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Mortality Salience And The Effects Of Autonomy On Death Anxiety, Dylan Earlin Horner
Mortality Salience And The Effects Of Autonomy On Death Anxiety, Dylan Earlin Horner
ETD Archive
The present research built on prior work suggesting that mortality salience (MS) can undermine psychological well-being and explored the previously-untested hypothesis that autonomy can mitigate that effect. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of primed autonomy on measured death anxiety following a reminder of mortality. Participants (n = 119) were randomly assigned to either an MS or control condition and then, following a delay, were primed with the concept of either autonomy or being controlled. Death anxiety was then measured. Results found that MS increased death anxiety among those in the controlled prime condition, but not among those in the …
The Effects Of Mortality Salience And Autonomy Priming On Worldview Defensiveness, Joseph P. Conti
The Effects Of Mortality Salience And Autonomy Priming On Worldview Defensiveness, Joseph P. Conti
ETD Archive
Terror Management Theory posits that people are motivated to defend against death awareness by maintaining cultural beliefs and behaviors that transcend mortality— sometimes motivating hostile, even militaristic, defenses of one’s culture. In contrast, self-determination theory suggests that autonomous regulation (self-determination) serves as a platform for personal growth and well-being. However, the present thesis suggests that, in addition to fueling growth, self-determination may also help buffer against the awareness of mortality, thus mitigating the impact of death awareness on hostile cultural worldview defense. To test this hypothesis, American participants were randomly assigned to be reminded of mortality or a control topic, …
Atheism And The Effects Of Mortality Salience And Limited Analytic Processing Ability On Religious Faith And Teleological Thinkin, Brett Jordan Waggoner
Atheism And The Effects Of Mortality Salience And Limited Analytic Processing Ability On Religious Faith And Teleological Thinkin, Brett Jordan Waggoner
ETD Archive
The scenario of the atheist in the proverbial foxhole has been a topic of discussion in religious circles for centuries. Building on prior research utilizing terror management theory (TMT), a dual process model of cognition, and previous work suggesting that humans are intuitively wired for teleological and religious concepts, the researchers set out to examine atheist’s religiosity when confronted with the reality of one’s impermanence. To explore this idea, the present experiment recruited a sample of atheists, manipulated their awareness of mortality, manipulated their ability to employ analytic thinking, and measured various intuitive cognitions (e.g., teleological reasoning) alongside religious belief. …
Variability And Location Of Movement Endpoint Distributions: The Influence Of Instructions For Movement Speed And Accuracy, Abhishek Dey
Variability And Location Of Movement Endpoint Distributions: The Influence Of Instructions For Movement Speed And Accuracy, Abhishek Dey
ETD Archive
An influential theory of motor control predicts that targeted hand movements should be aimed at the target center and that the variability of movement endpoint distributions should fill the target region (Meyer et al., 1988). Because increases in the amount of movement endpoint variability correlates with increases in movement speed (Schmidt et al., 1979), centering the distribution on the target center and expanding variability to the limits of the target boundaries should allow for maximization of movement speed, without the production of movement errors (i.e., target misses). Slifkin and Eder (2016) recently found that those predictions only held over a …
Aging And Emotion Recognition: An Examination Of Stimulus And Attentional Mechanisms, Stephanie Nicole Sedall
Aging And Emotion Recognition: An Examination Of Stimulus And Attentional Mechanisms, Stephanie Nicole Sedall
ETD Archive
Emotion recognition is essential for interpersonal communication. However, previous research has suggested that older adults are not as accurate as younger adults in recognizing certain emotions, particularly negative facial expressions of anger, fear, and sadness. Including additional contextual information (e.g., manipulation of certain facial features) might help us better understand these age differences. The present study investigated how potential age differences in emotion recognition are influenced by stimulus factors (target eye gaze direction) as well as facial viewing patterns, cognitive functioning, and physiological processes. A sample of younger and older adults viewed static facial expressions depicting anger, fear, sadness, happiness, …
An Experimental Test Of Whether Mortality Salience Can Motivate Open-Mindedness Among Individuals With Intrinsic Goal Orientations, Mark Blades
ETD Archive
Terror management theory posits that when people are primed with thoughts of death, they will seek to abide by their cultural worldview beliefs. For example, mortality reminders motivate those with an extrinsic goal orientation to strive to accomplish culturally valued goals (e.g., wealth) and defend familiar cultural worldviews. But, as of yet, no research has investigated the possibility that MS might motivate those with an intrinsic goal orientation to strive instead to explore culturally, socially, or intellectually novel experiences and information. The present research hypothesized that MS would lead individuals with stronger extrinsic goal orientations to defensively prefer their familiar …