Mortality salience enhances neural activities related to guilt and shame when recalling the past.

Mortality salience (MS) influences cognition and behavior. However, its effect on emotion (especially moral emotions) and the underlying neural correlates are unclear. We investigated how MS priming modulated guilt and shame in a later recall task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The behavioral results indicated that MS increased self-reported guilt but not shame. The neural results showed that MS strengthened neural activities related to the psychological processes of guilt and shame. Specifically, for both guilt and shame, MS increased activation in a region associated with self-referential processing (ventral medial prefrontal cortex). For guilt but not shame, MS increased the activation of regions associated with cognitive control (orbitofrontal cortex) and emotion processing (amygdala). For shame but not guilt, MS decreased brain functional connectivity related to self-referential processing. A direct comparison showed that MS more strongly decreased a functional connectivity related to self-referential processing in the shame than in the guilt condition. Additionally, the activation of insula during MS priming was partly predictive of neural activities related to guilt and shame in the subsequent recall task. Our study sheds light on the psychological and neural mechanisms of MS effects on moral emotions and provides theoretical insights for enriching terror management theory.

Do Salient Social Norms Moderate Mortality Salience Effects? A (Challenging) Meta-Analysis of Terror Management Studies.

Terror management theory postulates that mortality salience (MS) increases the motivation to defend one's cultural worldviews. How that motivation is expressed may depend on the social norm that is momentarily salient. Meta-analyses were conducted on studies that manipulated MS and social norm salience. Results based on 64 effect sizes for the hypothesized interaction between MS and norm salience revealed a small-to-medium effect of g = 0.34, 95% confidence interval [0.26, 0.41]. Bias-adjustment techniques suggested the presence of publication bias and/or the exploitation of researcher degrees of freedom and arrived at smaller effect size estimates for the hypothesized interaction, in several cases reducing the effect to nonsignificance (range gcorrected = -0.36 to 0.15). To increase confidence in the idea that MS and norm salience interact to influence behavior, preregistered, high-powered experiments using validated norm salience manipulations are necessary. Concomitantly, more specific theorizing is needed to identify reliable boundary conditions of the effect.

Applying terror management theory to patients with life-threatening illness: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Terror management theory (TMT) posits that people manage death-related anxiety through the meaning provided by their cultural world-views and the sense of personal value provided by self-esteem. While a large body of research has supported the core propositions of TMT, little research has focused on its application to individuals with terminal illness. If TMT can help healthcare providers better understand how belief systems adapt and change in life-threatening illness, and the role they play in managing death-related anxiety, it may provide guidance on how to improve communication around treatments near the end of life. As such, we set out to review the available research articles that focus on describing the relationship between TMT and life-threatening illness. METHODS: We reviewed PubMed, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, and EMBASE through May 2022 for original research articles focused on TMT and life-threatening illness. Articles were only deemed appropriate for inclusion if direct incorporation of the principles of TMT were made in reference to a population of interest whom had life-threatening illness Results were screened by title and abstract, followed by full review of candidate articles. References were also scanned. Articles were assessed qualitatively. RESULTS: Six relevant and original research articles were published which provide varied levels of support for TMT's application in critical illness, each article detailed evidence of ideological changes consistent with what TMT would predict. Building self-esteem, enhancing the experience of life as meaningful, incorporating spirituality, engaging family members, and caring for patients at home where meaning and self-esteem can be better maintained are strategies supported by the studies and serve as starting points for further research. CONCLUSION: These articles suggest that applying TMT to life-threatening illness can help identify psychological changes that may effectively minimize the distress from dying. Limitations of this study include a heterogenous group of relevant studies and qualitative assessment.

Charitable Giving in Times of Covid-19: Do Crises Forward the Better or the Worse in Individuals?

Why did some individuals react to the Covid-19 crisis in a prosocial manner, whereas others withdrew from society? To shed light onto this question, we investigate changing patterns of charitable giving during the pandemic. The study analyzes survey data of 2000 individuals, representative of the populations of Germany and Austria. Logistic regressions reveal that personal affectedness by Covid-19 seems to play a crucial role: those who were personally affected either mentally, financially, or health-wise during the first 12 months of Covid-19 were most likely to have changed their giving behavior. The observed patterns fit psychological explanations of how human beings process existential threats. Our findings indicate that a profound societal crisis in itself mainly leads to changes in charitable giving if individuals are severely affected on a personal level. Thereby, we contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying individuals' charitable giving behavior in times of crisis. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11266-023-00558-y.

Associations of Death Anxiety, Inclusion of Smartphone in the Self, and Affiliation Motivation with Smartphone use and Addiction: A Multiple Mediation Study.

This study is the first to apply terror management theory to understanding smartphone addiction by examining the potential indirect effect of death anxiety on smartphone addiction via inclusion of smartphone in the self (i.e., self-expansion), affiliation motivation (the desire to connect with others) for emotional support, and smartphone use. The sample consisted of 1483 Chinese university students between the ages of 18 and 24 (M = 19.14, SD = 1.03) who voluntarily completed an anonymous questionnaire survey. As hypothesized, death anxiety, inclusion of smartphone in the self, affiliation motivation, and smartphone use were directly, positively correlated with smartphone addiction. In addition, death anxiety exerted significant indirect effects via various pathways, including (i) affiliation motivation for emotional support and smartphone use and (ii) inclusion of smartphone in the self and smartphone use. Findings suggest that effective interventions for smartphone addiction should include targeting death anxiety, self-expansion, and affiliation need frustration.

The Role of Death Anxiety and Self-Esteem in Suicide Attitudes.

The persistent stigmatization of suicide calls for a careful examination of the thought processes involved in perceptions of suicide. Hence, the present study is the first to apply terror management theory (TMT) and use experimental methods to examine whether reminders of death lead to increased stigma towards suicide and whether self-esteem moderates these stigmatized reactions. Consistent with the predicted effect of the death anxiety and self-esteem hypothesis, findings revealed that, for respondents with low self-esteem, thinking about their own death led to more stigma, less willingness to intervene, and allocated less money to a suicide prevention organization as compared to those who did not think about death. Findings from this study could have important implications for how we understand the psychological underpinnings of stigma and the role of death anxiety in hostile attitudes and decreased altruism - especially for mental health professionals working with individuals affected by suicide.

A Qualitative Study of How Hospice Workers Cope With Their Level of Exposure to Death.

OBJECTIVE: To identify whether hospice workers hold unique and theoretically-informative perspectives about death, especially as they relate to terror management processes. METHOD: Twelve hospice workers from two hospices in Tucson, Arizona, United States, participated in semi-structured interviews. Interview and analytic practices were guided by Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). RESULTS: Three categories were identified in relation to death attitudes: effects of chronic confrontation with death; reasons for working in hospice; and perceptions of death in others. CONCLUSIONS: Two theoretically informative trends appeared. First, hospice workers largely manage death anxiety as identified by existing literature with the notable exception that hospice workers overall seem to integrate death and dying into their worldviews as a meaningful category, as opposed to avoiding thinking about death. Second, even among those regularly exposed to death, there seems to be a range across participants on a continuum from avoiding to confronting the topic of death.

OCD, death anxiety, and attachment: what's love got to do with it?

BACKGROUND: Death anxiety has been empirically implicated in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Research has shown that secure attachments appear to protect against fear of death, and are also associated with reduced risk of mental illness. However, few studies have investigated the moderating effect of attachment style in the relationship between death anxiety and OCD. AIMS: The present study sought to explore whether attachment style moderates the relationship between death anxiety and OCD symptoms among a treatment-seeking sample of individuals diagnosed with OCD. METHOD: Following a structured diagnostic interview, a number of measures were administered to 48 participants. These included the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale, Vancouver Obsessive Compulsive Inventory, and Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised. RESULTS: As expected, death anxiety was a strong predictor of OCD severity, and other markers of psychopathology. However, contrary to hypotheses, neither anxious nor avoidant attachment style moderated the association between fear of death and OCD severity. CONCLUSIONS: The current findings add further support to the role of death anxiety in OCD. Given the absence of a moderating effect of attachment between death fears and OCD severity, it is possible that this proposed buffer against death anxiety may potentially be insufficient in the presence of this disorder. Further research is needed to clarify whether attachment style may moderate the relationship between death anxiety and symptom severity in other disorders.

Responding to Worldview Threats in the Classroom: An Exploratory Study of Preservice Teachers.

This study used two training sessions and two focus groups with 17 preservice teachers (aged 20-36) completing their first teaching practicum placement during their Bachelor of Education program at an urban research university in western Canada. The aim was to implement ideas from terror management theory (TMT) during their teaching practicum. Participants explored how to facilitate contentious issues so as to prevent defensive reactions when worldviews clash in the classroom. A dramaturgical analysis identified participant objectives, conflicts, tactics, attitudes, emotions, and subtexts as they explored how to anticipate and avoid worldview and self-esteem threat, navigate tense pedagogical spaces, build capacity for expressing uncomfortable emotions, and diffuse threat with humor. Because difficult emotions are central to teaching potentially polarizing content, participating preservice teachers explored when compensatory reactions might emerge and, as a result, developed their own emotional awareness-TMT became both an experience and a teachable theory.

"The greedy I that gives"-The paradox of egocentrism and altruism: Terror management and system justification perspectives on the interrelationship between mortality salience and charitable donations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why do people give and help others in face of their own mortality salience? The existential struggle with the awareness of death impacts the gamut of human cognition, emotion, and behavior. This multi-method research (∑N = 1,219) explains the psychosocial impact of COVID-19-related mortality salience on altruism. Drawing from terror management theory, two studies tested death-thought accessibility, mortality salience, and anxiety buffer hypotheses. Study 1 (cross-sectional survey), using structural equation modeling, confirms death anxiety and fear are predictors of powerlessness and materialism which, in turn, predict charitable donations. Study 2 (between-subjects experiment) confirms the causal effects of COVID-19-induced mortality salience on altruism. Controlling income and socioeconomic status, people in the mortality salience treatment condition indicate greater monetary donations ($), ratio of prosocial (altruistic) to proself (egocentric) spending (%), donation of time (hour), monetary valuation of time (hourly rate = $/hour), and economic value of donated time (hourly rate*hour) than the controls. These effects are mediated by powerlessness. Moderating effects of relevant individual difference factors are significant: the greedier, more selfish, narcissistic, materialistic, and system-justifying the donor is, the higher monetary donations, volunteer time, and perceived value of donated time are, only when the COVID-19-induced mortality is made salient but not in the controls. Environmental and dispositional factors jointly influence vulnerability to mortality salience. The paradox of egocentrism and altruism, as an evolutionarily adaptive protective buffer against existential insecurity for social and cultural animals, can help revitalize resilience, thus shedding some lights on the sociopsychological mechanism of consumers' subjective well-being. Implications for consumer affairs, social marketers, and policymakers are discussed.

The Relationship Between Religious/Spiritual Beliefs and Subjective Well-Being: A Case-Based Comparative Cross-National Study.

The most unique aspect of religiosity/spirituality (R/S), supernatural beliefs, and their relationship with SWB has hardly been examined. This study explores the relationship between six R/S supernatural beliefs and SWB, in a case-based comparative cross-national design including two religious and two secular nations. Data were obtained from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) Religion IV module from the religious countries of the USA (n = 1060) and Turkey (n = 1353) and the secular countries of Denmark (n = 1281) and Czech Republic (n = 1112). SWB was measured as happiness and self-rated health. Statistical analyses were performed using binary logistic regression models replicated across countries. Results indicated that the American sample showed no evidence of relationships between R/S and SWB outcomes capable of improving the model over demographic and service attendance covariates. In Turkey, some R/S beliefs were found to be statistically significantly related to SWB, with positive and negative associations with happiness. No associations were found in the secular countries. Findings were discussed in the light of previous research and interpreted from a terror management theory perspective.

A Distant Ally?: Mortality Salience and Parasocial Attachment.

Research in Terror Management Theory finds that close interpersonal relationships (e.g., parents, romantic partners) mitigate threat reactions to reminders of mortality. Parasocial relationships (imagined relationships with media personalities) afford many of the same benefits as interpersonal relationships. Do these benefits extend to mortality concerns? We investigated whether those with strong parasocial attachments were differentially influenced by reminders of death. Results showed that those with strong parasocial relationships had more defensive reactions to a mortality prime, suggesting that such attachments may not afford the same existential benefits given by close human others and may instead indicate a heightened vulnerability.

Do Work-Related Factors Moderate the Association Between Subjective Nearness-to-Death and Psychological Distress?

The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with increased existential concerns, as well as with significant changes in the work force. The current study examined the availability of meaning in work and belonging to a work group as personal resources which may mitigate psychological distress associated with feeling close to death. Data were collected from 450 working Israelis, and results indicated that the connection between feeling close to death and distress was not significant for individuals reporting high levels of belonging and meaning. Implications are discussed from the perspective of Terror Management Theory.

Big Data Analysis of Terror Management Theory's Predictions in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The current study aimed to address the limitations of the terror management theory literature by using big data analysis to examine the theory's predictions in the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, Google Trends were examined before and after the first COVID-19 case was identified in Singapore. The results showed that there was a significant increase in mortality salience, intergroup conflict, and prosocial behavior, and a significant decrease in materialism after the first COVID-19 case was identified. However, no significant differences were found for anxiety. Limitations include the assumption that search terms reflect intentions that would eventually lead to a relevant behavior and the lack of data from other sources to corroborate with the results from Google Trends. Future research could use data from other sources to examine the effects of COVID-19 on theoretically relevant behaviors.

Mortality Awareness: New Directions.

Thinking about our own death and its salience in relation to decision making has become a fruitful area of multidisciplinary research across the breadth of psychological science. By bringing together experts from philosophy, cognitive and affective neuroscience, clinical and computational psychiatry we have attempted to set out the current state of the art and point to areas of further enquiry. One stimulus for doing this is the need to engage with policy makers who are now having to consider guidelines on suicide and assisted suicide so that they may be aware of their own as well as the wider populations' cognitive processes when confronted with the ultimate truth of mortality.

Of Love and Death: Death Anxiety, Attachment, and Suicide as Experienced by College Students.

Drawing from the mental health crisis present on college campuses, we investigate the psychological processes associated with suicidal ideation among undergraduate students. Specifically, we used Terror Management Theory to investigate how individuals who have a history of suicidal ideation handle traditional death anxiety in coordination with Benjamin's theory underlying Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy to explore specific attachment-based mechanisms that may allow for exceptions to the perceived meaning of death. Results show it was the fantasy of suicide itself, including its relevance in the lives of others, that was used to alleviate fear of death among the suicidal.

"Out of the Depths Have I Called Thee": Jewish Israeli Undertakers' Management of Death Anxiety.

According to Terror Management Theory, there are three common buffers that minimize the anxiety of mortality salience: affirmation of one's cultural worldview, the self and one's personal values, and one's significance in the context of close personal relationships. The current study aimed to explore the manner by which Jewish Israeli undertakers manage their constant exposure to death and buffer against death anxiety. A deductive and inductive thematic analysis captured a dialectical movement between, and within, two conflicting worldviews participants were engaged in, in their attempt to manage the mortality salience effect they experience and buffer against death anxiety.

Memories of a Death Threat: Negative Consequences of Unconscious Thoughts About a Terrorist Attack on Attitudes Towards Alcohol.

Based on the terror management health model (TMHM), we examined the impact of terrorist attacks as reminders of death on implicit alcohol-related attitudes, including the moderating role of conscious death-related thoughts and alcohol-based self-esteem (ABS). With an online experiment (N = 487), we analyzed how thoughts and memories about a recent terrorist attack unconsciously (with a delay task) and consciously (without a delay task) affected implicit alcohol-related attitudes. We found that such thoughts increased the death-thought accessibility. While no main effect of the salience of the terrorist attack on alcohol-related attitudes existed, respondents with low ABS had more positive attitudes, when unconsciously thinking about the attack as compared to the control group. Respondents with high ABS in the delay task had lower alcohol-IAT scores. Overall, this study provides evidence that thoughts about terrorism that can be provoked through media affect alcohol-related attitudes. Such attitudes may cause negative health consequences through health-related decisions.

Application of Terror Management Theory to End-Of-Life Care Decision-Making: A Narrative Literature Review.

Patients with serious illnesses often do not engage in discussions about end-of-life care decision-making, or do so reluctantly. These discussions can be useful in facilitating advance care planning and connecting patients to services such as palliative care that improve quality of life. Terror Management Theory, a social psychology theory stating that humans are motivated to resolve the discomfort surrounding their inevitable death, has been discussed in the psychology literature as an underlying basis of human decision-making and behavior. This paper explores how Terror Management Theory could be extended to seriously ill populations and applied to their healthcare decision-making processes and quality of care received.

Mortality Salience Effects of Critical Incidents - A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda.

Critical incidents (CI) trigger acute stress reactions and psychological trauma because of direct or vicarious exposure. These events include natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks and pandemics, and usually result in deaths and serious physical injuries. Their life-threatening nature makes them reasonable candidates to induce mortality salience (MS). The current review aims to consolidate Terror Management Theory (TMT) research using CIs as MS. A systematic literature review was conducted. Overall, 74 articles with 113 studies were included. Through this review, strong support for MS effects of CI has been found. Consistent with TMT, CIs tend to trigger worldview defence, self-esteem enhancement and relationship seeking. CIs have also been found to impact negatively on individual well-being and organisational health. Recommendations specific to crisis interventions and well-being will be discussed. The review concludes with potential future research directions to strengthen and expand empirical knowledge in CI salience.