Being present in the face of existential threat: The role of trait mindfulness in reducing defensive responses to mortality salience.
Christopher P. Niemiec, Kirk Warren Brown, Todd B. Kashdan, Philip J. Cozzolino, William E. Breen, Chantal Levesque‐Bristol, Richard M. Ryan
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology July 26, 2010 DOI: 10.1037/a0019388 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Anxiety Meditation |
| Keywords | Mortality salience Terror management theory Trait Death anxiety Salience neuroscience Existentialism Clinical psychology Cognitive psychology |
| Citations | 247 |
| Post-publication review | 1 comment on PubPeer (opens in new tab) · last active September 2016 |
| Key findings | Trait mindfulness reduces defensive responses to mortality salience, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. |
Abstract
Terror management theory posits that people tend to respond defensively to reminders of death, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. Seven experiments examined whether trait mindfulness-a disposition characterized by receptive attention to present experience-reduced defensive responses to mortality salience (MS). Under MS, less mindful individuals showed higher worldview defense (Studies 1-3) and self-esteem striving (Study 5), yet more mindful individuals did not defend a constellation of values theoretically associated with mindfulness (Study 4). To explain these findings through proximal defense processes, Study 6 showed that more mindful individuals wrote about their death for a longer period of time, which partially mediated the inverse association between trait mindfulness and worldview defense. Study 7 demonstrated that trait mindfulness predicted less suppression of death thoughts immediately following MS. The discussion highlights the relevance of mindfulness to theories that emphasize the nature of conscious processing in understanding responses to threat.