Death, sex, love, and neuroticism
Why is sex such a problem
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6201480 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jamie L Goldenberg (0000-0003-0097-094X, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, corresponding author), Tom Pyszczynski (0000-0003-4008-3384, University of Colorado Colorado Springs), Shannon K Mccoy (University of Colorado Colorado Springs), Selina Mccoy (0000-0001-8774-4018), Jeff Greenberg (0000-0002-2206-0771), J S Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon (0000-0002-7035-2082), Samuel G Solomon (0000-0001-5321-0288) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 77 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1173-1187 |
| Publication date | 1999-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1037//0022-3514.77.6.1173 |
| PMID | 10626370 |
| OpenAlex | W4249558401 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 79 |
| References cited | 36 |
Terror management theory posits that sex is a ubiquitous human problem because the creaturely aspects of sex make apparent our animal nature, which reminds us of our vulnerability and mortality. People minimize this threat by investing in the symbolic meaning offered by the cultural worldview. Because people high in neuroticism have difficulty finding or sustaining meaning, sex is a particular problem for them. In Study 1, mortality salience caused high-neuroticism participants to find the physical aspects of sex less appealing. Study 2 revealed that for such individuals thoughts of physical sex increase the accessibility of death-related thoughts. This finding was replicated in Study 3, which also showed that providing meaning by associating sex with love reduces the accessibility of death-related thoughts in response to thoughts of physical sex. These findings provide insight into why people high in neuroticism have conflicting thoughts about sexuality and why sexuality is so often regulated and romanticized
Biological sex · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Human sexuality · Meaning (existential · Mortality salience · Neuroticism · Personality · Psychotherapist · Salience (neuroscience · Sociology · Terror management theory · Vulnerability (computing · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Gender Studies · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
Righteous violence
Disgust sensitivity predicts defensive responding to mortality salience
Anger, disgust, and presumption of harm as reactions to taboo-breaking behaviors
Mortality salience reduces tactile attention among people with low body esteem
The Association Between Thoughts of Defecation and Thoughts of Death
Linking big five personality traits to sexuality and sexual health
A theoretical and empirical review of the death-thought accessibility concept in terror management research
A Terror Management Perspective on Ageism
Terror management and attributions of blame to innocent victims
We are people”
The body as a source of self-esteem
Mere Exposure
Experimental Existential Psychology
In the wake of 9/11
The implications of death for health
When Death is Good for Life
Mortality Salience, Martyrdom, and Military Might
Mortality salience and the spreading activation of worldview-relevant constructs
The Meaning Maintenance Model
Fleeing the Body
A Time to Tan
Disgusting Bodies, Disgusting Religion
Disgust Sensitivity and Attitudes Toward Organ Donation Among African-American College Students
Disgust Sensitivity and Attitudes toward Organ Donation among African-American College Students
Supporting the Dehumanization Hypothesis, but Under What Conditions? A Commentary on Over (2021)
(Don't Fear) the Reefer
Testing the Death Thought Suppression and Rebound Hypothesis
Frequent Sex Protects Intimates From the Negative Implications of Their Neuroticism
Who Uses Groups to Transcend the Limits of the Individual Self? Exploring the Effects of Interdependent Self-Construal and Mortality Salience on Investment in Social Groups
Of Mice and Men, and Objectified Women
Religious Fundamentalism and Terror Management
Psychological Defenses Against Death Anxiety
Death Anxiety and Cancer-Related Stigma
Intimacy and Risky Sexual Behavior—what Does It Have to Do With Death
Death reflection vs. death anxiety
Existential Threat or Dissociative Response? Examining Defensive Avoidance of Point-of-Care Testing Devices Through a Terror Management Theory Framework
Smoke Your Troubles Away
Profanity
Feeling Queasy about the Incarnation
Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility
Exploring the existential function of religion
Is It Me or Is It Mine? Body-self Integration as a Function of Self-esteem, Body-esteem, and Mortality Salience
Religious Fundamentalism and Terror Management
Experimental priming of peer injunctive norms and peer descriptive norms on personal alcohol attitudes, behaviors, and motivations
Phonaesthetics and personality—Why we do not only prefer Romance languages
A terror management perspective on the role of death-related anxiety in psychological dysfunction
The Thrust of the Problem
Structured Terror
Desire in the face of death
Women's sexual working models
Understanding human ambivalence about sex
Attachment, Self-Esteem, Worldviews, and Terror Management
The siren's call
Existential escape of the bored
Why Do People Need Self-Esteem? A Theoretical and Empirical Review
The control of death and the death of control
The Influence of Future Certainty and Contextual Factors on Delinquent Behavior and School Adjustment Among African American Adolescents
Ceci n'est pas la mort
Disgust, creatureliness and the accessibility of death‐related thoughts
Romantic love versus reproduction opportunities
My body or my mind
The Psychological Correlates of Decreased Death Anxiety After a Near-Death Experience
The Ultimate Resistance
Evidence for the DTA hypothesis II
Successfully challenging fundamentalist beliefs results in increased death awareness
The protective identity
Effects of low survivability cues and participant sex on physiological and behavioral responses to sexual stimuli
Uncovering an existential barrier to breast self-exam behavior
A Function of Form
Windows into nothingness
From the Grave to the Cradle
The anxiety-buffering function of close relationships
Why Does Social Exclusion Hurt? The Relationship Between Social and Physical Pain
Death and Sexuality
Measuring subgoals of the sexual behavioral system
Mood and the Perception of Sexual Interest in Different Cultural Contexts
Medical aspects of human sexuality
Premarital sexual standards in America
The social organization of sexuality
Evolution of Desire, The
Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews
The Body Esteem Scale
A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior
Individual differences in sensitivity to disgust
Subliminal Exposure to Death-Related Stimuli Increases Defense of the Cultural Worldview
A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts
Measurement of guilt in females by self-report inventories.
The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem
Interpersonal relations
Civilization and Its Discontents
Public Self and Private Self
Investigations Into the 'Self‐concept’i. The W‐a‐y Technique
Death Anxiety and Personality
A Mediational Model Linking Self-Objectification, Body Shame, and Disordered Eating
Private wishes
Testing alternative explanations for mortality salience effects
Terror management and tolerance
Evidence for terror management theory II
Effects of Self-Esteem on Vulnerability-Denying Defensive Distortions
Differences between males and females in motives for engaging in sexual intercourse
Effects of erotica upon men's loving and liking responses for women they love
The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research
Art and artist
Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects
Suppression, accessibility of death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense
Why do people need self-esteem? Converging evidence that self-esteem serves an anxiety-buffering function
An Empirical Investigation of Self-Attitudes
Sex differences in unipolar depression
Religiousness
| Unique citing works | 76 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,04 |
| Citation span | 2000 - 2025 (26) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 68 |