Not so terrifying after all? A set of failed replications of the mortality salience effects of Terror Management Theory

Abstract

Terror Management Theory (TMT) postulates that humans, in response to awareness of their death, developed complex defenses to remove the salience and discomfort stemming from those thoughts. In a standard paradigm to test this theory, an individual is presented with a death-related prime (Mortality Salience; MS), such as writing the details of their own death, or something neutral, such as watching television. After a distractor task (for delay), participants complete the dependent variable, such as rating how much they like or agree with a pro- or anti-national essay and its author. Individuals in the MS condition typically exhibit greater worldview defense than control conditions by rating the pro-national essay more positively and the anti-national essay more negatively. We completed five separate studies across five unique samples with the goal of replicating and extending this well-established pattern to provide further understanding of the phenomena that underlie the effects of MS. However, despite using standard procedures, we were unable to replicate basic patterns of the dependent variable in the MS conditions. We also pooled all responses into two meta-analyses, one examining all dependent variables and one focusing on the anti-national essay; yet the effect sizes in these analyses did not significantly differ from zero. We discuss the methodological and theoretical implications of these (unintended) failures to replicate. It is not clear if these null findings were due to methodological limitations, restraints of online/crowd-sourced recruitment, or ever-evolving sociocultural factors.

The sway of migrant crisis and COVID-19 pandemic on voter preference.

“…The authors concluded that there was little support for MS-induced shifts, either toward or away from the preexisting ideologies. Similar findings emerged in a recent round of replication by Treger et al (2023). The individual study findings and the meta-analyses at the end did not support the notion of CS because participants in the experimental and control groups endorsed the pro- or antinational essays similarly.…”

“…Political affiliation has been commonly assessed in MS studies because preexisting ideology could interact with MS in a way that demonstrates polarization (Chatard et al, 2020). When Schindler et al (2021) and Treger et al (2023) included ideologies to this end, the variables did not yield any significant interactions but assumed the role of significant predictors. Participants' political decisions seemed more informed by their prior ideology than their response to the threat induction.…”

“…Apprehensive voters seemed to predictably gravitate toward certain policy positions and even particular political candidates (Greenberg et al, 1992; Pyszczynski, 2013). However, recent replication studies casted doubt on the sway of threats on voter choice (Klein et al, 2019; Schindler et al, 2021; Treger et al, 2023). Given the number and scale of the replication studies, the present article took the next step to diagnose the connection between insecurity and protectionism in the contexts of the migrant crisis and COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Q: What is the recipe for defense? A: Threat, anxiety, and approach motivation.

“…Several attempts failed to replicate a classic finding: that reminding people of their mortality causes them to embrace and uphold their cultural worldviews even more than usual, presumably to deal with the existential anxiety elicited by the mortality reminder. Although this effect has been demonstrated hundredfold (Burke et al, 2010), recent attempts to replicate this classic effect have failed (Sætrevik & Sjåstad, 2022; Schindler et al, 2021; Treger et al, 2023). Even a high-powered, multilab effort to replicate the effect of mortality salience (MS) on evaluations of an author of a pro-ingroup versus an anti-ingroup essay (Greenberg et al, 1994) has revealed no significant effect.…”

Exposure to the Death of Others during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Growing Mistrust in Medical Institutions as a Result of Personal Loss

“…A preregistered p-curve analysis of 818 studies highlighted the importance of increased sample sizes and delaying tasks between independent and dependent variables in laboratory settings [42]. A later failure to replicate TMT effects offered more robust reasoning, suggesting that the framework for TMT research needs to be updated to not be constrained by so-called classic findings in order to be integrated into the theory [43]. This is particularly important in light of the emerging evidence that salient social norms may moderate TMT effects [44].…”