Fast track report Same but different: meta-analytically examining the uniqueness of mortality salience effects

One line of theorizing suggests considering death reminders—i.e., mortality salience (MS) inductions—unique in their effect on worldview defenses (e.g., Pyszczynski et al., 2006). Other theorizing suggests that meaning and certainty threats produce effects similar to MS and thus that these threats be considered theoretically equivalent (e.g., Proulx & Heine, 2006; McGregor, 2006). To help reconcile these discrepant perspectives, we meta-analytically examined MS effects as a function of the control condition utilized (meaning/certainty threats vs. other topics) and the length of delay between threat induction and subsequent defense. Results showed that MS and meaning/certainty threats both increased defensiveness after a short delay. But with a longer delay, MS produced even higher levels of defensiveness while meaning/certainty threats produced lower levels of defensiveness. Thus, the evidence supports a similarity between MS and meaning/certainty threat effects, but also a difference in time course that warrants their study as unique psychological threats. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. A large body of work examines the effects of psychological threats on worldview defenses—efforts to maintain and bolster one’s systems of meaning and value. However, theoretical and empirical work has differed with respect to the uniqueness of the impact of death-thoughts on these defenses. Several lines of research find that death-thoughts produce effects similar to meaning and certainty threats and so should be considered as functionally and theoretically equivalent (e.g., Proulx & Heine, 2006; McGregor, 2006). Yet other work finds that death-thoughts produce effects that are different from meaning and certainty threats and so should be considered as related but theoretically unique (e.g., Pyszczynski, Solomon, Greenberg, & Maxfield, 2006). To help reconcile these discrepant research findings, we metaanalytically tested whether the degree to which death-thoughts and meaning/certainty threats exert a similar effect on worldview defense may depend on another variable: the length of delay between the threat induction and subsequent worldview defense. It may be that death-thoughts and meaning/certainty threats indeed both impact worldview defenses similarly, but that their effects differ in time course, as delineated further below. A large body of terror management theory research (TMT; e.g., Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997; Pyszczynski et al., 2006) shows that making mortality salient (i.e., mortality salience) increases worldview-related defenses. Theoretically, this occurs because investment in worldviews—meaning systems that provide the world with the appearance of stability and permanence—serves to defend people against thoughts about their own mortality. However, recent work examining the meaning maintenance model (e.g., Proulx & Heine, 2006), compensatory zeal (e.g., McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, & Spencer, 2001), and procedural fairness (e.g., van den Bos, Poortvliet, Maas, Miedema, & van den Ham, 2005) has suggested that mortality salience (MS) may not be unique in its impact on worldview defenses. The research shows that nondeath-related threats to personal meaning and certainty also activate and increase worldview defenses. From these theoretical perspectives, any thoughts that undermine meaning and certainty—death-related or otherwise—result in compensatory efforts to restore meaning and certainty, such as maintaining and defending one’s worldview. Thus, this work suggests that, because meaning/certainty threats have a similar effect as MS on worldview defenses, death-thoughts need not be considered as theoretically separate or independent from these other threats to self. The two discrepant accounts discussed above may, in part, both be correct. Perhaps MS and meaning/certainty threats behave similarly under some conditions but differently under others. This possibility emerges from a key component of terror management theorizing—that non-conscious but accessible death-thoughts (as opposed to conscious thoughts of death) produce worldview defenses. According to TMT, when people are reminded of their eventual death they engage in proximal and distal defenses (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). Proximal defenses occur immediately after the death reminder and include strategies such as suppression, distraction, or rationalization aimed at getting these distressing thoughts out of consciousness. Once proximal defenses subside, death thoughts are absent from awareness but still remain highly accessible. It is at this point that distal defences—i.e., worldview defences—function to push European Journal of Social Psychology, Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 41, 6–10 (2011) Published online 29 July 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.767 *Correspondence to: Andy Martens, Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 24 March 2010, Accepted 24 May 2010 thoughts of death even further away from consciousness by affirming important death-transcending beliefs and values that make one’s life feel meaningful and worthwhile. The dual defense model proposed within TMT therefore suggests that the effect of MS on worldview defense has a signature time course. Specifically, when people are exposed to a conscious reminder of death, worldview defense occurs most prominently when there is a delay between the MS induction and the measure of defense because a delay facilitates the receding of death-thoughts from focal awareness (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994). Further, MS effects appear to strengthen as the delay lengthens (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010). Theorizing about meaning and certainty threats, on the other hand, does not suggest that the impact of these threats should emerge only after a delay, when they are outside consciousness. Further, it is conceivable that effects of meaning/certainty threats follow a time course that is opposite to those of MS. 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). This research is based on the following logic: if symbolic meaning structures (e.g., cultural worldviews) provide protection from deathrelated fear, then temporarily weakening these structures should allow thoughts of death to leak through the protective shield and become temporarily more accessible to awareness. Given the TMT theorizing that worldview defense arises when death thoughts are highly accessible but not in awareness, meaning/certainty threats may increase worldview defense after a short delay and be less apt to do so after a long delay (Pyszczynski et al., 2006). If this analysis is correct and MS and meaning/certainty threats trigger their effects on worldview defense on a different time course, this may help reconcile the conflicting research and theorizing about the uniqueness of MS effects. It may be that MS and meaning/certainty threats act similarly with short delays, but that MS effects grow stronger with longer delays while the effects of certainty/meaning threats weaken with longer delays. To test this possibility, we conducted a meta-analytic investigation that drew on and extended a recent meta-analysis of MS experiments (Burke et al., 2010). Using this recent meta-analytic data set, we examined two variables. First, we categorized the comparison/control conditions used in MS studies into those that threatened meaning or certainty and those that did not. Given that the effect of the MS induction should be essentially the same across studies, any observed differences in MS effect sizes between studies with different control conditions can be attributed to the control/comparison conditions used. Thus, by examining the strength of the MS effects using meaning/certainty threats as a control condition compared to the strength of MS effects using other control topics, it is possible to gauge the degree of similarity in function between MS and meaning/certainty threats. Second, we divided the studies into those that used shorter and longer delays between the MS manipulation and the worldview defense dependent measures in order to gauge the differences in timing of MS and meaning/certainty threats. We had three interrelated hypotheses for the current study. First, we predicted that when a shorter delay was utilized, MS would produce smaller effects with meaning/certainty threats as control topics than with other controls topics. This would indicate that meaning/certainty threats act similarly to MS under those conditions. Second, we predicted that when a longer delay was utilized, the magnitude of MS effects would not differ based on the control topic (whether meaning/ certainty or other). This would indicate that certainty/meaning threats are acting just like other non-meaning/non-certainty control topics after a longer delay. Further, given that noncertainty/non-meaning control topics do not differ in their effects as a function of delay, if certainty/meaning threats act just like other control topics after a longer delay, then meaning/ certainty threats decrease in their effects from shorter to longer delays. Third, we predicted that when compared with nonmeaning/non-certainty control topics, MS would increase its effect on worldview defense from shorter to longer delays. If supported, these hypotheses would suggest that MS and meaning/certainty threats impact worldview defense on a qualitatively different time course—that MS effects are not merely stronger (i.e., more potent) than meaning/certainty threats after a delay, but rather that meaning/certainty threats are weakening from shorter to longer delays as MS effects are strengthening from shorter to longer delays. Figure 1 depicts the conceptual model based on these predictions.