less threatening. Study 1 found that participants primed with both saving and spending reported lower death fear than controls. Saving primes, however, were associated with significantly lower death fear than spending primes. Study 2 demonstrated that mortality primes increase the attractiveness of more frugal behaviors in save-or-spend dilemmas. Studies 3 and 4 found, in two different cultures (Polish and American), that the activation of death thoughts prompts people to allocate money to saving as opposed to spending. Overall, these studies provided evidence that saving protects from existential anxiety, and probably more so than spending.

Existential neuroscience: self-esteem moderates neuronal responses to mortality-related stimuli

According to terror management theory, self-esteem serves as a buffer against existential anxiety. This proposition is well supported empirically, but its neuronal underpinnings are poorly understood. Therefore, in the present neuroimaging study, our aim was to test how self-esteem affects our neural circuitry activation when death-related material is processed. Consistent with previous findings, the bilateral insula responded less to death-related stimuli relative to similarly unpleasant, but death-unrelated sentences, an effect that might reflect a decrease in the sense of oneself in the face of existential threat. In anterior parts of the insula, this 'deactivation' effect was more pronounced for high self-esteem individuals, suggesting that the insula might be of core importance to understanding the anxiety-buffering effect of self-esteem. In addition, low self-esteem participants responded with enhanced activation to death-related over unpleasant stimuli in bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal and medial orbitofrontal cortex, suggesting that regulating death-related thoughts might be more effortful to these individuals. Together, this suggests that the anxiety-buffering effect of self-esteem might be implemented in the brain in the form of both insula-dependent awareness mechanisms and prefrontal cortex-dependent regulation mechanisms.

Unconscious vigilance: worldview defense without adaptations for terror, coalition, or uncertainty management

Individuals subtly reminded of death, coalitional challenges, or feelings of uncertainty display exaggerated preferences for affirmations and against criticisms of their cultural in-groups. Terror management, coalitional psychology, and uncertainty management theories postulate this "worldview defense" effect as the output of mechanisms evolved either to allay the fear of death, foster social support, or reduce anxiety by increasing adherence to cultural values. In 4 studies, we report evidence for an alternative perspective. We argue that worldview defense owes to unconscious vigilance, a state of accentuated reactivity to affective targets (which need not relate to cultural worldviews) that follows detection of subtle alarm cues (which need not pertain to death, coalitional challenges, or uncertainty). In Studies 1 and 2, death-primed participants produced exaggerated ratings of worldview-neutral affective targets. In Studies 3 and 4, subliminal threat manipulations unrelated to death, coalitional challenges, or uncertainty evoked worldview defense. These results are discussed as they inform evolutionary interpretations of worldview defense and future investigations of the influence of unconscious alarm on judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).

Work related stress among gynecologic oncologists

OBJECTIVE

Up to one third of oncologists experience burnout. The objective was to determine correlates of work related stress in gynecologic oncologists (GOs).

METHODS

Using an online tool, we surveyed 273 members of the International Gynecologic Cancer (IGCS) Society (60% from North America) to examine demographic, psychological and spiritual correlates of work related stress (WRS) and burnout. Measures of death anxiety (DA) and locus of control (LOC) were also administered.

RESULTS

WRS did not correlate with religion, religiosity, race, or gender, but did correlate with DA (r=0.23, p=0.0006). WRS was also associated with younger age (p=0.01) and fewer years out of training (p=0.0286), higher scores on LOC Chance (r=0.18, p=0.007), higher scores on Powerful Other (r=0.30, p<0.0001), and lower scores on LOC Internality (r=-0.30, p<0.0001).

CONCLUSION

Responses from younger and less experienced GOs, correlate with higher WRS scores especially if their LOC is weighted toward chance and powerful others. Responses of GO's with these two characteristics also correlate with higher DA scores and reports of difficulty talking about death.