Breaking apart the typical mortality salience manipulation: Two questions, two outcomes

Abstract

The typical mortality salience manipulation asks participants to reflect on two questions, one about the emotions associated with the thought of death and the other about what happens after one dies. In five experiments, we separated these two questions and gave participants either one or a control question. In Experiment 1, participants' responses to the afterlife question were coded as being informed more by cultural knowledge and values compared with responses to the emotion question. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that participants responding to the afterlife question showed greater stereotype usage compared with those responding to the emotion or a control question. In Experiment 4, results illustrate that the afterlife and emotion question differ on various coding dimensions related to self‐focus, emotion, and culturally related death words, but not death‐related words. In addition, participants who responded to the afterlife question demonstrated greater cultural worldview defense by setting a higher bail for an alleged prostitute compared with those who answered the emotion or a control question. In Experiment 5, participants responding to the emotion question demonstrated a greater preference for personally endorsed values compared with those who responded to the emotion or a control question. These results suggest that the two questions used in the common mortality salience manipulation produce different results when separated. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Does the Awareness of Mortality Shape People's Openness to Violence and Conflict? An Examination of Terror Management Theory

“…Previous research has found that small differences in the wording of the MS manipulation can elicit different effects on the samples (Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Sambocet, ). Burgin, Sanders, vanDellen, & Martin () have suggested that MS manipulations using the “afterlife” referent may result in greater worldview defence than MS manipulations using the “emotional feeling” referent. Although we used the “emotional” MS manipulation which may have had a smaller effect on worldview defence, it did significantly increase support for divine power and policies that combat violent extremism.…”

La muerte ante uno mismo. Respuestas de jóvenes estudiantes ante el pensamiento de la propia muerte.

“…In many studies of MS, members of the experimental group are asked to write about their own death, while those in the control group are instructed to write about an event unrelated to death (although, in many cases, one with negative connotations). The results obtained from such studies show that much of the behaviour we present and experience on a daily basis is influenced by unconscious thoughts about our own death (Burke et al, 2010;Burgin et al, 2012), reinforcing the defence of ideals or values related to distal defences.…”

“…Distal defences, on the other hand, prevent the thoughts of death that are still accessible from remaining in the subconscious (Pyszczynski, Solomon & Greenberg, 2015). Two main distal defences have been described: self-esteem and belief in the validity of one's own cultural outlook on the world and its associated values (Burgin, Sanders, Vandellen & Martin, 2012;Burke, Martens & Faucher, 2010; anales de psicología, 2017, vol. 33, nº 3 (october) Routledge, Juhl & Vess, 2013).…”

“…The most common way in which MS is addressed and analysed (and which has been used in 79.8% of such studies) (Burgin et al, 2012) is by means of the Mortality Attitudes Personality Survey (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski & Lyon, 1989), which contains two direct questions on the thoughts aroused by death and about what the respondents believe will happen when they die and when they are dead.…”

“…The second, the After-life Question ("Jot down as specifically as you can what you think will happen to you as you physically die, and once you are physically dead"), reports on participants' cultural values and beliefs (Burgin et al, 2012). In most studies, these questions are not analysed in depth and no conclusions are drawn from the participants' narratives (Kastenbaum & Heflick, 2011), since what is sought is to determine the effect produced, in making these responses, on another activity that is not directly related to the question of mortality.…”