Mortality salience increases adherence to salient norms and values

Existential threat and responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup members

The present research investigates how emotional displays shape reactions to ingroup and outgroup members when people are reminded of death. We hypothesized that under mortality salience, emotions that signal social distance promote worldview defense (i.e., increased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation), whereas emotions that signal affiliation promote affiliation need (i.e., reduced ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation). In three studies, participants viewed emotional displays of ingroup and/or outgroup members after a mortality salience or control manipulation. Results revealed that under mortality salience, anger increased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation (Study 1), enhanced perceived overlap with the ingroup (Study 3), and increased positive facial behavior to ingroup displays-measured via the Facial Action Coding System (Studies 1 and 2) and electromyography of the zygomaticus major muscle (Study 3). In contrast, happiness decreased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation (Study 2), and increased positive facial behavior towards outgroup members (Study 3). The findings suggest that, in times of threat, emotional displays can determine whether people move away from unfamiliar others or try to form as many friendly relations as possible.

Meaning and blame: Meaning threats increase victim blaming, but profession and art can diminish it

Previous work suggests that people have a need for meaning, and that when meaning is threatened, efforts are undertaken to restore a sense of meaning. We hypothesized that a meaning threat (i.e., reminders of death) would increase victim blaming of a domestic violence victim since doing so can restore a sense of meaning-that people get what they deserve-but for those with advanced knowledge of victimology, such as trained counsellors, this effect would be diminished since victim blaming runs counter to their meaning framework that bad things can happen to good people. In addition, because art can provide a sense of meaning, we hypothesized that either creating meaningful art or observing art and finding meaning within it would diminish blaming a domestic violence victim since having a sense of meaning should diminish the need to restore meaning via victim blaming. Over five studies with undergraduate and trained counsellors, we found support for the hypotheses, and a meta-analysis on the victim blaming effect suggested a small, though significant, effect size of d = .28. These findings enhance our understanding of various factors that affect victim blaming, and they point towards relatively easy to administer interventions to diminish it.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Eco-Apocalypse: An Existential Approach to Accepting Eco-Anxiety

Climate crisis presents a near-term existential threat to the human species, one that society has neither the physical nor psychological infrastructure to manage. Eco-anxiety increases as awareness about climate crisis spreads. Despite an urgent need for resources on how to help people cope with the psychological ramifications of climate crisis, there is little literature that both addresses people's apocalyptic fears and takes the scientific bases of those fears seriously. In this article, I synthesize research on existential psychology, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, grief, and end-of-life care to present an original perspective on how people, individually and collectively, can become psychologically resilient to climate crisis. First, I establish that death anxiety underlies eco-anxiety. Second, I demonstrate that preparing psychologically for eco-apocalypse requires people to cultivate death acceptance. Finally, I illustrate how commitment to palliative values can enable people to live rich and meaningful lives despite their most likely imminent end.

Mortality salience enhances neural activities related to guilt and shame when recalling the past

Mortality salience (MS) influences cognition and behavior. However, its effect on emotion (especially moral emotions) and the underlying neural correlates are unclear. We investigated how MS priming modulated guilt and shame in a later recall task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The behavioral results indicated that MS increased self-reported guilt but not shame. The neural results showed that MS strengthened neural activities related to the psychological processes of guilt and shame. Specifically, for both guilt and shame, MS increased activation in a region associated with self-referential processing (ventral medial prefrontal cortex). For guilt but not shame, MS increased the activation of regions associated with cognitive control (orbitofrontal cortex) and emotion processing (amygdala). For shame but not guilt, MS decreased brain functional connectivity related to self-referential processing. A direct comparison showed that MS more strongly decreased a functional connectivity related to self-referential processing in the shame than in the guilt condition. Additionally, the activation of insula during MS priming was partly predictive of neural activities related to guilt and shame in the subsequent recall task. Our study sheds light on the psychological and neural mechanisms of MS effects on moral emotions and provides theoretical insights for enriching terror management theory.

Purity, politics, and polarization: Political ideology moderates threat‐induced shifts in moral purity beliefs

There is considerable research showing that economic threat influences people's social and political views. There are two prevailing perspectives on threat and political attitudes, broadly defined as the Conservative Shift Hypothesis and the Entrenching Hypothesis. The former predicts that threat induces change in the conservative direction (for both conservatives and liberals), whereas the latter predicts that threat causes people to adhere more strongly to their prexisting political perspective. In two experimental studies (one pre-registered replication), we find evidence in support of the Entrenching Hypothesis. Conservatives responded to Economic Threat with increased endorsement of the conservative moral foundation Purity, whereas liberals responded to Economic Threat with decreased endorsement of the Purity foundation. Economic Threat appears to increase commitment to one's pre-existing political ideology and not conservatism specifically. Implications for psychological theory and future directions are discussed.

The Effect of Group Identification on Death Anxiety: The Chain Mediation Role of Close Relationships and Self-Esteem

Based on the terror management theory (TMT), this study integrated self-esteem and close relationships to explore the effects of group identification on death anxiety. Five hundred and four participants completed the Death Anxiety, Rosenberg Self-Esteem, Social Identity, and Inclusion of Other in the Self scales via online platforms. There were significant correlations among group identification, close relationship, self-esteem, and death anxiety. Group identification had a significant negative predictive effect on death anxiety. Specifically, group identification affects death anxiety through two pathways: the separate mediating role of self-esteem and the serial mediation pathway of close relationships → self-esteem. Our study provides direct evidence that group identification relieves death anxiety. The results showed that the alleviating function of group identification was mediated by self-esteem and close relationships. This study provides a new perspective concerning TMT as a defense mechanism against death anxiety.

Do Salient Social Norms Moderate Mortality Salience Effects? A (Challenging) Meta-Analysis of Terror Management Studies

Terror management theory postulates that mortality salience (MS) increases the motivation to defend one's cultural worldviews. How that motivation is expressed may depend on the social norm that is momentarily salient. Meta-analyses were conducted on studies that manipulated MS and social norm salience. Results based on 64 effect sizes for the hypothesized interaction between MS and norm salience revealed a small-to-medium effect of g = 0.34, 95% confidence interval [0.26, 0.41]. Bias-adjustment techniques suggested the presence of publication bias and/or the exploitation of researcher degrees of freedom and arrived at smaller effect size estimates for the hypothesized interaction, in several cases reducing the effect to nonsignificance (range g_corrected = -0.36 to 0.15). To increase confidence in the idea that MS and norm salience interact to influence behavior, preregistered, high-powered experiments using validated norm salience manipulations are necessary. Concomitantly, more specific theorizing is needed to identify reliable boundary conditions of the effect.

Changing Personal Values through Value-Manipulation Tasks: A Systematic Literature Review Based on Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values

According to the Theory of Basic Human Values, values are relatively stable, but not immutable, abstract goals which strongly influence peoples’ lives. Since their relative stability, psychosocial research is attempting to understand the extent to which it is possible to induce a voluntary change in people’s personal values. The main aim of this study was to systematically review the existing literature on experiments to induce a value change, also highlighting the theoretical perspectives used to develop the experimental tasks. We conducted a literature search of five databases (SCOPUS, ProQuest, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science). After the screening and the eligibility phase, we included a total of 14 articles (25 experiments). Most of these studies involved university students and adopted a pre-and post-test design, using different manipulation tasks. The results highlighted the possibility of inducing a voluntary value change, assessed in terms of mean levels and/or rank order. These findings provide new insights regarding the stability of values in the light of the Theory of Basic Human Values. The practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Walk This Way: Ingroup Norms Determine Voting Intentions for Those Who Lack Sociopolitical Control

Even though taking part in elections is one of the most direct tools to influence the sociopolitical system, many people choose not to vote. Research shows that this problem is especially prevalent among those citizens who do not believe they have control over social and political issues, but the question remains as to what could encourage their voting behavior. We predicted that individuals who experience low levels of control can be more susceptible to ingroup norms regarding participation in political elections than those with a high sense of sociopolitical control (SPC). Across six studies, we found consistent support for this hypothesis. Specifically, people who experience decreased SPC were more likely to vote when descriptive norms (measured or manipulated) were conducive to voting. The results have important theoretical and applied implications, illuminating the boundary conditions under which people deprived of control can still be motivated to participate in a political sphere.

Can culture beat Covid-19? Evidence that exposure to facemasks with cultural symbols increases solidarity

Facemasks have become integral to everyday life. We propose that exposure to facemasks with a solidarity-related cultural symbol can activate cultural values such as mutual trust and increase corresponding interpersonal perceptions, thereby enhancing collective resilience in the Covid-19 pandemic. In three (two of which preregistered) studies, we examined whether exposure to facemasks with a solidarity-related cultural symbol predicts positive interpersonal perceptions, and whether this depends on death awareness. Across studies, exposure to facemasks with a cultural symbol (either pride flag or National Health Service) increased positive interpersonal perceptions, an index of solidarity, in people for whom this symbol represents a meaningful social identity. This was found whether participants were reminded of death, a neutral experience, or a negative experience. Importantly, in Study 3, exposure to facemasks with a solidarity-related cultural symbol (vs. surgical) led to greater increases in positive interpersonal perceptions when death awareness was high. Together, our findings suggest that wearing facemasks with a cultural symbol that relates to solidarity can be a vehicle for shaping people's personality impressions of others. Applied directions for the activation of people's social identities via facemask selection to promote collective resilience in the Covid-19 pandemic are discussed.

Influences of News and Social Media on Food Insecurity and Hoarding Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to examine how sociodemographic variables and frequency of media consumption affect hoarding behavior and food insecurity concerns during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

METHODS

A quantitative, nonexperimental, correlational online survey was administered using a convenience sample of 203 participants from the United Kingdom with no medical issues that affected buying behavior during the pandemic to examine perceptions related to food insecurity, and self-reported food hoarding behavior.

RESULTS

Younger adults and lower income groups reported higher food insecurity perceptions and hoarding behaviors. Consuming COVID-19 information from websites was significantly associated with food insecurity perceptions, while information from social media was significantly associated with more food hoarding behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

Younger adults and lower income groups are vulnerable populations from the perspective of food insecurity and hoarding behavior in times of health disasters like pandemics. While social media can play a positively catalytic role during crises, excessive online information and misinformation can contribute negatively to public panic and feelings of insecurity. Implications for disaster preparedness and future research are discussed. The findings suggest that age is the main predictor of food insecurity and hoarding behavior, with younger adults more likely to be affected. They also suggest that people are turning to National Health Service (NHS) websites, which were deemed more trustworthy than social media, to avoid "news fatigue" and avoiding speculation. Suggestions for future research were made, specifically to examine people's social support during the pandemic to understand its potential link to stockpiling behavior or food insecurity concerns.

Mortality threat mitigates interpersonal competition: an EEG-based hyperscanning study

Awareness of death has been shown to influence human cognition and behavior. Yet, how mortality threat (MT) impacts our daily social behavior remains elusive. To address this issue, we developed a dyadic experimental model and recruited 86 adults (43 dyads) to complete two computer-based tasks (i.e. competitive and cooperative button-pressing). We manipulated dyads’ awareness of death [MT vs neutral control (NC)] and simultaneously measured their neurophysiological activity using electroencephalography during the task. Several fundamental observations were made. First, the MT group showed significantly attenuated competition and slightly promoted cooperation. Second, compared to NC, MT significantly decreased gamma-band inter-brain synchronization (IBS) in the competitive context, which was associated with increased subjective fear of death within dyads. Notably, those effects were context-specific: we did not observe comparable results in the cooperative context. Finally, a machine-learning approach was successfully used to discriminate between the MT and NC groups based on accumulated IBS. Together, these findings indicate that MT to some extent mitigates interpersonal competition, and such mitigation might be associated with changes in gamma-band IBS.

Loss and lastingness? Further exploring the relationship between the death of a close other, belief in an everlasting soul, and terror management processes

This research explored the relationship between the death of a close other (DOCO) and terror management processes. In Study 1 (n = 810), university students who experienced DOCO (vs. not) reported higher university and American identification; greater self-esteem and meaning in life; lower death-thought accessibility; greater "death-as-passage" representations; and higher belief in an everlasting soul. We pre-registered Study 2 (n = 497) as an attempt to replicate these findings; although the patterns of means were consistent with Study 1, the tests did not reach statistical significance. However, analyses on the merged data (N = 1,307) supported the present theoretical analysis.

Mortality salience in professionals witnessing death: The effects of mortality manipulation on doctors' evaluations

This study investigates whether frequently witnessing death leads to desensitization in terms of death anxiety. A total of 163 individuals, comprising 71 doctors from branches with high death rates and 92 doctors from branches where mortality is rarely seen, participated in this study. An experiment was conducted employing a classical version of mortality salience manipulation, which is often used in terror management research, to test the study's hypothesis. The results supported the hypothesis only with regard to altruism-egoism, providing partial support for the effect of desensitization. This subject needs to be studied further.

Mindfulness of Death as a Tool for Mortality Salience Induction with Reference to Terror Management Theory

In this article, I argue that “mindfulness of death” (maraṇasati) can be a tool to induce mortality salience and can have a positive psychological impact. The mindfulness of death is described in detail in the early Buddhist texts Aṅguttara Nikāya and Visuddhimagga. The texts stress that death should be consciously connected with temporality and mindfulness. Here, I look at the mindfulness of death in relation to the mortality salience of terror management theory. “Mortality salience” is a term proposed in terror management theory that means “the state of conscious activation of the thoughts of death”. In addition, after conscious activation of the thought of death, I examine the psychological changes, such as the increase of pro-social attitudes which emphasizes ethics and morality, and the emphasis on the intrinsic value of life due to the operation of a cultural worldview and self-esteem. In this paper, I conclude that mindfulness of death can be an effective tool to induce mortality salience.

Ebola salience, death-thought accessibility, and worldview defense: A terror management theory perspective

According to terror management theory, individuals defend their cultural beliefs following mortality salience. The current research examined whether naturally occurring instances of death (i.e., Ebola) correspond to results found in laboratory studies. The results of two experiments demonstrated that participants experienced a greater accessibility of death-related thoughts in response to an Ebola prime during a regional outbreak. Study 2 also showed that increased mortality awareness following an Ebola manipulation was associated with greater worldview defense (i.e., religious fundamentalism). Together, these results suggest that reminders of death in the form of a disease threat operate similarly to a mortality salience manipulation.

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.

You Are the Real Terrorist and We Are Just Your Puppet: Using Individual and Group Factors to Explain Indonesian Muslims' Attributions of Causes of Terrorism

The current study investigates the role of individual and intergroup factors in predicting Muslims' tendency to attribute domestic terrorism in Indonesia to an external cause (i.e., The West) or an internal cause (i.e., radical Islamist groups). The results (N = 308) showed that intergroup factors of symbolic threat and realistic threat directly increased the external attribution and conversely decreased the internal attribution. Within the context of the current research, symbolic threat refers to Muslims' perception that the norms and values of the West undermine Islamic identity. Realistic threat denotes Muslims' perception that the economy and technology of the West undermine Islamic power. The individual factor of Islamic fundamentalism, which has to do with Muslims' belief in the literal interpretation of and strict guidelines to Islamic doctrines, indirectly predicted both external attribution and internal attribution of terrorism as hypothesized, via the extent to which Muslims perceived the West as posing a symbolic threat, but not a realistic threat to Islamic existence. Uncertainty avoidance, a cultural dimension that describes the extent to which people view clear instructions as a pivotal source of concern to deal with societal problems, also significantly increased perceived symbolic threat and realistic threat, and this cultural dimension mediated the effect of Islamic fundamentalism on each of the intergroup threats. Finally, we found that the level of Islamic fundamentalism was dependent upon cognitive response, but not emotional response to mortality salience. The cognitive response to mortality salience denotes what Muslims are thinking about in coping with their own death whereas the emotional response denotes what Muslims are feeling about such issue. In particular, we found the cognitive response, but not the emotional response to mortality salience significantly gave rise to Muslims' Islamic fundamentalism. These findings shed light on the importance of combining individual factors and group factors in explicating the dynamics of Muslims' tendency to make attributions of causes of domestic terrorism. We discuss theoretical implications and study limitations, as well as practical actions policy makers could conduct to deal with Muslims' Islamic fundamentalism and reduce the extent to which this particular group perceives the West as threatening their existence.

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.

The sociocultural appraisals, values, and emotions (SAVE) framework of prosociality: core processes from gene to meme

The study of prosocial behavior--altruism, cooperation, trust, and the related moral emotions--has matured enough to produce general scholarly consensus that prosociality is widespread, intuitive, and rooted deeply within our biological makeup. Several evolutionary frameworks model the conditions under which prosocial behavior is evolutionarily viable, yet no unifying treatment exists of the psychological decision-making processes that result in prosociality. Here, we provide such a perspective in the form of the sociocultural appraisals, values, and emotions (SAVE) framework of prosociality. We review evidence for the components of our framework at four levels of analysis: intrapsychic, dyadic, group, and cultural. Within these levels, we consider how phenomena such as altruistic punishment, prosocial contagion, self-other similarity, and numerous others give rise to prosocial behavior. We then extend our reasoning to chart the biological underpinnings of prosociality and apply our framework to understand the role of social class in prosociality.

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.

Hails From the Crypt

Interfacing the terror management health model with the meaning transfer model, we offer novel hypotheses concerning the effectiveness of celebrity and medical endorsements for consumer products and health behavior decisions. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that, compared with control topic primes, death thoughts in focal attention increased the effectiveness of health-oriented (doctor) endorsers but not culture-oriented (celebrity) endorsers, whereas death thoughts outside of focal attention increased the effectiveness of culture-oriented endorsers but not health-oriented endorsers. Studies 3 and 4 then focus more specifically on the valence and specificity of culture-oriented endorsements, revealing that death thoughts outside focal attention increase the effectiveness of culture-oriented endorsers only on the behaviors specifically endorsed and only when the endorser is characterized as possessing cultural value. Discussion focuses on everyday management of existential concerns and implications for persuasive communications in the health domain.

Leaving a legacy neutralizes negative effects of death anxiety on creativity

Mortality salience (MS) can lead to a paralyzing terror, and to cope with this, people strive for literal or symbolic immortality. As MS leads to conformity and narrow-mindedness, we predicted that MS would lead to lower creativity, unless creativity itself could lead to leaving a legacy and thus symbolic immortality. We show that this pattern holds (Experiment 1), but only when creativity is socially valued (Experiment 2). Finally, especially individualistic people are more creative under MS when they can leave a legacy than when they cannot, and high originality predicts subsequent accessibility of death thoughts (Experiment 3). Implications are discussed.

Mortality salience increases personal relevance of the norm of reciprocity

Research on terror management theory found evidence that people under mortality salience strive to live up to salient cultural norms and values, like egalitarianism, pacifism, or helpfulness. A basic, strongly internalized norm in most human societies is the norm of reciprocity: people should support those who supported them (i.e., positive reciprocity), and people should injure those who injured them (i.e., negative reciprocity), respectively. In an experiment (N = 98; 47 women, 51 men), mortality salience overall significantly increased personal relevance of the norm of reciprocity (M = 4.45, SD = 0.65) compared to a control condition (M = 4.19, SD = 0.59). Specifically, under mortality salience there was higher motivation to punish those who treated them unfavourably (negative norm of reciprocity). Unexpectedly, relevance of the norm of positive reciprocity remained unaffected by mortality salience. Implications and limitations are discussed.