• DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00429.x
• Corpus ID: 145101319

Subliminal Exposure to Death-Related Stimuli Increases Defense of the Cultural Worldview

@article{Arndt1997SubliminalET,
  title={Subliminal Exposure to Death-Related Stimuli Increases Defense of the Cultural Worldview},
  author={Jamie Arndt and Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski and Sheldon Solomon},
  journal={Psychological Science},
  year={1997},
  volume={8},
  pages={379 - 385}
}

• J. Arndt, J. Greenberg, +1 author S. Solomon
• Published 1 September 1997
• Psychology
• Psychological Science

Three experiments reported here provide empirical support for the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that unconscious concerns about death motivate allegiance to cultural beliefs Study 1 contrasted exposure to a subliminal death-related stimulus, a standard mortality-salience treatment, and a neutral subliminal stimulus, and found that both the subliminal and the standard reminder of mortality led to more favorable evaluations of people who praised subjects' cultural worldview and more unfavorable evaluations of those who challenged it Study 2 replicated this finding by comparing the effects of exposure to subliminal death stimuli and subliminal pain stimuli Study 3 contrasted subliminal death stimuli, supraliminal death stimuli, and subliminal pain stimuli and found that only subliminal death stimuli produced these effects