• DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.72.1.24
• Corpus ID: 32261410

Terror management theory and self-esteem: evidence that increased self-esteem reduces mortality salience effects.

@article{HarmonJones1997TerrorMT,
  title={Terror management theory and self-esteem: evidence that increased self-esteem reduces mortality salience effects.},
  author={Eddie Harmon-Jones and Linda Simon and Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski and Sheldon Solomon and Holly Mcgregor},
  journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},
  year={1997},
  volume={72 1},
  pages={
          24-36
        }
}

• E. Harmon-Jones, L. Simon, +3 authors H. Mcgregor
• Published 1997
• Psychology
• Journal of personality and social psychology

On the basis of the terror management theory proposition that self-esteem provides protection against concerns about mortality, it was hypothesized that self-esteem would reduce the worldview defense produced by mortality salience (MS). The results of Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed this hypothesis by showing that individuals with high self-esteem (manipulated in Experiment 1; dispositional in Experiment 2) did not respond to MS with increased worldview defense, whereas individuals with moderate self-esteem did. The results of Experiment 3 suggested that the effects of the first 2 experiments may have occurred because high self-esteem facilitates the suppression of death constructs following MS.