Derogating others in the face of death : applications of the mortality salience hypothesis of terror management theory

One goal in life is survival even when faced with the certainty of death. To defend against the fear of eventual death, individuals are strongly motivated to maintain faith in cultural worldviews, or beliefs about the nature of their reality. Terror Management Theory (TMT) argues that cultural worldviews act to protect individuals from the terror that is brought on by the knowledge of their own mortality. Cultural worldviews provide structure, order, and significance to an individual’s reality insulating them from the inevitability of death. Validation of these cultural worldviews by others increases their level of effectiveness as a buffer against the anxiety caused by the reality of death. However, when others disagree with an individual’s notion of reality, their faith in these concepts becomes threatened, and their ability to cope with the anxiety of impending death is weakened. This research examined one of the four responses to a threatened worldview – derogation against those who hold conflicting cultural worldviews. Specifically, this research examined how reminders of impending death (i.e., mortality salience) influenced the derogation of others in both healthcare and criminal justice domains. It was hypothesized that reminders of death would lead to greater derogation of others in both of these domains; in general, results did not support these hypotheses. Further the established effect in the literature regarding the influence of traditional mortality salience manipulations on the derogation of others was not replicated in this research. Two novel mortality salience manipulations were created and tested as alternatives to the traditional methods; only one of which showed a promising effect (i.e., AgingBooth software). This research contributes to our understanding of the mortality salience hypothesis and the need to continue to develop and test mortality salience manipulations as alternatives to traditional methods in a variety of domains.Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan)Psychology, Department of (Okanagan)Graduat