Enjoying life in the face of death: East-West differences in responses to mortality salience
Abstract
Five experiments explored the hypothesis that thinking about one's own death activates thoughts about enjoying one's life as moderated by culture. Given that Eastern cultures, relative to Western ones, are more holistic and endorse notions of "yin and yang" (e.g., where "good" and "bad" coexist in all things), we hypothesized that East Asians would be more likely than European Americans to think about life and strive more to enjoy life when mortality salience (MS) is evoked. As predicted, MS led East Asians, but not European Americans, to (a) activate more life-related thoughts (Study 1); (b) express greater interest in enjoyable daily life activities (Study 2); and (c) report enjoying daily life activities more (Study 3). Cultural differences in holism mediated the tendency to enjoy life in the face of death (Study 4), and experimental induction of holism caused greater life enjoyment in response to MS (Study 5). Implications for terror management theory and culture are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
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Several groups who recruited primarily East Asian samples were unable to find significant effects or identified very small effects.
“Several groups who recruited primarily East Asian samples were unable to find significant effects or identified very small effects [e.g., 31–34].”
From Not so terrifying after all? A set of failed replications of the mortality salience effects of Terror Management Theory (2023) · cites this paper as [33]
These authors suggested that East Asian individuals may be more tolerant and/or fear death less than Westerners, both of which mitigate the terror that underlies MS inductions, potentially due to reduced individualism within these cultures.
“These authors suggested that East Asian individuals may be more tolerant and/or fear death less than Westerners, both of which mitigate the “terror” that underlies MS inductions, potentially due to reduced individualism within these cultures.”
From Not so terrifying after all? A set of failed replications of the mortality salience effects of Terror Management Theory (2023) · cites this paper as [33]
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- Authors
- Ma-Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2012
- Volume
- 103
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 773-786
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W1994767333
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 73
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 3
- FWCI
- 6.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Keywords
- mortality salience, death awareness, enjoyment of life, East-West comparison, East Asian culture, holism, yin and yang, terror management theory, European Americans, activities of daily living, cross-cultural psychology
- MeSH terms
- Activities of Daily Living, Adaptation, Psychological, Adolescent, Adult, Asian, Attitude to Death, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Asia, Eastern, Female, Humans, Male, Pain, White People, Young Adult
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