High self-esteem buffers against the need for external control.
Evidence
Most notably, need for structure predicted ingroup defense, contrary to death-thought accessibility, suggesting that need for structure may be more likely to mediate moderated threat effects on ingroup defense. Moreover, the negative relationship between self-esteem and need for structure indicates that high self-esteem (i.e., personal control; Judge et al., 2002; Pyszczynski et al., in press) can buffer against the need for external control. This is consistent with the hydraulic hypothesis of the compensatory control model (Kay et al., 2010b). — Dmitrij Agroskin and Eva Jonas, Controlling death by defending ingroups, 129
Categorization
- XREF: Relates to the reader’s question about which individuals are most vulnerable to defensive boundary-seeking when their group identity is emptied of content. — connects to: Control motivation but not implicit death cognition drives threat-based ingroup defense. — Dmitrij Agroskin and Eva Jonas, Controlling death by defending…, 143
Related
- Death reminders evoke ingroup defense through a shared loss-of-control mechanism (similarity 0.83)
- Ingroup defense functions as a compensatory control mechanism when personal control is lost. (similarity 0.83)
- Control motivation but not implicit death cognition drives threat-based ingroup defense. (similarity 0.81)
- Death-thought accessibility does not mediate ingroup defense, while control motivation does. (similarity 0.79)
- Illusory pattern perception drives both death and control threats toward ingroup defense (similarity 0.78)