Mortality reminders increase perceived in-group entitativity, buffering death anxiety.

Evidence

Yzerbyt et al. (2000) showed that mortality salience manipulations engender perceptions of in-group entitativity. This finding was originally discussed from a terror management theory perspective, in which perceptions of in-group entitativity were thought to act as buffers against death anxiety. However, this result could also be viewed from the perspective of uncertainty reduction theory. That is, a sense of uncertainty about one’s own future could be alleviated by perceiving one’s membership groups as high in entitativity. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 257

Categorization

• XREF: Terror-management reading of entitativity offers a complement/complication to the Allport thread on prejudice as a response to perceived threat. — connects to: Death reminders evoke ingroup defense through a shared loss-of-control mechanism — Dmitrij Agroskin and Eva Jonas, Controlling death by defending…, 74; Mortality awareness collides with survival instincts to produce existential terror — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 12; Death reminders uniquely trigger worldview and relationship defense, unlike other aversive threats. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 19 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 257