Reconsidering the affect-free claim in terror management theory: The effects of a threat of inevitable death on mood

Abstract

Our purpose is to examine the affect-free claim in terror management theory. Lambert et al. (2014) reported findings that disconfirm the claim that mortality salience (MS) manipulation does not produce any changes in self-reported affect including negative affect, which is the affect-free claim. As a conceptual replication of their findings, we conducted three studies to examine whether MS manipulation influences self-reported mood. Participants in Study 1 were college students, while Studies 2 and 3 included individuals in their 20s and 50s who were recruited using a web survey. Multiple-choice questions (Studies 1 and 2) and open-ended questions (Study 3) were used as experimental manipulation. Through these three studies, it was shown that MS manipulation elevated negative mood regardless of the experimental manipulation type and participants’ age. In these studies, participants did not demonstrate a cultural worldview defense. Results suggest that we should reconsider the affect-free claim in terror management theory.