title: Culture and its neurofunctional correlates when death is in mind.
abstract: The human fear of death is marked by specific psychological reactions that affirm cultural belonging. Terror management theory explains this phenomenon with the symbolic immortality provided by collective meaning in culture. This coping has also been explained with the motive of maintaining a meaningful representation of the world. Here we show that neural patterns of activations corresponding to cultural worldview defense processes differed when images that affirmed participants' cultural heritage were preceded by death-related verbal primes versus verbal primes threatening meaning. Cultural content was drawn upon distinctly on a neural basis when facing death-related cognitions. The neural representation of cultural coping sheds light on the immediate mechanisms in compensating the human fear of death.
authors.affiliation: DePaul University, Department of Psychology, 2219 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614-3504, USA. vgraupma@depaul.edu
authors.forename: Verena
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Graupmann
authors.forename: Isabella
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Peres
authors.forename: Tonia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Michaely
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Meindl
authors.forename: Dieter
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Frey
authors.forename: Maximilian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reiser
authors.forename: Ernst
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pöppel
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fehse
authors.forename: Evgeny
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gutyrchik
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D000328:Adult; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003469:Culture; D003643:Death; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D064866:Mindfulness / Q000379:methods*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Culture; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Meaning maintenance; Mortality salience; Self; Terror management theory