Research Paper Instructions Students usually find the study of End of Life issues fascinating. To further your interest, you have an opportunity to explore a topic of your choice related to the course and write a research paper reflecting what you have learned and wish to convey. Be sure to "narrow" the scope/focus of the paper. A "broad overview" of a topic will lose points. In the introduction of your paper, let the reader know the purpose; why it is of interest. The articles are to be from scholarly journals such as The Association for Death Education and Counseling, The American Psychological Association, The American Society on Aging, and various nursing and medical journals. Include results of studies published on the issue/topic of the paper such as how many participants, how done, and what was found, learned from the study. At least three journal resources of the six should provide studies and results. Be sure to make the paper flow rather than be a collection of bits and pieces. Summarize your paper well so that it pulls together the information that is enlightening to the reader. Guidelines: 1. Papers must be written using the current APA Publication Manual. Papers must be 5 to 6 pages double spaced plus a cover page and list of references page. 2. Papers must include a minimum of six relevant resources/Journal articles, appropriately cited and referenced. 3. Your paper is to be submitted in your Assignment Folder no later than 7/26. 4. Be certain to follow APA style in referencing. 5. Reminder: For information on APA formatting, go to APA.org The following criteria will be considered in evaluating your written assignment. WRITING RUBRIC CONTENT: 50% 1) Topic discussed in detail 2) Writer supported assertions correctly 3) Understanding of material demonstrated coherently and logically ORGANIZATION: 30% 4) An introduction previews paper’s main point(s) 5) Body of paper develops and elaborates main points 6) An effective summary conclusion WRITING MECHANICS AND STYLE: 20% 7) Paper free of errors (e.g., misspellings, punctuation, paragraphing) 8) Paper grammatically sound (proper sentence structure) 9) Citations and references in proper (APA) style Please note that you will need to follow the citation format used by the American Psychological Association (APA) for written projects. For information on APA formatting and citations, refer to: Topic ------- The Social Consequences of Fear of Death Sources: attached below Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1997, \bl. 73, No. 2, 369-380 Copyright 1997 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/97/S3.00 Fear of Death and the Judgment of Social Transgressions: A Multidimensional Test of Terror Management Theory Victor Florian and Mario Mikulincer This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Bar-Ilan University The purpose of the research was to integrate a multidimensional approach to fear of personal death with terror management theory. In Study 1, 190 students were divided according to the manipulation of death salience and the intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects of fear of death and were asked to judge transgressions that have either intrapersonal or interpersonal consequences. Study 2 was a conceptual replication of Study 1, with the exception that the manipulation of mortality salience included conditions that made salient either intrapersonal or interpersonal aspects of death. Findings indicate that the effects of mortality salience depend on the aspect of death that is made salient, the aspect of death that individuals most fear, and the type of the judged transgression. More severe judgments of transgressions after death salience manipulation were found mainly when there was a fit between these 3 factors. Findings are discussed in light of terror management theory. The psychological encounter with death and its related emotions has fascinated social scientists for many decades. A careful analysis of the historical development of this broad area of theory and research reveals two main trends. The most salient trend during the last four decades has emerged from Thanatos psychology. It focuses mainly on the inquiry of the complex nature of human fear of death as a dependent variable that might be influenced by a vast array of psychological and sociological factors (e.g., Kastenbaum, 1992; Neimeyer, 1988, 1994). In recent years, an additional trend has been identified. A group of social psychologists became involved in the study of the encounter with death as an independent variable that could have important repercussions for a wide variety of social attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). Unfortunately, neither trend seems to benefit from the bulk of knowledge developed by the other, and so Thanatos psychologists have not paid enough attention to the possible behavioral implications of the encounter with death, and social psychologists seem to overlook the complex nature of fear of death. The main purpose of the present study was to bridge between these two trends and to examine the psychological repercussions of fear of death conceived as a multidimensional entity. The human encounter with death has generally been seen as a source of fear, terror, and anxiety for most individuals (Bakan, 1971; Pollack, 1979). However, because emotional reactions to death are manifested in a wide variety of ways, the conceptual- izations and operationalizations of these reactions in early studies were often ambiguous and contradictory (Kastenbaum & Costa, 1977). For example, early studies disagreed as to whether fear of death is a pathological or normal human emotion (Feifel, 1959; Kastenbaum & Aisenberg, 1972; Zilboorg, 1943). In addition, studies have indiscriminately examined the fear of one's own death, the fear of death of others, the fear of dying, and other death concerns (e.g., Kastenbaum, 1992; Nelson & Nelson, 1975). Recently, several important theoretical and operational developments have occurred in the study of fear of death. One major development was the recognition that fear of personal death is not a unitary but a multidimensional concept (Florian & Kravetz, 1983; Hoelter, 1979; Spilka, Stout, Minton, & Sizemore, 1977). Florian and Kravetz (1983) proposed a multidimensional model of fear of personal death, which was developed along the lines of the work of Diggory and Rothman (1965), Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972), and Minton and Spilka (1976). This model suggests that the overt expressions of fear of death consist of three psychological components: the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal consequences of death. Fear of death may be due to the expected impact on mind and body. It may be due to the expected impact on one's own social identity and loved persons. It may also arise from beliefs concerning the transcendental nature of the self and punishment in the hereafter. Florian and Kravetz (1983) confirmed the validity of the model in a factor analytic study, Florian and Har-Even (1984) endorsed its discriminant validity, and Florian and Snowden (1989) generalized it across different ethnic and cultural groups in the United States. Victor Florian and Mario Mikulincer, Department of Psychology, BarIlan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Victor Florian, Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel. Electronic mail may be sent via the Internet to rloriav@ashur.cc.biu.ac.il. Following this multidimensional conceptualization, several studies have examined the impact of psychological and sociological factors on the three components of fear of personal death. For example, these components have been found to vary as a function of gender, religious affiliation, and level of religiosity (Florian & Har-Even, 1984; Florian, Kravetz, & Frankel, 1984; Florian & Snowden, 1989). More recent studies have shown Fear of Death as a Multidimensional Concept 369 370 FLORIAN AND MIKULINCER This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. that direct exposure to death in medical and military situations, as well as personality and psychopathological variables (such as attachment style, several traits assessed by Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory subscales, and suicidal tendencies), appear to explain individual differences in the three components of fear of personal death (Florian & Mikulincer, 1992; Florian, Mikulincer, & Green, 1994; Mikulincer, Florian, & Tblmacz, 1990; Orbach, Kedem, Gorchover, Apter, & TVano, 1993; Unger, Florian, & Zernitski, 1989). It is quite interesting to note that no theoretical or empirical attempts have been made to examine how the components of fear of personal death may influence human cognitions and behaviors. The Repercussions of Fear of Death: Terror Management Theory In parallel, although unrelated to the development of a multidimensional conceptualization of the fear of personal death, terror management theory has proposed a theoretical framework for studying the effects of the salience of one's own mortality on human cognitions and behaviors (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; Solomon et al., 1991). According to this theory, the human abilities of causal analysis, future anticipation, and self-reflection lead to the awareness of one's own vulnerability and ultimate mortality, which, in turn, may be emotionally manifested in anxiety and terror. Terror management theory also proposes the existence of cultural anxiety buffers that function to help individuals manage the terror that arises from the knowledge that they will someday die. In terror management theory terms, culture minimizes this anxiety by providing a conception of the universe (cultural worldview) that imbues the world with order, meaning, and permanence; by providing a set of standards of valued behavior that, if satisfied, provide self-esteem; and by promising protection and, ultimately, death transcendence to those who fulfill the standards of value. (Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992, p. 212) In this way, one can manage the terror of death by maintaining faith and fulfilling the cultural worldview. One basic derivate of terror management theory is that making mortality salient may increase people's sense of terror and create the need for them to validate their cultural worldviews to manage the impinging terror. This validation is hypothesized to occur through the process of social consensus. According to terror management theory, on the one hand, faith in the validity of one's worldview and its effectiveness as an anxiety buffer is strengthened by the knowledge that this worldview is shared by most people. On the other hand, the mere existence of individuals with dissimilar worldviews threatens the validity of one's worldview, thus undermining its effectiveness as a terror management mechanism. Therefore, when people are reminded of their mortality, they usually react positively to ideas and people that validate their own worldviews and negatively to ideas and people that deviate from them. In an initial series of five studies, Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, and Lyon (1989) systematically examined the above hypothesis using different hypothetical scenarios. They simplistically manipulated mortality salience by having participants answer a unidimensional mortality questionnaire that asked them to describe what will happen to them after death. Findings showed that making mortality salient led participants to treat a moral transgressor (a prostitute) in more negative terms and to treat a heroic individual who upheld cherished values in more positive terms. These effects were not mediated by affect, self-awareness, or physiological arousal. In addition, the effect of mortality salience on the reaction to the prostitute was confined only to participants who a priori perceived prostitution as a threat to their own values and views. Following this line of investigation, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Rosenblatt, Veeder, Kirk land, and Lyon (1990) found that the manipulation of mortality salience among a group of Christian students led to more positive evaluations of a Christian person (an in-group member) and more negative evaluations of a Jewish person (an out-group member). They also reported that mortality salience led to positive reactions toward a person who praised participants' cultural worldviews and to negative reactions toward someone who criticized them. These negative reactions following mortality salience were also found toward an individual with opposite opinions, but only among participants who scored high on the authoritarianism scale. A similar pattern of effects was reported by Greenberg et al. (1992), who examined the individual's tolerance to dissimilar political views (conservative vs. liberal). The Present Study In the present study, we attempted to integrate the knowledge gained from studies on the multidimensional nature of fear of personal death with the theoretical assumptions of terror management theory. Specifically, we wanted to examine the relationship between fear of personal death and judgments of social transgressions from a multidimensional perspective. Our point of departure was that fear of personal death, as demonstrated in previous studies, is a multidimensional concept consisting of different meanings that people can attribute to their own death (e.g., intrapersonal and interpersonal). We also assumed that social transgressions are complex entities that can reflect on one or more meanings of personal death. For example, some social transgressions may have direct intrapersonal consequences for the individual, such as body mutilation or a serious damage to life tasks and projects, and therefore they may reflect mainly on the intrapersonal component of fear of personal death. Other kinds of transgressions may have interpersonal consequences, such as serious threats to family members and friends or to one's sense of social identity, and therefore they may reflect mainly on the interpersonal component of fear of death. Consequently, we assumed that only when a transgression impinges on the component of fear of death that characterizes a particular individual will the anxiety-buffer mechanism proposed by terror management theory be activated. As presented above, the basic hypothesis of terror management theory is that reminding people of their own mortality should increase their terror of death and therefore their negative reactions to social transgressions as a mechanism for managing the impinging anxiety. Hoping to refine the above hypothesis, we suggest that the impact of mortality salience on judgments of social transgressions depends on two additional factors: (a) This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. FEAR OF DEATH AND TRANSGRESSIONS the predominant component of fear of personal death that characterizes a particular person and (b) the particular nature of the social transgression. We hypothesize that mortality salience should increase negative reactions to social transgressions mainly when the nature of this transgression fits the predominant component of the individual's fear of death. This type of transgression may raise the individual's awareness of those consequences of death that he or she fears and thus may lead the person to activate terror management mechanisms. In contrast, transgressions that do not reflect on the predominant component of fear of death should not necessarily raise the individual's awareness of his or her own fears and thus should fail to activate terror management mechanisms despite the induction of mortality salience. Study 1 To examine our basic hypothesis, we designed a 2 X 2 X 2 factorial study for the induction of mortality salience (salient vs. nonsalient), participant's intrapersonal fear of death (high vs. low), and participant's interpersonal fear of death (high vs. low). The dependent variables were participant's severity ratings of transgressions with intrapersonal consequences and of transgressions with interpersonal consequences. Fears of death (intrapersonal and interpersonal) were tapped by two subscales of the Fear of Personal Death Scale (FPDS; Florian & Kravetz, 1983). Dependent variables were measured by the Multidimensional Social Transgression Scale (MSTS), which was constructed for the present study. Our basic predictions were as follows: Making death salient will lead people who fear death because of its intrapersonal consequences to react more negatively (as compared with people in the death nonsalient condition) only to a social transgression with intrapersonal consequences. These people will not react more negatively to a social transgression with mainly interpersonal consequences. In addition, the induction of death salience will lead people who fear death because of its interpersonal consequences to react more negatively to a social transgression with interpersonal consequences but not to a transgression with intrapersonal consequences. Method Participants. One hundred ninety undergraduate students from the social science faculty at Bar-Han University volunteered to participate in the study without monetary reward. The sample consisted of 98 women and 92 men, ranging in age from 19 to 27 years (mdn ~ 23 years). Materials. Two scales were used: the FPDS and the MSTS. The FPDS (Florian & Kravetz, 1983) is a self-report scale consisting of three subscales (Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal), which together tap 31 reasons for fear of death to which participants respond on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (totally incorrect for me) to 7 (totally correct for me). Florian and Kravetz (1983) reported adequate test-retest reliability of the scale and performed a factor analysis that revealed six factors (see Florian & Kravetz, 1983, for exact wording and factor loadings). The Intrapersonal subscale is composed of two factors: Fear of Loss of Self-Fulfillment (i.e., "cessation of creative activities") and Fear of Self-Annihilation (i.e., "decomposition of the body' *). The Interpersonal subscale is composed of two additional factors: the Fear of Loss of Social Identity (i.e., "my absence will not be 371 felt") and the Fear of Consequences to Family and Friends (i.e., "inability to provide for family"). The Transpersonal subscale is composed of two other factors: the Fear of the Unknown Nature of Death (i.e., "uncertainty of what to expect") and the Fear of Punishment in the Hereafter. This structure was replicated in several studies across different samples in Israel and in the United States (Florian & Har-Even, 1984; Florian & Mikulincer, 1992; Florian & Snowden, 1989). Because of the theoretical purpose of the present study, we decided to focus only on items of the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal subscales of the FPDS. The six items corresponding to the Transpersonal subscale were dropped from statistical analyses. On this basis, we performed a new factor analysis with varitnax rotation only for the relevant 25 items. This analysis explained 64% of the total variance and replicated the four factors corresponding to the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal subscales. Cronbach's alphas for these four factors were reasonably high (ranging from .75 to .89). In addition, Pearson product-moment correlations demonstrated higher correlations between factors that corresponded to the same subscale of fear of death (.58 and .67) than between factors that corresponded to different subscales (ranging from .25 to .36). In fact, Cronbach's alphas for the two FPDS subscales were high (.87 and .92). We computed two scores representing the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal subscales of the FPDS by averaging relevant items {15 and 10 items, respectively). These scores were dichotomized according to the median of the distributions (3.24 for the Intrapersonal subscale and 2.98 for the Interpersonal subscale). The MSTS was specially constructed for the current study to tap participants' judgments of social transgressions that may have intrapersonal or interpersonal consequences. This scale includes 20 vignettes, each one built as a brief newspaper report, describing (a) the concrete cause of a particular social transgression and (b) the most damaging consequence of the transgression to the victim (see Appendix). We selected this particular type of presentation because it emphasizes the factual, realistic nature of the events. In order to eliminate any possible contextual influence on participants' responses, we presented the information in each vignette as unequivocal fact, without any evaluative judgment and without any personality or sociodemographic details of the offender and the victim. As a means to enhance the apparent truthfulness of the stories and to avoid any response set, we included different types of frequently committed social transgressions, selected according to the legal taxonomy used by the Israeli Ministry of Justice, such as traffic offense, robbery, burglary, forgery, fraud, and medical malpractice. The vignettes were constructed in such a way that the transgressions could be classified into two hypothesized factors, representing either intrapersonal or interpersonal outcomes from the victim's perspective. Intrapersonal consequences were designed to include physical injuries, mental impairments, and damages to the victim's ability to fulfill personal projects and to actualize bis or her own creative potentials. Interpersonal consequences were designed to include damages to the victim's social identity (e.g., social rejection and alienation) and severe harms to his or her family and friends. In this way, the two-factor structure of the scale was built to parallel the intrapersonal and interpersonal components of the FPDS. Participants were requested to carefully read each story and to provide two separate judgments for the particular transgression. First, they evaluated the severity of the transgression on a bipolar 7-point scale, ranging from not severe at all (1) to very severe ( 7 ) . Second, they evaluated the severity of the punishment they felt should be administered to the particular transgression, again on a bipolar 7-point scale, ranging from very light punishment (1) to very heavy punishment ( 7 ) . The process of scale construction began with the collection from the criminal columns of Israeli newspapers of 40 stories reflecting different types of transgressions. These stories served as the initial pool of vignettes, which, after being written in a standardized format, were pre- This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 372 FLORIAN AND MIKULINCER sented to a panel of three independent judges with social and forensic psychological experience. These judges were asked to evaluate the seeming truthfulness of the 40 vignettes and to sort them into those that reflected severe intrapersonal consequences to the victim and those that reflected severe interpersonal outcomes- On this basis, we included in the final version of the scale the 20 most truthful-sounding vignettes on which the judges reached full agreement as to their type of consequences. Thus, the MSTS includes 10 vignettes that clearly tap intrapersonal consequences and 10 vignettes that tap interpersonal consequences. Factor analyses with varimax rotation empirically validated the theoretical interpersonal and personal factors of the MSTS. The factor analysis on the appraisal of transgression severity revealed two main factors (eigenvalue > 1) that explained 59% of the variance. Factor 1 (37%) included the appraisals of the 10 interpersonal-oriented transgressions (loading > .40). Factor 2 (21%) included the appraisals of the 10 personal-oriented transgressions. The factor analysis on punishment ratings also revealed two main factors that explained 58% of the variance. Factor 1 (34%) included the same 10 interpersonal-oriented transgressions. Factor 2 (24%) included the ratings of the 10 personal-oriented transgressions. The Cronbach's alphas for the various factors (ranging from .82 to .91) suggest appropriate internal consistency. On this basis, we computed four total scores (two for each type of transgression) by averaging items loading high on a factor. Higher scores mean that participants appraised transgressions in more severe terms and proposed more severe punishments for them. Pearson product-moment correlations demonstrated that the associations between the two ratings (transgression severity and punishment) within the same category of crimes were higher (.76 and .74) than (a) associations between the two ratings within different categories of transgressions (.34 and .36) and (b) associations between the two categories of transgression within a particular rating (.56 and .44). These results imply that the two categories of transgression (personal and interpersonal) should be viewed as different in dieir psychological contents regardless of the type of evaluated reactions to them (transgression severity and punishment). Procedure. All participants were approached during regular class time, were told that the study concerned the association between personality and social opinions, and were immediately requested to fill out four different questionnaires on these issues. Only 10 individuals refused to participate in the study or did not complete the questionnaires. Thus, of the initial pool of 200 participants, the final sample included 190 participants. The procedure took about 30 min. To manipulate the salience of death, we randomly assigned participants to two experimental conditions according to the order in which they filled out the four questionnaires. This experimental manipulation was based on the design proposed by Rosenblatt et al. (1989). Participants in the death salient condition (n = 95) first completed the FPDS, which we used to bring into consciousness thoughts and fears about death. Then they filled out a general personality scale, which we used only to hide the direct connection between the two research questionnaires, and subsequently completed the MSTS, which measures the study's main dependent variables. Finally, they filled out a brief demographic information sheet. Participants in the death nonsalient condition (n = 95) first completed the MSTS, then completed the general personality questionnaire followed by the FPDS, and finally filled out the demographic information sheet. Results and Discussion The predictions were tested by four-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs), with death salience (salient vs. nonsalient), intrapersonal fear of death (low vs. high), interpersonal fear of death (low vs. high), and category of transgression (personal vs. interpersonal) as the variables. The last variable was treated as a within-subject repeated measurement. The dependent variables were appraisals of transgression severity and punishment ratings. Table 1 presents sample sizes, means, and standard deviations relevant to these analyses. The ANOVAs yielded similar effects for the two ratings. First, they revealed significant main effects of death salience, F{\, 174) = 4.45, p < .05, for severity appraisal, and F ( l , 174) = 11.03, p < .01, for punishment ratings. In line with the basic terror management theory hypothesis, participants in the death salient condition appraised the transgressions as more severe (A/ = 5.05) and proposed more severe punishments {M = 4.77) than participants in the death nonsalient condition (M = 4.86 and M = 4.45, respectively). Second, the main effects of category of transgression were also significant, F( 1, 174) = 87.54, p < .01, for severity appraisal, and F(\, 174) — 66.15, p < .01, for punishment rating. Personal-oriented transgressions were rated in more severe terms (M = 5.16) and received more severe punishments (M = 4.84) than interpersonal-oriented transgressions (M = 4.75 and M = 4.38, respectively). Finally, the analyses revealed significant three-way interactions of Interpersonal Fear of Death X Intrapersonal Fear of Death X Transgression Category, F ( l , 174) = 6.96, p < .01, for severity appraisal, and F(\y 174) = 5.35, p < .05, for punishment ratings. We performed tests for simple main effects (Winer, 1971) to examine the source of the significant three-way interactions. As can be seen in Figure 1, a similar pattern of interaction was found for the two assessed ratings. Personal transgressions were rated as more severe and received more severe punishments than interpersonal transgressions among participants who were high or low in the two fears of death and among those who were high in intrapersonal fear but low in interpersonal fear. This basic difference was not significant only among participants who were low in inlrapersonal fear but high in interpersonal fear. Even more interesting, this last group of participants rated interpersonal transgressions as more severe and personal transgressions as less severe than participants who were low in interpersonal fear (and either low or high in intrapersonal fear). The findings seem to provide powerful support for terror management theory. All people, regardless of their scores in the FPDS and regardless the type of judged transgressions, activated terror management mechanisms in response to reminders of mortality. Moreover, the findings emphasize the importance of the intrapersonal-interpersonal distinction in both fear of death and social transgressions. Beyond the fact that transgressions that have implications for the personal domain of well-being were evaluated in more severe terms than were those that have implications for the interpersonal domain of life, the meaning that participants attributed to their fear of death also determined the way they reacted to the two types of transgressions. Participants tended to evaluate a Iransgression more severely when it was relevant to the meaning they attributed to death and less severely when it did not tap that meaning. It is interesting to note that the highest severity ratings and punishment ratings were made by participants who scored low in the two components of fear of death. This finding is in line with Greenberg, Simon, Harmon-Jones, Solomon, and Pyszczynski's (1995) finding that individuals who reported low fear of death in the Death Anxiety Questionnaire reacted more vigor- 373 FEAR OF DEATH AND TRANSGRESSIONS Table 1 Characteristics of Severity and Punishment Ratings According to Study Groups and Transgression Category Low interpersonal fear Transgression category High interpersonal fear Low personal fear High personal fear Low personal fear M M M SD SD High personal fear SD M SD This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Severity appraisals Death salient Personal transgression Interpersonal transtression Death nonsalient Personal transgression Interpersonal transgression (n = 28) 5.45 0.62 4.75 0.77 (n = 31) 5.19 0.60 4.59 0.61 in = 15) 5.27 0.35 4.62 0.69 (n = 16) 5.26 0.75 4.65 0.59 (n = 17) 0.88 5.20 0.71 5.37 (n = 15) 4.80 0.88 4.75 0.87 (n = 35) 5.17 0.58 4.76 0.66 (n = 33) 4.97 0.63 4.70 0.73 (n = 17) 5.02 1.01 5.18 0.84 (n = 15) 4.32 0.92 4.43 0.83 (n = 35) 4.97 0.75 4.43 0.67 (n = 33) 4.73 0.63 4.54 0.83 Punishment ratings Death salient Personal transgression Interpersonal transgression Death nonsalient Personal transgression Interpersonal transgression (« = 28) 5.24 0.64 4.43 0.90 (« = 31) 4.75 0.71 4.17 0.68 ously to a worldview-threatening agent. The above finding may reflect the action of a denial mechanism by which people who report no conscious concerns about death whatsoever are in fact the most acutely afraid of it. Along this reasoning, these individuals should score high in below-level-of-awareness measures of fear of death, and a positive association between this measure and the strength of mortality salience effects should be found. In the future, researchers should try to tap both aboveand below-level-of-awareness manifestations of the fear of death. Although they support terror management theory, the findings did not support our hypothesis that the effects of death salience would be moderated by the nature of the participant's fear of death and the nature of the judged transgression. In fact, no significant interaction was found between death salience, type of transgression, and one or both of the assessed fears of death. The data show that (a) death salience leads to harsher evaluations of moral transgressions independent of type of death fear or transgression, and (b ) independent of mortality salience, people respond most harshly to transgressions that coincide with the aspects of death they most fear. This failure to support our hypothesis may be due to our use of a unidimensional manipulation of mortality salience. In this study, we manipulated mortality salience by exposing every participant in the death salient condition to the entire FPDS, which might have increased both intrapersonal and interpersonal death concerns and might have blurred the differential effects of such a manipulation on each of the components of fear of death. The most appropriate way to test our hypothesis may be to manipulate mortality salience using either the Intrapersonal or the Interpersonal subscale of the FPDS. Half of the mortality salient participants would thus be exposed to intrapersonal reminders of death that may or may not correspond to their death concerns, {« = 15) 5.10 0.50 4.09 0.83 (« = 16) 4.64 0.81 4.01 0.62 whereas the other half of the mortality salient participants would be exposed to interpersonal reminders of death that may also fit (or not) their fear of death. In this case, our hypothesis would be supported if the effects of death salience were stronger when the particular mortality salience manipulation fit the individual's concerns about death and the type of judged transgression. This possibility was directly examined in Study 2. Study 2 Study 2 examined the possibility that the failure to find a significant interaction between death salience, death concerns, and category of transgressions in Study 1 resulted from using a unidimensional manipulation of death salience. We conceptually replicated the design of Study 1, with the exception that we compared the death nonsalient condition with two different types of death salient conditions: (a) a condition in which intrapersonal aspects of death were made salient (intrapersonal salience), and (b) a condition in which interpersonal aspects of death were made salient (interpersonal salience). Specifically, we designed a 3 X 2 x 2 factorial study for the death salience (nonsalient vs. intrapersonal salient vs. interpersonal salient), participant's intrapersonal fear of death (high vs. low), and interpersonal fear of death (high vs. low). The dependent variables were severity ratings of personal- and interpersonal-oriented social transgressions. Our predictions were the following: 1. As compared with the death nonsalient condition, making salient intrapersonal aspects of death will produce more severe ratings only among individuals who are high in intrapersonal fear of death and are asked to judge personal transgressions. This salience induction will have no effect for persons who are low in the intrapersonal fear of death or for the judgment of interpersonal transgressions. 374 FLORIAN AND MIKUL1NCER _._ Personal Transgression ..*.. Interpersonal Transgression Mean Severity Rating 5.5 5.3 5.1 4.7 4.5 L lntra~L Inter L lntra~H Inter H Intra—L Inter H Intra--H Inter Fear of Death Components Mean Punishment Rating 4.8 / 4.6 - 4.4 - 4.2 - ' * \ * \ Results and Discussion *- This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 4.9 basis, we computed two scores representing intrapersonal and interpersonal fears by averaging items of each subscale. These scores were dichotomized into high and low scores according to the median of the distributions (3.42 for the intrapersonal subscale and 3.09 for the interpersonal subscale). Alphas for the severity ratings in the Interpersonal and Personal subscales of the MSTS also were high (.89 and .92, respectively). On this basis, we computed two scores by averaging items corresponding to each subscale. Higher scores mean that participants appraised transgressions in more severe terms. Because punishment ratings were highly correlated with severity appraisals (rs = .77 and .71) and the findings for these ratings resembled those of severity appraisals, we decided to report only the results of the analyses conducted on severity ratings. Participants were approached during regular class time and were given instructions similar to those described in Study 1. To manipulate the salience of death, we randomly assigned participants to three conditions according to the order in which they completed the scales. Participants in the death nonsalient condition (n = 55) first completed the MSTS, with no induction of death concerns. After completing out the MSTS, participants completed the FPDS subscales (intrapersonal and interpersonal) . The order of these subscales was randomized across participants. In the intrapersonal death salient condition (n = 59), we made death salient by asking participants to complete the Intrapersonal FPDS subscale (consisting of 15 items) before completing the MSTS. The Interpersonal FPDS subscale (consisting of 10 items) was the last questionnaire to be answered. In the interpersonal death salient condition (n - 49). we made death salient by asking participants to complete the Interpersonal FPDS subscale before completing the MSTS and then the Inlrapersonal FPDS subscale. In all conditions, we asked participants to answer brief attitude scales between the MSTS and the FPDS subscales to mask the connection between the scales. A n L lntra~L Inter L Intra--H Inter H lntra~L Inter H Intra—H Inter Fear of Death Components Figure 1. Means of severity and punishment ratings according to interpersonal fear of death, personal fear of death, and transgression category. L = low; H = high; Intra = inlrapersonal fear of death; Inter = interpersonal fear of death. 2. As compared with the death nonsalient condition, making salient interpersonal aspects of death will produce more severe ratings only among individuals who scored high in interpersonal fear of death and are asked to judge interpersonal transgressions. This salience induction will have no effect for persons who are low in the interpersonal fear of death or for the judgment of personal transgressions. Method Participants, One hundred sixty-three undergraduate students from the social science faculty at Bar-Ilan University volunteered to participate in the study without monetary reward. The sample consisted of 104 women and 59 men, ranging in age from 19 to 29 years (mdn = 23 years). Materials and procedure. The same self-report scales used in Study 1 were also used in this study: the FPDS and the MSTS. Alphas for FPDS items corresponding to the interpersonal and intrapersonal subscales of fear of death were reasonably high (.86 and .93, respectively). On this Variations in the appraisal of transgression severity were analyzed with four-way ANO\ft.s for death salience (nonsalient vs. interpersonal salient vs. intrapersonal salient), intrapersonal fear of death (low vs. high), interpersonal fear of death (low vs. high), and category of transgression (personal vs. interpersonal) as the factors. The last factor was treated as a withinsubject repeated measurement. Table 2 presents means, standard deviations, and sample sizes relevant to the analysis. The ANOVA replicated the significant three-way interaction found in Study 1 between Intrapersonal Fear of Death x Interpersonal Fear of Death X Category of Transgression, F( 1, 151) = 5.38, p < .05. Simple main effect tests showed again that participants reacted most negatively to transgressions that coincided with the aspects of death they most feared. On the one hand, participants who were high in intrapersonal fear but low in interpersonal fear rated personal transgressions in more severe terms (M = 5.42) than they rated interpersonal transgressions (M = 5.06). On the other hand, participants who were high in interpersonal fear but low in intrapersonal fear rated interpersonal transgressions in more severe terms (Af = 5.34) than they rated personal transgressions (M = 4.89). Although participants who were high or low in both FPDS subscales rated personal transgressions more severely than interpersonal ones (M = 5.46 vs. M = 5.22, M = 5.10 vs. M - 4.90, respectively), this difference was not statistically significant. However, the most original findings of Study 2 consisted of significant three-way interactions for Death Salience X Intrapersonal Fear of Death X Category of Transgression. F(2, 151) = 3.28, p < .05, and 375 FEAR OF DEATH AND TRANSGRESSIONS Table 2 Characteristics of Appraisal of Transgression Severity According to Study Groups and Transgression Category High interpersonal fear Low interpersonal fear This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Transgression category Intrapersonal death salience Personal transgression Interpersonal transgression Interpersonal death salience Personal transgression Interpersonal transgression Death nonsalient Personal transgression Interpersonal transgrsesion Low personal fear High personal fear M M SD (n = 19) 5.12 0.91 5.03 0.88 (n = 14) 5.19 0.76 4.70 0.75 (« = 17) 5.01 0.88 4.89 0.78 for Death Salience x Interpersonal Fear of Death X Category of Transgression, F(2, 151) = 4.67, p < .05. The source of the significant interaction between death salience, intrapersonal fear of death, and category of transgression was analyzed with separate two-way ANOVAs for death salience and fear of death in each category of transgression. The error term of this analysis was taken from the global four-way ANGVA. With regard to personal transgressions, the ANOVA revealed a significant interaction between death salience and intrapersonal fear of death, F(2, 151) = 5.30, p < .01. Tests for simple main effects revealed that the induction of intrapersonal death salience had a significant effect for participants who scored high in the intrapersonal fear of death but not for participants who scored low in this fear. Participants high in the intrapersonal fear of death made more severe appraisals of personal transgressions when the intrapersonal aspects of death were made salient than when interpersonal aspects were made salient or when no aspect of death was made salient. No difference was found between the interpersonal death salient and the death nonsalient condition. The ANOVA for interpersonal transgressions revealed no significant effects for death salience and intrapersonal fear. As can be seen in Figure 2, the data indicated that making salient the intrapersonal component of death produced more severe ratings only among participants who feared this aspect of death and only for the appraisal of personal transgressions. Such a manipulation of death salience did not affect the judgments of participants who had low intrapersonal fear of death, and it was irrelevant for the appraisal of interpersonal transgressions. It is important to note that making salient interpersonal aspects of death did not affect the appraisal of participants classified according to their intrapersonal fear of death. In fact, the pattern of findings fits our predictions: Terror management mechanisms (more severe ratings) were activated only when situational death salience, the participant's predominant fear of death, and the judged transgression all focused on the same life domain: intrapersonal concerns. The source of the significant interaction between death salience, interpersonal component of fear of death, and category SD (n = 5.69 5.21 (n = 5.33 4.95 11) 0.82 0.81 ii) 1.03 0.89 (n = ! 5.15 4.93 0.89 0.91 Low personal fear High personal fear M M SD (n 4.24 4.67 = 9) 1.04 0.97 (« = ID 5.18 0.82 5.80 0.78 (n = 9 ) 5.20 0.94 5.47 0.73 SD (n = 20) 5.87 0.57 5.01 0.91 (n = 16) 5.21 1.06 5.65 0.74 (n = 20) 5.24 0.84 5.11 0.78 of transgression was also analyzed with separate two-way ANOVAs for death salience and fear of death in each category of transgression. With regard to interpersonal-oriented transgressions, the ANOVA revealed a significant interaction between death salience and the interpersonal fear of death, F(2, 151) = 7.12, p < .01. Tests for simple main effects revealed that the induction of interpersonal death salience had a significant effect for participants who scored high in interpersonal fear of death but not for participants who scored low in this variable. Participants high in interpersonal fear of death made more severe ratings of interpersonal transgressions when interpersonal aspects of death were made salient than when intrapersonal aspects were made salient or when no aspect of death was made salient. No difference was found between intrapersonal death salient and death nonsalient conditions. The ANOVA for personal trans- Mean Severity Rating 6.0 r ..o.. Low Intra, Personal Transgression ..*.. Low Intra, Interpersonal Transgression -o_ High Intra, Personal Transgression _•_ High Intra, Interpersonal Transgression 5.7 5.4 5.1 4.8 4.5 Nonsalient Inter Salient Intra Salient Death Salience Manipulation Figure 2. Means of severity ratings according to death salience, intrapersonal fear of death, and category transgression. Intra = intrapersonal; Inter = interpersonal. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 376 FLORIAN AND MIKULLNCER gressions revealed no significant main effects or interactions for death salience and interpersonal fear of death. As can be seen in Figure 3, the data showed that making salient the interpersonal component of death led to more severe ratings only among participants who feared this aspect of death and only for the appraisal of interpersonal transgressions. This induction of death salience did not affect the appraisal of participants who had low interpersonal fear of death, and it failed to affect the appraisal of personal transgressions. Moreover, making salient intrapersonal aspects of death did not affect the appraisal of participants classified according to their interpersonal fear of death. Again, these findings fit our predictions: Terror management mechanisms were activated only when death salience, the participant's predominant fear of death, and the judged transgression all focused on the same life domain: interpersonal concerns. To provide a more stringent test of the hypothesis that the impact of death salience depends on the predominant component of the individual's fear of death, we performed planned comparisons examining two groups with a specific predominant tear of death: participants who scored high in intrapersonal fear and low in interpersonal fear versus those who scored high in interpersonal fear and low in intrapersonal fear. Participants who had a global, undifferentiated fear of death (high or low in both components) were excluded from the comparisons. These analyses were performed in each death salience condition for each type of transgression, and the error term was taken from the global ANOVA. In the nonsalient condition, no significant differences were found between the two groups. In the intrapersonal death salient condition, participants who scored high only in intrapersonal fear made more severe appraisals of intrapersonal transgressions than participants who scored high only in interpersonal fear, F ( l , 151 ) = 10.94, p < .0\. This difference was not significant for interpersonal transgressions. In the interpersonal death salient condition, participants who scored high Mean Severity Rating 6.0 r ..O..Low Inter, Personal Transgression ..*.. Low Inter, Interpersonal Transgression _o_ High Inter, Personal Transgression _•_ High Inter, Interpersonal Transgression 5.7 5.4 5.1 4.8 4.5 Nonsalient Inter Salient Intra Salient Death Salience Manipulation Figure 3. Means of severity ratings according to death salience, interpersonal fear of death, and category transgression. Intra = intrapersonal; Inter = interpersonal. only in interpersonal fear appraised interpersonal transgressions more severely than participants who scored high only in intrapersonal fear, F ( l , 151) = 5.22, p < .05. This difference was not significant for intrapersonal transgressions. As can be seen, these comparisons further supported our basic hypothesis. The results of Study 2 justify the multidimensional manipulation of death salience and prove that the failure to support our predictions in Study 1 may have been due to the operationalization of the death salience construct. Taken as a whole, the findings suggest that the effects of death depend on three factors: the aspect of death that is made salient, the aspect of death that the participant most fears, and the type of the judged transgression. Terror management mechanisms appear to be activated only when there is a fit between these three factors. General Discussion The present two studies represent a systematic attempt to integrate two separate bodies of knowledge into a unified theoretical framework, which could provide a better understanding of the psychological significance of the individual's encounter with mortality. Our findings shed light on the psychological processes regarding the terror of one's own mortality that may underlie the way people judge social transgressions. Moreover, our findings emphasize that social judgments are not the exclusive product of the intemalization of social norms and values; they also may be influenced by the symbolic encounter with the threat of death and the meaning that the individual attaches to this encounter. Specifically, judgments of social transgressions were found to be influenced by both the way people perceive the consequences of their own death and the manipulation of death salience. The observed association between judgments of social transgressions and the components of fear of death was in line with a multidimensional conceptualization of fear of death (Florian & Kravetz, 1983). Participants tended to judge a social transgression more severely when it was relevant to the meaning they attributed to their own fear of death. Stated more precisely, participants who feared death because of its intrapersonal consequences reacted more negatively to those stories in which the transgressions have direct intrapersonal repercussions, whereas participants who feared death because of its interpersonal consequences reacted more negatively to those vignettes in which the transgressions have direct interpersonal repercussions. In interpreting ihis finding, one can assume that the concerns people have regarding their own mortality seem to be projected onto their judgements of social transgressions that are relevant to these concerns. That is, the judgment of a social transgression seems to be a function of the relevance that it has to the specific meanings people attach to their own mortality. The observed effects of the manipulation of death salience require a more complex analysis and operationalization of this construct. Stated more specifically, one should differentiate between making death salient in a global, undifferentiated way and making salient specific aspects of death in a more differentiated way. In the first case, when a simple, global induction of death salience was used (as in Study 1), the findings were in keeping with the major terror management theory hypotheses. Replicating Rosenblatt et al.'s (1989) findings, participants This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. FEAR OF DEATH AND TRANSGRESSIONS who were reminded of their own mortality tended to react more negatively toward people who offended their cultural worldviews by committing social transgressions than did participants in the death nonsalient condition. Moreover, the findings further validate terror management theory on three aspects. First, terror management theory hypotheses were found to be generalizable from American participants to other, different cultural groups such as Israeli college students. Second, the hypothesized effect of death salience, previously observed in a single type of social transgression (prostitution), was found to be generalizable across different types of social transgressions. Third, this effect was found also to generalize across individual differences in the psychological meaning attached to fear of personal death. However, when specific components of death were made salient (as in Study 2), the basic terror management theory hypotheses should have been refined. Findings indicate that death salience activates terror management mechanisms only when there is a fit between the particular aspects of death that are made salient, the component of death that people most fear, and the type of judged transgression. Specifically, terror management mechanisms were found to be activated only (a) when people who fear intrapersonal consequences of death were exposed to a reminder of this specific fear and were asked to judge transgressions that also have intrapersonal outcomes and (b) when people who fear the interpersonal consequences of death were exposed to a reminder of this specific fear and were asked to judge transgressions that also have interpersonal repercussions. The above findings do not necessarily contradict the basic premises of terror management theory. In fact, the theory directly posits that exaggerated worldview defense will occur only when the issue in question is personally relevant to the individual. Accordingly, Rosenblatt et al. (1989) found that mortality salience produced increased bond assessments for alleged prostitutes only for people who believed that prostitution is morally reprehensible. However, the finding that people with specific concerns about death do not respond to mortality salience manipulations that pertain to aspects of death that they do not fear constitutes an important qualification of the circumstances in which mortality salience effects will occur. This shows that different people are going to be motivated to defend their worldviews in response to the salience of different aspects of death. In our terms, because fear of death is a multidimensional phenomenon, its impact on terror management mechanisms should depend on the extent to which a person-environment transaction touches on those specific meanings that an individual attributes to his or her own death. Thus, people will activate terror management mechanisms particularly when those issues about which they are afraid to lose battles in the encounter with death are made salient and are threatened in a transaction. In other words, every person has unique concerns about the consequences of his or her own death, and then when environmental transactions make salient and threaten these concerns, the individual will be prone to strongly react in order to manage the threat. Our interpretation is closely related to Lazarus's (1991) transactional-cognitive-motivational theory of emotion. According to Lazarus, the experience of emotions and the consequent activation of coping responses depends on the appraisal 377 component of goal relevance, o r ' 'the extent to which an encounter touches on personal goals—that is, whether or not there are issues in the encounter about which the person cares or in which there is a personal stake" (Lazarus, 1991, pp. 149-150). No emotion will be experienced and no coping response will be activated when the encounter has no relevance to personal goals. If there is goal relevance, particular emotions and coping strategies will be aroused depending on other appraisal components. In applying Lazarus's formulation to our line of thinking, the encounter includes the increase in the salience of specific aspects of death and the exposure to a particular social transgression; the emotion is the sense of threat and terror related to one's own mortality, and the coping response is the activation of terror management mechanisms. Thus, the induction of death salience and the exposure to a particular social transgression will raise the individual's sense of threat and will activate terror management mechanisms mainly when they have direct or symbolic relevance to those consequences of death in which there is a personal stake. This line of interpretation raises an important question as to the psychological meaning of the personally relevant consequences of death. One possibility is that these components of fear of death represent the basic goals and concerns that people have in life. This reasoning implies that the terror of death stems from fundamentally different concerns in different people, each one reflecting the most important goals and aspirations that a person pursues in life and the aspect of identity that defines him or her. Another possibility is that although fear of death is an organismic annihilation anxiety that all people share, the kind of conscious thought that will arouse this deeply rooted fear depends on the nature of the defensive system that a person uses to control these concerns. For example, a low score in intrapersonal fear of death may reflect the action of a denial mechanism and the fact that a person cannot consciously acknowledge this fear. In fact, it is hard to imagine anyone not being bothered by the intrapersonal aspects of death: nonexistence, cessation of activities, body decay. This intriguing possibility should be tested in further studies using below-level-ofawareness measures of fear of death. It is interesting to point out that in the two reported studies, the observed association between judgments of social transgressions and the components of fear of personal death was also found in the death nonsalient condition. Thus, it seems that even without raising the salience of one's own mortality, a social transgression that touches the individuals' specific concerns in regard to death could initially elicit terror management mechanisms and therefore lead to more negative judgments. That is, terror management mechanisms are not only activated by the overt and direct encounter with one's mortality but also might be initially activated by situations that can be symbolically related to the person's concerns about death. However, findings of Study 2 indicated that this initial activation of terror management mechanisms is further increased when individuals are exposed to reminders of death that are relevant to their specific death concerns. In light of the findings and their interpretation, we would like to propose an integrative flowchart describing the activation of terror management mechanisms. According to this model, there are three logical steps in the activation of these mechanisms. 378 FLORIAN AND M1KULINCER This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Initially, there should be an encounter with a threat to one's cultural worldviews. However, this condition is not sufficient to elicit terror management responses. In the second step, the above threat should have relevance to those consequences of death in which there is a personal stake. This condition may initiate the action of terror management mechanisms and may lead the person to react, cognitively or behaviorally, in accordance with these protective devices. The third step, the induction of death salience, seems to increase the strength of terror management responses only when it has relevance to the person's death concerns. If the above line of interpretation is correct, the flowchart can be applied not only in explaining judgments of transgressions but also in explaining other social phenomena, such as those examined in previous terror management theory studies. For example, Greenberg et al.'s (1990) and Greenberg et al.'s (1992) findings that death salience leads to more positive evaluations of an in-group person and more negative evaluations of an out-group person might be qualified by both the type of the to-be-evaluated traits and the way the evaluator perceives the consequences of his or her death. Finally, a note of caution is required because social judgments are not an exclusive product of mortality salience but also may be shaped by cultural values and norms. In Study 1, we found a by-product effect that probably reflects the impact of these norms: All participants tended to rate intrapersonal transgressions in more severe terms than interpersonal transgressions. This effect emphasizes the need to examine terror management theory hypotheses in different cultural settings. References Bakan, D. (1971). Disease, pain, and sacrifice: Toward a psychology of suffering. Boston: Beacon Press. Diggory, J. G., & Rothman, D. Z. (1965). Values destroyed by death. In R. Fulton (Ed.), Death and identity (pp. 123-148). New York; Wiley. Feifel, H. (1959). The meaning of death. New "fork: McGraw-Hill. Florian, V., & Har-Even, D. (1984). Fear of personal death: The effects of sex and religious belief. Omega, 14, 83-91. Florian, V, & Kravetz, S. (1983). Fear of personal death: Attribution, structure, and relation to religious belief. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 600-607. Florian, V, Kravetz, S., & Frankel, J. (1984). Aspects of fear of personal death, levels of awareness, and religious commitment- Journal of Research in Personality, 18, 289-304. Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1992). The impact of death-risk experiences and religiosity on the fear of personal death: The case of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon. Omega, 24, 101-111. Florian, V., Mikulincer, M., & Green, E. (1994). Fear of personal death and the MMPI profile of middle-age men: The moderating impact of personal losses. Omega, 28, 151-164. Florian, V, & Snowden, L. (1989). Fear of personal death and positive life regard: A study of different ethnic and religious-affiliated American college students. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 20, 6 4 79. Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of the need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self'(pp. 189-207). New "Vbrk: Springer. Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T, Solomon, S., Rosenblatt, A., Veeder, M., Kirkland, S., & Lyon, D. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 308-318. Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Harmon-Jones, E., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T (1995). Testing alternative explanations for mortality salience effects: Terror management, value accessibility, or worrisome thoughts? European Journal of Social Psychology, 12, 417-433. Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T, Solomon, S., & Chatel, D. (1992). Terror management and tolerance: Does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one's worldview? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 212— 220. Hoelter, J. (1979). Multidimensional treatment of fear of death. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47, 996-999. Kastenbaum, R. (1992). The psychology of death. New "fork: Springer. Kastenbaum, R., & Aisenberg, R. (1972). The psychology of death. New \brk: Springer. Kastenbaum, R., & Costa, P. T. (1977). Psychological perspectives on death. Annual Review of Psychology, 28, 225-249. Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New \brk: Oxford University Press. Mikulincer, M., Florian, V, & Tblmacz, R. (1990). Attachment styles and fear of personal death: A case study of affect regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 273-280. Minton, R., & Spilka, B. (1976). Perspectives on death in relation to powerlessness and form of personal religion. Omega, 7, 261-268. Neimeyer, R. A. (1988). Death anxiety. In H. Wass, F. M. Berardo, & R. A. Neimeyer (Eds.), Dying: Facing the facts (pp. 97-136). New "fork: Hemisphere. Neimeyer, R. A. (Ed.). (1994). Death anxiety handbook: Research, instrumentation and application. New "York: Taylor & Francis. Nelson, L. D., & Nelson, C C . (1975). A factor analytic inquiry into the multidimensionality of death anxiety. Omega. 6, 171-178. Orbach, I., Kedem, P., Gorchover, O., Apter, A., & lyano, S. (1993). Fears of death in suicidal and nonsuicidal adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 553-558. Pollack, J. M. (1979). Correlates of death anxiety: A review of empirical studies. Omega, 10, 97-121. Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Lyon, D. (1989). Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 681 -690. Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1991). A terror management theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of selfesteem and cultural worldviews. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 93-159). New York: Academic Press. Spilka, B., Stout, L., Minton, B., & Sizemore, D. (1977). Death and personal faith: A psychometric investigation. Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, 16, 169-178. Unger, L., Florian, V., & Zernitski, E. (1989). Aspects of fear of personal death, levels of awareness and professional affiliation among dialysis unit staff members. Omega, 21, 51-67. Winer, B. J. (1971). Statistical principles in experimental designs. New York: McGraw-Hill. Zilboorg, G. (1943). Fear of death. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 12, 4 6 5 475. 379 FEAR OF DEATH AND TRANSGRESSIONS Appendix Multidimensional Social Transgression Scale Vignettes This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Interpersonal Transgressions 2. "My father was the main victim," says the owner of an old metal factory that collapsed following a conspiracy of the factory's accountant together with a competing company. "I got over it. I have new, fascinating plans for the future, but I don't think that my father's broken heart can be fixed; he established the factory, ran it for years, and transferred it to my hands anticipating its expansion and success. Since its closing, his world has darkened as if the loss of the factory was accompanied by a loss of his will to live.'' 3. "The vehicle hit me, but my son is the victim," said the teacher who was hit in front of his son's eyes while a young driver drove through the residential area at a speed of 100 mph. "Half a year after the accident, I have totally recovered, and he is still afraid of the sound of a car. He can't travel in a moving vehicle. He walks to and from school, which is two miles from our house, trying to avoid all roads. The boy who was happy and carefree has turned anxious and paranoid." 4. A false identification of the AIDS virus in the body of a young man caused him social isolation. "My girlfriend and my close friends all became afraid and left me. Even my peers in my dance club, which was the focus of my social life, rejected me from the group. I became dangerous to society. Even now, when the mistake is clear, people are still nervous, not willing to take risks, and I blame no one but the doctor who was too busy to take a second look at the test results." 7. The boy's social life was destroyed by the accident caused by the drunken driver who veered toward the sidewalk and hit the boy. The child said, "For a year I had to rest in the hospital and at home. My body gradually recovered, but I was forgotten by my friends, who went on with their lives. I don't have any way to go back to the ways things were—they all went to junior high in a different school, and I was left back a grade and have to start again. I don't belong to the old cliques or the new ones. T simply don't belong." 8. "The mother's wounds will heal, but her daughter's wounded soul will forever remain," according to the psychologist who treated the girl upon hearing of the capture of the driver of the Subaru who hit the mother and escaped. The daughter, age five, who was orphaned from her father when she was one year old, was separated from her mother due to her mother's hospitalization for over a year. 15. A cruel revenge was taken by the kibbutz secretary on a member who was going to inform on money mismanagement. The secretary input false information into the computer about stolen money from the reparation accounts of members who were Holocaust survivors. This money was entrusted to the member, who was removed from the kibbutz. When the story unfolded, the member said, "For three years I was considered an enemy of the society, as if on my forehead was the mark of a robber of elders. Even my close friends didn't believe me. Today they all understand, but I lost my trust in this society in which I grew up, felt a part of, but then betrayed me." 16. The burglar uncovered the secret of the kibbutz member and turned him into a pariah. In his retreat, the burglar spread letters in the kibbutz's yard depicting the member's homosexual tendencies. This exposure forced the member to leave the kibbutz. "This kibbutz is a small, pressured place which caused me to hide my sexual tendencies. This was my way to remain a part of the place that I grew up in. Now I'm homeless, with all their looks, comments, fears for their sons . . . I can't feel like I belong. I am not wanted anymore." 17. In the confusion left by the burglar, the 10-year-old girl found her adoption papers on the living room table. In his opening statement about the burglary, the father said. "My wife's jewelry that was passed from generation to generation, money we saved over the years—these losses are dwarfed compared with my girl's tragedy. She is too young to deal with this. Since she found out, she hasn't spoken and almost never leaves her room, as if she's trying to disappear." 18. A faulty diagnosis of the specialist brought turmoil to the family. The doctor diagnosed the girl with a rare liver disease that required treatment overseas. The parents sank into debt to finance the stay abroad, and the treatment was found to be unnecessary. The father said in anger, "When he heard of the mistake, the doctor said, 'Be happy that she's healthy,' but it's very hard to be happy. We've been left without an apartment, when we're barely able to feed our four children and all their childhood pleasures were denied them." 20. "I've been excommunicated forever," said the youth, who was incriminated by the police investigator as an accomplice to a terror organization. The investigator brought evidence in a systematic way, which led to the conviction of the youth as revenge after a continuous neighbors' quarrel. "Three years I sat in jail for no wrongdoing on my part, and even now that his lie has come out, I am still guilty; they still see me as a traitor, and none of my friends is willing to be seen with me . . . nothing can turn the clock back.'' Personal Transgressions 1. A frustrated burglar destroyed the life masterpiece of the renowned sculptor, one week before its completion and display to the public. The burglar, disappointed from the small booty, tied up the sculptor and in front of his eyes hit the ceramic sculpture with a heavy hammer until it shattered. The stunned sculptor: "Nineteen years of work—the best of my talent, turned into a pile of rubble." 5. The talented pianist's fingers betrayed him; his typically lighthanded playing, his unique touch on the keys, the familiar virtuosity were not seen or heard. . . . The young genius's first concert following his recovery from the accident conclusively proved that the young girl who drove through a red light damaged his body lightly, but destroyed the pianist's career. 6. The doctor mixed up the records of two patients with the same last name and amputated the leg of the wrong patient.' 'I was anesthetized for a simple operation on my knee and woke up without a leg. It's impossible thai my leg is gone," said the woman, staring in disbelief at the empty space on her bed where her left leg was supposed to be. 9. "The senior doctor's decision to cut the young woman's womb unnecessarily was based on his arrogance and use of only partial information." Such was the judge's conclusion at the end of the doctor's trial. Leaving the courtroom, the young woman said, "I'll never be a complete person again. I have three children and did not intend to have more, but still a major part of my identity is lost forever. Is there anything that can compensate for this?1' 10. A faulty medicine caused the amputation of the youth's leg. Economic reasons caused the pharmaceutical company to market a series of faulty medicines instead of destroying it. This was revealed by the doctor of the boy, who suffered from diabetes and as a result of this had to have his foot amputated. "We thought of everything but this; for two weeks his situation deteriorated . . . who would imagine that the major medicine produced by such an established company is the cause? It is hard enough when one is forced to amputate an adult's foot, and he is so young. . . . " (Appendix continues) This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. 380 FLORIAN AND MIKULINCER 11. "A dreadful emptiness surrounds me, childhood memories, memories of my dead parents, the songs, the loves . . . all my past erased as if it never was." This emotional description was heard from a young man who was hurt in a car accident when a commercial vehicle tailgated and crashed forcefully into the young man's car. His head injury caused the erasure of his life's memories. 12. A negligent operation of removing a blister from the vocal chords of the promising opera singer caused her perpetual hoarseness. The woman sued the surgeon for the loss of her musical future. "I can talk, sing in the shower, maybe even for friends," she told the judge, "but since my childhood I wanted to be an opera singer. I have the talent and I had the appropriate voice, and now it's gone forever." 13. The burglar stole a revolutionary computer program developed by the young scientist. A similar program was marketed soon after by a major corporation. "This program was the key to my professional future,' * said the young scientist. ' 'This market is quick, wild, and full of talent. The opportunity to invent something unique is rare. I doubt if I'll ever have another chance to advance to the front of the line." 14. Theheadof the needy students' scholarship fund escaped overseas with the grant money. The students' representative: "He ran away with our future; none of us can continue our studies—we have no other resources. The academic degree was supposed to enable us to get out of this situation, and now the door is closed; reality has pushed the dream far away, who knows, maybe forever." 19. The owner of a cement factory was sued for the youth's loss of sight. His promise made 15 years ago to install new filters on his smokestacks wasn't fulfilled because of economic reasons. The youth, who lived his whole life neighboring the factory, said: "Their greed cost me my health; any financial compensation, no matter how large—I will never recover from mis loss.'' Received May 17, 1996 Revision received August 26, 1996 Accepted August 27, 1996 The Journal of Social Psychology, 1963, 59, 137-145. SOME VARIABLES IN DEATH ATTITUDES* Los Angeles State College RICHARD A. KALISH A. INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE Although theologians, philosophers, and private citizens have been concerned, sometimes to the point of preoccupation, with death, social scientists have devoted little effort to investigating death attitudes and their consequences. Jung perceived death as the central problem of the latter half of life, as sex is of the earlier part; however, Freud's followers tended to consider death anxieties to he displaced castration anxieties or separation anxieties. Until recently, little had appeared in the psychological literature on death attitudes. In the 1930s, Bromberg and Schilder (4) and Middleton (10) investigated the feelings of college students and other groups hy questionnaires and interviews. They report that most 5s indicated little concern with death; they were either unafraid of death or indifferent to it. Death appeared to be a very unreal entity to most of them. Later, in 1948, Nagy (11) studied the developmental changes in attitudes of children toward death, as reported by Budapest schoolchildren. More recently, Alexander and Adlerstein (1) made use of Nagy's study to explore ages at which death anxieties are most acute in children. In the past few years, several studies on death attitudes have been conducted, many involving feelings of elderly persons. Swenson (12) learned that only 10 per cent of a sample of 210 5s over sixty years of age admitted to being afraid of death, data that corresponds to the studies of college students mentioned above. 5s who tended to look forward to death, relatively speaking, with anticipation were those who evinced more acceptance of religious ideas. Swenson also determined that college-trained 5s were either more positive or more overtly fearful; those with less education tended to avoid consideration of death. Feifel (6) reported that many dying patients wish to talk of death and are unhappy that so much effort is made by family members and the medical profession to avoid such conversation. In addition to the study of children, Alexander and Adlerstein have conducted other important work in this area. In 1957 they embedded death* Received in the Editorial Office on March 27, 1961. 137 138 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY associated words in a word association test administered to college students (3) ; both time latency and galvanic skin response measures indicated significantly more arousal on death-associated words than on comparable neutral words. The authors felt that this refuted the earlier studies that students were indifferent to thoughts of death. A later study (2) showed no quantitative diflerences in measures of death anxieties between religious and irreligious students, although the authors discuss numerous qualitative differences. Additional evidence of the increasing interest in this area of investigation is a study by Fulton (8) on the attitudes of the clergy toward funerals, which received attention in a widely circulated national magazine. Also a recent book of writings, edited by Feifel (7), contains articles by Jung, Walter Kaufmann, Gardner Murphy, and others; topics ranged from death attitudes of adolescents to death as portrayed in contemporary art. The present study is an exploratory investigation of attitudes toward different methods of destroying life and the relationships of these attitudes to religious beliefs. The variables selected as methods of destroying life include birth control, euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, and wartime killing; the religious beliefs included are belief in God, belief in after-life and religious affiliation: another variable included was overtly expressed fear of death. The purpose of this study is three-fold: (a) to explore the relationships among the variables related to destroying life, belief in God and after-life, and fear of death; (b) to determine differences among religious groups for each variable; and (c) to determine sex and age differences on each variable. B. METHOD A form was prepared to measure attitudes toward the six death-related issues and the two religious issues. The total form consisted of thirty-two Likert-type items, sixteen of which dealt with such topics as federal aid to education, segregation, public housing, etc. These items were added to obscure the purpose of the form, which was titled Attitude on Social Issues; none of the iSs perceived the nature of the attitude survey. The pertinent sixteen items related to Birth Control, Abortion, Euthanasia, Wartime Killing, Capital Punishment, Fear of Death, Belief in After-life and Belief in God. Two items, one worded positively and the other worded negatively, related to each issue, the purpose being to eliminate any effect of response set. The sequence of presentation of the thirty-two items was random. Each S was asked to indicate his feeling on the issue by circling the symbols SA, A, ?, D, or SD to show Strong Agreement through Strong Disagreement. RICHARD A. KALISH 139 Equal-appearing intervals were assumed, and five points were given for a favorable response, four for a moderately favorable response, etc. A favorable response was considered to be SA when the item was worded positively or SD when the item was worded negatively. The following items were used, the number to the left of each statement being its position among the thirtytwo items: 4. In many instances, married couples should be encouraged to use birth control devices. 7. Mercy-killing, assuming proper precautions are taken, will benefit people on the whole. 9. Preventing conception by mechanical birth control devices is as wrong or almost as wrong as taking a human life after birth. 10. Laws which provide the death penalty for crimes are morally wrong. 11. Although my definition of God may differ from that of others, I believe there is a God. 14. Physical or mental illness, no matter how severe or hopeless, should never be the basis for taking the life of the involved person. 16. Killing during war is just as indefensible as any other sort of killing. 18. As unfortunate as it is, killing during wartime may be justifiable. 19. The possibility that God exists today seems very unlikely. 23. If a mother's life is seriously endangered, forced abortion of the fetus may be necessary. 26. Life after death seems an improbable occurrence. 27. I find the prospect of my eventual death disturbing. 29. There is some sort of existence after our present life ends. 30. Forced abortion of the fetus is wrong, regardless of the health of the mother or the social conditions involved. 31. In the long run, appropriate use of the death penalty for crimes will benefit society. 32. I don't think I am really afraid of death. Following the attitude form, several biographical itehis were presented. The 5s were asked to state age, sex, religious identification, and racial background. 1. Subjects ' The forms were distributed to approximately 220 students in five advanced psychology classes at Los Angeles State College, a state-supported college near downtown Los Angeles granting the bachelor and masters degrees in most 140 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY academic fields. A total of 210 Ss returned forms sufficiently complete for analysis. The 5s ranged in age from 18 to 65 with a median of 28. Since four of the five classes were conducted in the evening, the great majority of 5s were involved with full-time positions in the community, and attended college on a part-time basis. Although obviously not a random sample of the Los Angeles area, they probably more nearly represent the community in race, religion, and social class than most college student samples. A breakdown of 5s by religion shows 93 Protestants, 38 Catholics, 25 Jews, and 35 Atheist-Agnostics (these two groups were combined since observation indicated no real differences in their responses) ; the remainder (19) gave no classifiable religious preference. Negroes in the sample numbered 24; people of Asian ancestry totalled six; and 163 were Caucasian; 17 5s did not state racial background. The sample contained 130 men and 67 women; 13 did not supply this information. 2. Data Analysis Since each variable was measured by two items on a five-point scale, the possible range of scores was two to 10. This restricted range led to several highly truncated distributions. Also, because of the nature of the items, data were heavily skewed in several instances. Working within these limitations, three types of data analysis were possible. First, a matrix of tetrachoric correlations based on a median split between each combination of variables was computed. The method of computation followed Edwards ( 5 ) ; the level of significance was established by determining the significance level for product-moment correlations based on less than one-half the number of 5s as suggested in Guilford (9) (the sample N was 210) while the level of significance utilized was established for Pearson product-moment correlations with N's of 100. Second, each of the four religious groups was compared with each of the others on each variable. The significance of the differences between means in each instance was established by a Mest. Third, sex differences and age differences in responses to each variable were determined by /-tests. C. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Results may be divided into three sections, data dealing with relationships among variables, data dealing with religious differences, and data involving sex and age differences. 141 RICHARD A. KALISH The inter-variable correlation matrix is shown in Table 1. Of the twentyeight correlations computed, ten were significant at the .01 level of confidence and five were significant at the .05 level of confidence. The data were reanalyzed omitting Catholic 5s on the possibility that the relationships were a function of the attitudes of this group. The recomputed correlations showed negligible differences from the initial ones. TABLE 1 MATRIX OF INTER-VARIABLE CORRELATIONS ON DEATH ATTITUDES OF 210 ADULT COLLEGE STUDENT SS Birth Eutha- Aborcontrol nasia tion 1. Approve of birth control 2. Approve of euthanasia X Fear Killing Capital punishment —.28** .31** .55** —.09 —.11 X .33** —.05 .11 X —.19* .14 Afterlife God —.33** -.19* -.16 —.22* —.41** —.24* 3. Approve of abortion 4. Fear of death X S. Approve of wartime killing 6. Approve of capital punishment 7. Believe in life after death 8. Believe in God —.24* .01 X —.15 —.07 .44** X .03 —.16 .17 .02 .31** .34** X .64** X • Significant at the .05 level of confidence. ** Significant at the .01 level of confidence. Several pertinent observations may be made from the matrix: 1. Approval of birth control, of abortion, and of euthanasia consistently and significantly correlate with each other. This appears to be a factor which might be termed "Social Liberalism." 2. Belief in God, belief in after-life, and approval of capital punishment also are consistently and significantly correlated with each other. They appear to form a factor which might be termed "Religious Justice." 3. Eight of the nine correlations between variables in the Social Liberalism factor and those in the Religious Justice factor are negative, six of them significantly. This would appear to increase the probability of these being reliable factors. 4. Approval of wartime killing and of capital punishment correlate sig- 142 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY nificantly with each other. Approval of euthanasia correlates positively, although not significantly, with both. The latter correlations appear to have importance in view of the fact that they provide the only deviations from the consistently negative correlations of the Social Liberalism variables with all other variables. A common thread in these three variables is that they each favor destruction of adult human beings under stipulated conditions. They will be referred to as the Destruction Accepting factor. 5. Fear of death correlates significantly (and negatively) only with approval of abortion, indicating that those who express overt fear of death are opposed to abortion; the author finds this relationship difficult to interpret in light of the remainder of the data. Of all the variables investigated, it seems likely that fear of death was most contaminated by the extensive use of defense mechanisms. The comparison of death attitudes between religious groupings is shown in Table 2. On the variables constituting the Social Liberalism factor, the Jews and the Atheist-Agnostics are consistently the most accepting, followed by the Protestants and the Catholics in that order. On the Religious Justice variables, the sequence is Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and Atheist-Agnostic on all three variables. On two of the three variables of the third factor (Killing and Capital Punishment), the sequence from favorable to unfavorable was Catholic, Protestant, Atheist-Agnostic, and Jew, which corresponds in general to the sequence for the Religious Justice variables. However, the trend for acceptance of euthanasia corresponds to that for Social Liberalism variables. On the variables of Birth Control and Abortion, the only statistically significant differences are between Catholics and each of the other groupings. However, in spite of these differences, inspection of Table 2 indicates that the Catholics tended to be favorable to both ideas. A score of "6" would be neutral, and the Catholics are on the favorable side of neutral on both issues. Approximately 50 per cent more Catholics favored each of the issues than opposed them, but the opposition tended to have extreme scores, while those favorably inclined had moderate scores; thus, the means were computed to be only slightly on the favorable side of neutral. It is readily observable that the Catholics and the Protestants were significantly more favorably disposed toward believing in God and in an after-life than were the Jews and the Atheist-Agnostics. The differences between the two Christian groups and the Atheist-Agnostics is not surprising. Also the fact that the Jewish religion takes no strong stand on after-life could readily account for the difference between Jews and non-Jews on afterlife. The 143 RICHARD A. KALISH bt tn b n CO 0 1—1 o o AND « iliat ion g th-i^Lth-.? bO U « Q Q Cd rt en 3 O '& u rt J3 n *Ui C CO
Purchase answer to see full attachment