When death is not a problem: Regulating implicit negative affect under mortality salience.
Terror management theory assumes that death arouses existential anxiety in humans which is suppressed in focal attention. Whereas most studies provide indirect evidence for negative affect under mortality salience by showing cultural worldview defenses and self-esteem strivings, there is only little direct evidence for implicit negative affect under mortality salience. In the present study, we assume that this implicit affective reaction towards death depends on people's ability to self-regulate negative affect as assessed by the personality dimension of action versus state orientation. Consistent with our expectations, action-oriented participants judged artificial words to express less negative affect under mortality salience compared to control conditions whereas state-oriented participants showed the reversed pattern.
Department of Differential Psychology, Personality Psychology, and Diagnostics, University of Trier, Trier, Germany.
Christina
C
Lüdecke
Department of Differential Psychology, Personality Psychology, and Diagnostics, University of Trier, Trier, Germany.
Nicola
N
Baumann
D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D003469:Culture; D003643:Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept
Terror management; action orientation; affect-regulation; implicit negative affect