Self-affirmation reduces vigilance to mortality threat: an eye-tracking study
Self-affirmation reduces vigilance to mortality threat: an eye-tracking study
The literature has indicated that self-affirmation attenuates defensive responding (e.g., derogation of an offensive essay’s author, accessibility of death-related cognitions) to mortality threat. The current eye-tracking study built on that literature to examine whether self-affirmation influences attentional processing of mortality threat. Participants (N = 51), after being randomly assigned to the self-affirmation or control condition, completed a free-viewing task that consisted of death-related (mortality threat) and non-death-related (control) images while their eye movements were being recorded. The results indicated that self-affirmation reduced attentional vigilance toward mortality threat both at the early stage and the whole stage of the free-viewing task. Reduced vigilance to mortality threat may be a precursor to attenuated defensive responding to it.
attention, defensive responding, eyemovement, mortality threat, self-affirmation
219-226
Chen, J.
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Sedikides, Constantine
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Cai, H.
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Chen, J.
7f687aa8-8263-4456-ae90-36c4e38c6540
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Cai, H.
e93aa716-5be6-4116-89a7-aaa9c4783f55
Chen, J., Sedikides, Constantine and Cai, H.
(2021)
Self-affirmation reduces vigilance to mortality threat: an eye-tracking study.
Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 25 (2), .
(doi:10.1111/ajsp.12480).
Abstract
The literature has indicated that self-affirmation attenuates defensive responding (e.g., derogation of an offensive essay’s author, accessibility of death-related cognitions) to mortality threat. The current eye-tracking study built on that literature to examine whether self-affirmation influences attentional processing of mortality threat. Participants (N = 51), after being randomly assigned to the self-affirmation or control condition, completed a free-viewing task that consisted of death-related (mortality threat) and non-death-related (control) images while their eye movements were being recorded. The results indicated that self-affirmation reduced attentional vigilance toward mortality threat both at the early stage and the whole stage of the free-viewing task. Reduced vigilance to mortality threat may be a precursor to attenuated defensive responding to it.
Text
Chen, Sedikides, & Cai, 2021, AJSP
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 26 April 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 May 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China Grant 17ZDA324. We appreciate Prof. Li, Xingshan for his help with eye‐tracking methodology.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Asian Association of Social Psychology and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords:
attention, defensive responding, eyemovement, mortality threat, self-affirmation
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 449100
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/449100
ISSN: 1367-2223
PURE UUID: 1a6d2b20-67a5-4877-95a9-117656e21d69
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Date deposited: 17 May 2021 16:32
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 04:16
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Author:
J. Chen
Author:
H. Cai
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