Greenberg Jeff, Martens Andy, Jonas Eva, Eisenstadt Donna, Pyszczynski Tom, Solomon Sheldon
University of Arizona, AZ 85721-0068, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2003 Sep;14(5):516-9. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.03454.
A large body of research has shown that when people are reminded of their mortality, their defense of their cultural worldview intensifies. Although some psychological defenses seem to be instigated by negative affective responses to threat, mortality salience does not appear to arouse such affect. Terror management theory posits that the potential to experience anxiety, rather than the actual experience of anxiety, underlies these effects of mortality salience. If this is correct, then mortality-salience effects should be reduced when participants believe they are not capable of reacting to the reminder of mortality with anxiety. In a test of this hypothesis, participants consumed a placebo purported to either block anxiety or enhance memory. Then we manipulated mortality salience, and participants evaluated pro- and anti-American essays as a measure of worldview defense. Although mortality salience intensified worldview defense in the memory-enhancer condition, this effect was completely eliminated in the anxiety-blocker condition. The results suggest that some psychological defenses serve to avert the experience of anxiety rather than to ameliorate actually experienced anxiety.
大量研究表明，当人们被提醒自己的必死性时，他们对自身文化世界观的捍卫会加剧。尽管一些心理防御似乎是由对威胁的负面情感反应引发的，但死亡凸显似乎并不会引发此类情感。恐惧管理理论认为，体验焦虑的可能性而非焦虑的实际体验，是死亡凸显这些效应的基础。如果这是正确的，那么当参与者认为自己无法因死亡提醒而产生焦虑反应时，死亡凸显效应应该会减弱。在对这一假设的测试中，参与者服用了一种据称能阻断焦虑或增强记忆的安慰剂。然后我们操纵了死亡凸显，参与者对支持和反对美国的文章进行评估，以此作为世界观捍卫的一种衡量方式。尽管在记忆增强剂条件下死亡凸显加剧了世界观捍卫，但在焦虑阻断剂条件下，这种效应被完全消除了。结果表明，一些心理防御是为了避免焦虑体验，而非缓解实际经历的焦虑。
