Effects of Existential Anxiety and Self-Esteem on the Perception of Others

The Meaning Maintenance Model: On the Coherence of Social Motivations

“…In all of these studies the effects from the nondeath meaning threats were as strong as the effects of mortality salience manipulations, although we note that some efforts to manipulate meaning have not replicated TMT findings (e.g., Baldwin & Wesley, 1996;Landau, Johns, et al, 2004). Taken together, the diversity of operationalizations and predicted responses in the studies reviewed previously lends support to the robustness of the meaning-making compensatory process while weakening alternative accounts of any individual study.…”

Successfully challenging fundamentalist beliefs results in increased death awareness

“…This eVect is somewhat counter-intuitive, though we have found similar results in previous research (Friedman & Rholes, submitted for publication). Furthermore, one other published study has linked higher self-esteem to increased TMT eVects (Baldwin & Wesley, 1996). The main eVect of intrinsic religiosity indicates that greater intrinsic religiosity was associated with reduced death-awareness.…”

Offensive Defensiveness: Toward an Integrative Neuroscience of Compensatory Zeal After Mortality Salience, Personal Uncertainty, and Other Poignant Self-Threats

“…This concrete, experiential reminder of impermanent meanings not only caused participants to report higher scores on a seeking of meaning scale, but also caused more zeal about values, personal projects, communal identifications, and preference for an in-group supporter over an in-group critic. It is also important to note that, as with mortality salience, merely intellectual manipulations of meaninglessness have not caused defensive reactions (Baldwin & Wesley, 1996).…”