Self-affirmation and mortality salience: affirming values reduces worldview defense and death-thought accessibility.

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Schmeichel, Brandon J. Martens, Andy
Copyright Year	2005
Abstract	To the extent that cultural worldviews provide meaning in the face of existential concerns, specifically the inevitability of death, affirming a valued aspect of one's worldview should render reminders of death less threatening. The authors report two studies in support of this view. In Study 1, mortality salience led to derogation of a worldview violator unless participants had first affirmed an important value. In Study 2, self-affirmation before a reminder of death was associated with reduced accessibility of death-related thoughts a short while thereafter. The authors propose that actively affirming one's worldview alters reactions to reminders of mortality by reducing the accessibility of death-related thoughts, not by boosting self-esteem. These studies attest to the flexible nature of psychological self-defense and to the central role of cultural worldviews in managing death-related concerns.
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1177/0146167204271567
PubMed reference number	15802660
Journal	Medline
Volume Number	31
Issue Number	5
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8711858/Published%20work/Schmeichel%20&%20Martens_2005PSPB.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167204271567
Journal	Personality & social psychology bulletin
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article