The Underlying Process of Prosocial Behavior Among Soldiers: A Terror Management Theory Perspective

The mortality salience (MS) hypothesis postulates that anxiety elicited by mortality awareness leads people to develop negative emotions toward those who hold values inconsistent with their worldview faith. We explored this hypothesis in a sample of 76 Israeli combat soldiers, who were asked to reflect on either their mortality or dental pain. Subsequently, participants reported their motivation to help a father in need who was either an Arab (outgroup) or a Jewish Israeli (ingroup), as well as their perceptions of threat by Arab Israelis. Regression analysis indicated that mortality reminders intensified soldiers’ perception of threat by the outgroup, leading to an increased desire to assist a Jewish-Israeli father, and a decreased motivation to help an Arab-Israeli one. The findings demonstrate the pronounced effects of MS on soldiers involved in frequent combat actions in terms of evoking negative emotions leading to reluctance to help unarmed civilian outgroup members. Recommendations for soldiers’ pre-deployment psychoeducation sessions are provided.

The Impact of Mortality Salience on Purchase Intention and Creativity Evaluation on Products During COVID-19 Pandemic

In the environment of COVID-19, people are faced with mortality salience (MS) and socioeconomic crisis. According to the terror management theory, the MS would lead to particular consumption attitudes and behaviors caused by the self-esteem and cultural worldview defense. The creativity as a potential value of products needs to be examined to explore how the MS changed the creativity evaluation of three types of products categorized into normal, renovative, and innovative products, based on the degree of originality (Zhang et al., 2019). Two experiments were conducted to examine (1) the MS effect on the creativity and purchase intention evaluation and (2) both MS and country-of-origin effect on the evaluations. The results show that usefulness and purchase intention are affected by both effects, and the novelty is mainly affected by MS.

The effect of mortality salience on status consumption among elderly individuals: the moderating role of chronological age and subjective age

PurposeOver the past two decades, a large body of research has examined the effect of the awareness of the inevitability of death on consumption behaviours. However, the literature has shed little light on the effect of mortality salience (MS) on elderly individuals. The present research specifically aims to challenge the effect of MS on status consumption among elderly individuals.Design/methodology/approachTwo experiments were conducted among individuals over 50. The experiments manipulated MS to test its effect on status consumption.FindingsThe results demonstrate that MS positively influences the preference for status products among elderly individuals (experiment 1) and that this effect is less pronounced as elderly individuals age (experiment 2). Subjective age bias, defined as the potential gap between chronological age and subjective age, negatively moderates this effect (experiment 2).Practical implicationsLuxury marketers need to pay attention to generational cohorts rather than other demographic variables in the segmentation of their market. Moreover, subjective age may be a better segmentation variable for marketers than objective variables such as chronological age.Originality/valueThis research provides insights that support a better understanding of status consumption among elderly individuals and the role of subjective ageing in this process.

Exploring Mortality Salience and Pandemic Impact in the Context of COVID-19

Mortality salience refers to a state of conscious awareness of death and the inevitable conclusion of life, associated with psychological terror. The COVID-19 pandemic generated increased awareness of illness and death, and effectuated changes in death cognitions and people’s experiences around psychological or sociocognitive domains of media and life goals. To understand these changes, this study administered the Multidimensional Mortality Awareness Measure (Levasseur et al., 2015) to 103 emerging adults in India, post which 6 participants proceeded for a semi-structured interview exploring pandemic experiences, news consumption and goal prioritization, to examine specific areas in relation to death cognition. The thematic analysis demonstrates psychological effects, and discusses developments in health and death-related psychological processes. Focus on career goals and health maintenance, cautious news consumption and disadvantageous impacts on mental health are seen, significant in navigating healthcare measures for emerging adults, as we move forward into this ‘new normal’.

Not so terrifying after all? A set of failed replications of the mortality salience effects of Terror Management Theory

Terror Management Theory (TMT) postulates that humans, in response to awareness of their death, developed complex defenses to remove the salience of those thoughts. In a typical paradigm, an individual is presented with either a death-related prime (Mortality Salience; MS) or a control prime, such as writhing the details of their own death, whereas others describe something neutral such as watching television. After a distractor task, participants then complete the dependent variable, rating how much they like or agree with a pro- or anti-national essay. Individuals in the MS condition typically rates the pro-national essay higher and the anti-national essay lower than the control condition. We completed five separate studies across five unique samples with the goal of replicating and extending this well-established finding related to TMT and providing further understanding of the phenomena that underlie the effects of the MS. However, across these studies, we were unable to replicate basic patterns of the dependent variable in the MS conditions despite faithfully using standard procedures. Further, pooling these data into a brief meta-analysis found no support for the MS condition having impacted the dependent variable in the expected direction. We discuss the theoretical implications of these (unintended) failures to replicate and possible methodological refining that should be pursued in future studies.

Do People Become More or Less Materialistic during Disasters? The Mediating Roles of Mortality Salience and Gratitude

Studies have yielded inconclusive findings regarding the relationship between disaster experience and materialism. Whereas some have found a positive relationship, others have reported a negative relationship. To clarify the mechanisms underlying these mixed findings, we proposed and examined two mechanisms, namely mortality salience and gratitude. A total of 214 participants (Mage = 42.05 years, SD = 16.49 years) were randomly assigned into either an experimental condition to experience a disaster or a control condition. Participants in the experimental condition reported a lower level of materialism than the scores of their counterparts in the control condition. Such effects were mediated by both mortality salience and gratitude. Participants in the experimental condition reported higher levels of both mortality salience and gratitude simultaneously. Mortality salience strengthened materialism, but gratitude weakened materialism. These findings highlighted the duel-existing mechanisms underlying the relationship between disaster experience and materialism.