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A Test of TMT: Mortality Salience and Avoidance of Worldview Threats

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A Test of TMT: Mortality Salience and Avoidance of Worldview Threats University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Dissertations and Theses @ UNI Student Work 2009 A test of TMT: Mortality salience and avoidance of worldview threats Taylor Wayne Wadian University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©2009 Taylor Wayne Wadian Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd Part of the Social Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Wadian, Taylor Wayne, "A test of TMT: Mortality salience and avoidance of worldview threats" (2009). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 558. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/558 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses @ UNI by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A TEST OF TMT: MORTALITY SALIENCE AND AVOIDANCE OF WORLDVIEW THREATS An Abstract of a Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Taylor Wayne Wadian University of Northern Iowa July 2009 ABSTRACT Imagine playing a game of catch with three people, and all the things that would influence to whom you throw. Were thoughts of death included as one of those factors? The hypothesis that mortality salience motivates avoidant behavior toward a worldview­ threatening target was empirically tested on a sample of 200 undergraduate Caucasian college students from a Midwestern university. I induced participants to write about either their own death or dental pain, and presented them with summer descriptions of three fictitious male African American targets that they believed they were going to interact with later in the study. Targets' descriptions were manipulated to be either consistent, neutral, or inconsistent with American stereotypes commonly associated with African Americans. Participants completed several personality and attitude measures about themselves and targets, and then played a simulated game of catch called cyberball over the internet, supposedly with the three targets who were in different locations. Participants demonstrated a preference to toss the ball more to a stereotype inconsistent African American male target regardless of mortality salience condition or participants' individual level of need for closure. Attitude and trait ratings mirrored the above results, with the exception of attitude ratings toward the stereotype consistent target, in which need for closure moderated the effects of mortality salience. Participants in the mortality salience condition who were high in need for closure rated the stereotype consistent target less favorably than both neutral and stereotype inconsistent targets. These results suggest that mortality salience may not demonstrate the prominent effects on attitudes and behaviors that terror management theory has suggested (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004). However, the results do imply that stereotypes influence behavioral interaction with and favorability toward African Americans. In accordance with research on the effects of social exclusion, the increased avoidance of an African American based on his or her consistency with prominent African American stereotypes may in fact evoke behaviors that validate these negative stereotypes (i.e., hostility, social loafing, and decreased cognitive ability) and thus perpetuate the stereotypes associated with African Americans. A TEST OF TMT: MORTALITY SALIENCE AND AVOIDANCE OF WORLDVIEW THREATS A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Taylor Wayne Wadian University of Northern Iowa July 2009 11 This study by: Taylor Wayne Wadian Entitled: A Test OfTMT: Mortality Salience and Avoidance of World view Threats has been approved as meeting the thesis requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts L{ - IC>-0~ Date 1f~r Date Lvlio/rft Date oshua Susskind, Thesis Comriiittee Member 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... vii CI-IAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 Terror Management Theory ......................................................................................... 1 Criticisms ofTMT ....................................................................................................... 5 Need for Closure Moderating Mortality Salience ....................................................... 10 Stereotypes, Prejudices and Preferences ..................................................................... 12 Current Study ............................................................................................................ 15 CHAPTER 2. METHOD ............................................................................................... 20 A Priori Effect Size .................................................................................................... 20 Participants and Design .............................................................................................. 20 Procedure ............................................................................................................... 20 Measures ................................................................................................................... 24 Need for Closure .................................................................................................... 24 PANAS-X .............................................................................................................. 24 The Growing Stone ................................................................................................ 25 Attitude and Trait Measures ................................................................................... 25 Percent ofTosses ................................................................................................... 26 Perceived Frequency of Ball Tosses ....................................................................... 26 Manipulations Check .............................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER 3. RESULTS ............................................................................................... 27 Excluded Data ........................................................................................................... 27 IV Manipulation Checks ................................................................................................. 27 Hypothesis Tests ........................................................................................................ 28 Percent of Ball Tosses ............................................................................................ 28 Attitudes ................................................................................................................ 32 Trait ....................................................................................................................... 36 Exploratory Analyses ................................................................................................. 40 Self-Reported Avoidance ....................................................................................... 40 Perceived Percentage ofTosses .............................................................................. 42 Sex Differences ...................................................................................................... 43 Similarity Ratings .................................................................................................. 45 Self-Ratings ........................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 4. DISCUSSION......................................................................................... 48 Overall Findings .... ,..., ................................................................................................. 48 Explicitness of Cyberball ........................................................................................... 49 Worldview-Threats and TMT .................................................................................... 50 Self Ratings ............................................................................................................... 53 Implications ............................................................................................................... 54 Terror Management Theory .................................................................................... 54 Stereotypes and Prejudice ....................................................................................... 57 Limitations and Future Research ................................................................................ 58 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 60 FOOTNOTES ............................................................................................................... 62 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 63 APPENDIX A. SUMMER DESCRIPTION
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