Psychological strategies of defence from the fear of death

Abstract

In the present study, we set out to explore the psychological strategies engaged to defend oneself from the basic existential insight: the one of the inevitable personal mortality. We wished to examine how young individuals reacted to reminders of mortality and whether these reactions were also related to the socio-cultural context and the important groups they identify with. For these goals, we applied the framework of Terror management theory proposing that people achieve protection from a potentially paralysing fear of death through investing in valued worldviews and maintaining a positive image of themselves as part of these worldviews. Individuals who believe that they are an important part of a meaningful universe can achieve a symbolic transcendence of their inherently mortal nature. We investigated the psychological strategies of defence in a series of five experiments, with a total of 465 participants. After subtle reminders of personal mortality, we investigated whether participants would engage in intensified efforts to enhance and protect the collective self-image stemming from identification with an important group (i.e. the ethnic group; Experiment II) or the individual self-image (Experiment III and IV). We also explored whether the preference for individual vs. collective enhancement would depend on personal value orientations, i.e. the level of individualism/ collectivism of the participants (Experiment V). To provide a more stringent test of the basic tenets of the theory, we compared the effects of mortality reminders to reminders of other existential concerns (i.e. life uncertainty), as well as more everyday concerns of the participants (i.e. exam anxiety). We also investigated the cognitive and affective mediating processes...

U aktuelnoj studiji želeli smo da istražimo strategije psihološke odbrane kojima se ljudi služe prilikom suočavanja sa osnovnim egzistencijalnim uvidom: o neizbežnosti lične smrtnosti. Želeli smo da ispitamo kako mlade osobe reaguju na podsetnike na vlastitu smrtnost i da li su ove reakcije povezane sa socio-kulturnim kontekstom i značajnim grupama sa kojima se identifikuju. U ovom cilju, sagledali smo istraživački problem u okvirima teorije upravljanja strahom, koja pretpostavlja da ljudi postižu zaštitu od potencijalno parališućeg straha od smrti kroz ulaganje u vrednovane poglede na svet i očuvanje pozitivne slike o sebi samima, kao delu tih svetova. Osoba koja veruje da je značajan deo smislenog univerzuma, time postiže simboličku transcendenciju vlastite smrtne prirode...