Ebola salience, death-thought accessibility, and worldview defense: A terror management theory perspective

According to terror management theory, individuals defend their cultural beliefs following mortality salience. The current research examined whether naturally occurring instances of death (i.e., Ebola) correspond to results found in laboratory studies. The results of two experiments demonstrated tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDeath studies Vol. 41; no. 9; pp. 585 - 591
Main Authors Arrowood, Robert B., Cox, Cathy R., Kersten, Michael, Routledge, Clay, Shelton, Jill Talley, Hood, Ralph W.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Routledge 21.10.2017
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects
Adolescent
Attitude to Death
Death
Death & dying
Defense Mechanisms
Ebola virus
Female
Health technology assessment
Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola - psychology
Humans
Male
Mortality
Religion
Self Concept
Social psychology
Terrorism
Young Adult
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Summary:According to terror management theory, individuals defend their cultural beliefs following mortality salience. The current research examined whether naturally occurring instances of death (i.e., Ebola) correspond to results found in laboratory studies. The results of two experiments demonstrated that participants experienced a greater accessibility of death-related thoughts in response to an Ebola prime during a regional outbreak. Study 2 also showed that increased mortality awareness following an Ebola manipulation was associated with greater worldview defense (i.e., religious fundamentalism). Together, these results suggest that reminders of death in the form of a disease threat operate similarly to a mortality salience manipulation.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:0748-1187
1091-7683
DOI:10.1080/07481187.2017.1322644