L12- existential part 2

Question 1

Which of the following is a finding of Dar Nimrod et al’s (2009) study on the effect of mortality salience and religion on impression making:

a) Non-religious participants gave a higher impression rating in the control condition than the mortality salience condition
b) There was no significant difference in impression rating between the religious and non-religious participants
c) Religious participants gave the essay a higher rating in the control condition than the mortality salience condition
d) There was no significant difference in impression rating between the religious and non-religious participants, and their control groups

Answer 1

a) Non-religious participants gave a higher impression rating in the control condition than the mortality salience condition

Question 2

What do Iverach, Menzies, and Menzies (2014) say is the connection between death and mental illness?

Answer 2

That the anxiety around death is what causes somatoform disorders such as panic disorders, phobias, anxiety…

Also- OCD disorders

Question 3

What is the exception of somatoform disorders that is not caused by death?

Answer 3

Social phobia

Question 4

What was the effect of priming compulsive washers with death vs dental pain in Menzies and Dar Nimrod (12)’s study?

Answer 4

Mortality salience led to an increase in washing behaviour- nearly twice that of dental pain salience

Question 5

What is the Meaning Maintenance Model?

Answer 5

People have a need for meaning, and so we make mental representations of expected relations that organises individuals’ perceptions of the world

Question 6

What are meaning threats?

Answer 6

Things that violate our perceptions of the world- we have an expectation that events happen for a reason, and so when they don’t we make excuses for this- “good things happen to bad people”

Question 7

What are the 5 A’s of the MMM?

Answer 7

o Assimilation: the child dies because the mother is bad- just world
o Accommodation: sometimes bad things happen to good people
o Affirmation: fluid compensation light
• System threat → system justification
• Sustain need for meaning → god’s great, “liked the child best”
o Assembly
• Understandings that serve the same function as the old
• Eg constructing a more powerful moral theory to replace a more primitive sense of right and wrong
o Abstraction- reaffirming alternative framework- “fluid compensation”
• Bolster an alternative schema
• Create an equilibrium in our world view
• Threat in one domain so compensate in another

Question 8

What was the effect of transmogrifying experimenters and priming mortality salience on the bond for prostitutes in Proulx et al (80)’s experiment?

a) the bond got higher equally in the transmogrifying and MS conditions
b) the bond didn’t rise significantly in any condition
c) the bond was higher in the transmogrifying condition and even higher in the MS only with male experimenters
d) the bond was higher in the transmogrifying condition and even higher in the MS with both male and female experimenters

Answer 8

d) the bond was higher in the transmogrifying condition and even higher in the MS with both male and female experimenters

Question 9

What were Proulx et al (09)’s findings on the effect of meaning threat of self-unity, through reading a story stating each individual has two selves, on a grammar task?

a) there was no effect
b) participants performed better when experiencing meaning violation
c) participants performed better in the control condition

Answer 9

b) participants performed better when experiencing meaning violation