Diverging effects of mortality salience on variety seeking: The different roles of death anxiety and semantic concept activation

Huang, Zhongqiang; Wyer, Robert S.

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2015.01.008

Cited by 34 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Moreover, our results are exactly in line with Greenberg et al's (2003) speculation that these defenses might be mediated by “a relative increase in right-hemisphere frontal lobe activity” (Greenberg et al, 2003, p. 519). On a general level, our findings may advance and refine TMT research in that they show that MS can not only promote various BIS-related behaviors (Landau and Greenberg, 2006; Routledge et al, 2010; Huang and Wyer, 2015), but also that cultural closed-mindedness can be explained through very basic inhibitory processes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

“…For instance, people prefer familiar over unfamiliar products after experiencing death anxiety, suggesting a basic tendency toward novelty-avoidance (Huang and Wyer, 2015). MS also causes people to avoid stimuli that remind them of their embodied, temporal existence (Goldenberg et al, 2001; Cox et al, 2007), which suggests that MS inclines an avoidance of information that would further highlight a threat.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Contrary to the BIS that responds to more distant, abstract, and ambiguous threats, the FFFS responds to more proximate, concrete, and unequivocal threats, such as immediate attackers. The present line of research pertains to existential threats, which are more distant, abstract, and ambiguous (e.g., the time and way of one's death is usually unknown; see also Huang and Wyer, 2015). Therefore, we focus on BIS-mediated passive avoidance motivational responses to threat in this paper.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2016

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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.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2016

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“…The role of death, thought as a precursor to consumption attitude, has received increasing attention in recent years (see, e.g., Das et al, ; Huang & Wyer, ; Veer & Rank, ). This research particularly focuses on and further investigates the impact of death anxiety on green‐product purchase attitude.…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypotheses Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding green purchase behavior through death anxiety and individual social responsibility: Mastery as a moderator

Rahimah

Khalil

Cheng

et al. 2018

J of Consumer Behaviour

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This research proposes a framework to explore green consumption behavior from the perspective of the anxiety of death and individual social responsibility. Research data are collected from a sample of 280 consumers in Taipei, Taiwan. The findings reveal that consumers' anxiety of death affects consumers' green purchase attitude and then ultimately green purchase intention through the mediating variables of environmental concern and pro‐environmental behavior. On a similar line, individual social responsibility is found to act as a precursor in increasing consumer's concern for the environment and, eventually, green purchase attitude and intention. Mastery is found to invigorate the effect of death anxiety on green concern and pro‐environmental behavior, while it enervates the relationship between individual social responsibility and environmental concern.

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“…One of the correlates of death anxiety is religiosity-spirituality. Some studies showed there were associations between concepts related to religiosity and spirituality and death fear and death anxiety [26–32] and the activation of death-related semantic concepts in adults [33]. We did not assess these concepts in our study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Reliability and Factorial Structure of the Farsi Version of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety in an Iranian Middle-Aged Sample

Dadfar

Bahrami

2016

The Scientific World Journal

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The present study aimed to explore the psychometric properties of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety (ASDA) in an Iranian middle-aged sample. A sample of 55 volunteer Iranian persons took part in the study. Cronbach's alpha of the ASDA was found to be high (0.91) and Spearman-Brown and Guttman Split-Half coefficients were 0.86. The factor analysis of the ASDA items yielded five factors accounting for 72.49% of the total variance and labeled (F1) fear of death and fear of dead people; (F2) fear of postmortem events and fear of tombs; (F3) fear of lethal disease; (F4) preoccupation with after death, and death fear in sleep; and (F5) fear of deprivation of own ones. The ASDA has a good validity and reliability, and it can be used in clinical, educational, and research settings.

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Diverging effects of mortality salience on variety seeking: The different roles of death anxiety and semantic concept activation

Cited by 34 publications

References 81 publications

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

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

Understanding green purchase behavior through death anxiety and individual social responsibility: Mastery as a moderator

Reliability and Factorial Structure of the Farsi Version of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety in an Iranian Middle-Aged Sample

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