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

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

[1]  Joel D. Lieberman,et al.  Terror management and aggression: evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[2]  R. Trivers.  Parental investment and sexual selection , 1972 .

[3]  R. Ratcliff,et al.  Spreading activation versus compound cue accounts of priming: mediated priming revisited. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[4]  A. Marcel.  Conscious and unconscious perception: An approach to the relations between phenomenal experience and perceptual processes , 1983, Cognitive Psychology.

[5]  T. Mussweiler,et al.  The sex-->aggression link: a perception-behavior dissociation. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[6]  C. Steele,et al.  Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  B. Norrander.  THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENDER GAP , 1999, Princeton Readings in American Politics.

[8]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Evidence of a Terror Management Function of Cultural Icons: The Effects of Mortality Salience on the Inappropriate Use of Cherished Cultural Symbols , 1995 .

[9]  Jeff Schimel,et al.  To belong or not to belong, that is the question: terror management and identification with gender and ethnicity. , 2002 .

[10]  Michael A. Becker.  Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles , 1998 .

[11]  S. Wallace.  The Denial of Death , 1979, Occupational health nursing.

[12]  J. N. Bassili,et al.  On the spontaneity of trait attribution: Converging evidence for the role of cognitive strategy. , 1986 .

[13]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Toward a Dual-Motive Depth Psychology of Self and Social Behavior , 1995 .

[14]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  Development of automatism of social judgments. , 1986 .

[15]  A. Eagly,et al.  Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles , 1984 .

[16]  J. Bargh,et al.  Environmental control of goal-directed action: automatic and strategic contingencies between situations and behavior. , 1994, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.

[17]  Linda Simon,et al.  Terror Management and Self-Awareness: Evidence that Mortality Salience Provokes Avoidance of the Self-Focused State , 1998 .

[18]  T. McNamara.  Priming and theories of memory : a reply to Ratcliff and McKoon , 1994 .

[19]  A. L. Greene,et al.  “I've got a lot to do and i don't think i'll have the time”: Gender differences in late adolescents' narratives of the future , 1992, Journal of youth and adolescence.

[20]  R Ratcliff,et al.  Retrieving information from memory: spreading-activation theories versus compound-cue theories. , 1994, Psychological review.

[21]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Death, sex, love, and neuroticism: why is sex such a problem? , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[22]  E. Harmon-Jones,et al.  Terror management and cognitive-experiential self-theory: evidence that terror management occurs in the experiential system. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[23]  M. Mikulincer,et al.  The Death-Anxiety Buffering Function of Close Relationships: Exploring the Effects of Separation Reminders on Death-Thought Accessibility , 2002 .

[24]  W. Gardner,et al.  Are there "his" and "hers" types of interdependence? The implications of gender differences in collective versus relational interdependence for affect, behavior, and cognition. , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[25]  J. Greenberg,et al.  The Effects of a Self-Esteem Boost and Mortality Salience on Responses to Boost Relevant and Irrelevant Worldview Threats , 1999 .

[26]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Terror management and meaning: evidence that the opportunity to defend the worldview in response to mortality salience increases the meaningfulness of life in the mildly depressed. , 1998, Journal of personality.

[27]  J. Arndt,et al.  Death Can Be Good for Your Health: Fitness Intentions as a Proximal and Distal Defense Against Mortality Salience , 2003 .

[28]  T. Chartrand,et al.  The mind in the middle: A practical guide to priming and automaticity research. , 2000 .

[29]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Subliminal Exposure to Death-Related Stimuli Increases Defense of the Cultural Worldview , 1997 .

[30]  T. Hora,et al.  Existential psychotherapy. , 1962, Current psychiatric therapies.

[31]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  Christina T. Fong,et al.  Automatic Activation of Stereotypes: The Role of Self-Image Threat , 1998 .

[33]  S. Cross,et al.  Models of the self: self-construals and gender. , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[34]  Tom Pyszczynski,et al.  A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior: The Psychological Functions of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews , 1991 .

[35]  J. V. Wood,et al.  Self-esteem and the cognitive accessibility of strengths and weaknesses after failure. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[36]  B. J. Winer,et al.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design, 2nd Edition. , 1973 .

[37]  Russell H. Fazio,et al.  A practical guide to the use of response latency in social psychological research. , 1990 .

[38]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Proximal and Distal Defenses in Response to Reminders of One’s Mortality: Evidence of a Temporal Sequence , 2000 .

[39]  Susan S. Hendrick,et al.  Dimensions of Love: A Sociobiological Interpretation , 1991 .

[40]  Tom Pyszczynski,et al.  Terror management theory of self-esteem. , 1991 .

[41]  S. Spencer,et al.  Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others , 1997 .

[42]  David Watson,et al.  Affects separable and inseparable : on the hierarchical arrangement of the negative affects , 1992 .

[43]  G. Bower,et al.  Human Associative Memory , 1973 .

[44]  M. Baldwin,et al.  Effects of Existential Anxiety and Self-Esteem on the Perception of Others , 1996 .

[45]  P Raymond,et al.  Attractiveness of the underling: an automatic power --> sex association and its consequences for sexual harassment and aggression. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[46]  M. Koss,et al.  The scope of rape: incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of higher education students. , 1987, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[47]  Daniel L. Schacter,et al.  Priming effects in word-fragment completion are independent of recognition memory. , 1982 .

[48]  John J. B. Allen,et al.  Traces of Terror: Subliminal Death Primes and Facial Electromyographic Indices of Affect , 2001 .

[49]  Steven P. Tipper,et al.  Selection for Action: The Role of Inhibitory Mechanisms , 1992 .

[50]  Scott E. Maxwell,et al.  Designing Experiments and Analyzing Data: A Model Comparison Perspective , 1990 .

[51]  Allan Collins,et al.  A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing , 1975 .

[52]  S. Beach,et al.  Marriage and Depressive Symptoms , 1998 .

[53]  Daniel M. Wegner,et al.  You can't always think what you want: Problems in the suppression of unwanted thoughts , 1992 .

[54]  D. Geary.  Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences , 1998 .

[55]  J. Greenberg,et al.  WHISTLING IN THE DARK : Exaggerated Consensus Estimates in Response to Incidental Reminders of Mortality , 2009 .

[56]  David M. Sanbonmatsu,et al.  On the automatic activation of attitudes. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[57]  Roger E. Kirk,et al.  Experimental design: Procedures for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). , 1995 .

[58]  O T Ben-Ari,et al.  The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: a test of terror management mechanisms. , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[59]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Suppression, accessibility of death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense: exploring the psychodynamics of terror management. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[60]  M. Mikulincer,et al.  Fear of death and the judgment of social transgressions: a multidimensional test of terror management theory. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[61]  H. Mcgregor,et al.  Terror management theory and self-esteem: evidence that increased self-esteem reduces mortality salience effects. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[62]  D. Moskowitz,et al.  Situational influences on gender differences in agency and communion. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[63]  D. Gilbert,et al.  The trouble of thinking: Activation and application of stereotypic beliefs. , 1991 .

[64]  T. McNamara.  Priming and constraints it places on theories of memory and retrieval , 1992 .

[65]  A. Milne,et al.  The dissection of selection in person perception: inhibitory processes in social stereotyping. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[66]  G. Keppel,et al.  Design and Analysis: A Researcher's Handbook , 1976 .

[67]  D M Wegner,et al.  Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology Deep Cognitive Activation: a New Approach to the Unconscious , 2022 .

[68]  J. Brehm.  A theory of psychological reactance. , 1981 .

[69]  Robert L. Mason,et al.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design , 2003 .

[70]  E. Higgins.  Knowledge activation: Accessibility, applicability, and salience. , 1996 .

[71]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[72]  R. Kirk.  Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences , 1970 .

[73]  J. Bargh.  Automaticity in social psychology. , 1996 .

[74]  Jeff Schimel,et al.  Terror management and the vicissitudes of sports fan affiliation: The effects of mortality salience on optimism and fan identification. , 2000 .

[75]  A. Greenwald,et al.  Unconscious priming of association judgments. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[76]  R. M. Kelly,et al.  Subjective Culture and Patriotism: Gender, Ethnic, and Class Differences Among High School Students , 1987 .

[77]  M. Mikulincer,et al.  Symbolic immortality and the management of the terror of death: the moderating role of attachment style. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[78]  Jeff Schimel,et al.  Clarifying the Function of Mortality Salience-Induced Worldview Defense: Renewed Suppression or Reduced Accessibility of Death-Related Thoughts? , 2001 .

[79]  D. Buss,et al.  Sexual strategies theory: an evolutionary perspective on human mating. , 1993, Psychological review.

[80]  J. Greenberg,et al.  A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts: an extension of terror management theory. , 1999, Psychological review.