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Dedicate Your Life to the Company! A Terror Management Perspective on Organizations
Author(s) -
JONAS EVA,
KAUFFELD SIMONE,
SULLIVAN DANIEL,
FRITSCHE IMMO
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00854.x
Subject(s) - mortality salience , terror management theory , salience (neuroscience) , salary , psychology , perspective (graphical) , social psychology , german , existentialism , organizational culture , public relations , psychological contract , political science , law , cognitive psychology , archaeology , artificial intelligence , computer science , history
Terror management research has examined many institutions and beliefs, which provide people with a sense of psychological security against death awareness. However, one important area has yet to receive attention: the workplace. For many employees, corporate culture is not only connected to earning a salary, but also to a sense of security and even personal transcendence. We present evidence that pro‐company judgments can serve as psychological defenses under existential threat. In Study 1, following mortality salience, employees gave a more favorable evaluation of the company‐praising essay and a more negative evaluation of the critical one. In Study 2, employees and students at a German university were more likely to endorse aspects of organizational culture under mortality salience.