The effects of mortality salience on the ego identity statuses

Terror Management theory asserts that mortality salience causes paralyzing existential anxiety, and that an individual’s cultural worldviews will be bolstered to mitigate this effect. Ego identity status theory places individuals in one of four identity statuses based on their levels of exploration and commitment to domains of identity. Given that cultural worldviews and domains of identity share similar characteristics, this research examined if the induction of mortality salience would cause participants to bolster their domains of identity in a way that causes them to transition to a different identity status. An individual’s initial identity status, level of self-esteem, race, gender, age, and income were also evaluated to determine if any of these would affect rates of transitioning. However, only a small sample of potential participants completed the survey, so insufficient data were available to support the hypotheses. Future recommendations for research are discussed based on the results that were available