Threatening cherished beliefs brings thoughts of death closer to awareness

Evidence

But would threatening people’s cherished beliefs also bring thoughts of death closer to consciousness? To find out, Jeff Schimel and his colleagues at the University of Alberta brought groups with two very different belief systems—Canadian creationists and evolutionists—into their lab. All the study participants read a passage from an article by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. … Creationists confronted with evidence in stark opposition to their core principles produced higher numbers of death-related words. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 178

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to terror management theory fundamentals — worldview shields against mortality awareness. Builds on the core thesis established in earlier chapters of this book itself.

Related

• Death-awareness drives humans to cling to cultural worldviews and self-esteem (similarity 0.86)
• Cultural worldviews evolved to buffer humans against death terror. (similarity 0.84)
• Mortality reminders uniquely trigger worldview defense unlike other threats (similarity 0.84)
• Subtle death reminders drive worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and unhealthy behavior. (similarity 0.83)
• Worldview and self-esteem defense is bidirectional with death-thought accessibility. (similarity 0.83)
• Conscious and unconscious death thoughts trigger different defense systems (similarity 0.82)
• Death awareness would have been lethal without simultaneous cultural adaptations to deny it (similarity 0.82)
• People unaware of their death fears are nonetheless governed by layered psychological defenses (similarity 0.82)
• Knowing how death awareness drives defenses enables more self-determined choices (similarity 0.82)
• Conscious death thoughts require delay to trigger worldview defenses (similarity 0.82)
• No account of human behavior is complete without the awareness of death (similarity 0.81)
• Mildly depressed people respond to death reminders with amplified nationalism (similarity 0.81)
• Psychological disorders result from failed attempts to manage death anxiety (similarity 0.81)
• Humans construct cultural identities to deny mortality. (similarity 0.81)
• Awareness of mortality drives people to defend cultural worldviews that give life meaning. (similarity 0.81)