CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 275Death Anxiety and Social ExclusionDeath, Funerary Practices, and MourningSocial and Intergroup Psychology

Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death thought accessibility

Schimel, Jeff, Hayes, Joseph, Williams, Todd, Jahrig, Jesse·2007·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
DOI 10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.789
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

According to terror management theory, if the cultural worldview protects people from thoughts about death, then weakening this structure should increase death-thought accessibility (DTA). Five studies tested this DTA hypothesis. Study 1 showed that threatening Canadian participants' cultural values (vs. those of another culture) increased DTA on a word-fragment completion task. Study 2 showed that when participants could dismiss the threat, DTA remained low. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 1, but DTA was measured using a lexical decision task. Response latencies to death, negative, and neutral content were measured. Worldview threat increased DTA relative to accessibility for negative and neutral content. Study 4 showed that the DTA effect emerged independently of the arousal of anger or anxiety. Finally, Study 5 demonstrated that participants with a pro-creation (vs. pro-evolution) worldview had higher DTA after reading an anti-creation article. Discussion focused on theoretical implications and directions for further research.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.789

Cites

12 of 12 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • There is growing evidence that a variety of meaning and uncertainty threats can elicit death-thought accessibility (DTA), and that DTA then fades after a delay.

    “There is growing evidence that a variety of meaning and uncertainty threats can elicit death-thought accessibility (DTA; for a review see Hayes, Schimel, Arndt, & Faucher, in press), and that DTA then fades after a delay (Schimel, Hayes, Williams, & Jahrig, 2007).”

    From Same but different: meta-analytically examining the uniqueness of mortality salience effects (2011) · cites this paper as Schimel et al., 2007

  • One study (Schimel et al. 2007, Study 1) showed that after exposing participants to a worldview threat, DTA was higher immediately after the threat than it was after a delay.

    “Interestingly, one study (Schimel et al. 2007, Study 1) showed that after exposing participants to a worldview threat, DTAwas higher immediately after the threat than it was after a delay.”

    From Same but different: meta-analytically examining the uniqueness of mortality salience effects (2011) · cites this paper as Schimel et al. 2007

  • Worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility independent of anger, anxiety, and negative thoughts.

    “Across five studies, Schimel et al. found that worldview threat increased death-thought accessibility independent of anger, anxiety, and negative thoughts.”

    From When Death is Good for Life: Considering the Positive Trajectories of Terror Management (2012) · cites this paper as Schimel, Hayes, Williams, & Jahrig, 2007

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Schimel, J., Hayes, J., Williams, T., & Jahrig, J.
Affiliations
University of Alberta (CA)
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2007-05
Volume
92
Issue
5
Pages
789-803
ISSN
  • 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1315
DOI
10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.789
OpenAlex
W2093484848
Cited by
275
References
12
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 17
FWCI
25.23
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (G124130386)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
Keywords
death-thought accessibility, terror management theory, cultural worldview, fear of death, threat appraisal, cultural values
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Adolescent, Adult, Attention, Attitude to Death, Awareness, Denial, Psychological, Existentialism, Fear, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Personality Inventory, Repression, Psychology, Self Concept, Social Values, Socialization, Thinking

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review