What's death got to do with it? The role of psychological uncertainty on implicit death accessibility.
Item
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Title
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What's death got to do with it? The role of psychological uncertainty on implicit death accessibility.
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Identifier
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AAI3063816
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identifier
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3063816
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Creator
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Chaudhary, Neil Keso.
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Contributor
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Adviser: R. Glen Hass
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Date
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2002
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Social | Psychology, Experimental | Psychology, Personality
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Abstract
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Terror management theory (TMT; Solomon, et al, 1991) asserts that the awareness of the inevitability, uncontrollability and possible finality of death is at the root of most human anxiety; and, that a substantial portion of human activity manifested in a wide variety of seemingly unrelated behaviors serve to manage the anxiety engendered by thoughts of our own demise. According to TMT, combined with a strong sense of self-esteem, a firm belief in a just and meaningful cultural worldview allows people to function normally despite the potentially incapacitating fear resulting from our knowledge that we will, without a doubt, die. Cultural worldviews are assumed to reduce death concerns by creating a realm in which an individual can immerse his or her life and by doing so become an integral part of that realm and live on through the continued existence of that culture thus, at least symbolically conquering death. Worldview defense (e.g. showing increased support for those who share one's worldview and increased animosity towards those who violate ones worldview) appears to be engendered whenever thoughts of death are highly accessible, but not directly in focal attention. According to TMT heightened implicit death thought accessibility is a sufficient and necessary factor responsible for the production of defensive worldview bolstering behaviors. Recently however, researchers (e.g. McGregor, et al, 2001; van den Bos, 2001) have proposed that the worldview defensive behaviors are better accounted for by psychological uncertainty, and not death. These theorists assert that reminders of death are problematic because they instill a sense of uncertainty in the individual. McGregor et al (2001, 1998) demonstrated that making people "uncertain" produced worldview defense in the apparent absence of heightened death accessibility supporting their proposed role of uncertainty in worldview defense. The experiments presented in this dissertation examined implicit death accessibility following an uncertainty manipulation. Results indicated that uncertainty produced heightened death accessibility under a variety of situations. Uncertainty therefore appears to be psychologically problematic to the extent that it engenders implicit concerns about death. Consequently, the TMT claim that heightened death accessibility is necessary and sufficient to produce worldview defensive behavior is still sound.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
