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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (2013) 1144–1158

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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (2013) 1144–1158 Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (2013) 1144–1158 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Experimental Social Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp Controlling death by defending ingroups — Mediational insights into terror management and control restoration☆ Dmitrij Agroskin ⁎, Eva Jonas University of Salzburg, Austria HIGHLIGHTS • Three studies show that control motivation underlies mortality salience (MS) effects. • MS and control deprivation (CD) effects on ingroup defense were indistinguishable. • Mediators of MS and CD effects were pattern perception and need for structure. • A key function of MS-based ingroup defense may be control restoration. article info abstract Article history: A large body of evidence supports the key tenet of terror management theory (TMT) that people manage Received 5 May 2012 death anxiety by defending cultural ingroups. However, surprisingly little is known about the motivational Revised 18 May 2013 processes driving this effect. Given that mortality salience (MS) as well as control deprivation instigate Available online 3 June 2013 ingroup defense, it is possible that MS effects on ingroup defense are fueled by the motivation to restore control that has been shattered by the inevitability of death. Study 1 revealed that control motivation – operationalized Keywords: – Terror management as illusory pattern perception mediates MS and control deprivation effects on ingroup defense. Study 2 showed Mortality salience that thoughts about lacking control mediate MS and control deprivation effects on perceptions of randomness. Control Study 3 compared control motivation – operationalized as state need for structure – and death-thought accessi- Compensatory control bility (i.e., the main mediator candidate in TMT) in terms of mediation of MS and control deprivation effects on Worldview defense ingroup defense. Replicating the results of Study 1, control motivation mediated both MS and control deprivation effects, whereas death-thought accessibility failed to mediate any effects. Using different operationalizations of control motivation, these studies provide broad mediational evidence for the notion that MS-induced ingroup defense serves the function of compensating for the loss of control that is inherent in the inescapability of death. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. “It is possible to provide security against other afflictions, but as anthropologists and psychologists investigating how people cope far as death is concerned, we men all live in a city without walls.” with uncontrollable aspects of their lives, such as the inevitable tran- Epicurus (n.d.) sience of existence (Becker, 1973; Fritsche, Jonas, & Fankhänel, 2008; Pyszczynski, Sullivan, & Greenberg, in press). This line of research According to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, a particularly has converged in demonstrating that mortality salience (MS) motivates problematic aspect of death is the inexorableness of the ephemerality people to engage in symbolic defenses against the existential fear of of being or, in other words, human defense- and helplessness in the their ever-impending demise. Hundreds of studies have shown that face of death. Similar ideas have been brought forward by cultural people defend the worldviews of their cultural ingroups (e.g., through ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination) and strive for self- ☆ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons esteem (by meeting the ingroups' behavioral standards) after contem- Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works License, which permits non-commercial plating their mortality (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010). Given that use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source the identification with cultural ingroups is conceived as a multiply are credited. determined phenomenon that may serve a variety of needs, including ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Social Psychology, Hellbrunner Str. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria. the needs for control (Fritsche et al., 2008) and self-preservation E-mail address: [email protected] (D. Agroskin). (Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008), and these needs are eventually 0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.05.014 D. Agroskin, E. Jonas / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (2013) 1144–1158 1145 frustrated by death (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, & Maxfield, matter under whose control the world is, be it the self or external 2006), the question arises which motivational processes underlie MS- systems. The term perceived control can thus be likened to the term induced ingroup defense. Focusing on the role of death's uncontrollabil- perceived order as well. ity in the emergence of ingroup defense (Fritsche et al., 2008), the aim of According to this line of reasoning, experiences or reminders of low the present research is to investigate whether MS effects on ingroup control (i.e., control deprivation) should lead to efforts in regaining a defense can be explained by the motivation to restore a sense of control sense of control by maintaining psychological structures that are capa- that has been shattered by the unavoidability of mortality. This ble of lending order to one's environment (i.e., control restoration; Kay, question is investigated using a mediational approach that should yield Gaucher, McGregor, & Nash, 2010). Accordingly, threats to personal new insights into the motivational underpinnings of MS and control control have been reported to elicit motivated perceptions of order deprivation by examining whether MS and control deprivation effects (i.e., illusory pattern perception) — operationalized as superstitious on ingroup defense are distinguishable with respect to their mediating and conspiratorial thinking (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). This perceptual processes. compensatory control mechanism may represent the most elementary manifestation of control motivation (Kay et al., 2009). Ingroup defense as a mechanism for terror management On a higher-order level, people may regulate levels of perceived control by using social groups as sources of external control. It has According to terror management theory (TMT), people defend and been argued that a major psychological benefit of social ingroups is support their cultural ingroups (e.g., through ingroup bias; Greenberg that they can provide the individual with a notion of vicarious control et al., 1990) in order to symbolically transcend death by identifying — the perception that the world is under control by powerful others with entities that will continue to exist long after the individual's per- (Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982). Accordingly, Fritsche et al. sonal death (Greenberg et al., 2008). TMT posits that the awareness of (2008) reasoned that ingroup defense following control deprivation life's relentless evanescence entails a potential for paralyzing terror, can be understood as an attempt to regain control on the group-level which is held at bay by maintaining the ingroup's cultural worldview (i.e., group-based control restoration). In line with this reasoning, low – because it provides people with a sense of order, meaning, and per- trait and state control has been found to increase various instances of manence – and behaving in accordance with the standards prescribed ingroup defense, including ethnocentrism, prejudice toward outgroups, by this worldview, thereby obtaining self-esteem. Thus, TMT suggests and ingroup bias (Agroskin & Jonas, 2010; Fritsche et al., 2008, Fritsche that the ultimate function of ingroup defense is to soothe existential et al., 2013). This functional interpretation of ingroup defense as a com- anxiety. However, TMT also proposes that people possess a basic mo- pensatory control mechanism is consistent with TMT, which also sug- tive for control (or effectance)(Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, gests that people can maintain perceptions of control by clinging to 1998; Pyszczynski et al., in press). It is argued that compensatory their ingroups (Pyszczynski et al., in press). Thus, given that ingroup de- responses to MS – most prominently, the extensively investigated fense may fulfill the function of control restoration, control motivation group-related type of cultural worldview defense, namely the defense (i.e., the need to restore control) could play a critical mediational role of cultural ingroups (henceforth: ingroup defense) – can serve the in MS effects on ingroup defense. ultimate function of protecting from existential terror by means of ful- filling the more proximate function of restoring a sense of control. Since reminding people of their uncontrollable demise is assumed Control motivation and MS effects on ingroup defense to undermine the existential security that is afforded by a stable sense of personal control, thereby increasing the need to affirm this psycholog- Theorizing on control (Fritsche et al., 2008)aswellasTMT ical resource, ingroup defense may be not only conceived as an ultimate (Pyszczynski et al., in press)haverecentlyconvergedinproposing strategy for terror management but also as a proximate mechanism for that death represents the most intense instance of control deprivation. control restoration (Pyszczynski et al., 1998, in press). In other words, The inevitability of death may fundamentally frustrate the control mo-
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