Self‐affirmation and mortality salience: Affirming values reduces worldview defense and death‐thought accessibility
Abstract
To the extent that cultural worldviews provide meaning in the face of existential concerns, specifically the inevitability of death, affirming a valued aspect of one’s worldview should render reminders of death less threatening. The authors report two studies in support of this view. In Study 1, mortality salience led to derogation of a worldview violator unless participants had first affirmed an important value. In Study 2, self-affirmation before a reminder of death was associated with reduced accessibility of death-related thoughts a short while thereafter. The authors propose that actively affirming one’s worldview alters reactions to reminders of mortality by reducing the accessibility of death-related thoughts, not by boosting self-esteem. These studies attest to the flexible nature of psychological self-defense and to the central role of cultural worldviews in managing death-related concerns.
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Self-affirmation studies generally find that affirmation of important values has no effect on self-reported mood.
“self-aYrmation studies generally find that aYrmation of important values has no eVect on self-reported mood (Fein & Spencer, 1997;Schmeichel & Martens, 2005;Sherman et al., 2000;Spencer et al., 2001)”
From The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory (2006) · cites this paper as Schmeichel & Martens, 2005
Schmeichel and Martens (2005) found no effects of affirmation on self-esteem, while finding effects on worldview defense and death-thought accessibility.
“While they did find eVects on the primary outcomes featured in that study (worldview defense and death-thought accessibility), they found no eVects on self-esteem.”
From The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory (2006) · cites this paper as Schmeichel and Martens (2005)
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“Again, affirmed and nonaffirmed participants did not differ on any of the three subscales or the total score on the State Self-Esteem Scale, all ts 1, so that reduced death-thought accessibility was likely not due to self-esteem.”
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“…buffer against MS. Self-affirmation, for example, is assumed to have the salutary effect of making people secure toward threatening events (Steele, 1988), that is, self-affirmation manipulations already refer to manipulating adherence to personal norms and values (e.g., Schmeichel & Martens, 2005).”
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- Authors
- Schmeichel, B. J., & Martens, A.
- Affiliations
- Florida State University (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Corresponding author
- Martens, Andy
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2005-05
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 658-667
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- OpenAlex
- W2066876973
- Cited by
- 220
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 8.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- 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
- self-affirmation, mortality salience, fear of death, worldview defense, values affirmation, self-defense, cultural worldview, existential concerns, self-esteem
- MeSH terms
- Attitude to Death, Female, Humans, Male, Self Concept, Social Values, Thinking
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