Collaborative Research: Tests of Terror Management Hypotheses

恐怖管理理论试图解释自尊和文化世界观的心理功能。根据该理论，个人免受焦虑的双重成分文化焦虑缓冲，包括(a)文化世界观，其中包括一个人的现实概念，价值标准和永生的希望；(b)自尊，或认为自己符合文化世界观规定的价值标准的信念。从这个角度来看，一个人对自己和他所生活的世界的信念是保护一个人免受焦虑的基本防御功能。当别人分享我们的信仰时，提供平静的概念被双方同意地验证，当别人不同意我们的信仰时，这些概念受到威胁。因为文化焦虑缓冲需要持续的共识确认，以有效地保护免受焦虑，许多社会行为都是针对其两个组成部分的验证。研究表明：(a)提醒人们他们的死亡会增加他们对支持他们世界观的人和想法的积极反应，以及他们对威胁他们世界观的人和想法的消极反应；(b)高水平的自尊会减少对威胁性刺激的焦虑和可能起到减少焦虑作用的防御性扭曲；(c)对文化世界观的威胁增加了人们对死亡的微妙提醒的焦虑感。这项研究的目标有三个：(2)通过进一步评估死亡显著性对以增强自尊和世界观为重点的行为的影响，以及自尊和世界观在缓解死亡关注方面的作用，为该理论提供证据基础。(3)评估对威胁性材料的情感反应和意识在理论假设的效应产生中的作用。这项研究将加深我们对自尊为何如此重要、对个人如此有益的理解。

ABSTRACT Terror management theory attempts to explain the psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. According to the theory, the individual is protected from anxiety by a dual component cultural anxiety buffer, consisting of (a) a cultural worldview, which includes one's conception of reality, standards of value, and hope of immortality, and (b) self-esteem, or the belief that one is living up to the standards of value prescribed by the cultural worldview. From this perspective, one's beliefs about oneself and the world in which one lives serve the essential defensive function of protecting one from anxiety. The equanimity-providing concepts are consensually validated when others share our beliefs and threatened when others disagree with our beliefs. Because the cultural anxiety- buffer requires continual consensual validation for effective protection from anxiety, much social behavior is directed toward the validation of its two components. Research has shown that: (a) reminding people of their mortality increases the positivity of their reactions to people and ideas that support their worldviews and the negativity of their reactions to people and ideas that threaten their worldviews, (b) high levels of self-esteem decrease both anxiety in response to threatening stimuli and defensive distortions that presumably function to reduce one's anxiety, and (c) threats to the cultural worldview increase susceptibility to anxiety in response to subtle reminders of one's mortality. The goals of this research are threefold: (1) to investigate the centrality of death concerns to the processes posited by the theory, (2) to add to the evidentiary base for the theory by further assessing both the effects of mortality salience on behavior focused on bolstering self-esteem and the worldview and the roles of self- esteem and the worldview in allaying death concerns, and (3) to assess the role of affective responses to and awareness of threatening material in the production of the effects posited by the theory. This research will increase our understanding of why self-esteem is so important and so beneficial for the individual.