The Power of Death Valence

A Revised Terror Management Process

Bibliographic Data

ID13628265
AuthorsMel Stiller (0000-0002-1324-0244, Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology, University of Barelona, Barcelona, Spain, corresponding author), Andrés Di Masso (0000-0003-1120-3439, Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology, University of Barelona, Barcelona, Spain)
Year2022
Volume90
Issue2
Pages594-610
Publication date2022-06-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0030-2228 • E-ISSN: 1541-3764
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00302228221108300
PMID35719090
OpenAlexW4283214940
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited26

Terror management strategies (TMS) are assumed to affect social prejudice. In a prior study, positive death valence in wave 1 reduced gender-related stereotypes in wave 2. Psychosocial intervention against prejudice requires a deeper understanding of the terror management process. We investigated the relationships between death anxiety, death valence, mortality salience and TMS in a mixed method study. Participants showed complex emotions in the face of death, including fear, anxiety, sadness and ambivalent calm. Positive death valence was associated with more conscious fear, but with less implicit death anxiety, while negative death valence was associated with more death denial. In conclusion, we propose death anxiety as a distal precursor and death valence as a proximate precursor of the plural TMS that are triggered by mortality salience

Anxiety · Death anxiety · Denial · Developmental psychology · Mortality salience · Psychiatry · Psychotherapist · Terror management theory · Valence (chemistry · Clinical Psychology · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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