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Finding the terror that the social self manages: interdependent self-construal protects against the anxiety engendered by death awareness

Finding the terror that the social self manages: interdependent self-construal protects against the anxiety engendered by death awareness
Finding the terror that the social self manages: interdependent self-construal protects against the anxiety engendered by death awareness
Existentialists have theorized that defining one’s self in terms of the broader groups to which one belongs (i.e., interdependent self-construal) helps prevent humans’ awareness of death from causing anxiety. Consistent with this assertion, research has shown that when death-awareness is experimentally heightened, people’s investment in their social groups increases. However, no research has tested the central assertion that high levels of interdependent self-construal attenuate the effect of heightened death-awareness on anxiety. In two experiments, we assessed participants’ interdependent self-construal, then experimentally heightened death awareness, and subsequently assessed death anxiety (Study1) and unspecified anxiety (Study 2). Results showed that heightened death awareness increased death anxiety and unspecified anxiety, but only for those with a low, not high, interdependent self-construal
0736-7236
365-379
Juhl, Jacob
1c3b38b1-ba9e-4f3c-8520-ebca3b712fa2
Routledge, Clay
c1e0088a-3cc4-4d54-bbd3-de7d286429d8
Juhl, Jacob
1c3b38b1-ba9e-4f3c-8520-ebca3b712fa2
Routledge, Clay
c1e0088a-3cc4-4d54-bbd3-de7d286429d8

Juhl, Jacob and Routledge, Clay (2014) Finding the terror that the social self manages: interdependent self-construal protects against the anxiety engendered by death awareness. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 33 (4), 365-379. (doi:10.1521/jscp.2014.33.4.365).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Existentialists have theorized that defining one’s self in terms of the broader groups to which one belongs (i.e., interdependent self-construal) helps prevent humans’ awareness of death from causing anxiety. Consistent with this assertion, research has shown that when death-awareness is experimentally heightened, people’s investment in their social groups increases. However, no research has tested the central assertion that high levels of interdependent self-construal attenuate the effect of heightened death-awareness on anxiety. In two experiments, we assessed participants’ interdependent self-construal, then experimentally heightened death awareness, and subsequently assessed death anxiety (Study1) and unspecified anxiety (Study 2). Results showed that heightened death awareness increased death anxiety and unspecified anxiety, but only for those with a low, not high, interdependent self-construal

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Published date: 2014
Organisations: Psychology

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 380034
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/380034
ISSN: 0736-7236
PURE UUID: d6256fa9-7e43-43a8-a09c-a60979bb30ab

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Date deposited: 28 Aug 2015 14:04
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 20:53

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Contributors

Author: Jacob Juhl
Author: Clay Routledge

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