TY - JOUR

T1 - Defending one's worldview under mortality salience

T2 - Testing the validity of an established idea

AU - Schindler, Simon

AU - Reinhardt, Nina

AU - Reinhard, Marc André

N1 - All studies in this paper were conducted in full accordance with the Ethical Guidelines of the German Association of Psychologists (DGPs) and the American Psychological Association (APA). Moreover, the studies are part of a research project supported by the German research foundation (DFG) for which we received ethics approval by the ethics committee of the University of Kassel. This work was supported by a Grant of the German Research Foundation (DFG; Grant ID SCHI 1341/2-1 ) to Simon Schindler and Marc-André Reinhard.

PY - 2021/3/1

Y1 - 2021/3/1

N2 - Terror management theory (TMT) posits that mortality salience (MS) leads to more negative perceptions of persons who oppose one's worldview and to more positive perceptions of persons who confirm one's worldview. Recent failed replications of classic findings have thrown into question empirical validity for this established idea. We believe, that there are crucial methodological and theoretical aspects that have been neglected in these studies which limit their explanatory power; thus, the studies of this registered report aimed to address these issues and to directly test the worldview defense hypothesis. First, we conducted two preregistered lab studies applying the classic worldview defense paradigm. The stimulus material (worldview-confirming and -opposing essays) was previously validated for students at a German university. In both studies, the MS manipulation (between-subjects) was followed by a distraction phase. Then, in Study 1 (N = 131), each participant read both essays (within-subjects). In Study 2 (N = 276), the essays were manipulated between-subjects. Credibility attribution towards the author was assessed as the dependent variable. In both studies, the expected interaction effects were not significant. In a third highly powered (registered) study (N = 1356), we used a previously validated worldview-opposing essay. The five classic worldview defense items served as the main dependent measure. The MS effect was not significant. Bayesian analyses favored the null hypothesis. An internal meta-analysis revealed a very small (Hedges' g = 0.09) but nonsignificant (p = .058) effect of MS. Altogether, the presented studies reveal challenges in providing convincing evidence for this established idea.

AB - Terror management theory (TMT) posits that mortality salience (MS) leads to more negative perceptions of persons who oppose one's worldview and to more positive perceptions of persons who confirm one's worldview. Recent failed replications of classic findings have thrown into question empirical validity for this established idea. We believe, that there are crucial methodological and theoretical aspects that have been neglected in these studies which limit their explanatory power; thus, the studies of this registered report aimed to address these issues and to directly test the worldview defense hypothesis. First, we conducted two preregistered lab studies applying the classic worldview defense paradigm. The stimulus material (worldview-confirming and -opposing essays) was previously validated for students at a German university. In both studies, the MS manipulation (between-subjects) was followed by a distraction phase. Then, in Study 1 (N = 131), each participant read both essays (within-subjects). In Study 2 (N = 276), the essays were manipulated between-subjects. Credibility attribution towards the author was assessed as the dependent variable. In both studies, the expected interaction effects were not significant. In a third highly powered (registered) study (N = 1356), we used a previously validated worldview-opposing essay. The five classic worldview defense items served as the main dependent measure. The MS effect was not significant. Bayesian analyses favored the null hypothesis. An internal meta-analysis revealed a very small (Hedges' g = 0.09) but nonsignificant (p = .058) effect of MS. Altogether, the presented studies reveal challenges in providing convincing evidence for this established idea.

KW - Mortality salience

KW - Registered report

KW - Replications

KW - Terror management theory

KW - Worldview defense

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098159853&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104087

DO - 10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104087

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85098159853

VL - 93

JO - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

JF - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

SN - 0022-1031

M1 - 104087

ER -