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.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Cancer patients (clinical intervention study) | 2003 | Mixed methods: scale development, correlational, quasi-experimental, laboratory, experience-sampling, and clinical intervention study | |
| Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. | 2008 | Controlled laboratory experiment | |
| Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. | 2012 | Two studies: correlational study and experimental study | |
| Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence | 2009 | Experimental study | |
| Mindfulness meditation and substance use in an incarcerated population. Incarcerated population | 2006 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual control condition |
Citations in the library
Cited by 26
- Out of the armchair and into the streets: Measuring mindfulness advances knowledge and improves interventions: Reply to Grossman (2011). Psychological Assessment November 28, 2011
- The Psychological Correlates of Decreased Death Anxiety After a Near-Death Experience: The Role of Self-Esteem, Mindfulness, and Death Representations Journal of Humanistic Psychology December 5, 2019
- Wisdom-Based Buddhist-Derived Meditation Practices for Prosocial Behaviour: A Systematic Review Mindfulness March 1, 2024
- How do people conceptualize mindfulness? Royal Society Open Science March 1, 2022
- Training the embodied self in its impermanence: meditators evidence neurophysiological markers of death acceptance. Neuroscience of Consciousness 2025
and 21 more in the library
Cites 7
- The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003
- Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Assessment January 27, 2006
- Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2003
- Mindfulness: Theoretical Foundations and Evidence for its Salutary Effects Psychological Inquiry October 19, 2007
- Teaching self-care to caregivers: Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on the mental health of therapists in training. Training and Education in Professional Psychology May 1, 2007
and 2 more in the library