TGT Et Agression (McGregor Et Al., 1998)

8/6/2019 TGT Et Agression (McGregor Et Al., 1998)

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1998, Vol. 74, No. 3 , 590-6 05 Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0022-3514/98/S3.00

Terror Management and Aggression: Evidence That Mortality SalienceMotivates Aggression Against Worldview-Threatening OthersHolly A. McGregorUniversity of Rochester

Joel D. LiebermanUniversity of Nevada, Las Vegas

Jeff GreenbergUniversity of Arizona Sheldon SolomonSkidmore CollegeJamie ArndtUniversity of Arizona Linda SimonUniversity of Arizona

Tom PyszczynskiUniversity of Colorado, Colorado SpringsThe hypothesis that mortality salience (MS) motivates aggression against worldview-threateningothers was tested in 4 studies. In Study 1, the experimenters induced participants to write abouteither their own death or a control topic, presented them with a target who either disparaged theirpolitical views or did not, and gave them the opportunity to choose the amount of hot sauce thetarget would have to consume. As predicted, MS participants allocated a particularly large amountof hot sauce to the worldview-threatening target. In Studies 2 and 3 , the authors found that followingMS induction, the opportunity to express a negative attitude toward the critical target eliminatedaggression and the opportunity to aggress against the target eliminated derogation. This suggeststhat derogation and aggression are two alternative modes of responding to MS that serve the samepsychological function. Finally, Study 4 showed that MS did not encourage aggression against aperson who allocated unpleasant juice to the participant, supporting the specificity of MS-inducedaggression to worldview-threatening others.

Previous terror management research has shown that inducingpeople to think about their own mortality increases negativeevaluations of those who do not share their cultural worldviews(for a recent review, see Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski,1997). Derogation of dissimilar others presumably serves todefend against the threat to their own worldview posed by the

Holly A. McGregor, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences inPsychology, University of Rochester; Joel D. Lieberman, Department ofCriminal Justice, University of Nevada, La s Vegas; Jeff Greenb erg, JamieArndt, and Linda Simon, Department of Psychology, University of Ari-zona; Sheldon Solomon, Department of Psychology, Skidmore College;Tom Pyszczynski, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado,Colorado Spr ings.Holly A. McGregor and Joel D. Lieberman share equal responsibilityfor this work, which was partially supported by National Science Foun-dat ion Grants SBR 921 2798, 9312456, and 9601474 . We wish to thankMelanie Elliott for her assistance with this project.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to eitherHolly A. McGregor, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psy-chology, Meliora Hall, University of Rochester, Rochester, New \brk14627, or Joel D. Lieberman, Departmen t of Criminal Justice, Universityof Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 455009, Las Vegas, Nevada89154-3007. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected] or [email protected].

existence of those with different conceptions of reality. Solo-mon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (1991) have argued that ef-forts to defend one's worldview motivated by terror managementneeds may also play a significant role in aggression againstworldview-threatening others. However, the measures used instudies to date have been self-report evaluations of targets thatparticipants knew the targets would not see, and thus have notinvolved actual harm to the target. If terror management pro-cesses do indeed play a role in aggression, mortality salience(M S) should elicit aggression against those who threaten one'sworldview. The purposes of the present research were to (a)test the hypothesis that MS increases aggression against thosewho threaten one's worldview and (b) investigate the inter-changeability of derogation and aggression as alternative modesof responding to MS and worldview threat.

Ter ror Ma n ag em en t Th eo ryTerror management theory begins with the assumption thathumans are similar to other animals in that we share a commonevolutionary heritage, which includes a strong biological pro-clivity for self-preservation or continued existence. Humans aredifferent from other spe cies, however, in having unique cognitiveabilities that, among other things, make them aware of iheir ownexistence and the possibility that their existence may end when

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TERROR MANAGEMENT AND AGGRESSION 591they die. This awareness, when juxtaposed with the drive to stayalive, creates the potential for paralyzing terror. According toterror management theory, this potential for terror is managedby a dual component cultural anxiety buffer, consisting of (a)a personalized version of a cultural worldview, which givessubjective reality a sense of permanence, order, and meaning; aset of standards that enable individuals to attain a sense ofpersonal value; and, if these standards are met, a promise ofeither literal or symbolic immortality; and (b) self-esteem, thebelief that one is living up to the standards and values prescribedby the cultural worldview. Because self-esteem and the culturalworldview from which it is derived are so important in themanagement of existential terror, a large part of human socialbehavior is oriented toward their maintenance and defense.

Although treated by the individual as absolute reality, thecultural worldview is a fragile social construction in need ofconstant validation from others. Consequently, the existence ofothers who share one's worldview bolsters faith in thatworldview, thus increasing its effectiveness as an anxiety buffer,and the existence of others who do not share one's worldviewthreatens one's faith in it, thus reducing its effectiveness as ananxiety buffer. As a result, people generally respond favorablyto those who share their worldviews and negatively to thosewho do not. Accordingly, a series of studies have shown thatMS leads to especially positive evaluations of those who validateone's worldview and especially negative evaluations of thosewho challenge it (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990; Rosenblatt,Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989).

These effects have been replicated in other laboratories in theUnited States (e.g., Nelson, Moore, Olivetti, & Scott, 1997),Canada (e.g. , Baldwin & W esley, 199 6), Israel (e.g. , Florian &Mikulincet, 1997), Germany (e.g. , Ochsmann & Mathy, 1994;Ochsmann & Reichelt, 1994), and the Netherlands (e.g. , M.Dechesne, personal communication, March 1997). The effectsappear to be unique to thoughts of mortality; they have not beenfound in response to thoughts of failure, dental pain, one's nextimportant exam, giving a speech in public, or worries about lifeafter college, or in response to a laboratory failure experience(Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994;Greenberg, Simon, Harmon-Jones, Solomon, Pyszczynski, &Lyon, 1995; Greenberg et al. , 1997).

All of the studies to date investigating the effects of MS onreactions to others have involved only pencil- and-paper mea-sures in which participants rate target individuals on intelli-gence, likability, and so forth. However, Becker (1 9 71 , 1973,1975) and others (e.g., Harrington, 1969; Lifton, 1983) haveproposed that the fear of death has greatly contributed to manyof the egregious historical examples of violence and war. Simi-larly, Solomon et al. (1991) posited that reactions to the threatposed by an alternative conception of reality include not onlyderogation but aggression as well. Indeed, historically, manyhave tried to neutralize a threat to their worldview by attemptingto annihilate those who are different. What more extreme wayto retaliate against a threatening worldview and assert one'sown convictions than to destroy or intentionally hurt those whohold them? Consider, for example, the recent crisis in Bosnia,in which the Serbs and the Bosnia ns were effectively destroyingeach other because of their cultural, ideological, and religiousdifferences:

Wars and persecutions are, at bottom, expressions of rivalry be-tween contending claims to immortality and ultimate spiritualpower. Religious victimization is a one-sided version of that processwith the specific psychological functions of rinding a target fordeath anxiety. . . . (Lifton, 1983, p. 315)Of course, no single study or small set of experiments is goingto definitively establish a role of terror management in pastor ongoing historical events. However, if terror managementprocesses do play a role in actual aggression, then MS shouldencourage aggression against a person who threatens one's cul-tural worldview.

But how would aggression against a worldview threatenerserve a terror management function? Whereas derogation ofworldview threateners or their arguments allows one to ratio-nally dismiss the criticisms of one's worldview, aggression doesnot. There are, however, three interrelated ways in which aggres-sion may serve a terror management function and therefore bea likely response to worldview threat under conditions of MS.First, it may occur as a simple lashing out at the threatener.After mortality is salient, people need faith in their worldviewsand so are likely to be displeased with anyone who threatensthat faith; aggression may be a primitive and particularly danger-ous way to express this displeasure.Such a response may be particularly likely because, as recentresearch indicates, MS effects occur primarily when people arein an experiential mode of thinking rather than a rational, ana-lytic mode. In three studies, Simon et al. (199 7) found that M Sled to derogation of a worldview threatener if experimentalconditions encouraged an experiential mode in participants butnot if the conditions encouraged a rational and analytic mode.This suggests that terror management responses to MS are expe-riential (from Epstein's, 1994, perspective: intuitive, primitive,emanating from the unconscious) rather than rational. Certainlyaggression often seems to qualify as such an experiential re-

sponse. Indeed, when responding experientially, aggression mayserve as a defense even though it does not rationally refute theattack; just as a drunk person who is outwitted may resort toviolence, an MS participant whose worldview is under attackmay do so when the opportunity is there.Finally, to the extent that aggression asserts one's convictionsregarding one's worldview, it may be a way to defend one'sworldview despite not logically addressing criticisms. As anexample, after hearing one's country berated, in lieu of refutingthe arguments, one can go and dig a flag out of the closetand display it proudly in the front of one's house. Similarly,aggressing against another who attacks one's views can serveto reassert one's own faith in one's worldview, the criticismsbe damned! Thus, given what we know so far about terrormanagement processes, there are good reasons to believe thatmortality salience will encourage aggression against aworldview threatener. Our first study was designed to test thishypothesis.

Measuring AggressionAggression is commonly denned by social psychologists asbehavior with intent to harm the individual who is its object(e.g. , Baron & Richardson, 1994; Berkowitz, 1993; Geen,1990). Several different laboratory measures of aggression have


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59 2 M C G R E G O R E T A L .been used over the years, including verbal assault (e.g., De-Charm s & Wilkins, 1963; Wheeler & C aggiula, 1966), directphysical aggression involving noninjurious acts such as hittingwith a Styrofoam sword (Diener, 1976; Diener, Dineen, Endre-sen, Beaman, & Fraser, 1975), and administering electric shock(e.g. , Berkowitz, 1964; Buss, 1 961; Hamm ock & Richardson,1992a, 1992b; Taylor, 1967). Each of these measures has yieldedsome evidence of validity (e.g. , Bernstein, Richardson, & Ham-mock, 1987; Diener et al. , 1975; Shemberg, Leventhal, & All-man, 1968 ), but each has certain ethical or practical limitations.

For our purposes, we wanted a face-valid m easure of aggres-sion that clearly indicated an intent to physically harm the target.Probably the best existing measure of this nature is the amountand intensity of electric shock that participants administer totargets (e.g ., Buss, 19 61; Diener et al., 19 75). However; theassociation of the shock paradigm with the Milgram obedienceresearch presents problems with approval from university hu-man subjects com mittees and with participants linking the studyto the well-known Milgram research. Also, as Hammock andRichardson (1992b), among others, have noted, in the shockparadigms, the intensity of shock could be associated with inten-tions besides hurting the other (e.g. , being a good teacher).Because of these concerns, we sought to devise a new m eansto measure intent to physically aggress against another. The keywas to provide the participant with an opportunity to engage ina behavior that could cause physical harm to another individual.We consequently devised a context in which participants deter-mined the amount of hot sauce to be consumed by anotherperson who does not like spicy foods.Thanks in part to our extensive personal research with South-western cuisine, it was clear to us that hot sauces can indeedinflict pain. There are also a number of well-publicized incidentsof hot sauce being used in malevolent efforts to harm others,including child abuse (e.g. , Arizona Daily Wildcat, 1995;

Brooks, 1992; Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 1992; Donahue,1989; Martin, 1994; Milne, 1995; "N.Y. foster mother," 1993;Serrano, 1989; "Thirty-nine," 1992). In one case, a cook at aNew H ampshire D enny 's restaurant spiked the food of two statetroopers with Tabasco sauce after they had stopped there to eatbreakfast. One of the officers reported that his mouth wasburned, and the other said that the food caused his stomach tobecome upset. The cook was subsequently arrested for assault.A witness, who claimed to observe the incident, reported thatthe cook did not like police officers and had acted intentionallyto harm the troopers {Arizona Daily Wildcat, 1995). A similaraggressive act was portrayed in the recent film Mrs. Doubtfire,in a scene in which the character played by Robin Williams putan excessive amount of cayenne pepper on the food being servedto a man who was romantically interested in his ex-wife. Theseincidents indicate that spicy food has indeed been used in bothreal world acts and media portrayals of aggression.

S tu d y 1Tb assess the hypothesis that MS increases aggression againstthose who threaten on e's w orldview, we used the am ount of hotsauce given to a fellow participant as the dependent measure ofaggression. Politically conservative and liberal participants wereinduced to think about their own death or their next important

exam . They were then asked to read an essay, supposedly w rittenearlier in the session, that was derogatory toward either conser-vatives or liberals. Participants then allocated a quantity of veryspicy hot sauce to the author of the essay, knowing that theauthor did not like spicy foods and would have to consume theentire sample of hot sauce. We predicted that, relative to theother groups, MS participants who read an essay criticizingtheir political stance would assign the author an especially largequantity of hot sauce.Method

Participants. Thirty-eight male and 36 female American introduc-tory psychology students at the University of Arizo na participated inpartial fulfillment of a course requirem ent. P articipants were recruitedon the basis of a pretest m easure identifying them as having either liberalor conservative political views. The measure consisted of a single 9-point bipolar scale that ranged from extremely conservative (1) to ex-tremely liberal (9 ). Participants who were moderately conservative ( 2 -4) and moderately liberal (6 -8 ) were selected. Three participants w ereexcluded after reporting suspicion about the procedures, and one partici-pant was excluded because she had seen the news report about theDenny's chef's aggressive use of hot sauce and thought about it duringthe experiment.

Materials and procedure. Participants were randomly assigned toconditions in a 2 (MS vs. control) x 2 (worldview threaten vs.worldview consistent) between-subjects design and were run in groupsof 4, consisting of either all liberal or all conservative par ticipants . Theexperimen ter w as blind to the parti cipan t's political stance, as well asto experimental conditions.

Because prior terror management research has shown that MS has agreater effect when participants are in an experiential mode (Simon etal., 1997), the experimenters were trained to address participants in arelaxed and casual manner. Upon arrival in the laboratory, participan tswere led to believe that they would be taking part in two experimen tsinvestigating the relations hip between personality and attitudes.

Bogus Study ] materials and procedure. The first experiment wasdescribed as an examination of the relationship between personalitytraits and how people form impressions of others. Participants were toldthat they would write a short paragraph describing their opinion ofpolitics in the United States and exchange those essays with anotherperson. Th e participan ts were then led to individual cu bicles and givena sheet of paper that reiterated these instructions. After telling the partici-pants they would have 5 min to work on their paragraphs and not to beconcerned with spelling or grammar, the experimenter left the cubicle.

After 5 min , the experime nter return ed, collected the paragrap hs,hande d each participant a packet that consisted of three question naires,and told them to work through the entire packet in order. Tb encouragean experiential mode of processing, the experimenter told participantsto give their first, natural response when answering the questions. Thefirst page consisted of a filler personality inventory, and the secondconsisted of the MS manipulation (Rosenblatt et al. , 1989). MS partici-pants were instructed to "Please briefly describe the emotions that thethought of your own death arouses in you" and to "Jot down as specifi-cally as you can, what yo u think will happen to you as you physicallydie, and once you are physically dead." Control participants were in-structed to ' 'Please briefly desc ribe the emotions that the though t of yournext important exam arouses in you ' ' and to ' 'Jot down as specifically asyou can, what you think will happen to you as you physically take yournext exam, and once you are physically taking your next exam.' ' Thiscontrol co ndition c oncerns a future aversive event other than death andhas been used successfully in past terror managem ent research (e.g.,Greenberg et al., 1995). Participants then completed the Positive andNegative Affect Schedule (PA NA S-X ; W atson & Clark, 1 991).


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TERROR MANAGEMENT AND AGGRESSION 593After completion of the personality packet, the experimenter returned

to the cubicle and handed ea ch participant an essay that was purportedlywritten by another participant but was in fact a bogus essay used tomanipulate worldview threat. The writer of the essay was identified onlyby a three-digit number. Consequendy, although participants believedthe writer of the essay was present in the same session, they did notknow who it was. One essay was designed to conflict with the w orldviewof liberal, but not conservative, participants:

Don't even get me started. Liberals are the cause of so many prob-lems in this country, it1 s not funny. Not only that, but they get inthe way of decent Americans who are trying to solve all thoseproblems that they created in the first place. The bleeding heartstance they take, of trying to help ev eryone is a joke and incrediblystupid. How can they help the world when they can't even helpthemselves?! Do Liberals put any thought into what they believe?1 don't think so. If they did, they would realize that they are ruiningdie country. Thankfully there are people in power that agree withme who can, and will control the whiny Liberals, and put them intheir place. The best place for a Liberal is out of my sight. Theymake me sick.

Thus, liberal participants who read this essay had their worldview threat-ened, but conservative participants did not. The other essay was designedto conflict with the w orldview of co nservatives, but not that of liberals:

Don't even get me started. Conservatives are the cause of so manyproblems in diis country, it 's not funny. Not only that, but they getin the way of decent Americans who are trying to solve all thoseproblem s that they created in the first place. The cold-hearted stancethey take, of trying to help only themselves is a joke and incrediblystupid. They are too busy thinking of themselves, and don't careabout anyone else. Do Conservatives put any thought into whatthey believe? I don't think so. Tf they did, they would realize thatthey are ruining the country. Thankfully there are people in powerthat agree with me who can, and will control the selfish Conserva-tives, and put them in their place. The bes t place for a Conservativeis out of my sight. They make me sick.

Consequently, regardless of whether participants were liberal or conser-vative, half read an essay that threatened their worldview and half didnot. All participants were asked to evaluate the essay using an "impres-sion formation" form designed to allow them to evaluate the essay ina nonjudgmental way. This was important be cause of the possibility thata negative evaluative judgment about the essay at this point might pro-vide them with an opportunity to defend their worldview, as in previousMS studies (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990), thereby possibly negating theneed to aggress against the author. (We addressed this possibility directlyin Study 2.) The impression formation form consisted of five questions.Participants were asked to guess the college major, the sex, and the ageof me author, what part of the country the author was from, and whetherthe author was reserved or outgoing. After completing this evaluation,participants were informed that the first study was completed.

Bogus Study 2 materials and procedure. The second study was de-scribed as an examination of the relationship between personality andfood preferences. Participants were informed that they would be tastingand giving their impression of a food sample, that in different experi-ments different types of foods were being tested, and that dry foods andspicy foods were being examined that day. In addition, they were toldthat because the experimenter needed to be blind to certain specificsabout the sample type and quantity of food tasted, it was necessary forparticipants to administer the food sam ples to each other. This p rovideda plausible explanation as to why the participants, rather than the experi-menter, were allocating the food to each other.

The experimenter then gave participants a taste preference inventory

to complete, w hich consisted of six rating scales to evaluate preferencesfor different tastes and textures. The items evaluated were sweet, sour,creamy, salty, spicy, and dry. Participants evaluated these items using a21-point rating scale that ranged from no liking at all (1) to extremeliking (21), These were included so that participants later could bepresented with a bogus taste preference inventory purportedly completedby the person to whom they were giving the hot sauce.

Although participants were led to believe that two groups existed,everyone was actually put into the same group, which sampled the dryfood and allocated the hot sauc e. After co mpleting die taste preferenceinventory, the experimenter returned and informed participants that theyhad been randomly assigned to the dry food group and that anotherparticipant had selected a sample of cracker for them to eat. At thispoint the participant was handed an envelope which contained a saltinecracker and was instructed to consume the entire cracker and then toevaluate it using a 9-point scale that ranged from no liking at all (1 )to extreme liking (9). The experimenter then left the room.

After several minutes, the experimenter returned carrying a tray withhot sauce, a Styrofoam cup with a lid, a plastic spoon, a wooden spoon,and a cup of water. Participants were informed that they would bepreparing a sample of hot sauce to give to another person and that, toavoid confusion, they w ould be giving the hot sauce to the person whoseparagraph they read earlier. The experimenter then mentioned that be-cause people are often curious as to the taste preferences of the otherparticipants they would be shown the taste preference inventory of theperson to whom they would be giving me hot sauce. Participants werehanded a bogus taste preference inventory indicating that the targetdisliked spicy food. For the item "spicylike hot salsa," the targetindicated a liking of 3 on the 21 -point scale (where 1 indicated no likingat al l ) .

Participants w ere instructed to use the plastic spoon to place a quantityof hot sauce into a 4-oz Styrofoam cup and seal it with the lid that wasprovided.1 The participants were told that all quantities of hot saucewere useful and to put in as much or as little hot sauce as they wanted.However, it was made clear to the participants that the person whoreceived the hot sauce would have to consume the entire quantity of it .To be sure the participants were aware of the intensity of the hot sauce(which was quite hot), they were instructed to taste a sample of it withthe wooden spoon prior to allocating it to the target Participants weretold that because the cups were covered, the experimenter would notknow how much hot sauce had been allocated. They were again remindedthat they would be giving it to the person whose essay they read andwere instructed to write that person's number on the Styrofoam cup.Thus, it was clear who would receive the hot sauce they prepared andthat their behavior would be anonymous.

Before leaving the cubicle, the experimenter handed the participantsa checklist to remind them of each step involved in allocating the hotsauce. At the bottom of the checklist, the participants were asked toindicate the number of spoonfuls allocated. To maintain a sense of ano-nymity, the participants were asked to place this form inside an envelope.At this point the experimenter left the cubicle, and the participantsallocated the hot sauce to the target.

Participants were then asked to indicate the type of food they had

1 The selection of hot sauce used in the experiments proved to be achallenging endeavor. Because die hot sauce allocation had to beweighed, it was critical to use a hot sauce that had an even consistency,that would be quite hot, and that would ordinarily b e applied in a volum egreater than a drop or two. As a result of these restrictions, we createdour own hot sauce by combining several available commercial productsin the following proportions: 5 parts Heinz chili sauce and 3 partsTapatio salsa picante hot sauce, produced by the Empacadora Company.The final hot sauce had a consistency similar to cocktail sauce and wasindeed quite hot.


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594 M C G R E G O R ET AL.tasted and the type of food they had given the target. Finally, participantsanswered three other questions using 21-point rating scales. The ques-tions were "To what extent did you use the TASTE PREFERENCE INVENTORYwhen giving out the food sample to the other person?," on a scaleranging from not at all (1) to completely (21); "How useful do youthink die TASTE PREFERENCE INVENTORY was when giving out the foodsample?,'' on a scale ranging from not at all useful (1) to extremelyuseful (21); and "Using the scale below, indicate the extent to whichthe person you gave die food sample to liked that kind of food,' ' on ascale that was the same as on the taste preference inventory and rangedfrom no liking at all (1) to extreme liking (21).

Participants then left their cubicles and were debriefed. During diedebriefing, special care was taken to ensure that the participants did notleave with any negative feeling that may have come from either reflectionon their own mortality or die knowledge that they may have causedsomeone pain and distress. We assured participants that no one hadtasted the hot sauce they had administered. In addition, we explainedto them that they were simply responding to the situation that we putthem in and that in no way should they feel as though they were anaggressive or otherwise bad person for giving the hot sauce to the target.No participant objected in any way to the procedure or indicated distress,and many said they were glad they had participated.

ResultsThe primary analyses to be reported are 2 (MS vs. exam salient)

X 2 (woridview-threaterring target vs. worldview-consistent target)between-subjects analyses of variance (ANOWs).2To assure that participants were aware of the target' s dislike

of hot sauce, the final questionnaire assessed the extent to whichparticipants recalled and used that information.3 The target os-tensibly had rated hot sauce as a 3 on a 21-point scale. Themean response for recall of the target's rating of liking hotsauce, which did not differ by condition (Fs < 2.82), was 3.70.Mean responses for the questions assessing usefulness of thetaste inventory and the extent to which they used it (which didnot differ by condition; Fs < 1), were 17.3 and 16.2. Thus,participants in all conditions were equally aware that the targetdid not like spicy food and used this rating in deciding howmuch hot sauce to allocate.

MS and aggression. The main dependent measure of aggres-sion was the weight in grams of hot sauce allocated to thetargets, determined by weighing the hot sauce in the Styrofoamcups on an OHaus Cent-O-Gram triple beam balance. AnANOVA revealed a marginally significant main effect of target,F(l, 60) = 3.13, p < .09, reflecting the general tendency forparticipants to allocate more hot sauce to the woridview-threat-ening target than the worldview-consistent target. This effectwas qualified,however, by the expected MS X Target interaction,F(l, 60) = 6.06, p < .02. Means are displayed in Table 1.

A planned orthogonal contrast provided strong support forour main hypothesis: MS participants allocated significantlymore hot sauce to the author of the woridview-threatening essaythan did participants in the other three conditions, r(60) =2.90, p < .01. A second orthogonal contrast compared the MSworldview-consistent condition with the two exam conditions.Previous research suggests that worldview-supportive targets arereacted to especially positively following MS induction.Whereas the means were consistent with this possibility, thiscontrast was not significant, r( 60) - 1,08, p > .28. A thirdcontrast compared the exam salient woridview-threatening and

Table 1Study I: Cell Means for the Two-Way Interaction of MortalitySalience X Target on Weight (in Grams), and Self-ReportEstimates (in Spoonfuls) of Hot Sauce Allocated

Target

Worldview threateningWorldview consistent

Worldview threateningWorldview consistent

Mortality ;MWeight

26.3111.86

salientSD

21.878.33

Self-report estimates2.11 1.881.09 0.80

ExamM

15.2017.56

1.391.61

controlSD

8.3911.34

0.891.09

exam salient worldview-consistent conditions. This comparisonwas not significant, t(60) = .49, p > .62, and indicates that inthe exam condition, type of essay had no effect on amount ofhot sauce allocated. Thus, as predicted, MS worldview threatparticipants allocated a significantly greater amount of hot sauceto a woridview-threatening target than did participants in theother conditions.

A secondary dependent measure was participants' own esti-2 Initial analysis of the primary dependent measure in all four studies

revealed heterogeneity of variance (all F s ^ > 4.01 , ps < .05). Thisheterogeneity resulted from high variance within the MS woridview-threatening conditions. Violation of this assumption of ANOVA is notconsidered a serious problem when cell /is are equal (Kirk, 1995).Therefore, in the primary analyses in Studies 1 and 2, we randomlydropped participants from the data set so that cell sizes were equal acrossconditions (8 participants were dropped in Study l,and 1 participant wasdropped in Study 2) . Although heterogeneity of vari ance was a problemin Studies 3 and 4, cell sizes were equal, and consequently, no partici-pants were dropped. An alternative solution for dealing with the hetero-geneity of variance problem is to conduct a square root transformationon the entire data set (Kirk, 1995). The results of that transformationwere very similar to those obtained by randomly dropping participants.For Study 1, when all participants were included in the analyses, thecritical two-way interaction between MS and target was marginally sig-nificant for both die raw and square root transformed means, both Fs( 1,68) > 3.85, ps < .057, and the outcome of the a priori contrastsparalleled those reported in the text. For Study 2, a one-way ANOVAbased on the entire data set yielded a marginally significant effect forthe raw means, F(2, 49) = 3.12, p = .053, and a significant effect onthe square root transformed means, F(2, 49) = 3.42, p < .05. Again,the results of the orthogonal contrasts parallel those reported in the text.However, throughout the body of the text and in the tables, we presentresults based on equal n analyses, because these analyses allowed us touse and display the raw means while minimizing the heterogeneity prob-lem. Ft should also be noted that initial analyses for all studies matincluded gender and political orientation as independent variables re-vealed only one significant effect, and that effect did not qualify theprimary results. Specifically, in Study 1, there was an MS X Genderinteraction, F ( l , 47) = 4.71, p < .04, on hot sauce allocation, whichresulted from the fact that, collapsing across targets, MS males allocatedan especially large amount of hot sauce.

3 Unfortunately, in Study 1, these measures were not included untilroughly halfway through the first study (n = 30).


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TERROR MANAGEMENT AND AGGRESSION 595mates of how many spoonfuls of hot sauce they had allocatedto the target. An ANOVA on this measure revealed the expectedsignificant MS x Target interaction, F ( 1, 60) = 4.04, p < .05 .Means are displayed in Table 1.

A planned orthogonal contrast comparing the estimates ofhot sauce allocated by MS participants exposed to a worldview-threatening essay to estimates of participants in the other threeconditions was significant, f (6 0) = 2.09, p < .05. Thus, partici-pants' self-reports of hot sauce allocation produced the samepattern as their actual hot sauce allocation. A second orthogonalcontrast compared the MS worldview-consistent condition w iththe two exam conditio ns and was not significant, f(6 0) = 1.08,p > .28. This indicates that MS did not lead to especially lowself-reports of hot sauce allocated to the worldview-consistenttarget. The third contrast compared the two exam conditionsand was also not significant, t(59) = .50, p > . 6 1 .

Affect measures. The PAN AS -X was adminis tered d irectlyafter the MS manipulation. Two-way ANOVAs on each of the13 subscales revealed no effects on affect (F s < 1.5). To furtherinvestigate the role of affect in MS effects, we examined within-cell correlations between each of the subscales of the PANAS-X and both weight and self-report measures of hot sauce alloca-tion. With the exception of the hostility subscale, none of thewithin-cell correlations approached significance (allps > ,10).To the extent that hostility is indicative of aggressive propensi-ties, it is not surprising that within both the MS worldview-threatening condition and the exam salient worldview-threaten-ing condition, hostility was positively correlated with the weightmeasure of hot sauce allocation, r(14) = .58, p < .05, andr( 14) = .51, p < .05, respectively. Within the MS w orldview-threatening condition, self-report hostility was also positivelycorrelated with self-report estimates of hot sauce allocation,r ( 1 4 ) = .52, p < .05, but this correlation did not reach signifi-cance in the exam salient worldview-threatening condition, MShad no effect on the hostility subscale (F < 1); therefore, thismeasure probably reflected a preexisting individual differencein level of hostility. Thus the correlation might best be interpre-ted as indicating that people high in hostility, at either a trait orstate level, were more aggressive toward the worldview threat-ener but not toward the worldview-consistent target. 4 Whetherthe hostility differences of participants who came into the studyreflected differences in trait hostility or just the ir current statecannot be determined from the data.

DiscussionThe results of Study 1 clearly supported the hypothesis thatMS leads to aggression against worldview-threatening others.

Specifically, participants in the MS worldview-threatening con-dition allocated significantly more hot sauce to targets than didparticipants in the three other conditions, and a self-report mea-sure of hot sauce allocation yielded a similar pattern of results.A priori contrasts indicated that these findings did not simplyresult from participants having their worldview threatened.There was no significant difference in the amount of hot saucegiven to the two targets in the exam control conditions. Rather,it was the juxtaposition of MS and worldview threat that led toa significant increase in aggressive behavior.Treatment of the worldview-consistent target. Some prior

studies have shown that MS engenders more positive evaluationsof those who uphold important aspects of the cultural worldview(e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990); one might therefore have ex-pected to find significantly less aggression (i.e., smaller alloca-tions of hot sauce) toward the worldview-consistent target inthe MS than in the exam salient control conditions. Whereasthe means were in the expected direction, the contrast was notsignificant. Although some other MS studies have also failed tofind a significant increase in rating of the pro-worldview target(e.g., Greenberg et al., 1992), the nature of the worldview-consistent target used in this study may have played a role.Although the essays were designed to either threaten or notthreaten participants ' worldviews, they were not designed todirectly support them. For example, liberal participants in thethreat condition read an essay claiming that liberals were ruiningthe country, whereas liberal participants in the consistent condi-tion read an essay claiming that conservatives were ruining thecountry. Although this latter essay does not attack the partici-pant's worldview, it does not necessarily support it either, andthus there is no guarantee that participants would agree withthe sentiments expressed in it. Thus, if participants had readan essay directly supporting their worldview (e.g., if liberalparticipants read an essay stating that liberals were wonderfulpeople and their beliefs were the solution to the country's prob-lems) , the tendency to allocate less hot sauce to the worldview-consistent author may have been stronger.

The aggression measure. Given that hot sauce allocation toa person who dislikes spicy foods is a new measure of aggres-sion, it is important to consider the extent to which it validlytaps the aggression construct. The fact that the measure yieldedtheoretically predicted results suggests that it has construct va-lidity. Furthermore, given prior evidence of a relationship be-tween hostility and aggression (see, e.g., Geen, 1990), the factthat hostility and hot sauce allocation were significantly corre-lated in both MS and control worldview-threatening conditionsprovides additional evidence of its validity as an index of ag-gression. Further evidence of the validity of this measure in-cludes reports in the debriefings by a number of participantsthat they intended to create discomfort in the recipient and thenewspaper accounts of actual incidents of aggression using hotsauce that were cited in the introduction.

To gain additional information about the use of hot sauce asa means of aggressing, using an experimenter unaware of ourpurpose or the findings of Study 1, we also asked a separatesample from the same participant pool to taste the hot sauce,rate it, and, on viewing a cup with 26.3 g of the hot sauce(the mean amount allocated in Study 1 in the MS worldview-

4 Fbr all four studies, we conducted a variety of medianonal analysesto examine the possibility that affective responses to MS mediate itseffects on aggression. As in previous studies, no evidence of such af-fective mediation was found. Details of these analyses are available onrequest from the authors. Whereas these and previous data suggest thatthese effects are not mediated by affect, recent evidence indicates thatthey are mediated by a delayed increase in the accessibility of death-related thoughts. Further, death-related thoughts have been shown notto be accompanied by increases in arousal or affect (A rndt & G reenberg,1996; Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszc zynski, & Simo n, 1 997; for anoverview of the relevant evidence, see Greenberg et al., 1997).


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596 M C G R E G O R E T A L .threatening conditio n), to indicate how much pain or discomfortwould be caused by consuming that amount of hot sauce. Thehot sauce was rated quite hot, 7.2 (n = 10) on a 9-point scalewith endpoints of not at all hot (1) and extremely hot ( 9 ) .Similarly, the mean amount allocated in the MS worldview-threatening condition was viewed as likely to cause considerablepain or physical discomfort, with a mean of 7.8 (n 10) on a9-point scale with endpoints of not much discomfort (1) andextreme discomfort (9). Thus, the hot sauce allocation measureseems a reasonable way to assess aggression that may be usefulin other research on aggression.

Affect and arousal as alternative explanations. The terrormana gem ent expla nation for the findings of Study 1 is thatMS intensifies participants' need to defend their worldview;therefore they lash out at the worldview threatener. One alterna-tive explanation of the present findings would be that MS creatednegative affect, which then triggered aggression (e.g., Berko-witz, 199 3; Geen , 19 90). However, the affect m easures did notreveal any evidence that MS created more negative affect thanthe exam control, and correlational analyses did not reveal anyevidence that the effects of MS were mediated by affect.Another possibility is that MS generated physiologicalarousal, which then intensified the negative reaction to theworldview threatener through either the enhancement of domi-nant responses or excitation transfer (Zillmann, 1979). Al-though conceivable, we believe these alternatives are highly un-likely for a variety of reasons. First, using measures of skinconductance, blood pulse volume, and heart rate, two prior stud-ies failed to find any evidence of increased physiological arousalin response to this exact MS treatment (Arndt & Greenberg,1996; Rosenblatt et al., 1989). Second, if MS created arousal,it would most likely be labeled as affect and lead to elevatedreports of negative affect; this did not happen in the presentresearchor in over 30 prior MS studies (for an overview of

this entire body of work, see Greenberg et al., 1997).Third, in two prior MS studies, whereas MS led to increasedworldview defense but no negative affect, comparison condi-tions did not increase worldview defense but did generate nega-tive affect (Greenberg et al., 1995). If this negative affect in-volved arousal, this work suggests that neither negative affectnor arousal is sufficient to produce worldview defense. Fourth,prior research clearly shows that subtle MS treatments lead tohigher levels of worldview defense than more impactful onesand that MS effects are stronger after a delay than they areimmediately after the induction (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1994).Presumably, if there were some as yet undetected arousal re-sulting from MS treatments, arousal and dominant responseamplification would be higher with stronger treatments and di-rectly after the treatment than with subtler treatments and aftera delay (see Footnote 4).

Although it is true that excitation transfer effects rely on ashort delay following a substantially elevated level of arousal,such effects are also unlikely to be involved in this and otherMS research. In addition to the fact that our treatment clearlydoes not produce a large initial increase in arousal, the plausibil-ity of the excitation transfer explanation is further reduced be-cause MS effects have been found in studies that varied consid-erably in the length of time between the MS treatment and thedependent variables, whereas the work of Zillmann and col-

leagues (e.g., Zillmann, 1979) clearly demonstrates that excita-tion transfer occurs within a precise, highly limited time frame.Thus, the existing evidence regarding the MS treatment used inthis research casts serious doubt on explanations of these find-ings that are based on negative affect or arousal.S tu d y 2

In Study 1, participants were asked to evaluate the targetusing an "impression formation" form, which contained en-tirely nonevaluative questions about the target. This was donebecau se of the possibility that if participants had the opportun ityto report a negative evaluation of the target before allocatinghot sauce, they might take advantage of it to defend theirworldview. Of course, in previous terror management studies(e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990), worldview defense has beenshown to occur in this way. If worldview defense occurred atthis point, it is possible that participants would not also needto defend their worldview by later aggressing against the targets.Consequently, one factor that might reduce aggression towardworldview-violating targets is the opportunity for participantsto first derogate the worldview threateners. Similarly, if partici-pants are able to defend their worldview by aggressing againstthe target, they may not subsequently need to derogate them. Asecond study was conducted to examine these possibilities aswell as to replicate the primary findings of Study 1.

It is important to examine these hypotheses, because doingso should shed some light on the nature of terror managementand responses to MS. The existing theory doesn' t preciselyspecify whether in a given instance MS will motivate a varietyof negative responses to a worldview threatener or whether onerespons e will serve to sufficiently bolster the worldview, therebyeliminating the need for other defensive responses. Althoughthis is likely to depend in part on the strength of the threat, ourhunch is that for most threats, terror management processeswould function much like dissonance reduction. Evidence fromdissonance research indicates that once people use one modeof dissonance reduction, they are less likely to use other modes(e.g., Gotz-Marchand, Gotz, & Irle, 1974; Scheier & Carver,1980; Simon, Greenberg, & Brehm, 1995). Therefore, we hy-pothesized that the use of aggression would reduce or eliminatethe use of derogation, and vice versa. Of course, this wouldoccur only if aggression does indeed serve the same defensivefunction that derogation does. Thus, the results of this studymay also address the issue raised in the introduction concerningthe function of aggression by MS participants in response toworldview threat.

In this study, all participants read a worldview-threateningessay and were given the opportunity to both allocate hot sauceand critically evaluate the author. Because Study 1 establishedthat MS does not encourage aggression against a target whodoes not threaten the worldview, and previous work has shownthat MS does not encourage derogation against such targets,only the worldview-threatening target was used in Study 2. Parti-cipants thought of their own mortality or dental pain and weregiven an opportunity to aggress against a worldview threatener.Half the MS participants were given the opportunity to allocatethe hot sauce prior to evaluating the target, and half were giventhe opportunity to evaluate the target prior to allocating the hot


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TERROR MANAGEMENT AND AGGRESSION 597sauce. The dental pain control participants allocated hot saucefirst and then evaluated the target. Because there was no reasonto expect high levels of aggression or derogation in the controlcondition, order of dependent variables was not manipulated inthis condition.

Consistent with the findings of Study 1, we expected that MSparticipants who were not first asked to evaluate the target wouldallocate a greater amount of hot sauce to a worldview-threaten-ing target than would other participants. However, such in-creased aggression should be reduced or eliminated among MSparticipants who were first allowed to defend their worldview.Similarly, we expected that MS-evaLuate-first participantswould express more negative attitudes than the other participantstoward the target, but that such derogation would be reducedor eliminated when MS participants were first given an opportu-nity to aggress against the target.

MethodParticipants. Twenty-seven male and 31 female introductory psy-

chology students at the University of Arizona participated in partialfulfillment of a course requirement. Participants were recruited on thebasis of the same pretest used in Study 1 to classify them as either liberalor conservative. Three participants were excluded from the analyses afterreporting suspicion about the experimental procedures, 1 was excludedbecause he was confused about the instructions, and 2 were excludedbecause they were not American citizens and the essays were designedspecifically to criticize American conservatives or l iberals.

Materials and procedure. Participants were randomly assigned toon e of three conditions: an MS-evaluate-last condition, where partici-pants administered hot sauce prior to evaluating the worldview-threaten-ing target; an MS-evaluate-first condition, in which participants ex-pressed their attitudes toward the worldview-threatening target prior toadministering the hot sauce; and a control condition, in which partici-pants were asked to write an essay about experiencing dental pain, andadministered hot sauce prior to evaluating the worldview-threateningtarget. A between-subjects design was used, and participants were runin groups of 4, consisting of either all liberal or all conservative partici-pants. The experimenter was blind to both participants' political stanceand experimental conditions.

Fo r the most part, the cover story and procedure were identical toStudy 1. Upon arrival, participants were directed toward cubicles andpresented with a packet of personality questionnaires, which containedth e MS manipulation. The topic of dental pain was used instead of animportant exam, so that thoughts of another aversive event could beused as a control condition.

Next, participants were given the same bogus essay used in Study 1to threaten their worldview s. However, unlike in Study 1, all participantsread the worldview-threatening essay. Participants were then given thefirst of two different impression formation forms. MS-evaluate-lastparticipants and control participants were presented w ith the nonevalua-tive impression formation form used in Study 1, which a llowed them toevaluate the target without engaging in worldview defense. MS-evalu-ate-first participants were given an opportunity to evaluate the target ina judgmental way, prior to allocating die hot sauce. Participants in thiscondition were presented at this point with an evaluative impressionformation form (Greenberg et al., 1994), which included three questionsregarding the target and two questions regarding agreement with theessay. Participants were asked, "How much do you l ike this person?,""How intelligent do you think this person is?," "How knowledgeabledo you think this person is?," "How much do you agree with thisperson's opinion?," and "From your perspective, how true do you thinkthis person's opinion is?" Participants responded to these questions

using a 9-point rating scale with endpoints of not at all (I) and totally(9). Participants then sealed these forms in a blank envelope.

After completing either the evaluative or nonevaluative impressionformation form, all participants were asked to comp lete the taste p refer-ence inventory. As in Study 1, participants were shown a bogus versionof the taste preference inventory, indicating that the target did not likehot sauce. The participants were then asked to allocate hot sauce to thetarget and to give a self-report of the number of spoonfuls of hot sauceadministered. Following this, manipulation checks were delivered. Parti-cipants were then given a second impression formation form. Participantsin the MS-evaluate-first condition, who had previously completed theevaluative imp ression formation form, were given the nonevaluative im-pression formation form. Participants in the MS-evaluate- last and con-trol conditions, who previously had com pleted the nonevaluative impres-sion formation form, were presented with the evaluative impressionformation form. Finally, all participants were debriefed, thanked, anddismissed.

ResultsThe primary analysis to be reported is a one-way ( M S -

evaluate-last vs. MS-evaluate-first vs. dental pain) A N O WThe mean response for recall of the target's rating of liking hotsauce was 2.86 (which did not differ by condition, F .12).For the question assessing the usefulness of the inventory, themean response was 16.2 (which did not differ by condition, F= .12 ). For the question assessing the extent to which partici-pants used the inventory, the mean response, which again didnot differ by condition, was 15.6 (F = 1.21). As in Study 1,participants in all conditions were equally aware that the targetdid not like spicy food and used this rating in deciding howmuch hot sauce to allocate.

MS and aggression. An ANOV\ on the weight (in grams)of hot sauce allocated to the target yielded a significant maineffect for condition, F(2, 48) = 3.36, p < .05. Means aredisplayed in Table 2. A planned orthogonal contrast to test thehypothesis that MS-evaluate-last participants would allocatesignificantly more hot sauce to targets than participants in theother two conditions was significant, r(48) = 2.42, p < .02. Asecond contrast, comparing MS-evaluate-first participants todental pain participants, was not significant, /(48) = . 9 1 , p >.36. Thus, MS participants allocated significantly more hot saucewhen they were not able to verbally derogate the targets priorto the administration of hot sauce. However, when MS partici-pants were able to first express their attitudes toward the target,the amount of hot sauce allocated was not significantly greaterthan for controls.

Table 2Study 2: Cell Means for the Weight (in Grams), and Self-Report Estimates (in Spoonfuls) of Hot Sauce Allocated

Mortalitysalientevaluate lastMortalitysalientevaluate first Dental paincontrol

MeasureWeightSelf-report estimates

M16.981.59

SD13.701.18

M11.501.07

SD8.691.25

M8.440.74

SD4.780.44


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598 M C G R E G O R E T A L .An ANOVA on participants' estimates of how many spoonfulsof hot sauce they allocated to the target revealed a marginallysignificant effect for condition, F(2 ,48) = 2.96, p < .07. Meansare displayed in Table 2. A planne d orthogon al contras t againprovided support for our main hypothesis: Estimates of hotsauce made by MS-evaluate-last participants were greater thanestimates made by the other participants, t(4S) = 2.25, p .36.Attitude toward and agreement with the target. As in previ-ous research (e.g. , Greenberg et al. , 1994) separate compositemeasures of attitudes toward the author and essay were com-puted from the evaluative impression form. We predicted thatMS participants who evaluated the target prior to administeringhot sauce would evaluate the target less positively than otherparticipants. However; no difference was expected between MSparticipants who evaluated the target after administering hotsauce and control participants. We had similar predictions re-garding agreement with the essay, but we were less confidentfor this measure because prior research has typically found

stronger effects on evaluation of the target than on agreementwith the essay (indeed, the latter measure has sometimes failedto yield significant effects, e.g., Greenberg et al., 1994).A one-way ANGVA on the attitude toward the target measureyielded a marginally significant result, F(2, 47) 2.75, p .57. Thus, MSled to more negative attitudes toward the worldview-threateningtarget, but only when these attitudes were assessed prior to

the opportunity to aggress. A one-way ANO\A on the essayagreement com posite revealed no significant effect, F (2 , 48) =.23, p > .79 (means are displayed in Table 3).

Within-cell correlations for target evaluation and hoi sauceallocation. Within-cell correlations between attitude and be-havior measures were assessed. In the dental pain control condi-tion, there was a significant negative correlation between weightof hot sauce allocation and target rating, r(14) = .60, p .23) .

Affect measures. One-way ANOVAs performed on each ofthe 13 PA N AS -X subscales revealed a significant effect onself-report ratings of attentiveness, F(2, 39) = 8.19, p < .01.The mean s were 3.46, 3.20, and 2.54, respectively, for M S -evaluate-last, MS-evaluate-first, and dental pain conditions.This effect suggests that MS participants were more attentivethan dental pain particip ants. There was also a significant effecton overall positive mood, F(2 , 38) = 3.65, p < .04, whichreflects the fact that MS participants reported more positivemoods than dental pain participants. The means were 2.92, 2.65,and 2.21, respectively, for MS-eva luate-last , MS-eva luate-first,and dental pain conditions. No significant effects were found onthe remaining 11 subscales. Of course, the finding of increasedpositive mood in response to MS is paradoxical and may reflecta tendency to deny one's distress at thoughts of one's owndeath; Harmon-Jones, Greenberg, Solomon, and Simon (1995)and Rosenblatt et al. (1989) also found some evidence of anincrease in positive mood in response to MS. Interpretation ofthese mood findings is complicated by the fact that in Studies3 and 4, the PANAS-X was completed immediately after theparticipants had tasted and evaluated the food sample; this pro-vided a check on participants' affective responses to the drinkstheir partners assigned them in Study 4 and was included inStudy 3 to make the procedures between the two studies asparallel as possible. Thus, the effect of the treatment on theseaffect scales may hav e been influenced by the food tasting expe-rience. In addition, interpretation of the role of affect in reac-tions to targets is difficult becau se at this point in the experime nt,the evaluate-first participants already had had the opportunityto derogate the target through verbal evaluations, but the evalu-ate-last participants had not yet had the opportunity to aggressagainst the target.

As in Studies 1 and 2, within-cell correlations were conductedbetween each of the PANAS-X subscales and both the weightand self-report measures of hot sauce allocation. In contrast toStudy 1, the within-cell correlations between the hostility sub-scale and weight were not significant (e.g., r(14) = .002, inthe MS-evaluate-last condition). The only other correlation toapproach significance was between attentiveness and self-reportof hot sauce allocation in the MS-evaluate-first condition, r( 14)= .51, p = .06. Thus , the more attentive participants in the


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TERROR MANAGEMENT AND AGGRESSION 601MS-evaluate -first condition were, the less hot sauce they re-ported allocating.

DiscussionThe results of Study 3 generally replicated the findings of

Study 2. Once again, MS-evaluate-last participants allocatedthe most hot sauce and MS-evalua te-first participants evaluatedthe target most negatively. In this study, a pairwise comparisonof hot sauce allocations between MS-eval uate- last participantsand MS-evaluate-first participants was significant, 2(39) =2.14, p < .04. However, the findings regarding derogation ofthe target were a bit weaker than in Study 2. Although theplanned orthogonal contrasts were supportive in both studies, apairwise comparison of hot sauce allocation was not significantin Study 2, and the overall F for attitude was not significant inStudy 3. However, when the data from Studies 2 and 3 werecombined, all ANO\S\s were significant, as were all predicteddifferences, whether assessed by planned contrasts or pairwisecomparisons (all ps < .05). Thus, overall, these two studiesreplicated the findings of Study 1 and also suggest that deroga-tion and aggression are two functionally equivalent responsesto worldview threat in response to MS.

Study 4As noted earlier, our final study was designed to address the

question of whether the effect of MS on aggression is specificto those who threaten one 's worldview or whether this effectwould generalize to any appropriate noxious target person. Aconsiderable body of research on aggression demonstrates thatpeople are likely to aggress against others who deliver a noxiousstimulus to them (see , e.g., Geen, 1990, for an overview). There-fore, in Study 4, we had MS and control participants allocate hotsauce to someone who allocated either neutral or very unpleasanttasting juice to them. In general, we should have found increasedhot sauce allocations to the target who allocated the unpleasantjuice and increased negative affect in those who drank the un-pleasant juice. The key question, however, was whether MSwould intensify aggression against this target. If so, it wouldsuggest that MS encourages aggression against others who im-pinge negatively on participants independent of the implicationsfor the individuals' cultural worldview. If not, it would supportthe terror management view that MS encourages aggression onlyagainst others who threaten one's worldview, just as it has beenfound to encourage derogation of only such targets (e.g.,Greenberg et a l , 1990; Rosenblatt et al., 1989).

MethodParticipants. Sixteen male and 44 female psychology students par-

ticipated in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Five participantswere excluded because they reported suspicion about the experimentalprocedure, two were excluded because of experimental error, and twowere excluded because they were nonnative speakers and had troublefollowing the experimenter 's instructions.

Materials and procedure. Participants were randomly assigned toconditions in a 2 (MS vs. control) X 2 (noxious vs. neutral juice)between-subjects design. The design of the study was identical to Study1, with the following exceptions.

First, because the goal of the study was to determine whether MSwould influence reactions to a target who negatively affected participantsbut did not threaten their worldview, we replaced the worldview-vio-lating essay with a neutral essay that was designed to neither threatennor bolster participants' cultural worldviews. The topic of the essayparticipants were asked to write was changed from * 'the direction thecountry is heading in " to "recreational interests." Thus, all participantswere presented with the following bogus essay:

I think that recreation is very important I like lots of differentactivities. I l ike playing b asketball, softball, and soccer. I also liketossing a frisbee and swimming. Exercise is important to me so Iuse machines at the rec center pretty regularly. I also like going tothe movies, reading, and hiking. And music, especially live music.So there are many things I'm into, but I'm not really a fanatic aboutany one kind of recreational activity.

Next , we manipulated whether the target provided participants witha negative experience. In the first two studies, participants were toldthat we were investigating the effects of personality on taste preferencesfor dry and spicy foods. However, in Studies 3 and 4, we informedparticipants that we were also interested in tart foods. Instead of thecracker sample, participants in Study 4 received a sample of juice.They were told that the juice sample was selected for them by anotherparticipant, and that they ' 'selected this flavor from a variety of flavorswhich ranged from neutral to very tart in taste. So, they could havegiven you any one of a number of flavors to taste, and this is the onethey chose." All participants were then given a container of a purple" ju i ce . " The taste of the juice was manipulated to be either very sourand distasteful or neutral and rather bland.6 Unpleasant tasting juice ofthis nature has been successfully used to create an unpleasant experiencein past research (Harmon-Jones, Brehm, Greenberg, Simon, & Nelson,1996). Participants were instructed to consume the entire amount of

juice and then rate the taste of the juice on a 9-point scale with endpoints of neutral (1 ) and very tart (9) and to rate their liking of thejuice on a 9-point scale which ranged from no liking at all (I) to extremeliking (9).

Next, the PANAS -X was given to the participants. It was administeredat this point in the experiment, rather than after the MS manipulation,because we wanted to use it to assess the affective impact of the juicemanipulation. Because we were attempting to anger participants in amanner that did not violate their worldview, we expected the bad juicegroups to report higher ratings on the hostility and negative mood sub-scales than the neutral juice groups.

Because Studies 3 an d 4 were run simultaneously within experimentalsession, it was necessary to ensure that the time it took participants tocomplete the materials for both studies was equivalent. Consequently,even though the recreation essay was used as a filler item in Study 4, andw e did not expect any group differences, we included the nonevaluativeimpression formation form after participants had read the essay arid theevaluative impression formation form after participants had allocatedthe hot sauce and completed manipulation checks.

Finally, participants were debriefed. Because some participants in thisstudy drank the unpleasant tasting juice, we made sure that participantsunderstood why that manipulation was used. While participants rep ortedthat the juice tasted very unpleasant, no one reported being upset aboutour use of this manipulation or about any other aspect of our procedure.

s T h e bad juice was a 2 oz (57 g) mixture of unsweetened grapeKool-Aid with 1 tsp of white vinegar added. The vinegar had the effectof making it extremely unpleasant to drink. The neutral juice consistedof 2 oz (57 g) water, with one drop of red food coloring and one dropof blue food coloring added. The food coloring was used to give theneutral sample an appearance identical to that of the bad juice.


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602 M C G R E G O R E T A L .Results

The primary analyses to be reported are 2 (MS vs. dentalpain) x 2 (neutral vs. bad juic e) ANOVAs. As in Studies 1 and2, participants were aware that the target disliked hot sauce (M= 3.13) and found this information useful in allocating hot sauceamounts (M = 16.18); neither measure varied by condition(F s < 2.10). For the question assessing the extent to whichparticipants used the inventory, the mean response was 15.97.There was an unexpected main effect of juice sample, F ( l , 56)= 4.59, p < .04. Participants in the bad juice condition reportedusing the taste preference inventory less than participants in theneutral juice condition (Ms = 14.40 and 17.53, respectively).This may indicate that participants in the bad juice conditionwere irritated by receiving their juice sample and as a resultwere significantly less interested in taking the target's taste pref-erences into account.

Juice sample evaluations. Participants also evaluated theflavor and taste of the juice samples. Not surprisingly, partici-pants in the bad juice condition reported it to be significantlymore tart (M = 7.8) than did participants in the neutral juicecondition (M = 2 .0) , F ( l , 56) = 130.32 , p < .01. On thesecond question, which asked them to rate their level of likingfor the jui ce , the difference between pa rticipa nts in the neutralju ice (M = 2.0) and bad juice conditions (M = 1.7) was notsignificant, F ( 1, 56 ) = 1.07, p > .43. The lack of significanceon this mea sure is most likely a reflection of the specific wordingof the question. P articipants evaluated the juic e on a scale thatranged from no liking at all (1) to extreme liking (9) with amidpoint of moderate liking (5). The endpoint of no liking doesnot permit participants to express extreme disliking they mayhave felt for the sample. In addition, the midpoint of 5 reflectsmoderate likiag rather than a neutral evaluation that one wouldexpect from water. Consequently, it may have been impossiblefor participants to demonstrate a distinction between reactionsof neutral feelings toward, and strong dislike for, the sample.In other word s, a floor effect may have kept a difference fromemerging on this measure. This is particularly likely given thesignificant differences found on participants' evaluation of theflavor of the juice and on the hostility subscale of the PANAS-X measure (reported later in this section). In addition, in alater study (Lieberman & Greenberg, 1997) the endpoint of noliking at all was replaced with extreme disliking, and significantdifferences in the expected direction were obtained.

MS and aggression. As expected, an ANOVA on the weight(in grams) of hot sauce allocated to the target yielded a signifi-cant main effect for sample type, F ( l , 56) = 4.33, p < .05.Bad juice participants allocated more hot sauce than neutraljuice participants (Ms = 24.67 and 15.36, respectively). How-ever, there were n o hints of a main effect of MS or an interactionof MS and sample type, F( 1,56 ) - .01, p > .9 7 , a n d F ( l , 5 6 )= .64, p > .42, respectively. Ce ll means are displayed in Table6. Thus, it appears that although our manipulation of sampletype was successful in increasing aggression, MS did not moder-ate this effect; in fact, in the bad juice condition, the mean hotsauce allocation was higher in the dental pain condition than inthe MS condition. Consequently, the effects of MS on aggressiondo not appear to extend to non-worldview-threatening targets.On the secondary measure of participants' self-report esti-

Table 6Study 4: Cell Means for Weight (in Grams), and Self-ReportEstimates (in Spoonfuls) of Hot Sauce Allocated

Juice sample

BadNeutral

BadNeutral

Mortality salientM SD

Weight22.82 14.2617.07 9.39

Self-report estimates2.00 1.201.25 0.80

DentalM

26.5313.64

2.421.24

pain controlSD

25.7815.74

2.151.34

mates of how many spoonfuls of hot sauce they allocated to thetarget, an ANOVA again yielded a significant effect for samplety p e , F ( l , 56) = 6.56, p < .02. Bad juice participants reportedmore spoonfuls allocated than did neutral juice participants (M s= 2.21 and 1.25, respectively). Cell means are displayed inTable 6. As with the weight measure, there were no hints of amain effect of MS or an interaction of MS and sample type, F ( 1,56) = .29, p > .59, and F ( l , 56) = .3 3 , p > .57, respectively.

Attitude toward and agreement with the target. As in theprevious studies, composite measures of evaluation of the essay-ist and agreement with the essay were computed and subjectedto 2 X 2 ANOVAs. These measures were included to ensureprocedural equivalence with Study 3. Because the participantswere presented with a neutral essay, we had no strong expecta-tions regarding this measure; however, we felt it possible that anegative reaction to the target who delivered the noxious stimu-lus would be found.A two-way ANOVA performed on the attitude measureyielded no significant effects, Fs < 1.06. Means are displayedin Table 7. However, there was a main effect for juice type onthe agreement measure, F( \ , 56) = 4 .42 , p < .05. Participantsin the bad juice condition reported less agreement with the target

(M = 5.9) than participants in the neutral juice condition (M= 6.8). This may indicate that anger at the target on the partof participants in the bad juice condition carried over to theevaluative rating of agreement with the targets. No main effectsor interactions involving MS were found (Fs < .14).Affect measure. Two-way ANOVAs performed on each ofthe 13 PA N A S- X subsca les revealed several significant effects.Significant main effects of sample type were found on hostility,F ( l , 4 9 ) = 9 .7 1 , p < .01 , overall negative mood, F ( l , 49 ) =5.62, p < .03, and surprise F ( 1,49 ) = 7.64, p< .01. Bad ju iceparticipants reported feeling more hostile (Ms = 1.8 vs. 1.2),having a more negative mood (M s = 1.48 vs. 1.18), and feelingmore surprised (Ms = 2.04 vs. 1.45) than neutral juic e partici-pants. Thus, it appears that we were successful in our attemptsto irritate our participants in a manner that did not violate theirworldview.An unexpected main effect of MS occurred on the surprisesubscale as well, F ( l , 49) = 6.38, p < .02. MS participantsreported feeling less surprised in general (M = 1.5) than dentalpain participants (M = 2.0 ). Although, as in Study 3, this effect


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TERROR MANAGEMENT AND AGGRESSION 603Table 7Study 4: Cell Means on Composite Measures of TargetRating, and Agreement with Target's Essay

Juice sample

Ba dNeutral

BadNeutral

Mortality salientM

5.776.31

5.906.67

SDTarget rating

1.621.59Agreement

1.981.67

Dental paincontrolM

6.116.31

5.876.97

SD

1.061.16

1.921.19Note. Lower means indicate more negative evaluations of target.

may have been influenced by the juice tasting that followed theMS induction, it may indicate some denial of the affective im-pact of MS.As in the first 3 studies, within-cell correlations were con-ducted between all PA NA S- X subscales, including the hostilitysubscale , and both the weig ht and self-report of hot sauce alloca-tion measures. Again, the correlations involving the hostilitysubscale did not attain significance, although the relationshipswere in the expected direction in the MS conditions (e.g. , be-tween hostility and weight r(1 5) = .23, in the M S- ba d juicecondition). No other correlations between the remaining sub-scales and the weight or self-report measures approached sig-nificance. One might have expected some evidence that self-reported hostility mediated aggression against the target; how-ever, none wa s found (G een , 199 0, noted that self-reported angerand hostility and aggression often do not covary as well asmight be expected) .Discussion

The results of Study 4 indicate that MS does not increaseaggression against an appropriate noxious target who did notthreaten participants ' worldviewsomeone who made themconsume a very unpleasant tasting drink. This lack of effectcannot be attributed to a general lack of effects of MS, becauserandomized conditions run simultaneously (reported as Study3) revealed that MS did increase aggression against a worldviewthreatener. Thus, the evidence from these studies as well asprior research seems to support the specificity of MS effectsto worldview-relevant targets. These findings also add to priorresearch indicating that MS effects do not result from arousalor the generation of negative affect, for if they did, one wouldexpect MS to amplify aggression against any appropriate target.G e n e r a l D i s c u s s i o n

Taken together, these four studies indicate that MS motivatesaggression against those who threaten one's worldview. Thus,these studies provide the first empirical evidence consistent withthe idea that mortality concerns contribute to the historically alltoo common phenomenon of aggression between those who

have different views of the world. However, the findings ofStudies 2 and 3 indicate that, as Solomon et al. (1991) haveproposed, aggression is only one of a number of responsesto a worldview threat motivated by mortality concerns. Whenparticipants were first given the opportunity to aggress againstthe target, they did so and did not express a particularly negativeattitude toward the target. Similarly, when first given the oppor-tunity to express dislike of the target, they did that and did notengage in significant a ggression. This pattern of results suggeststhat derogation and aggression are two alternative ways to de-fend the worldview in response to the increased need for protec-tion produced by MS.

In addition to providing support for terror management the-ory, these findings also tell us something new about terror man-agement that goes beyond the level of specification of the basictheory. The results indicate that MS can lead to at least twodifferent defensive reactions to a woridview threat and that onceone mode of addressing the threat is used, the other mode isnot needed. As previously noted, terror management may besimilar in this regard to other psychological defenses such asdissonance reduction and self-esteem defense. It might beworthwhile in future research to assess the possibility that ifthe threat were particularly great or persistent, multiple modesof defense might be used in concert.

Another issue worth exploring is whether people might useother modes besides derogation and aggression to defend theirworldviews in response to MS. Indeed, following Berger andLuckmann (1967), Solomon et al. (1991) noted that, histori-cally, in addition to derogation and aggression, people have alsooften tried to defuse worldview threat through assimilation andaccommodation. Assimilation involves attempting to convertothers to one's own point of view. Missionary activity is oneexample of this approach. Accommodation involves incorporat-ing certain compelling or appealing components of a threateningalternative worldview into one's own while discarding thethreatening components. A historical example of this may be theincorporation and meaning-altering transformation of variousaspects of the 1960s American hippie counterculture into main-stream American society. Hence, blue jeans became high fash-ion, granola bars became chocolate covered, and revolution-espousing rock music became soothing background stimulationfor shopping mall excursions. Of course, research is needed todetermine whether MS does indeed motivate efforts at assimila-tion and accommodation in response to worldview threat as wellas derogation and aggression.

We believe that it is also important to investigate factors thatdetermine which mode of defense is most likely to be used bya given person in a given situation. The present resea rch suggeststhat people will choose the first mode of worldview defenseprovided for them; however, there are undoubtedly also othersituational and dispositional factors that affect which mode ofworldview defense is chosen. Indeed, the aggression literaturehas revealed a variety of factors that facilitate or inhibit aggres-sion (see, e.g. , Baron & Richardson, 1994; Geen, 1990; Ham-mock & Richardson, 1992a); perhaps these would steer MSindividuals toward either aggression or alternative responses toworldview threat. Of course, in the present research, participantswere not aware of alternative ways to respond to the threat whenthe first dependent measure was assessed. By simultaneously


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604 M C G R E G O R ET AL.providing people with a number of possible ways to addressworldview threats following MS, future research may be ableto clarify the roles that dispositional and situational variablesplay in determining which of the many possible responses toMS a given individual tends to choose.

ConclusionThe present studies are the first to provide behavioral evi-

dence of aggression in response to MS. In so doing, they offerwhat is probably the most compelling evidence to date thatmortality concerns play a significant role in social behavior;Clearly this work demonstrates that death-related thoughts canmotivate a highly significant and problematic type of socialbehavior. Indeed, the hot sauce allocations by MS participantscould have caused considerable pain not only to the mouths butalso to the gastrointestinal systems of the intended targets.

These findings are thus consistent with Solomon et al.'s(1991) contention that terror management processes contributeto aggression, as well as with the writings of Becker (1973,1975) and others who have argued that the fear of death playsa major role in intergroup aggression. Prom a practical perspec-tive, further work is of course needed to assess the scope ofterror management processes in both interpersonal and in-tergroup conflict, and to identify ways of attenuating the aggres-sion that MS can produce. Perhaps methods to address the fearof death could be developed individually or culturally that wouldreduce the propensity for people to resort to violence againstthose who view the world differently than they do. As Becker(1975) noted:

If men kill out of animal fears, then conceivably fears can alwaysbe examined and calmed. . . . Elie Wiesel, who survived a Naziconcentration camp, summed it all up . . . "Man is not human."But it is one thing to say that man is not human because he is avicious animal and another to say that it is because he is a frightenedcreature who tries to secure a victory over his limitations. . . .Cultural developments . . . might influence the fear of death andforms of heroism; and so blunt the terrible destructiveness theyhave caused, (p. 169)

Even before the first drop of blood is shed, many conflictsprobably involve elevated mortality salience; this research sug-gests that such thoughts of mortality may be not only conse-quences of these conflicts but significant contributors to theirviolent escalation as well.

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