The Thrust of the Problem: Bodily Inhibitions and Guilt as a Function of Mortality Salience and Neuroticism

An Ontological Framework to Facilitate Early Detection of 'Radicalization' (OFEDR)-A Three World Perspective

This paper presents an ontology that involves using information from various sources from different disciplines and combining it in order to predict whether a given person is in a radicalization process. The purpose of the ontology is to improve the early detection of radicalization in persons, thereby contributing to increasing the extent to which the unwanted escalation of radicalization processes can be prevented. The ontology combines findings related to existential anxiety that are related to political radicalization with well-known criminal profiles or radicalization findings. The software Protégé, delivered by the technical field at Stanford University, including the SPARQL tab, is used to develop and test the ontology. The testing, which involved five models, showed that the ontology could detect individuals according to "risk profiles" for subjects based on existential anxiety. SPARQL queries showed an average detection probability of 5% including only a risk population and 2% on a whole test population. Testing by using machine learning algorithms proved that inclusion of less than four variables in each model produced unreliable results. This suggest that the Ontology Framework to Facilitate Early Detection of 'Radicalization' (OFEDR) ontology risk model should consist of at least four variables to reach a certain level of reliability. Analysis shows that use of a probability based on an estimated risk of terrorism may produce a gap between the number of subjects who actually have early signs of radicalization and those found by using probability estimates for extremely rare events. It is reasoned that an ontology exists as a world three object in the real world.

Subjective nearness-to-death and negative attitudes toward persons with disability: Attachment patterns moderate

We examined whether subjective nearness-to-death is associated with negative attitudes toward people with disabilities, and whether attachment patterns moderate this connection. A total of 462 Israeli adults, average age 57 years, completed scales measuring subjective nearness-to-death, negative attitudes toward people with disability, and attachment patterns. High levels of subjective nearness-to-death were associated with negative attitudes toward people with disability, and attachment patterns were significant moderators. Findings point to the theoretical importance of both perceptions of death and personal resources for coping with subjective nearness-to-death in relation to attitudes toward individuals with disabilities.

When sex doesn't sell to men: mortality salience, disgust and the appeal of products and advertisements featuring sexualized women

Although men typically hold favorable views of advertisements featuring female sexuality, from a Terror Management Theory perspective, this should be less the case when thoughts of human mortality are salient. Two experiments conducted in South Korea supported this hypothesis across a variety of products (e.g., perfume and vodka). Men became more negative towards advertisements featuring female sexuality, and had reduced purchase intentions for those products, after thinking about their own mortality. Study 2 found that these effects were mediated by heightened disgust. Mortality thoughts did not impact women in either study. These findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of death interact with female sex-appeal to influence men’s consumer choices, and that disgust mediates these processes. Implications for the role of emotion, and cultural differences, in terror management, for attitudes toward female sexuality, and for marketing strategies are discussed.

Inhibition Underlies the Effect of High Need for Closure on Cultural Closed-Mindedness under Mortality Salience

The hypothesis that people respond to reminders of mortality with closed-minded, ethnocentric attitudes has received extensive empirical support, largely from research in the Terror Management Theory (TMT) tradition. However, the basic motivational and neural processes that underlie this effect remain largely hypothetical. According to recent neuropsychological theorizing, mortality salience (MS) effects on cultural closed-mindedness may be mediated by activity in the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), which leads to passive avoidance and decreased approach motivation. This should be especially true for people motivated to avoid unfamiliar and potentially threatening stimuli as reflected in a high need for closure (NFC). In two studies involving moderated mediation analyses, people high on trait NFC responded to MS with increased BIS activity (as indicated by EEG and the line bisection task), which is characteristic of inhibited approach motivation. BIS activity, in turn, predicted a reluctance to explore foreign cultures (Study 1) and generalized ethnocentric attitudes (Study 2). In a third study, inhibition was induced directly and caused an increase in ethnocentrism for people high on NFC. Moreover, the effect of the inhibition manipulation × NFC interaction on ethnocentrism was explained by increases in BIS-related affect (i.e., anxious inhibition) at high NFC. To our knowledge, this research is the first to establish an empirical link between very basic, neurally-instantiated inhibitory processes and rather complex, higher-order manifestations of intergroup negativity in response to MS. Our findings contribute to a fuller understanding of the cultural worldview defense phenomenon by illuminating the motivational underpinnings of cultural closed-mindedness in the wake of existential threat.

Ageist attitudes block young adults' ability for compassion toward incapacitated older adults

BACKGROUND

Upon encountering older adults, individuals display varying degrees of prosocial attitudes and behaviors. While some display compassion and empathy, others draw away and wish to maintain their distance from them. The current study examined if and how ageist attitudes influence the association between the sight of physical incapacity in older age and compassionate reactions toward them. We predicted that ageist attitudes would interfere with the ability to respond to them with compassion.

METHODS

Young adults (N = 149, ages 19-29) were randomly distributed into two experimental conditions, each viewing a short video portraying different aspects of older adult physicality; one group viewed older adults displaying incapacitated behavior, and the other viewed fit behavior. Participants subsequently filled out scales assessing aging anxieties, and ageist and compassionate attitudes.

RESULTS

Ageism was associated with reduced compassion toward the figures. Moreover, viewing incapacitated older adults led to increased concern toward them and perceived efficacy in helping them. However, significant interactions proved that higher scores of ageism in response to the videos led to increased need for distance and reduced efficacy toward incapacitated adults, an effect not observed among subjects with lower ageism scores.

CONCLUSIONS

Ageism seems to be a factor which disengages individuals from older adults displaying fragility, leading them to disregard social norms which dictate compassion. The results are discussed from the framework of terror management theory, as increased mortality salience and death-related thoughts could have led to the activation of negative attitudes which, in turn, reduce compassion.

The Chain of Being: A Hierarchy of Morality

For centuries, philosophers, theologians, and scientists have used the idea of the Great Chain of Being to rank all beings, from demons to animals, humans, and gods, along a vertical dimension of morality. Although the idea of a chain of being has largely fallen out of academic favor, we propose that people still use an embodied vertical moral hierarchy to understand their moral world. This social cognitive chain of being (SCCB) encapsulates a range of research on moral perception including dehumanization (the perception of people as lower on the SCCB), anthropomorphism (the perception of animals as higher and the perceptions of gods as lower on the SCCB), and sanctification (the perception of people as higher on the SCCB). Moral emotions provide affective evidence that guide the perception of social targets as moral (e.g., elevation) or immoral (e.g., disgust). Perceptions of social targets along the SCCB enable people to fulfill group and self-serving, effectance, and existential motivations. The SCCB serves as a unifying theoretical framework that organizes research on moral perception, highlights unique interconnections, and provides a roadmap for future research.

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.

The paths leading from attachment to ageism: a structural equation model approach

The study introduces a model in which attachment patterns serve as predictors, empathy and fear of death as mediators, and ageism as the predicted variable. Data were collected from young adults (N = 440). Anxious attachment was directly and positively correlated with ageism, and also indirectly and positively by the mediator "fear of death." Avoidant attachment was indirectly and negatively correlated with ageism by the mediator "empathy". It is suggested that interventions for reducing ageist attitudes among younger adults would focus on existential fears, as well as on empathic ability, according to the attachment tendencies of these individuals.

Sad to Say: Is it Time for Sorrow Management Theory?

Terror Management Theory (TMT) research often asks respondents to describe their personal death. This exposure enables the testing of hypotheses regarding defenses (“buffers”) against the anxious awareness of death. Curiously, though, the respondents' narratives are not analyzed or reported. The present study offers a qualitative analysis of 209 college student narrative responses provided for this purpose by TMT researchers Jeff Greenberg and Nathan Heflick. The narratives are reviewed with attention to affect (adjectives), semantic structure, and theme. Many responses are marked by anxiety, but sorrow is also pervasive. Individual differences in response substance and structure invite further exploration. It is suggested that our understanding of the response to personal death threat could be enhanced by encompassing sorrow as well as anxiety within the same conceptual framework. Several specific hypotheses and suggestions are offered.

Mortality salience effects on the life expectancy estimates of older adults as a function of neuroticism

Research has shown that reminders of mortality lead people to engage in defenses to minimize the anxiety such thoughts could arouse. In accord with this notion, younger adults reminded of mortality engage in behaviors aimed at denying vulnerability to death. However, little is known about the effects of mortality reminders on older adults. The present study examined the effect of reminders of death on older adults' subjective life expectancy. Mortality reminders did not significantly impact the life expectancy estimates of old-old adults. Reminders of death did however lead to shorter life expectancy estimates among young-old participants low in neuroticism but longer life expectancy estimates among young-old participants high in neuroticism, suggesting that this group was most defensive in response to reminders of death.

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.

On the origins of ageism among older and younger adults

BACKGROUND

Ageism is apparent in many social structures and contexts and in diverse forms over the life cycle. This review discusses the development and consequences of ageism toward elderly people by others of any age, according to the Terror Management Theory (TMT) and the Social Identity Theory (SIT).

METHOD

A systematic search of the literature was carried out on the social and psychological origins of ageism in younger and older adults.

RESULTS

Studies on the reasons for ageism among older adults point to attitudes that older adults have toward their own age group, while studies on ageism in young adults explain it as an unconscious defensive strategy which younger adults use against death anxiety. In other words, TMT can serve as a suitable framework for ageism in younger adults, and SIT appears to explain ageism in older adults.

CONCLUSIONS

A dissociation of the linkage between death and old age in younger adults can be achieved by changing the concepts of death and old age. For older adults, it is recommended to improve self-worth by encouraging social contacts in which older adults contribute to younger adults, weaken the effects of age stereotypes in TV programs, and prepare middle-aged adults for living healthy lives as older adults. However, these conclusions should be regarded with caution, because several key areas (age related cues, activated cognitive processes, impact of death awareness on ageism) need to be investigated in order to validate this understanding of the origins of ageism among younger and older adults.

Of Mice and Men, and Objectified Women: A Terror Management Account of Infrahumanization

This article offers terror management theory (TMT) as a conceptual lens through which the process of infrahumanization can be viewed. TMT suggests that people are threatened by the awareness of their mortal, animal nature, and that by emphasizing their symbolic, cultural—and hence, uniquely human—existence, they can help quell this threat. The article reviews empirical evidence demonstrating that reminders of mortality increase efforts to see the self and in-groups as more uniquely human. In addition, it is posited that, as an ironic consequence of defensive efforts to rid the self and certain others of any connection to animal nature, people are sometimes stripped of their human nature. The study presents evidence that the objectification, and self-objectification, of women can be viewed from this perspective and concludes that both emphasizing people’s uniquely human qualities and viewing them as objectified symbols can be understood as serving a terror management function.

Transforming From Cocoon to Butterfly: The Potential Role of the Body in the Process of Posttraumatic Growth

The diagnosis of cancer has the potential to elicit positive change (posttraumatic growth [PTG]) through the experience of trauma and adversity. However, psychology and clinical practices and most recently positive psychology have been criticized for their indifference toward the influence of the body on positive psychological functioning. The aim of this study was to broaden the understanding of PTG, including its process and outcomes, using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Ten female breast cancer survivors, from an already existing study, participated in an individual, open-ended interview. These were transcribed verbatim and analyzed for themes that reflected the women’s experience of growing from adversity. The role of the body was found to be a vital component to the process and outcomes of PTG and was deconstructed into three smaller themes: fear of new body, negative effects of chemotherapy on the body (fatigue, loss of desire), and reconnection with body (cocoon to butterfly, listening to body, body as a barometer/monitoring). In addition, the analysis revealed how these 10 women perceived the body as an integral component to their self-identity and how this affected their achievement of PTG. Future research should begin to acknowledge and conduct further study into the neglected role of the body as a contributor or determinant of the PTG process.