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Meaning and death‐thought accessibility
Author(s) -
Van Tongeren Daryl R.,
Green Jeffrey D.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/bjso.12212
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , psychology , mortality salience , salience (neuroscience) , social psychology , salient , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , psychotherapist , political science , law
Meaning is a central feature in human life, but death can disrupt a sense of meaning. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that meaning in life and meaning in death are distinct types of meaning when mortality is salient and differentially affect death‐thought accessibility ( DTA ). In Experiment 1, imagining a specific scenario in which meaning is preserved beyond death reduced DTA relative to a standard mortality salience prime; moreover, these effects were not due to changes in self‐esteem. In Experiment 2, imagining a meaningful life when mortality is salient elicited greater DTA , whereas imagining meaning in death elicited less DTA . Imbuing death with meaning attenuates DTA , whereas meaning in life increases DTA .