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Mortality Salience and Self-Esteem Mainly Significant, No Interaction on Symbolic

Immortality Interest in Collectivist Culture

Shalom Chong

Bachelor of Psychological Science, James Cook University Singapore

PY2107: Experimental Investigation and Analysis of Behaviour

Mr Kanapathy Ravindran

May 9, 2021

2175 Words
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Abstract

Terror Management Theory (Greenberg et al., 1986, 2010) investigates the interactions between

death awareness and the motivation to engage in defensive actions against it by attaining literal

or symbolic immortality. The two aims were to investigate the effects of mortality salience, self-

esteem on the drive on symbolic immortality and find age’s impact on self-esteem in a

collectivist culture. 210 Singaporean locals (59.4% Female, 40.1% Male and 0.5% Non-Binary,

age ranging from 18 to 84 years) participated in an experiment where they were shown a

magazine article specific to their group’s condition, following which they answered questions

about their belief in an afterlife, their belief in space colonisation, self-esteem and finally their

interest in having a star being named after them. Conditions were in three levels: Mortality

Salience (MS) condition, Non-Death Article (NDA) condition and No Article (NA) condition.

Results contradicted some previous research, showing a non-significant interaction effect

between mortality salience and self-esteem on symbolic immortality for Singaporean locals, both

having main effects on symbolic immortality, and that age and self-esteem are weakly,

negatively correlated. Future research may implement better objective operationalisation of

immortality and stricter testing conditions to prevent confounding variables. Cultural differences

may also explain non-significance due to participants in collectivist cultures gaining less self-

competence from achievement-based events as compared to participants in individualistic

cultures.

Keywords: TMT, Self-Esteem, Age, Mortality Salience, Collectivist

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Mortality Salience and Self-Esteem Mainly Significant, No Interaction on Symbolic

Immortality Interest in Collectivist Culture

Terror management theory posits that being aware of death and its inevitability motivates

humans to take part in certain actions – namely the embracing of literal or symbolic immortality

(Greenberg et al., 1986, 2010). The former involves having a belief in the afterlife, whilst the

latter involves having forms of self to exist even after a biological death (Martin, 1999). Since

the process of death anxiety is under consciousness, its effects are not immediately pronounced

to the human that is enacting defensively against it (Burke et al., 2010). It is suggested that distal

defences against death anxiety include worldview maintenance and self-esteem (Abeyta et al.,

2014; Pyszczynski et al., 1999).

The most common method of studying death awareness’ impact has been the usage of

mortality salience (MS) manipulations (Burke et al., 2010). MS manipulations usually involve

participants being primed with thoughts of death (through death-related articles or writing about

death of self). In one such study, Greenberg et al. (2010) studied the motivation behind fame

attainment with MS on US university students. They posited that being an increase in death

anxiety would increase the motivation behind fame attainment, alongside celebrity admiration.

Greenberg et al.’s (2010) study had three experiments, where students completed self-

report questionnaires on fame, or attributions to it, after undergoing manipulations of MS versus

pain (Study 1), MS versus uncertainty salience (Study 2) and MS versus meaninglessness

salience (Study 3). In all three studies, results were significant. Participants who underwent a

manipulation of MS reported a greater desire for fame, F(1, 248) = 4.19, p < .05, a greater

interest to have a star named after them, F(2, 52) = 4.73, p = .01, and an increase in favourability

towards art made by a famous person, F(1, 59) = 4.30, p < .05. They thus concluded that
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mortality salience did increase desire for fame or for associations with those who are famous,

which is a subset of symbolic immortality (Dohn, 2007; Elad-Strenger, 2016).

Generalisability of this theory has been criticised – many of the experiments have only

been conducted on US university students without being replicated outside of the US (Burke et

al., 2010). The US has been identified to have an individualistic culture (Rothwell, 2010), which

causes decisions and goals to be oriented towards the self, compared to collectivist cultures

elsewhere (Hofstede, 1980). Individuals from an individualistic culture have a greater change in

self-competence (a dimension of self-esteem) after achievement-related life events (Tafarodi &

Walters, 1999). The effect of mortality salience might therefore be less significant on

participants from a collectivist culture (i.e., Asians), since the self-esteem buffer (through self-

competence) granted by the act of potential symbolic immortality may not be as significant as

within the studies in the US.

Alongside these factors, age has also been observed to have a correlational positive effect

together with self-esteem (Erol & Orth, 2011; Orth et al., 2010), but only up to a certain point.

As self-esteem has been established to be a distal defence against death anxiety, a drop in self-

esteem at older ages (where the inevitability of death draws closer) may influence older

individuals to engage in acts of achieving literal or symbolic immortality.

The aim of the study is two-fold – the first would be to investigate the effects of mortality

salience, self-esteem on the drive on symbolic immortality in a collectivist culture. The second

aim would be to identify the correlation of age with regards to its impact on self-esteem in

individuals within a collectivist culture. Therefore, the hypotheses will be as such:

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H1 = There will be a significant mean difference between participants in differing

conditions of mortality salience and self-esteem, and this will impact their total star interest

score.

Mortality salience will be manipulated by articles in three conditions – (1) Mortality

Salience, (2) Non-death Anxiety and (3) No Article. Self-esteem will be measured by the

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), following which participants will be split

between low and high self-esteem groups according to their results (cuts at 50th percentile). The

total star interest score will be similarly to the original Greenberg et al.’s (2010) study.

H2 = Participant’s age and RSES scores are significantly correlated positively, as per a

similar study by Abeyta et al. (2014).

Method

Participants

The 3x2 quantitative, quasi-experimental, between-subjects study was conducted with a

convenient sample of Singaporean locals (N = 210) from social groups. The social groups were

asked to post a link to the study on their Facebook page. Participants were entered into a prize-

draw to win a gift voucher as a reward for participation. Participants were requested to do the

study online at their own pace through the software program Qualtrics. Qualtrics was also in

charge of randomly assigning participants under three different conditions: (1) Mortality

Salience (MS) condition, (2) Non-death Anxiety (NDA) condition and (3) No Article (NA)

condition.

Four participants’ data from the original group of 210 were removed due to missing data

with regards to their total star interest score and nationality. A further nine participants’ data

were removed as they were not Singaporean locals. Our a priori analysis with G*Power revealed
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that to have 80% power to detect a medium effect size, with a significance level of .05, 158

participants were required for ample power. The sample for the ANOVA analysis (N = 197)

satisfied these requirements. The sample’s gender ratio was 59.4% female, 40.1% male and 0.5%

non-binary. The age range was between 18 and 84 years of age (M = 40.49, SD = 13.76). Four

more participants were further removed (N = 193) for the correlational test between age and self-

esteem due to missing data on age.

Materials

The experiment utilised Qualtrics (an online survey platform), two magazine articles and

participant’s personal handphones or computers. There were two sets of questions contained in

the questionnaire.

The two magazine articles (about 500 words each) were used in the mortality salience

manipulation. Participants in the MS condition were given a magazine article where the topic

was on the need to prepare a will and have funeral arrangements in place, given the

unpredictability of death; the article includes an image of a man in an open casket. Participants in

the NDA condition were given a magazine article where the topic was on how most people are

not saving enough money to afford a house or retire comfortably; the article includes an image of

a man destitute on the streets. Participants in the NA condition were not given an article to read.

The first set of questions were questions on self-esteem, afterlife beliefs, space

colonisation beliefs and demographics. Self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-

Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Age was measured in years. Afterlife beliefs, space

colonisation beliefs and other demographics used questions in Table 1.

The second set of questions were questions on star interest. Based on Greenberg’s (2010)

study, participants were told that they would be asked about their interest in a product or service
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selected at random from a larger list. Participants were then presented with an advertisement for

“YourStar.com”. YourStar.com was described as “working with the Universal Star Council and

NASA to ensure that each star is permanently registered with one name, allowing a person to

‘own’ a star.” The final line of the advertisement reads: “With YourStar.com humans may one

day live on a planet orbiting a star named after you!”. Questions asked are in Table 2. The total

star interest score was calculated by adding both scores together, where a higher score meant a

higher interest in having a star named after them.

Participants were required to access the study through either their own computers or

handphones.

Procedure

Participants were required to access the study through a weblink. An information sheet

was provided before the study was conducted, where it briefed participants about the aim of the

study, permission to withdraw from the study at any time, how data collected during the study

would be used and the rewards for participation. The ethical briefing was then concluded by

requesting the participant to fill up an informed consent form, after which the experiment

commenced if they provided their consent.

Participants either read the magazine article allocated to their condition (MS or NDA) or

went to the next set of questions (NA). Participants then answered both sets of questions,

following which a debrief (where the exact topic of the study was made clear) was done,

concluding the experiment.

Results

A factorial between groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to investigate the

effects of mortality salience and self-esteem on interest in having a star named after the
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participant. Shapiro-Wilk tests were used to evaluate the assumptions of normality. There were

significant violations for participants under the NDA (both high and low self-esteem) and NA

(both high and low self-esteem) conditions. Levene’s test was used, no significant violation of

homogeneity of variance was found. ANOVA is robust against moderate violations of normality,

allowing us to proceed with the ANOVA test.

The ANOVA revealed a statistically significant main effect for mortality salience on total

star interest score, F(2, 191) = 12.67, p < .001, ω2 = .10, as well as a statistically significant main

effect for self-esteem on total star interest score, F(1, 191) = 6.21, p = .014, ω2 = .02.

Furthermore, a non-significant interaction indicated that the effects of mortality salience

on total star interest score did not depend on self-esteem, F(2, 191) = 1.72, p = .18, ω2 = 0.

The nature of this interaction is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Interaction Between Study Conditions and Self-Esteem

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Pairwise comparisons were made as well – self-esteem does not influence total star

interest score when in the MS condition, F(1, 191) = .01, p = .91, NDA condition, F(1, 191) =

5.38, p = .02 and NA condition F(1, 191) = 5.05, p = .02. Furthermore, mortality salience has a

statistically significant effect on total star interest score when participants have high self-esteem,

F(2, 191), p < .025. Follow-up simple comparisons demonstrated that there was a significant

positive effect on total star interest score within the high self-esteem group between NA

conditions and MS conditions, t(191) = 4.39, p < .001 as well as NDA conditions and MS

conditions, t(191) = 3.48, p = .001.

Shapiro-Wilk tests for age and RSES scores were conducted, where normality was

violated for age (Table 3). Therefore, a Kendall’s tau-b test was conducted. Kendall’s tau-b

indicated that the correlation between age and RSES scores was weak and negative, 𝜏 = -0.018,

ns, two-tailed, N = 193. The correlational graph is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Scatterplot of Age x Self-Esteem

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Discussion

Results showed that there was a non-significant interaction effect between mortality

salience and self-esteem on symbolic immortality for Singaporean locals. Main effects were

significant for both mortality salience and self-esteem on symbolic immortality. Pairwise

comparisons revealed that mortality salience increases interest in symbolic immortality

significantly when the individual has high self-esteem. This disagrees with the research

published by Abeyta et al. (2014).

Limitations

One factor that could explain the violation of normality is the collection method.

Conducting an online experiment could have introduced confounding variables influencing

mortality salience, self-esteem, or interest in having a star named after the participant. Future

studies should be done in laboratory conditions to reduce potential confounding variables.

Another factor that may explain the results is the fact that Singapore has a collectivist

culture. The operationalisation of symbolic immortality for this study improves self-competence

through a potential achievement-based event (having something named after you is an

achievement), of which individuals in collectivist cultures are not greatly influenced by (Tafarodi

& Walters, 1999). Singaporean locals with high self-esteem may have both high levels in both

dimensions of self-esteem (self-competence and self-liking), which would cause their self-

competence to be strongly influenced by mortality salience as compared to other locals with low

self-esteem, which is observed in our results. Improving the sample size from 158 to 967 will

allow ample power to detect a smaller effect size (0.10) in future research.
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Proposal for Future Research

Future research on TMT should explore different ways of operationalisation that does not

involve subjective interests (i.e., astronomy) to ensure that interest in immortality (literal or

symbolic) is not influenced by individual differences other than mortality salience. The

implications of proper operationalising may allow investigations into other practices that serve to

defend against terror anxiety such as purchasing life insurance, transferring TMT from theory to

practice. Cultural impact on distal defences against terror anxiety should be investigated as well,

allowing TMT to be generalisable to a larger audience than it is right now.

Conclusion

Mortality salience and self-esteem do affect interest in symbolic immortality in a

collectivist culture but does not have an interaction effect. Age and self-esteem do not correlate

strongly or positively, and this may be attributed to culture difference as well. Future research

may investigate other operationalisations or increase the power by having a larger sample size,

due to a possibly smaller effect size within collectivist cultures.

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References

Abeyta, A. A., Juhl, J., & Routledge, C. (2014). Exploring the effects of self-esteem and

mortality salience on proximal and distally measured death anxiety: A further test of the

dual process model of terror management. Motivation and Emotion, 38(4), 523–528.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-014-9400-y

Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two Decades of Terror Management

Theory: A Meta-Analysis of Mortality Salience Research. Personality and Social

Psychology Review, 14(2), 155–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309352321

Dohn, M. C. (2007). Objects of primary value: Fame, celebrity, and the quest for symbolic

immortality [Rutgers University - Graduate School-New Brunswick].

https://doi.org/10.7282/T33J3DD1

Elad-Strenger, J. (2016). Activism as a Heroic Quest for Symbolic Immortality: An Existential

Perspective on Collective Action. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 4(1), 44–

65. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.430

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Identity, 9(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860802391546

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need

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212). Springer.
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Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture and organizations. International Studies of Management &

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Appendix

Table 1

Beliefs and Demographics

Variable Question Used Answer Choice

Belief in an Do you believe in some form of 1 = No

afterlife afterlife in which an aspect of yourself 2 = Yes

continues to “live on” after your

physical death (e.g., the Christian

conception of heaven)?

Belief humans Do you believe that humans will one 1 = No

will colonise day colonise space (e.g., living on 2 = Yes

space large colonies on other planets)?

Gender With which gender do you identify? Male

Female

Non-Binary

Nationality Are you a Singaporean citizen? Yes

No (if no, please write in your

country of citizenship)
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Table 2

Star Interest Score Questions

Question Used Answer Choice

1. “How interested would you be in 1 = not at all

finding out more about the advertised 4 = somewhat

product or service?” 7 = very much

2. “If you were to purchase this 1 = $25

product/service, how much would you 2 = $50

be willing to spend (that is, what is the 3 = $100

highest dollar amount that you would 4 = $250

still be willing to spend to make this 5 = $500

purchase?)” 6 = $750

7 = $1000

Table 3

Normality test for Age and Self-Esteem Scale

Kolmogorov-Smirnova Shapiro-Wilk

Statistic df Sig. Statistic df Sig.

Age in years .069 193 .027 .969 193 .000

Total score on .090 193 .001 .988 193 .101

Rosenberg Self

Esteem Scale

a. Lilliefors Significance Correction