Perceived Consensus, Uniqueness, and Terror Management: Compensatory Responses to Threats to Inclusion and Distinctiveness Following Mortality Salience
Abstract
An experiment assessed the proposition that competing motives for inclusion and individuation both function to control concerns about mortality. Combining ideas from terror management theory and optimal distinctiveness theory, the authors hypothesized that mortality salience would increase the tendency of participants given feedback that they had strong conformist tendencies to underestimate social consensus for their attitudes and the tendency of participants given feedback that they were deviant to exaggerate social consensus for their attitudes. Participants were given either one or the other type of feedback, responded to open-ended questions about either their own death or their next important exam, completed a measure of social projection in which they indicated their own attitudes, and then estimated the percentage of the general population that shared their opinions. Results on a social projection measure consisting of the partial correlation between own and others' attitudes, controlling for social desirability, provided strong support for the hypotheses.
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When participants were made to feel deviant, reminders of death increased their perceptions that they were similar to those around them.
“when participants were made to feel deviant, reminders of death increased their perceptions that they were similar to those around them; however, when participants were made to feel like conformists, MS reduced these similarity ratings (Simon et al., 1997).”
From When Death is Good for Life: Considering the Positive Trajectories of Terror Management (2012) · cites this paper as Simon et al., 1997
When participants were made to feel like conformists, MS reduced these similarity ratings.
“however, when participants were made to feel like conformists, MS reduced these similarity ratings (Simon et al., 1997).”
From When Death is Good for Life: Considering the Positive Trajectories of Terror Management (2012) · cites this paper as Simon et al., 1997
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- Authors
- Simon, L., Greenberg, J., Arndt, J., Pyszczynski, T., Clement, R., & Solomon, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- University of Colorado Colorado Springs (US)
- Skidmore College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Greenberg, Jeff
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1997-10
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1055-1065
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- OpenAlex
- W2128490706
- Cited by
- 93
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 7.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning
- Keywords
- terror management theory, optimal distinctiveness theory, mortality salience, social consensus, uniqueness, inclusion, individuation, social projection, conformity, deviance, social desirability
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