TY - JOUR
T1 - Perceived collective continuity and ingroup identification as defence against death awareness
AU - Sani, Fabio
AU - Herrera, Marina
AU - Bowe, Mhairi
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was made possible by a Research Fellowship awarded to the first author by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): RES-000-27-0185. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Fabio Sani, School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK; e-mail: [email protected] .
PY - 2009/1
Y1 - 2009/1
N2 - Perhaps unique among the animal species, humans are aware that they will ultimately die. Terror management theory (TMT) posits that investing in a social group helps people to manage paralysing anxiety stemming from death awareness. In line with this proposition, research to date has shown that when reminded of their own mortality, people increase their identification with a relevant group and defend its beliefs, values, and practices. In the reported study, we demonstrate that a mortality salience induction enhances people's perceptions of group temporal endurance-or perceived collective continuity (PCC), as we define it. Enhanced PCC leads, in turn, to enhanced group identification. This is in line with the TMT assumption that death awareness leads people to invest in a social group because this constitutes a temporally enduring meaning-system that imbues life with meaning, order, and permanence, and promises death transcendence to those who meet the prescribed standards of value.
AB - Perhaps unique among the animal species, humans are aware that they will ultimately die. Terror management theory (TMT) posits that investing in a social group helps people to manage paralysing anxiety stemming from death awareness. In line with this proposition, research to date has shown that when reminded of their own mortality, people increase their identification with a relevant group and defend its beliefs, values, and practices. In the reported study, we demonstrate that a mortality salience induction enhances people's perceptions of group temporal endurance-or perceived collective continuity (PCC), as we define it. Enhanced PCC leads, in turn, to enhanced group identification. This is in line with the TMT assumption that death awareness leads people to invest in a social group because this constitutes a temporally enduring meaning-system that imbues life with meaning, order, and permanence, and promises death transcendence to those who meet the prescribed standards of value.
KW - Group identification
KW - Perceived collective continuity
KW - Social identity
KW - Symbolic immortality
KW - Terror management theory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=56549111138&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.07.019
DO - 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.07.019
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:56549111138
SN - 0022-1031
VL - 45
SP - 242
EP - 245
JO - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
IS - 1
ER -