The dual-process component of Terror Management Theory (TMT) proposes that different types of threats lead to increases in death-thought accessibility (DTA) after different delay intervals. Experimental studies of terror management threats’ effect on DTA were collected and coded for their use of explicitly death-related (vs. not explicitly death-related) threats, and for their use of delay and task-switching during the delay. Results reveal that studies using death-related threats achieved larger DTA effect-sizes when they included more task-switching or a longer delay between the threat and the DTA measurement. In contrast, studies using threats that were not explicitly death-related achieved smaller DTA effect-sizes when they included more task-switching between the threat and the DTA measurement. These findings provide partial support for the dual-process component’s predictions regarding delay and DTA. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
AgroskinD.JonasE. (2013). Controlling death by defending ingroups—Mediational insights into terror management and control restoration. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 1144-1158.
2.
*ArndtJ.CookA.GoldenbergJ. L.CoxC. R. (2007). Cancer and the threat of death: The cognitive dynamics of death-thought suppression and its impact on behavioral health intentions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 12-29.
3.
*ArndtJ.GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS. (1997). Subliminal exposure to death-related stimuli increases defense of the cultural worldview. Psychological Science, 8, 379-385.
4.
ArndtJ.GreenbergJ.SimonL.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS. (1998). Terror management and self-awareness: Evidence that mortality salience provokes avoidance of the self-focused state. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 1216-1227.
5.
ArndtJ.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.PyszczynskiT.SimonL. (1997). Suppression, accessibility of death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense: Exploring the psychodynamics of terror management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 5-18.
BurkeB. L.MartensA.FaucherE. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 155-195.
8.
*BurrisC. T.RempelJ. K. (2004). “It’s the end of the world as we know it”: Threat and the spatial-symbolic self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 19-42.
9.
*CareyR. N.SarmaK. M. (2011). The impact of threat appeal messages on risky driving intentions: A terror management theory perspective. Journal of the Australasian College of Road Safety, 22(4), 51-56.
10.
*ChatardA.PyszczynskiT.ArndtJ.SelimbegovićL.KonanP. N.Van der LindenM. (2012). Extent of trauma exposure and PTSD symptom severity as predictors of anxiety-buffer functioning. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 4, 47-55.
11.
*ChatardA.SelimbegovićL. (2011). When self-destructive thoughts flash through the mind: Failure to meet standards affects the accessibility of suicide-related thoughts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 587-605.
12.
*CohenF.SoenkeM.SolomonS.GreenbergJ. (2013). Evidence for a role of death thought in American attitudes toward symbols of Islam. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 189-194.
13.
CohenF.SullivanD.SolomonS.GreenbergJ.OgilvieD. M. (2011). Finding Everland: Flight fantasies and the desire to transcend mortality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 88-102.
14.
CohenJ. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
15.
CooperD. P.GoldenbergJ. L.ArndtJ. (2011). Empowering the self: Using the terror management health model to promote breast self-examination. Self and Identity, 10, 315-325.
16.
CooperH.HedgesL. V.ValentineJ. C. (2009). Handbook of research synthesis and meta-analysis (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
17.
*CoxC. R.ArndtJ.PyszczynskiT.GreenbergJ.AbdollahiA.SolomonS. (2008). Terror management and adults’ attachment to their parents: The safe haven remains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 696-717.
18.
CoxC. R.Reid-ArndtS. A.ArndtJ.MoserR. P. (2012). Considering the unspoken: The role of death cognition in quality of life among women with and without breast cancer. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 30, 128-139.
19.
*DasE.BushmanB. J.BezemerM. D.KerkhofP.VermeulenI. E. (2009). How terrorism news reports increase prejudice against outgroups: A terror management account. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 453-459.
20.
DavisW. E.JuhlJ.RoutledgeC. (2011). Death and design: The terror management function of teleological beliefs. Motivation and Emotion, 35, 98-104.
21.
DechesneM.PyszczynskiT.ArndtJ.RansomS.SheldonK. M.Van KnippenbergA.JanssenJ. (2003). Literal and symbolic immortality: The effect of evidence of literal immortality on self-esteem striving in response to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 722-737.
DunkelC. S. (2009). The association between thoughts of defecation and thoughts of death. Death Studies, 33, 356-371.
24.
*Echebarria-EchabeA. (2013). Mortality salience and uncertainty: Similar effects but different processes?European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 185-191.
25.
*EdmondsonD.ChaudoirS. R.MillsM. A.ParkC. L.HolubJ.BartkowiakJ. M. (2011). From shattered assumptions to weakened worldviews: Trauma symptoms signal anxiety buffer disruption. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 16, 358-385.
26.
FesslerD. M.NavarreteC. D. (2005). The effect of age on death disgust: Challenges to Terror management perspectives. Evolutionary Psychology, 3, 279-296.
27.
*FlorianV.MikulincerM.HirschbergerG. (2001). An existentialist view on mortality salience effects: Personal hardiness, death-thought accessibility, and cultural worldview defense. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 437-453.
28.
*FlorianV.MikulincerM.HirschbergerG. (2002). The anxiety-buffering function of close relationships: Evidence that relationship commitment acts as a terror management mechanism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 527-542.
29.
*FritscheI.JonasE.FankhänelT. (2008). The role of control motivation in mortality salience effects on ingroup support and defense. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 524-541.
30.
*FritscheI.JonasE.FischerP.KoranyiN.BergerN.FleischmannB. (2007). Mortality salience and the desire for offspring. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(5), 753-762.
31.
*GailliotM. T.SchmeichelB. J.BaumeisterR. F. (2006). Self-regulatory processes defend against the threat of death: Effects of self-control depletion and trait self-control on thoughts and fears of dying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 49-62.
32.
*GailliotM. T.SchmeichelB. J.ManerJ. K. (2007). Differentiating the effects of self- control and self-esteem on reactions to mortality salience. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 894-901.
33.
*GoldenbergJ. L.ArndtJ.HartJ.RoutledgeC. (2008). Uncovering an existential barrier to breast self-exam behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 260-274.
34.
GoldenbergJ. L.CoxC. R.PyszczynskiT.GreenbergJ.SolomonS. (2002). Understanding human ambivalence about sex: The effects of stripping sex of meaning. Journal of Sex Research, 39, 310-320.
35.
GoldenbergJ. L.PyszczynskiT.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.KluckB.CornwellR. (2001). I am not an animal: Mortality salience, disgust, and the denial of human creatureliness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 427-435.
36.
*GoldenbergJ. L.PyszczynskiT.McCoyS. K.GreenbergJ.SolomonS. (1999). Death, sex, love, and neuroticism: Why is sex such a problem?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1173-1187.
37.
*GolecdeZavalaA.CichockaA.OrehekE.AbdollahiA. (2012). Intrinsic religiosity reduces intergroup hostility under mortality salience. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 451-461.
38.
GreenbergJ.ArndtJ.SimonL.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS. (2000). Proximal and distal defenses in response to reminders of one’s mortality: Evidence of a temporal sequence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 91-99.
39.
GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS. (1986). The causes and consequences of the need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In BaumeisterR. F. (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189-212). New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
40.
GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS.RosenblattA.VeederM.KirklandS.LyonD. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 308-318.
41.
GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS.SimonL.BreusM. (1994). Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 627-637.
42.
GreenbergJ.SimonL.Harmon-JonesE.SolomonS.PyszczynskiT.LyonD. (1995). Testing alternative explanations for mortality salience effects: Terror management, value accessibility, or worrisome thoughts. European Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 417-433.
43.
GreenbergJ.SimonL.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS.ChatelD. (1992). Terror management and tolerance: Does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one’s worldview?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 212-220.
44.
*GroverK. W.MillerC. T.SolomonS.WebsterR. J.SaucierD. A. (2010). Mortality salience and perceptions of people with AIDS: Understanding the role of prejudice. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 32, 315-327.
45.
*Harmon-JonesE.SimonL.GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT.SolomonS.McGregorH. (1997). Terror management theory and self-esteem: Evidence that increased self-esteem reduced mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 24-36.
46.
HayesJ.SchimelJ.ArndtJ.FaucherE. H. (2010). A theoretical and empirical review of the death-thought accessibility concept in terror management research. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 699-739.
47.
*HayesJ.SchimelJ.FaucherE. H.WilliamsT. J. (2008). Evidence for the DTA hypothesis II: Threatening self-esteem increases death-thought accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 600-613.
48.
*HayesJ.SchimelJ.WilliamsT. J. (2008). Fighting death with death: The buffering effects of learning that worldview violators have died. Psychological Science, 19, 501-507.
49.
HirschbergerG. (2006). Terror management and attributions of blame to innocent victims: Reconciling compassionate and defensive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 832-844.
50.
*HirschbergerG.Ein-DorT.AlmakiasS. (2008). The self-protective altruist: Terror management and the ambivalent nature of prosocial behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 666-678.
51.
*HirschbergerG.FlorianV.MikulincerM. (2005). Fear and compassion: A terror management analysis of emotional reactions to physical disability. Rehabilitation Psychology, 50, 246-257.
52.
*JessopD. C.AlberyI. P.RutterJ.GarrodH. (2008). Understanding the impact of mortality-related health-risk information: A terror management theory perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 951-964.
53.
*JessopD. C.WadeJ. (2008). Fear appeals and binge drinking: A terror management theory perspective. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13, 773-788.
54.
*JonasE.FischerP. (2006). Terror management and religion: Evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 553-567.
55.
KingL. A.HicksJ. A.AbdelkhalikJ. (2009). Death, life, scarcity, and value: An alternative perspective on the meaning of death. Psychological Science, 20, 1459-1462.
56.
KooleS. L.Van den BergA. E. (2005). Lost in the wilderness: Terror management, action orientation, and nature evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 1014-1028.
57.
*LandauM. J.SolomonS.GreenbergJ.CohenF.PyszczynskiT.ArndtJ.. . .CookA. (2004). Deliver us from evil: The effects of mortality salience and reminders of 9/11 on support for President George W. Bush. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1136-1150.
58.
*Ma-KellamsC.BlascovichJ. (2012). Enjoying life in the face of death: East–West differences in responses to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 773-786.
59.
MartensA.BurkeB. L.SchimelJ.FaucherE. H. (2011). Same but different: Meta-analytically examining the uniqueness of mortality salience effects. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 6-10.
60.
MartensA.GreenbergJ.SchimelJ.LandauM. J. (2004). Ageism and death: Effects of mortality salience and perceived similarity to elders on reactions to elderly people. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1524-1536.
61.
MartinI. M.KaminsM. A. (2010). An application of terror management theory in the design of social and health-related anti-smoking appeals. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 9, 172-190.
62.
*MaxfieldM.PyszczynskiT.KluckB.CoxC. R.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.WeiseD. (2007). Age-related differences in responses to thoughts of one’s own death: Mortality salience and judgments of moral transgressions. Psychology and Aging, 22, 341-353.
63.
McGregorH. A.LiebermanJ. D.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.ArndtJ.SimonL.PyszczynskiT. (1998). Terror management and aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 590-605.
64.
*MikulincerM.FlorianV. (2000). Exploring individual differences in reactions to mortality salience: Does attachment style regulate terror management mechanisms?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 260-273.
65.
MikulincerM.FlorianV. (2002). The effects of mortality salience on self-serving attributions—Evidence for the function of self-esteem as a terror management mechanism. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 24, 261-271.
66.
*MikulincerM.FlorianV.BirnbaumG.MalishkevichS. (2002). The death-anxiety buffering function of close relationships: Exploring the effects of separation reminders on death-thought accessibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 287-299.
67.
*MotylM.HartJ.CooperD. P.HeflickN.GoldenbergJ.PyszczynskiT. (2013). Creatureliness priming reduces aggression and support for war. British Journal of Social Psychology, 52, 648-666.
68.
*NavarreteC. D.KurzbanR.FesslerD. M.KirkpatrickL. A. (2004). Anxiety and intergroup bias: Terror management or coalitional psychology?Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 7, 370-397.
69.
NorenzayanA.Dar-NimrodI.HansenI. G.ProulxT. (2009). Mortality salience and religion: Divergent effects on the defense of cultural worldviews for the religious and the non-religious. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 101-113.
70.
O’ConnorM. L.McFaddenS. H. (2012). A terror management perspective on young adults’ ageism and attitudes toward dementia. Educational Gerontology, 38, 627-643.
71.
*ProulxT.HeineS. J. (2008). The case of the transmogrifying experimenter affirmation of a moral schema following implicit change detection. Psychological Science, 19, 1294-1300.
72.
*ProulxT.HeineS. J. (2009). Connections from Kafka: Exposure to meaning threats improves implicit learning of an artificial grammar. Psychological Science, 20, 1125-1131.
73.
PyszczynskiT.GreenbergJ.SolomonS. (1999). A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts: An extension of terror management theory. Psychological Review, 106, 835-845.
74.
RosenblattA.GreenbergJ.SolomonS.PyszczynskiT.LyonD. (1989). Evidence for terror management theory I: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 681-690.
75.
*RoutledgeC. D.ArndtJ.SedikidesC.WildschutT. (2008). A blast from the past: The terror management function of nostalgia. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 132-140.
76.
*RutjensB. T.LosemanA. (2010). The society-supporting self: System justification and cultural worldview defense as different forms of self-regulation. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 13, 241-250.
77.
*RutjensB. T.van der PligtJ.van HarreveldF. (2009). Things will get better: The anxiety- buffering qualities of progressive hope. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 535-543.
78.
ScharfM.CohenT. (2013). Relatedness and individuation among young adults born preterm: The role of relationships with parents and death anxiety. Journal of Adult Development, 20, 212-221.
79.
*SchimelJ.HayesJ.WilliamsT.JahrigJ. (2007). Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 789-803.
80.
SchmeichelB. J.GailliotM. T.FilardoE. A.McGregorI.GitterS.BaumeisterR. F. (2009). Terror management theory and self-esteem revisited: The roles of implicit and explicit self-esteem in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 1077-1087.
81.
SchmeichelB. J.MartensA. (2005). Self-affirmation and mortality salience: Affirming values reduces worldview defense and death-thought accessibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 658-667.
82.
*ShehryarO.HuntD. M. (2005). A terror management perspective on the persuasiveness of fear appeals. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15, 275-287.
83.
SilviaP. J. (2001). Nothing or the opposite: Intersecting terror management and objective self-awareness. European Journal of Personality, 15, 73-82.
84.
SimonL.GreenbergJ.Harmon-JonesE.SolomonS.PyszczynskiT.ArndtJ.AbendT. (1997). Terror management and cognitive-experiential self-theory: Evidence that terror management occurs in the experiential system. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1132-1146.
85.
SimonsohnU.NelsonL. D.SimmonsJ. P. (2014). P-curve: A key to the file-drawer. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 534-547.
86.
SolomonS.GreenbergJ.PyszczynskiT. (1991). A terror management theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. In ZannaM. P. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 91-159). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
87.
SterneJ. A.HarbordR. M. (2004). Funnel plots in meta-analysis. Stata Journal, 4, 127-141.
88.
*Taubman-Ben-AriO. (2004). Intimacy and risky sexual behavior—What does it have to do with death?Death Studies, 28, 865-887.
89.
*Taubman-Ben-AriO. (2011). Is the meaning of life also the meaning of death? A terror management perspective reply. Journal of Happiness Studies, 12, 385-399.
90.
*Taubman-Ben-AriO.Katz-Ben-AmiL. (2008). Death awareness, maternal separation anxiety, and attachment style among first-time mothers—A terror management perspective. Death Studies, 32, 737-756.
91.
*TrafimowD.HughesJ. S. (2012). Testing the death thought suppression and rebound hypothesis: Death thought accessibility following mortality salience decreases during a delay. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 3, 622-629.
92.
*UllrichJ.CohrsJ. C. (2007). Terrorism salience increases system justification: Experimental evidence. Social Justice Research, 20, 117-139.
93.
VaesJ.HeflickN. A.GoldenbergJ. L. (2010). “We are people”: Ingroup humanization as an existential defense. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 750-760.
94.
*VailK. E.IIIArndtJ.MotylM.PyszczynskiT. (2012). The aftermath of destruction: Images of destroyed buildings increase support for war, dogmatism, and death thought accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 1069-1081.
95.
*Van BeestI.WilliamsK. D.Van DijkE. (2011). Cyberbomb: Effects of being ostracized from a death game. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 14, 581-596.
96.
*Van TongerenD. R.GreenJ. D. (2010). Combating meaninglessness: On the automatic defense of meaning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1372-1384.
97.
VessM.ArndtJ.CoxC. R. (2012). Faith and nature: The effect of death-relevant cognitions on the relationship between religious fundamentalism and connectedness to nature. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 3, 333-340.
98.
WegnerD. M.SchneiderD. J.CarterS. R.WhiteT. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 5-13.
99.
WilliamsT.SchimelJ.HayesJ.MartensA. (2010). The moderating role of extrinsic contingency focus on reactions to threat. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 300-320.
100.
*WojtkowiakJ.RutjensB. T. (2011). The postself and terror management theory: Reflecting on after death identity buffers existential threat. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 21, 137-144.
101.
ZhouX.LiuJ.ChenC.YuZ. (2008). Do children transcend death? An examination of the terror management function of offspring. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49, 413-418.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
