10.

1177/014616702236834
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
Jonas et al. / THE SCROOGE EFFECT
The Scrooge Effect: Evidence That Mortality Salience
Increases Prosocial Attitudes and Behavior
Eva Jonas
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt Mnchen
Jeff Schimel
University of Alberta
Jeff Greenberg
University of Arizona
Tom Pyszczynski
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
From the perspective of terror management theory, reminders of
mortality should intensify the desire to express culturally pre-
scribed prosocial attitudes and engage in culturally prescribed
prosocial behaviors. Two studies supported these hypotheses. In
Study 1, people were interviewed in close proximity to a funeral
home or several blocks away and were asked to indicate their atti-
tudes toward two charities they deemed important. Those who
were interviewed in front of the funeral home reported more
favorability toward these charities than those who were inter-
viewed several blocks away. In Study 2, the authors found that
following mortality salience, people gave more money to a charity
supporting an American cause than people who had been
exposed to an aversive control topic. However, mortality salience
had no effect on the amount of money given to a foreign cause.
Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell strait upon the
bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, un-
wept, uncared for, was the body of this man. . . . Oh cold,
cold, rigid dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and
dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command:
for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and
honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy
dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not
that the handis heavy andwill fall downwhenreleased; it
is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand
was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm,
and tender; and the pulse a mans. Strike Shadow, strike!
And see his good deeds springing up fromthe wound, to
sow the world with life immortal.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1950, pp. 115-116)
At Christmas time, one of the most cherished and fre-
quently told stories in Western culture is Charles Dick-
enss A Christmas Carol. In this story, the ghost of Christ-
mas past and the ghost of Christmas present show
Ebenezer Scrooge how his cruelty and selfishness has
adversely affected his own life and the lives of others.
However, it is not until the ghost of Christmas future
shows Scrooge a glimpse of his own future, inscribed on
the head of a tombstone, that his stinginess and greed
give way to benevolence and compassion for others.
Dickens is telling us that one should value kindness and
concern for others over selfishness and material riches
or else die an insignificant and lonely death.
In other words, by doing the right things, Scrooge was
able to manage his terror of absolute annihilation. And
so, in this 19th-century story, we can see a literary presag-
ing of terror management theory (TMT), which pro-
poses that self-esteem, the belief that one is a valuable
personwithinthe context of ones cultural conceptionof
Authors Note: This researchwas supportedinpart by National Science
Foundation (NSF) Grants SBR-9601366, SBR-9601474, SBR-9731626,
andSBR-9729946 as well a grant fromthe GermanScience Foundation
(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG]), Jo. 388/1-1. The contri-
butions of the first two authors were equivalent. We thank Jaime Valger
for her work as an experimenter in Study 2. Correspondence for this
article should be addressed to Eva Jonas, Institute of Psychology, Social
Psychology Unit, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet, Leopoldstr. 13,
80802 Munich, Germany; e-mail: jonas@psy.uni-muenchen.de.
PSPB, Vol. 28 No. 10, October 2002 1342-1353
DOI: 10.1177/014616702236834
2002 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
1342
reality, provides protection from the fear of death
(Becker, 1971, 1973; Greenberg, Sol omon, &
Pyszczynski, 1997; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski,
1991). Of interest, whereas most prior TMTresearchhas
focusedonnegative or socially destructive consequences
of confronting ones mortality, such as prejudice, bias,
and aggression, Dickenss story hypothesizes a construc-
tive consequence of mortality salience: If generous
behavior helps to restore the belief that one is a mean-
ingful andvaluable contributor to ones cultural concep-
tion of reality, then reminders of mortality should
encourage people (perhaps even the Scrooges of the
world) to be kinder and more benevolent to others. The
primary purpose of the two studies reported here was to
assess this Dickensian hypothesis.
TMT and Research
TMT, which is derived from the writings and analysis
of Ernest Becker (1962, 1971, 1973), posits that psycho-
logical needs are an outgrowth of the existential
dilemma that humans are thrust into frombirth. Similar
to other living organisms, humanbeings have aninstinct
for self-preservation and survival. Unlike other organ-
isms, human beings possess intellectual capacities that
make them painfully aware that one day they will die.
This pairing of an instinctive desire for continued life
with awareness of the inevitability of death creates the
potential for paralyzing terror. Cultural conceptions of
reality evolved, in part, to provide protection against this
most basic of all human fears. At the most fundamental
level, these conceptions of reality provide people with a
sense of meaning, that life is significant and permanent
and consists of more than taking in food, expelling
waste, and temporarily clinging to survival on a clump of
dirt and rock hurtling through space. Fromthe perspec-
tive of TMT, protection from death-related fear is pro-
vided by a dual-component cultural anxiety buffer con-
sisting of (a) a cultural worldview, which provides a
meaningful, orderly, stable conception of reality, stan-
dards, and values through which one can feel valuable,
and a promise of death transcendence that can be either
literal (e.g., heaven, nirvana) or symbolic (e.g., publica-
tions, artwork) for those wholive uptothese standards of
value and (b) self-esteem, which is the belief that one is
currently living up to cultural standards. Because of the
important role that these structures play in protecting
people from existential fear, a great deal of behavior is
aimedat sustaining these structures anddefending them
against threats.
Throughout the past dozen years a substantial
amount of evidence has been gathered in support of
TMTs primary hypotheses. The first central hypothesis
derived from TMT is that self-esteem serves as a buffer
against anxiety. A large body of evidence is consistent
with this idea. Trait self-esteem is negatively correlated
with trait anxiety and anxiety-related problems, and
threats to self-esteem increase anxiety (for a review, see
Solomon et al., 1991). Most important, studies designed
specifically to test this hypothesis have shown that bol-
stering peoples self-esteem reduces both physiological
arousal and self-reports of anxiety inresponse to graphic
depictions of death and painful electric shocks and
reduces defensive distortions to deny ones vulnerability
to an early death (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1993;
Greenberg, Solomon, et al., 1992). Furthermore, experi-
mentally manipulated and naturally occurring high self-
esteemhas been shown to reduce defensive responses to
reminders of death (e.g., Arndt & Greenberg, 1999;
Harmon-Jones et al., 1997).
The second central hypothesis derived from TMT is
that if faith in the cultural worldview and self-esteem
function to protect people from anxiety about death,
then reminders of this primary fear should increase peo-
ples need for these psychological structures. To date,
more than 80 studies conducted in seven different coun-
tries have supported variants of this hypothesis (for a
review, see Greenberg et al., 1997). The bulk of these
studies have demonstrated that mortality salience
increases positive reactions to those who uphold or vali-
date the individuals worldviewand negative reactions to
those whoviolate or challenge the individuals worldview
(Greenberg et al., 1990; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solo-
mon, Simon, & Breus, 1994; Greenberg, Simon,
Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992; Ochsmann &
Mathy, 1994; Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon,
Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Other research consistent
with the mortality salience hypothesis has shown that
reminding people of death increases adherence to cul-
tural norms (Greenberg, Porteus, Simon, Pyszczynski, &
Solomon, 1995; Rosenblatt et al., 1989), heightens esti-
mates of social consensus for culturally relevant attitudes
(Pyszczynski et al., 1996), and increases optimal distinc-
tiveness strivings (Simon et al., 1997). Mortality salience
alsohas beenshowntoincrease behaviors directly associ-
ated with self-esteem striving, such as risky driving
among those who are highly invested in their driving
ability (Taubman Ben-Ari, Florian, & Mikulincer, 1999),
focus on bodily appearance for those who take pride in
their physical appearance (Goldenberg, McCoy,
Pyszczynski, Greenberg, &Solomon, 2000), and identifi-
cation with successful groups and disidentification from
unsuccessful groups (e.g., Dechesne, Greenberg, Arndt,
& Schimel, 2000).
Although this short summary of terror management
findings illustrates that mortality salience affects a wide
range of different areas in human life, one should note
that this only applies to worldview-relevant domains. For
example, when testing the effect of the violation of cul-
Jonas et al. / THE SCROOGE EFFECT 1343
tural norms, Rosenblatt et al. (1989, Study 2) questioned
if following mortality salience participants also would
show an inclination to derogate any other person who
had, however, not violated any social or cultural rule.
The results revealed that although mortality salience led
to harsher reactions to a person who violated cultural
norms it did not influence the evaluation of a neutral
person (in this case, the experimenter). In addition,
Rosenblatt et al. (1989, Study 4) found that mortality
salience did not affect the evaluation of non-worldview-
relevant positive or negative events or the monetary esti-
mates of different consumer products. Indeed, many
normal, everyday behaviors, such as going to the bank to
make a deposit, choosing a meal at a nice restaurant,
driving to work in the morning, judging a work of art, or
going for a swim, may be unrelated to and unaffected by
peoples concerns about mortality. However, if one con-
siders himself or herself to be a shrewd financier, a con-
noisseur of fine foods, a skillful driver, or a future Olym-
pic swimmer, then such everyday behaviors take on
deeper meaning as ways of feeling personally valuable
and heroic withinthe broader culture. Whensuchevery-
day thoughts and behaviors become personal avenues
for self-esteem, mortality salience is thought to intensify
such behaviors.
TMT and Prosocial Behavior
Despite the large amount of evidence that has accu-
mulated in support of TMT, the tenor of most of this
work is that mortality salience increases negative reac-
tions to those who are different and exaggerates various
forms of self-serving behavior. However, along with
ethnocentric biases and egotism, acts involving kindness
andgenerosity towardothers also shouldaffirmpeoples
faith in their cultural worldview and self-esteem. Most
people learn from early on that living up to standards of
benevolence and concern for those who are less fortu-
nate than ourselves is honorable and highly desirable.
For example, the Bible speaks clearly that one should
love thy neighbor as thy self through well-known para-
bles such as the Good Samaritan. Similarly, famous fig-
ures such as Mother Teresa and Ghandi exemplify the
benefits of living a humble, self-sacrificing, and benevo-
lent life. Moreover, as was mentioned at the outset of this
article, stories such as A Christmas Carol warn us that self-
ishness and greed may lead to a lonely life and an early
death, whereas kindness and compassionate giving leads
to happiness and may even grant postponement or tran-
scendence of ones death. The message transmitted by
these historical figures, religious parables, and popular
stories is clear: We are good and safe if we live up to stan-
dards of generosity, kindness, and unselfishness and we
are badandinperil if we fail tolive uptothese standards.
Indeed, research shows that people generally accept
these cultural prescriptions of value and maintain their
self-esteem by living up to them. For example, research
has shown that helping can be increased by anticipated
social approval and salient social norms (e.g., Berkowitz,
1972; Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1991; Kallgren, Reno,
& Cialdini, 2000; Macaulay, 1975; Moss & Page, 1972;
Satow, 1975). Other research has shown that people
repair their self-esteemafter threats by engaging inhelp-
ful behavior. For example, Steele (1975) foundthat after
being criticized for their poor driving ability, women
were more likely to promise to help out with a commu-
nity project. Similarly, Brown and Smart (1991) found
that following a recent failure, people with high self-
esteem rated themselves higher on traits that exempli-
fied their kindness and generosity and spent more time
helping a research assistant.
From a TMT perspective, the belief that one is living
up to the standards and values set forth by ones cultural
worldview provides protection from deeply rooted fear.
To the extent that prosocial behaviors are valued by
ones culture and contribute to self-esteem, acting in
ways that are helpful, giving, and benevolent should
serve a terror management function. However, it may be
that some forms of helping provide better protection
from existential concerns than others. According to
TMT, people develop their own individualized ways of
achieving a sense of personal value within the context of
the broader cultural framework. Some people try to be
good Republicans, Christians, or educators, whereas
others gain a sense of value by constructing buildings,
playing music, or practicing medicine. Thus, people find
value and significance by adhering to their own unique
individualized set of standards and values that they have
abstractedfromthe wide array of cultural values towhich
they have been exposed. In support of this point, a vari-
ety of studies have shown that the effects of mortality
salience depend on the content of the individuals
worldview (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990; Greenberg,
Simon, et al., 1992; Rosenblatt et al., 1989; Simon, Arndt,
Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1998).
From a TMT perspective, then, prosocial behavior
that conforms to ones personalized belief system would
offer the best protection against existential fear. Based
on this reasoning, Study 1 was designed to test the
hypothesis that a subtle real-world reminder of mortality
would increase the favorability of peoples attitudes
toward charities. Study 2 was designed to more directly
examine the helping behavior (as opposed to helping-
relevant attitudes) and to test the hypothesis that mortal-
ity salience would have a greater effect on donations to
charities that benefited ingroup members than to chari-
ties than benefited outgroup members.
1344 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
STUDY 1
Following Pyszczynski et al. (1996), Study 1 was a field
study in which pedestrians walking on the street were
interviewed in front of a funeral home or several blocks
away from the funeral home. Their attitudes toward two
different charitable organizations that they deemed
moderately important constituted the dependent vari-
able. We predicted that mortality salient participants,
that is, those interviewed in front of the funeral home,
would exhibit more favorable attitudes toward the two
charities than would participants interviewed away from
the funeral home.
Method
Participants. The participants were 17 male and 14
female pedestrians who were solicited to take part in a
short survey while walking down a street in Boulder, Col-
orado. All of the participants were U.S. citizens.
Procedure. Participants who were walking on a trajec-
tory that was anticipated to take them past a funeral
home were randomly assigned to be interviewed by a
male interviewer either directly in front of the funeral
home or approximately three blocks (150 m) away from
it. The funeral home was a brick building with a large
sign clearly visible to the pedestrian that read Howes
Mortuary. At the time the study was being conducted,
there was masonry work being done onthe building near
the sign, which drewpedestrians attention to the sign as
they passed by. As in previous mortality salience studies
using this manipulation (Pyszczynski et al., 1996), the
interviewer positioned himself so that the participants
were forced to face the front of the building so that they
could clearly see the sign.
The experimenter first asked participants if they
would be willing to take about 5 mins of their time to
complete a short survey. Once they agreed, the experi-
menter proceeded by giving them a form with a short
description of 10 different charities and told them to
rank order the charities according to which ones they
thought were most important (1 = most important, 10 =
least important).
1
Once they had completed this task, the
experimenter told the participants that this survey was
part of a research project for a class. Thus, in exchange
for participating, they would have $5 donated in their
name toa charity of their choice. The experimenter took
the participants list of charities, circledthe charities par-
ticipants ranked number 3 and 4 on the list, and
thensaid, It just sohappens that we are donating money
to these two charitiesso what I need you to do now is
choose which of these two charities you would like to
have us donate $5 in your name. Once the participants
made their decision, the experimenter had themfill out
a receipt that asked them to print and sign their name,
the date, and the name of the charity they had chosen.
The experimenter then handed the participants a ques-
tionnaire asking several questions about the chosen and
nonchosen charity.
2
These questions asked, How bene-
ficial is this charity to society? How much do you think
society needs this charity? and How desirable is this
charity to you personally? All responses were made on a
10-point scale (1 = not at all, 10 = very much). Once the
participants completed these questions, the experi-
menter debriefed them about the true purpose of the
study.
Results
For each of the three attitude items, we collapsed par-
ticipants ratings for the chosen and nonchosen chari-
ties to form a favorability score for each of the items. We
then performed a principal components analysis on
these item scores and found that each of them loaded
heavily on a single factor (eigenvalue = 2.45). The factor
loadings for each of the items were .92, .94, and .84,
respectively. We therefore summed these three items to
form a single composite measure of favorability toward
charitable organizations. A t test performed on this
favorability composite yielded a significant effect of our
mortality salience treatment, t(31) = 2.06, p < .05, indicat-
ing that mortality salience increased the favorability of
participants attitudes toward the charitable organiza-
tions. The means and standard deviations for the com-
posite measure andthe individual items are presentedin
Table 1.
3
Discussion
The results support the prediction derived from
TMT: When interviewed in front of a funeral home, and
thereby reminded of mortality, people showed a more
favorable attitude toward charitable causes than when
interviewed three blocks from the mortuary. Reminded
of mortality, people judgedcharitable organizations that
were important tothemas more beneficial tosociety and
more desirable to them personally and indicated that
Jonas et al. / THE SCROOGE EFFECT 1345
TABLE 1: Means and Standard Deviations for Participants Ratings
of the Charities in Study 1
Death Salience Control
M SD M SD
How beneficial is this
charity to society? 17.31 2.96 14.73 3.91
How much does society
need this charity? 17.37 2.70 15.80 3.62
How desirable is this charity
to you personally? 16.06 3.29 13.40 4.12
Favorability composite 50.75 7.60 43.93 10.68
N 16 15
society needs those charities more. Thus, mortality
salience leads to a more positive attitude toward organi-
zations perceived to serve an important function in our
society and to help others in need. According to TMT,
cultural conceptions of reality serve to protect people
from the fear of absolute annihilation. Therefore, when
remindedof death, cultural norms shouldbecome more
important to people and cultural values should become
more valued. The findings of Study 1 extend previous
findings that mortality salience increases rewards recom-
mended for a hero and punishment recommended for a
moral transgressor (Florian & Mikulincer, 1997;
Ochsmann & Reichelt, 1994; Rosenblatt et al., 1989) by
showing a similar effect of mortality salience onthe value
people place on charitable organizations. Similar to
Dickenss Mr. Scrooge, people who were reminded of
their mortality by standing in front of a funeral home
came toviewcharitable givingina more favorable light.
It is important, however, to determine whether this
increase in favorable attitudes toward charities extends
to peoples actual charitable behavior. It is one thing to
say that charities are important and quite another to
behave in accordance with such attitudes. To see if peo-
ple would put their money where their mouth is, Study 2
assessed whether people would donate more money to
charitable organizations after being reminded of
mortality.
When we consider why people become more favor-
able toward charities when reminded of their mortality,
two possibilities emerge. Presumably, following death
salience, people try to live up to cultural standards of
helping as a means of upholding the moral principles of
their cultural worldview. As we know from other
research, people who are religious donate more money
to charitable causes, partly because of the belief that it
will lead to heavenly rewards and that this is part of ones
religious duty (Myers, 1992). Other people are moti-
vatedby more abstract moral principles of fairness or jus-
tice and concern with longer term changes in society
(Radley &Kennedy, 1992). Both of these reasons for val-
uing giving suggest that there is a connection between
donating money to charities and feeling that one is a
good person and a valuable member of society. Thus,
mortality salience may increase peoples general motiva-
tion to help others because doing so increases their per-
ceptions that they are living uptotheir culturally derived
principles of goodness and morality.
However, we think that mortality salience would be
most likely to increase peoples motivation to help mem-
bers of their ingroup. Many previous studies have shown
that mortality salience increases ingroup favoritism
(e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990; Harmon-Jones, Greenberg,
Solomon, & Simon, 1996; Nelson, Moore, Olivetti, &
Scott, 1997). There is also a good deal of evidence show-
ing ingroup bias in helping behavior. For example,
Brown (1978) showed that people donate more money
to ingroup than outgroup causes and Gaertner, Dovidio,
and Johnson (1982) showed that Whites are less likely to
help Blacks than fellow Whites when their behavior is
not easily identifiable. In a study on charitable giving
among American Jews, it was found that the participants
gave a median amount of $175 per year to Jewish chari-
ties versus $75 to non-Jewish charities (Rimor & Tobin,
1990). Similarly, members of Black American churches
donate more to Black charities and organizations not
connected to their church than to non-Black charities
(Carson, 1990). These findings suggest that people pri-
marily value helping fellow ingroup members in need;
therefore, we wouldexpect mortality salience toincrease
helping for those within ones own culture.
STUDY 2
To test this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment
in which participants were reminded of their own death
or an aversive control topic (i.e., dental pain). After the
experiment ostensibly was over, we asked them whether
they would be willing to support specific charitable orga-
nizations the university was sponsoring by donating
money. All participants got a brochure in which one
American and one international charity organization
were described. If mortality salience generally increases
willingness to help, we would expect a main effect: Par-
ticipants in the mortality salience condition would give
more money to charities than participants in the control
condition would give. On the other hand, if mortality
salience only increases the willingness to give money to
charities that support ones own culture then we would
expect an interaction: Participants in the mortality
salience condition would donate more money to the
American charity than participants in the control condi-
tion, whereas mortality salience would have little or no
effect on donations to international charities.
Method
Participants and design. Twenty-seven introductory psy-
chology students (18 women and 9 men) from the Uni-
versity of Arizona participatedinthis experiment for par-
tial course credit. Three participants were dropped for
suspicion after indicating that they thought the experi-
ment was concerned with whether people would donate
money to charities. Two participants were dropped from
the analysis because they were foreign students. Partici-
pants were run in groups ranging in size from 3 to 5 and
were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (mortality
salience: deathvs. dental pain) 2 (charity: Americanvs.
1346 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
international) factorial design with charity treated as a
repeated-measures variable.
Procedure. After arriving to the experimental session,
the experimenter told the participants that the study was
concernedwithhowdifferent personality measures were
related and that they would complete a short packet of
personality measures. Before the experiment started
they were given $1.50, ostensibly for participating in this
study. The reasonfor this ploy was tomake sure all partic-
ipants would have at least a small amount of money to
donate to the charities they would learn about later in
the study. The participants were told that the current
study was sponsoredby the National Science Foundation
(NSF), whichwas infact true, and that therefore we were
required by the NSF to pay them for their participation
in the study (which of course was not true). The experi-
menter told participants that we were not able to give
them a lot of money but at least we could afford a little
sum for each person. She explained further that to
make the distribution as fair as possibleacross all the
studieswe have decided to give them one quarter for
each page they filled out. Because there were six pages
in the packet, in addition to receiving credits for their
psychology class, the participants also received six quar-
ters. The experimenter explained that she wanted to
give them the money before the experiment started so
that it would not take time at the end.
Participants were then ushered into individual cubi-
cles to ensure their privacy, where they filled out the per-
sonality questionnaires. First, they received a filler mea-
sure and then a mortality salience or control treatment,
which was titled The Projective Life Attitudes Assess-
ment. The mortality salience treatment consisted of
having participants respond to two open-ended ques-
tions: Please briefly describe the emotions that the
thought of your own death arouses in you and Jot
down, as specifically as you can, what you think will hap-
pen to you as you physically die and once you are physi-
cally dead. In the control condition, we asked the same
questions with regard to dental pain. The experimenter
was blind to these manipulations. Participants then
responded to two filler questionnaires consisting of one
mood assessment (the PANAS-X) (Watson, Clark, &
Tellegen, 1988) and a filler questionnaire about partici-
pants sleeping and waking patterns to constitute a delay
between the mortality salience manipulation and the
dependent measure (cf. Greenberg et al., 1994).
After participants finished all of the questionnaires,
the experimenter went into each cubicle and gave them
a brochure and two envelopes. The experimenter went
on to explain that it might take a little longer until every-
one was finished so while they were waiting she was won-
dering if they could read a brochure. She explained that
in the last few weeks, the Psychology Department had
agreed to work with the university to help raise money
for some different charities. There were two specific
charities that the university was sponsoring. The bro-
chure wouldtell themabout eachof these organizations.
If they wanted to donate anything there were some enve-
lopes on which the names of the charities were written
and they could just put the money in the envelope of the
charity to which they wanted to donate and then drop
the envelope in a box on the floor. She emphasized that
it was totally up to them whether they wanted to make a
contribution and that the contents of the envelope
would be completely anonymous. Then she closed the
door of the cubicle and gave them privacy while they
read the brochure.
The brochure was titled Support Charities as a Mem-
ber of the University of Arizona Community andstarted
by emphasizing that the support of charitable organiza-
tions was a cornerstone of Americanculture and that the
University of Arizona itself couldnt succeed without the
support of the community. The brochure went onto say
that the university wanted to take part in the tradition of
supporting a variety of charitable causes and thereby giv-
ing back to the community. It was further explained that
the university was asking its employees and students to
donate money to some organizations that were
strengthening our society by improving education and
helping young families, causes close to the heart of every
university community. Finally, it was emphasized that
every little amount would help, no matter how small.
Then, two specific charity organizations were described:
one American and one international organization.
From the description, it was clear that the American
organization helped people in the United States and
that the international organizations helped people out-
side of the UnitedStates. To avoidmaking this differenti-
ation too obvious, we chose two different charity areas:
one about education and one about house building; the
goal inbothareas was to help people inunder-resourced
regions. The two organizations we included in the bro-
chure were real charities. We made two different coun-
terbalanced versions of the brochures such that one bro-
chure included an American education charity and an
international house-building charity, whereas the other
included an international education charity and an
American house-building charity. Each one of the two
envelopes we gave to the participants together with the
brochure had the name of the corresponding organiza-
tion on it.
After the participants finished reading the brochure
and decided whether they wanted to donate money, they
were debriefed. Because we had to tell them that the
request of donating money was part of the experiment
Jonas et al. / THE SCROOGE EFFECT 1347
and did not come from the university, they were offered
the opportunity to get their money back in case they
wanted to, but none of the participants retracted their
donation. When all of the data for the study was col-
lected, we donatedthe participants money to the appro-
priate charities.
Results
Money donated. Our dependent measure was the
amount of money participants donated to the different
charities. We first performed a 2 (mortality salience:
death vs. dental pain) 2 (charity: American vs. interna-
tional) 2 (version: house building vs. education)
ANOVA on the amount of money participants donated
to see if the different versions interacted with the other
conditions. The three-way interaction was not signifi-
cant, F(1, 18) < 1.78, suggesting that the different ver-
sions did not interfere with our results.
4
We therefore
collapsed the money donated to the American versus
international organizations across the two types of chari-
ties (education vs. house building). We then submitted
this measure to a 2 (mortality salience) 2 (charity)
ANOVAwith charity treated as a repeated-measures vari-
able. However, an analysis of the distribution of partici-
pants donations within each condition revealed that
this measure did not meet the assumptionof homogene-
ity of variance for ANOVA. We therefore performed a
square-root transformation on the amount of money
participants donated and then submitted this measure
to the ANOVA. This analysis yielded no significant main
effect for mortality salience, F(1, 20) = 2.76, p > .11, or
charities, F(1, 20) < 1. However, there was a significant
Mortality Salience Charity interaction, F(1, 20) = 7.06,
p < .02.
Pairwise comparisons supported the prediction that
participants in the mortality salience condition gave
more money to the American charities than would par
ticipants in the control condition, t(20) = 4.08, p < .001.
In contrast, mortality salience had no significant effect
on the amount of money donated to the international
charities, t(20) < 1. Lookedat differently, withinthe mor-
tality salience conditions, mortality salience led to higher
donations to the American as opposed to the interna-
tional charities, t(20) = 2.52, p < .03, whereas within the
dental pain salience condition, there was no significant
difference in donation to the American as opposed to
the international charities, t(20) = 1.19, p > .20 (cell
means and standard deviations of the transformed and
nontransformed data are presented in Table 2).
Affect. To assess whether the mortality salience treat-
ment affected participants mood, we performed t tests
on the various subscales of the PANAS-X (Watson et al.,
1988). There was only a marginal effect of mortality
salience on surprise t(20) = 2.05, p < .06, indicating that
participants experienced more surprise in the dental
pain condition. To assess whether feelings of surprise
mediated our results, we conducted a 2 (mortality
salience) 2 (charity) analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)
using surprise as the covariate. This analysis revealed a
significant Mortality Salience Charity interaction, indi-
cating that surprise did not mediate our results. t tests
performed on the remaining subscales of the PANAS-X,
including positive andnegative affect, revealednosignif-
icant differences (all ts < 1.31).
Discussion
The findings of Study 2 clearly illustrate the impact
that mortality salience has onprosocial behavior by dem-
onstrating that mortality salience increased the amount
of money people contributed to charitable organiza-
tions. Moreover, Study 2 served to specify the conditions
under which prosocial behavior occurred: After mortal-
ity salience, people donated more money to charities
that supported projects in America but did not increase
giving to international projects. These results suggest
that mortality salience does not simply motivate people
to behave according to a general normof universal help-
ing. Rather, when people are particularly concerned
with defending against the thought of their own death,
they showed a strong bias toward charitable causes that
promote their own culture.
This is consistent with findings of previous terror
management research showing that following remind-
ers of mortality, people respond especially favorably
towardpeople andideas that support their cultural affili-
ations (Greenberg et al., 1990; Rosenblatt et al., 1989).
Thus, in a sense, our results can be viewed as another
manifestation of the tendency for mortality salience to
lead to favoritismtoward ones own culture. However, all
of the prior evidence of increased positive responses
after mortality salience has assessed self-reported atti-
tudes and intentions; the finding of increased monetary
contributions to American charities constitutes the first
1348 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
TABLE 2: Means and Standard Deviations for the Absolute and
Transformed Amount of Money Donated in Study 2
Salience
Death Dental Pain
Charity Organization M SD M SD
Absolute amount
American charity $1.44 $1.38 $0.30 $0.38
International charity $0.88 $1.47 $0.49 $0.44
Transformed amount
American charity $1.03 $0.64 $0.38 $0.41
International charity $0.63 $0.72 $0.57 $0.42
N 11 11
evidence of a positive behavioral effect of mortality
salience, and one involving personal costs to the
participants.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Two studies supported the idea that terror manage-
ment concerns can contribute to prosocial inclinations.
Study 1 demonstrated that reminding people of death
leads to a more favorable attitude toward charities.
Study 2 found that mortality salience increased actual
prosocial behavior in terms of giving more money to
charity organizations, but this only occurred with chari-
ties that benefit ones own culture. Mortality salience
had no effect on giving when the beneficiaries of this
kindness were not members of ones ingroup. Thus,
Study 2 supported the culture-specific hypothesis con-
cerning the effects of mortality salience on helping. Just
as Ebenezer Scrooge respondedtoa dramatic confronta-
tion with his mortality by helping his employees, their
families, and other members of his community, so too
did participants in Study 2 respond to an admittedly less
dramatic reminder of their mortality by giving more to
ingroup charities, helping those in their own culture.
Whereas Study 1 showed the effect of mortality
salience on attitudes toward charities in the context of a
field study in which people were interviewed either in
front of or several blocks away from a funeral home,
Study 2 was conducted under the controlled conditions
of the laboratory, comparing the effects of filling out a
questionnaire about death-related issues to a control
group in which participants were reminded of a non-
death-related aversive topic (dental pain). The converg-
ing findings across twovery different operationalizations
of mortality salience strongly implicate death-related
thoughts in these effects, particularly in conjunction
with a large body of other research utilizing these and
other operationalizations and control conditions (see,
e.g., Greenberg et al., 1997; Greenberg, Schimel, Mar-
tens, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 2001).
The Contribution to the Terror
Management Literature
This research provides evidence of mortality salience
affecting yet another type of human behavior: prosocial
action. In doing so, the present findings also add to a
small but growing body of evidence of behavioral effects
of mortality salience (Greenberg et al., 1995; McGregor
et al., 1998; Ochsmann&Mathy, 1994; TaubmanBen-Ari
et al., 1999). These studies highlight the role terror man-
agement concerns play not only in peoples attitudes but
also in how they actually behave in various situations.
Positive effects of mortality salience. In addition, our
results expandoncurrent TMTresearchby emphasizing
the positive impact that terror management concerns
can have on human behavior. TMT studies so far have
predominantly focused on negative implications of mor-
tality salience, such as increased prejudice (e.g.,
Greenberg et al., 1990), aggression (McGregor et al.,
1998), or racism (Greenberg et al., 2001). Although
there are some studies that also indicate positive effects
following mortality salience, suchas increasedliking and
rewards for those who support ones worldview or
uphold cultural standards (see, e.g., Rosenblatt et al.,
1989), these results were usually accompanied by an
increased disliking of those who represent a different
culture (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990). In contrast to this
prior research, the present Study 2 showedthat although
mortality salience only increased participants willing-
ness togive more money tocharities of their ownculture,
this was not accompaniedby lesseneddonations tochari-
ties that help foreign cultures. For international chari-
ties, there was simply no difference between participants
in the mortality salience and the control condition.
We believe that by demonstrating positive effects of
mortality salience, this work provides an initial step
toward an important new direction for terror manage-
ment research. Although most prior writing and
research on terror management has focused on defen-
sive responses, people in their everyday lives spend con-
siderable energy bolstering their faiths in their beliefs
and their sense of self-worth through a wide variety of
good works. Indeed, theorists have suggested that rais-
ing and passing on values to children; personal produc-
tivity, such as artistic, scientific, and technological
achievements; passing on ones knowledge and skills
through teaching; and contributions to charities and
political and social causes are all positive ways in which
people canachieve andsustaina sense of deathtranscen-
dence (e.g., Adler, 1930; Erickson, 1950/1963; Lifton,
1983; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992; Peterson & Stew-
art, 1993; Rank, 1932/1989). Perhaps this function of
altruistic acts helps explain why prosocial behavior is val-
ued in all cultures and prescribed so strongly in all the
major religions of the world. More empirical work on
such approach-oriented responses to the knowledge of
our mortality is sorely needed.
On the ubiquity of mortality salience effects. Before consid-
ering the implications of this research for prosocial
behavior, we think a legitimate question needs to be
addressed.
5
Now that mortality salience effects have
been found for prosocial as well as antisocial actions, is
there anything mortality salience does not affect? In
other words, does mortality salience simply intensify all
cognitive and behavioral propensities? The theory and
research does suggest that mortality concerns can affect
a wide range of behaviors, but they also provide a clear
answer to this question: no. Theoretically, mortality
Jonas et al. / THE SCROOGE EFFECT 1349
salience should only intensify attitudes, judgments, and
behaviors that serve to bolster ones worldview and self-
esteem, and a large body of research strongly supports
this answer.
Certainly, a very wide range of attitudes, judgments,
and behaviors can potentially serve to bolster aspects of
an individuals worldview and ones self-worth. However,
the theory suggests two broad sets of conditions under
which mortality salience should not affect cognition and
behavior. The first is when the cognitions and behaviors
simply are not relevant to bolstering the individuals
worldview or self-worth. The first evidence for this point
was obtained in the first set of mortality salience studies.
Rosenblatt et al. (1989) found that whereas mortality
salience increased punitive responses toward a prosti-
tute and rewards for a hero, it did not intensify liking for
the experimenter or ratings of worldview-irrelevant posi-
tive and negative events.
A wide variety of studies since then also have shown
that whether mortality salience affects cognitions and
behaviors depends very much on individual and situa-
tional factors that make particular judgments and
actions either relevant or irrelevant to the individuals
worldview or self-worth. A list of study findings that, in
the context of theoretically specified significant interac-
tions, demonstrate cognitions and behaviors not
affected by mortality salience includes evidence that
mortality salience does not affect (a) problem-solving
behavior, unless the problems required inappropriate
use of cultural icons to be solved (Greenberg et al.,
1995); (b) Whites liking for a neutrally presented Afri-
can American (Schimel et al., 1999); (c) low neurotics
ratings of the appeal of physical sex (Goldenberg et al.,
2000); (d) the reactions to a different other of partici-
pants who highly valued tolerance or for whom toler-
ance has been made salient (Greenberg, Simon, et al.,
1992); (e) ratings of romantic partners andrelationships
in insecurely attached individuals (Mikulincer &
Florian, 2000); (f) driving style of participants for whom
driving ability is irrelevant to self-worth (Taubman Ben-
Ari et al., 1999); (g) ratings of a critic of ones group
when ingroup identification is considered permeable
and identification with a criticized group when identifi-
cation is considered impermeable (Dechesne, Janssen, &
van Knippenberg, 2000); and (h) psychological distanc-
ing from a Hispanic person by White participants
(Arndt, Greenberg, Schimel, Pyszczynski, & Solomon,
2002).
The second set of conditions under which mortality
salience is predicted to have no effects is when terror
management structures are very strong, such as when
self-worthis dispositionally highor situationally boosted.
For example, under such conditions, mortality salience
has been shown not to affect (a) pro-American bias in
Americans (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997), (b) self-percep-
tions associated with a long life expectancy (Greenberg
et al., 1993), (c) driving style in participants for whom
driving ability is self-relevant (Taubman Ben-Ari et al.,
1999), and (d) punitive reactions to moral transgressors
(Mikulincer & Florian, 2000).
A final counterpoint to the idea that mortality
salience is simply an intensifier of peoples tendencies is
evidence that mortality salience leads topreferences that
are not evident or actually in the opposite direction in
the non-mortality-salient control conditions. For exam-
ple, mortality salience has been shown to reverse the
direction of (a) Christians responses to fellow Christian
and Jewish students (Greenberg et al., 1990), (b)
Whites preferences for stereotypic and counterstereo-
typic African Americans (Schimel et al., 1999), (c)
Whites reactions to individuals who express White ver-
sus Black racial pride (Greenberg et al., 2001), (d) guilt
and social projection in response to creative versus
noncreative action (Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon,
Pyszczynski, & Schimel, 1999), and (e) in the present
Study 2, contributions to American versus foreign chari-
ties. What these findings may indicate is that when peo-
ple are not particularly concerned about maintaining
faithintheir worldviewandself-esteem, cognitive factors
such as rational information processing or situational
factors that are worldviewirrelevant may guide behavior.
However, when people are mortality salient, they
respondina manner that is worldviewaffirming andself-
esteem bolstering.
Implications Regarding Prosocial Action
Froma practical perspective, these twostudies suggest
that peoples terror management concerns might be
able to produce prosocial effects on a societal level, for
example, by increasing the amount of money donatedto
charitable causes when the request is presented in the
context of death reminders. Similar effects might be
obtained with regard to public service advertisements or
blood drives.
This research also may have implications for thinking
about the influence of cultural organizations andinstitu-
tions on human behavior. Study 2 demonstrates the
effect mortality salience has onsupport of different char-
itable institutions, pointing to the important role that
cultural institutions may play in connecting values with
behavior. Following mortality salience, people did not
donate more money in general; they gave more only to
charities of their own American culture but not to chari-
ties helping foreigncultures. This suggests that mortality
salient participants may have followed the American
norm of supporting American charities and, as a result,
helped poor people in their own country rather than
poor people in foreign countries. Given prior helping
1350 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
research (e.g., Brown, 1978; Carson, 1990; Gaertner
et al., 1982; Rimor &Tobin, 1990), it is likely that Ameri-
cans primarily value helping those at home. Indeed,
subsequent to Study 2, at the end of a class midterm, we
asked a small sample from the same population How
important do you think charities for poor people in for-
eigncountries are? followed by the same questionrefer-
ring to people in the United States. On a 4-point scale
from not at all important to of great importance, the partici-
pants rated charities for American poor people signifi-
cantly higher in importance than charities for foreign
poor people, t(24) = 2.32, p < .02, means of M= 3.40 and
M = 3.08, respectively. Thus, although American stu-
dents in our sample did not view helping needy foreign-
ers as unimportant, they viewed helping Americans as
more important, suggesting that this value is more cen-
tral totheir worldviews. The results of Study 2 canthus be
viewed as further evidence that mortality salience
encourages behaviors most strongly prescribed by the
individuals worldview.
The results of Study 2 also can be taken as consistent
with the strong connection between mortality salience
and the affiliation to ones own culture emphasized by
TMT. Because culture is the ultimate vehicle for sustain-
ing a sense of death transcendence, and charity organi-
zations help to ensure the preservation of ones culture,
supporting ones cultures own causes might serve a pro-
tective function against the human fear of death and
annihilation. Of course, given the results of our small
survey and the fact that some Americans do give to inter-
national charities suchas CARE, at least some Americans
do highly value helping those from other countries.
Therefore, we would not rule out the possibility that for
some Americans or under some conditions, mortality
salience may encourage helping for outgroup members.
However, for these college students, the preference fol-
lowing mortality salience was to help the American char-
ity. This suggests a need for further research on the psy-
chological functions of particular cultural institutions
(cf. Gergen, 1982; Sampson, 1981; Tetlock, 1992).
Finally, these findings pertaintothe broadissue of the
different goals prosocial behavior can serve. As Batson
and colleagues have long argued (e.g., Batson, 1990),
the goal of prosocial behavior, particularly whenaroused
by feelings of empathic emotion, may simply be to help
the other person. However, such behavior also may serve
a variety of more self-serving goals (e.g., Cialdini, Brown,
Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). The present research
suggests that terror management may be one such goal.
Prosocial actions can serve to bolster the individuals
faith in his or her cultural worldview and sense of value
withinit, especially whenthe helpful behavior is directed
toward ones own culture. Although this may not seem
quite as noble as pure altruism unbiased by ones con-
nection to the person or group being helped, if, as Dick-
enss story and this research suggest, the heightened
awareness of ones own mortality can encourage the
Scrooges of the world to become kinder to at least
some of the Tiny Tims, should we quibble over the ori-
gins of such transformations?
NOTES
1. The 10 charities used in Study 1 were as follows: Partnership for a
Drug-Free America, Association for Retarded Citizens, Acid Rain
Foundation, National Alliance to End Homelessness, American Soci-
ety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Congress on Racial Equal-
ity, Albert Einstein Peace Prize Foundation, Keep America Beautiful,
American Foundation for Aging Research (AFAR), and the National
Child Safety Council.
2. Asecond hypothesis also was explored in this first study. We were
initially interested in whether mortality salience would affect prefer-
ences for the chosen versus nonchosen charity. This hypothesis was
derived from cognitive dissonance research showing that after people
make an important decision between two closely valued alternatives,
the chosen alternative will be highly favored over the nonchosen alter-
native. There was no support for this spreading of choice alternatives,
either with or without mortality salience, thus, the classical free choice
dissonance effect was not replicated, which rendered our attempted
test of the terror management variation on it ambiguous. Therefore,
this unsupported hypothesis is not discussed further.
3. We also performedt tests onthe individual itemcomposites. This
analysis revealed a significant effect of mortality salience for the first
and third item composite (i.e., How beneficial is this charity to soci-
ety and How desirable is this charity to you personally), t(31) = 2.08,
p < .05 and t(31) = 1.99, p < .06. A t test performed on the second item
(i.e., How much does society need this charity) revealed the same
pattern as the one with the other two items but was not statistically sig-
nificant, t(31) = 1.38, p < .19.
4. We also performeda three-way (Mortality Salience Charity Gen-
der) ANOVA that yielded no significant effects with regard to gender
(all Fs < 1.78). Therefore, gender will not be discussed further.
5. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this
issue to our attention.
REFERENCES
Adler, A. (1930). Understanding humannature. NewYork: Greenberg.
Arndt, J., & Greenberg, J. (1999). The effects of a self-esteem boost
and mortality salience on responses to boost relevant and irrele-
vant worldview threats. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25,
1331-1341.
Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Schimel, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S.
(2002). To belong or not to belong that is the question: Terror
management andidentificationwithgender andethnicity. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 26-43.
Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Schimel, J.
(1999). Creativity and terror management: Evidence that creative
activity increases guilt and social projection following mortality
salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 19-32.
Batson, C. D. (1990). How social an animal? The human capacity for
caring. American Psychologist, 45, 336-346.
Becker, E. (1962). The birth and death of meaning. NewYork: Free Press.
Becker, E. (1971). The birth and death of meaning (2nd ed.). New York:
Free Press.
Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. New York: Free Press.
Berkowitz, L. (1972). Social norms, feelings, and other factors affect-
ing helping and altruism. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experi-
mental social psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 63-108). New York: Academic
Press.
Brown, R. (1978). Divided we fall: An analysis of relations between
sections of a factory workforce. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation
between social groups. London: Academic Press.
Jonas et al. / THE SCROOGE EFFECT 1351
Brown, J. D., & Smart, S. A. (1991). The self and social conduct:
Linking self-representations to prosocial behavior. Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 60, 368-375.
Carson, E. D. (1990). Patternof givinginBlackchurches. InR. Wuthnow&
V. A. Hodgkinson (Eds.), Faith and philanthrophy in America. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cialdini, R. B., Brown, S. L., Lewis, B. P., Luce, C., & Neuberg, S. L.
(1997). Reinterpreting the empathy-altruism relationship: When
one into one equals oneness. Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 73, 481-494.
Cialdini, R. B., Kallgren, C. A., &Reno, R. R. (1991). Afocus theory of
normative conduct: A theoretical refinement and reevaluation of
the role of norms in human behavior. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.),
Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 201-234). San
Diego: Academic Press.
Dechesne, M., Greenberg, J., Arndt, J., & Schimel, J. (2000). Terror
management and the vicissitudes of sports fan affiliation: The
effects of mortality salience on optimism and fan identification.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 813-835.
Dechesne, M., Janssen, J., &van Knippenberg, A. (2000). Derogation
and distancing as terror management strategies: The moderating
role of need for closure and permeability of group boundaries.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 923-932.
Dickens, C. (1950). A Christmas carol. New York: Macmillan. (Original
work published 1843)
Erickson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society. NewYork: Norton. (Orig-
inal work published 1950)
Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1997). Fear of death and the judgment
of social transgressions: A multidimensional test of terror man-
agement theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 369-
380.
Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., & Johnson, G. (1982). Race of victim,
nonresponsive bystanders, and helping behavior. Journal of Social
Psychology, 117, 69-77.
Gergen, K. J. (1982). Toward transformation in social knowledge. New
York: Springer-Verlag.
Goldenberg, J. L., McCoy, S. K., Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., &Solo-
mon, S. (2000). The body as a source of self-esteem: The effect of
mortality salience on identification with ones body, interest in
sex, and appearance monitoring. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 79, 118-130.
Greenberg, J., Porteus, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S.
(1995). Evidence of a terror management function of cultural
icons: The effects of mortality salience onthe inappropriate use of
cherished cultural symbols. Personality and Social Psychology Bulle-
tin, 21, 1221-1228.
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Pinel, E., Simon, L., &
Jordan, K. (1993). Effects of self-esteem on vulnerability-denying
defensive distortions: Further evidence of an anxiety-buffering
function of self-esteem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29,
229-251.
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Rosenblatt, A., Veeder, M.,
Kirkland, S., & Lyon, D. (1990). Evidence for terror management
theory II: The effects of mortality salience reactions to those who
threatenor bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 58, 308-318.
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Simon, L., & Breus, M.
(1994). The role of consciousness and accessibility of death-
related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 67, 627-637.
Greenberg, J., Schimel, J., Martens, A., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T.
(2001). Sympathy for the devil: Evidence that reminding Whites
of their mortality promotes more favorable reactions to White rac-
ists. Motivation and Emotion, 25, 113-133.
Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Chatel, D.
(1992). Terror management and tolerance: Does mortality
salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten
ones worldview? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 212-
220.
Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (1997). Terror manage-
ment theory of self-esteem and cultural worldviews: Empirical
assessments and conceptual refinements. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.),
Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 61-139). San
Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., Rosenblatt, A., Burling, J.,
Lyon, D., & Simon, L. (1992). Assessing the terror management
analysis of self-esteem: Converging evidence of an anxiety-buffer-
ing function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 913-922.
Harmon-Jones, E., Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., &
McGregor, H. (1997). Terror management theory and self-
esteem: Evidence that increased self-esteem reduces mortality
salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 24-
36.
Harmon-Jones, E., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Simon, L. (1996).
The effects of mortality salience on intergroup bias between mini-
mal groups. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 677-681.
Kallgren, C. A., Reno, R. R., &Cialdini, R. B. (2000). Afocus theory of
normative conduct: When norms do and do not affect behavior.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1002-1012.
Lifton, R. J. (1983). The broken connection: On death and the continuity of
life. New York: Basic Books.
Macaulay, J. (1975). Familiarity, attraction, and charity. Journal of
Social Psychology, 95, 27-37.
McAdams, D. P., & de St. Aubin, E. (1992). A theory of generativity
and its assessment through self-report, behavioral acts, and narra-
tive themes in autobiography. Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 62, 1003-1015.
McGregor, H. A., Lieberman, J. D., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt,
J., Simon, L., & Pyszczynski, T. (1998). Terror management and
aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression
against worldview-threatening others. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 74, 590-605.
Mikulincer, M., &Florian, V. (2000). Exploring individual differences
in reactions to mortality salience: Does attachment style regulate
terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 79, 260-273.
Moss, M. K., &Page, R. A. (1972). Reinforcement and helping behav-
ior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2, 360-371.
Myers, D. C. (1992). The pursuit of happiness. New York: Morrow.
Nelson, L. J., Moore, D. L., Olivetti, J., &Scott, T. (1997). General and
personal mortality salience and nationalistic bias. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 884-892.
Ochsmann, R., & Mathy, M. (1994). Depreciating of and distancing from
foreigners: Effects of mortality salience. Unpublished manuscript,
Universitaet Mainz, Germany.
Ochsmann, R., & Reichelt, K. (1994). Evaluation of moral and immoral
behavior: Evidence for terror management theory. Unpublished manu-
script, Universitaet Mainz, Germany.
Peterson, B. E., & Stewart, A. J. (1993). Generativity and social
motives in young adults. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
65, 186-198.
Pyszczynski, T., Wicklund, R. A., Floresku, S., Gauch, G., Koch, H., Sol-
omon, S., & Greenberg, J. (1996). Whistling in the dark: Exagger-
ated consensus estimates of social in response to incidental
reminders of mortality. Psychological Science, 7, 332-336.
Radley, A., &Kennedy, M. (1992). Reflections uponcharitable giving:
A comparison of individuals from business, manual and profes-
sional backgrounds. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychol-
ogy, 2, 113-129.
Rank, O. (1989). Art and artist: Creative urge and personality development.
New York: Knopf. (Original work published 1932)
Rimor, M., &Tobin, G. A. (1990). Jewish giving patterns to Jewish and
non-Jewish philanthrophy. In R. Wuthnow & V. A. Hodgkinson
(Eds.), Faith and philanthrophy in America. San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass.
Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., &Lyon, D.
(1989). Evidence for terror management theory I: The effects of
mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cul-
tural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 681-690.
Sampson, E. E. (1981). Cognitive psychology as ideology. American
Psychologist, 36, 730-743.
Satow, K. L. (1975). Social approval and helping. Journal of Experimen-
tal Social Psychology, 11, 501-509.
1352 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
Schimel, J. Simon, L., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S.,
Waxmonsky, J., &Arndt, J. (1999). Stereotypes andterror manage-
ment: Evidence that mortality salience enhances stereotypic
thinking and preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy, 77, 905-926.
Simon, L., Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T.
(1998). Terror management and meaning: Evidence that the
opportunity to defend the worldview in response to mortality
salience increases the meaningfulness of life in the mildly
depressed. Journal of Personality, 66, 359-382.
Simon, L., Greenberg, J., Arndt, J., Pyszczynski, T., Clement, R., &
Solomon, S. (1997). Perceived consensus, uniqueness, and terror
management: Compensatory responses to threats to inclusion
and distinctiveness following mortality salience. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 1055-1065.
Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1991). A terror man-
agement theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of
self-esteem and cultural worldviews. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.),
Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 91-159). San
Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Steele, C. M. (1975). Name calling and compliance. Journal of Person-
ality and Social Psychology, 31, 361-369.
Taubman Ben-Ari, O., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1999). The
impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: A test of terror
management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy, 76, 35-45.
Tetlock, P. E. (1992). The impact of accountability on judgment and
choice: Toward a social contingency model. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.),
Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 331-376). San
Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., &Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and vali-
dation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The
PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-
1070.
Received June 27, 2001
Revision accepted January 14, 2002
Jonas et al. / THE SCROOGE EFFECT 1353