Spiritual transcendence as a buffer against death anxiety

Abstract

Terror Management Theory assumes the existence of two basic buffers against mortality salience: self-esteem and worldview. The aim of the current paper is to propose another buffer against mortality salience, namely spiritual transcendence. In the first study, we studied the impact of activation of spiritual transcendence as a moderator of mortality salience. Activating spiritual transcendence reduced the effect of the increase of the level of altruistic tendencies after exposure to mortality salience. In the second study, we replicated this finding based on the research procedures of former TMT research, using essay attacking participants' worldview. Results showed that spiritual transcendence acts as a buffer against mortality salience both among religious and non-religious individuals. Therefore, spiritual transcendence seems to be an additional buffer against mortality salience, independent from worldview and self-esteem, and it could be further examined from TMT perspective.

Prosocial Attitudes toward Money from Terror Management Perspective: Death Transcendence through Spirituality

“…China has long been considered systematically different from Western countries in, for example, self-construal and cultural construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991;Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002) and the average level of religiousness (Diener, Tay, & Myers, 2011;Lun & Bond, 2013). Our empirical findings demonstrated the applicability of spirituality as a means to manage death awareness for Chinese people, which is conceptually consistent with existing evidence collected in Western cultures (Jonas & Fischer, 2006;Piotrowski et al, 2018). However, the collectivistic cultural background of the current Chinese sample may also lead to different cultural values toward money and prosocial spending from the individualistic Western populations.…”

“…With attitudes toward money and spending intentions as the main dependent variables in our research, we intended to show that spirituality mitigated prosocial attitudes toward money in response to MS. The increased prosocial spending in MS conditions may suggest a general prosocial tendency as a consequence of MS (Jonas et al, 2002;Piotrowski et al, 2018;Zaleskiewicz et al, 2015). Future studies could further investigate the question of how spirituality functions to predict more general prosocial processes unrelated to money (e.g., spending time or efforts on other's behalf) when mortality is salient.…”

The Hospice as a Learning Environment: A Follow-Up Study with a Palliative Care Team

“…They considered these encounters to be very meaningful experiences. The professionals working in this specific healthcare field are able to provide a unique point of view on the topic of death, but they were not regarded as omniscient or omnipotent, rather, the teachers and students perceived them as ordinary human beings, thus dispelling the aura of mystery and terror linked to death-related themes [ 40 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. However, based on TMT and their DTA hypothesis, it is also possible that the language and coping skills learned through this program might serve to strengthen the aura of mystery surrounding death.…”

Unleashing Heaven’s Power: How Faith Motivates Consumer Exercise Behavior during a Pandemic

“…While research has yet to adequately examine exercise behavior in response to religious coping, we argue that the same pattern of effects as with general health behaviors will occur. This connection should be particularly strong in response to a pandemic when mortality salience is heightened because religion provides one of the strongest buffers against increased mortality salience in comparison to other forms of coping (Piotrowski, Żemojtel-Piotrowska, and Clinton 2020). In addition to increased pursuance of exercise behaviors, consumers with higher levels of religiosity should also have higher exercise-related product evaluations and thoughts.…”