Cancer and the threat of death: The cognitive dynamics of death-thought suppression and its impact on behavioral health intentions.

Abstract

Five studies examined the cognitive association between thoughts of cancer and thoughts of death and their implication for screening intentions. Study 1 found that explicit contemplation of cancer did not increase death-thought accessibility. In support of the hypothesis that this reflects suppression of death-related thoughts, Study 2 found that individuals who thought about cancer exhibited elevated death-thought accessibility under high cognitive load, and Study 3 demonstrated that subliminal primes of the word cancer led to increased death-thought accessibility. Study 4 revealed lower levels of death-thought accessibility when perceived vulnerability to cancer was high, once again suggesting suppression of death-related thoughts in response to conscious threats associated with cancer. Study 5 extended the analysis by finding that after cancer salience, high cognitive load, which presumably disrupts suppression of the association between cancer and death, decreased cancer-related self-exam intentions. Theoretical and practical implications for understanding terror management, priming and suppression, and responses to cancer are discussed.

Evidence for the DTA hypothesis II: Threatening self-esteem increases death-thought accessibility

“…Indeed, with the addition of the research reported in this article, higher levels of DTA have now been observed following threats to people's cultural worldview, belief in a just world, romantic relationships, and self-esteem (Florian, Mikulincer, & Hirschberger, 2002;Friedman & Rholes, 2007;Hayes et al, in press;Hirschberger, 2006;Landau et al, 2004;Mikulincer et al, 2002;Schimel et al, 2007). Furthermore, exposing people to situations and events that remind them of the fragility of human existence such as cancer patients, persons with disabilities, and human creatureliness have also been shown to increase DTA (Arndt et al, 2007;Cox et al, 2007;Goldenberg et al, 1999;Hirschberger et al, 2005).…”

“…According to Landau et al (2004), evidence that bad things happen to good people is particularly threatening to individuals high in PNS, because it conflicts with their conception of the world as a benevolently ordered place in which people are safe and secure as long as they do what is right. Other studies consistent with the DTA hypothesis have shown that indirectly reminding people of their vulnerability to death by priming them with thoughts of cancer (Arndt, Cook, Goldenberg, & Cox, 2007), exposing them to persons with disabilities (Hirschberger, Florian, & Mikulincer, 2005), and reminding people of their animal nature (Cox, Goldenberg, Pyszczynski, & Weise, 2007;Goldenberg, Pyszczynski, McCoy, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999), increases the accessibility of thoughts about death.…”

Emotion as a necessary component of threat-induced death thought accessibility and defensive compensation

“…Emotion may be less important when DTA is induced through MS, subliminal death-primes or death-associated stimuli (e.g., thinking about cancer; Arndt et al 2007; terrorist attacks; Landau et al 2004; or viewing images of destruction and rubble; Vail et al 2012). Death-prime-induced DTA is believed to increase as a result of the potential anxiety invoked by death reminders (Greenberg et al 2003), whereas death-associated stimuli induce DTA via the semantic relation between the stimuli and death-related concepts.…”

Gender Identity Salience and Perceived Vulnerability to Breast Cancer

“…It has been shown that extreme primes can lead to opposite effects from more moderate primes (Herr, Sherman and Fazio 1983), that awareness of the prime can lead to contrast effects (Lombardi, Higgins, and Bargh 1987) as can priming people with exemplars instead of stereotypes or traits (Moskowitz and Skurnik 1999). Recently, the importance of taking into account motivational processes when studying priming effects has been demonstrated by the research of Arndt et al (2007) who showed that priming people with cancer can lead to suppression, instead of increased accessibility, of death-related thoughts when participants enjoy sufficient processing capacity. Our results add to this literature by showing how increased self-relevance enhances the probability of motivational, defensive mechanisms interfering with the basic priming effect.…”