Jonathan F. Bassett

Psychological Defenses against Death Anxiety: Integrating Terror Management Theory and Firestone's Separation Theory.

The author attempts to integrate Terror Management Theory (TMT) and R. W. Firestones Separation Theory (1984 1994). Both theories emphasize defense against death anxiety as a key human motive. Whereas TMT focuses extensively on self-esteem and cultural worldview, Firestone posited additional defenses such as gene survival, self-nourishing behaviors, addictive couple bonds, and adopting an anti-sexual approach to life. TMT offers a strong base of experimentally validated ideas and the experimental paradigms to test the broad array of defenses enumerated in Firestones Separation Theory. Therefore, an integration of the two theories would be beneficial to a fuller understanding of psychological defenses against death anxiety.

An empirical test of the validity of student evaluations of teaching made on RateMyProfessors.com

The present article examined the validity of public web‐based teaching evaluations by comparing the ratings on RateMyProfessors.com for 126 professors at Lander University to the institutionally administered student evaluations of teaching and actual average assigned GPAs for these same professors. Easiness website ratings were significantly positively correlated with actual assigned grades. Further, clarity and helpfulness website ratings were significantly positively correlated with student ratings of overall instructor excellence and overall course excellence on the institutionally administered IDEA forms. The results of this study offer preliminary support for the validity of the evaluations on RateMyProfessors.com.

Evaluating explicit and implicit death attitudes in funeral and university students

The present paper describes two studies assessing the relation of implicit death attitudes as measured by the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to explicit death attitudes as measured by questionnaires. In Study 1, 45 university students and 51 funeral service students completed the revised Death Anxiety Scale (DAS-R) and completed paper and pencil versions of the IAT measuring how much they implicitly associated death with bad vs. good (death valence), with anxious vs. calm (death anxiety), and with others vs. self (death denial). Both groups showed stronger implicit associations of death with anxious rather than calm and bad rather than good. Higher explicit death anxiety was associated with more implicit denial of death. Compared to university students, funeral students scored lower on the DAS-R and the IAT measure of implicit denial of death. In Study 2, 103 university students completed the DAS-R, completed Palm Pilot versions of the IAT measuring death valence, death anxiety, and death denial, and responded to questions about mortality-related decisions. Greater self-reported death anxiety was associated with less approval of physician-assisted suicide, whereas greater implicit denial of death was associated with less interest in having a living will and pre-arranging ones funeral.

Terror Management and Reactions to Undocumented Immigrants: Mortality Salience Increases Aversion to Culturally Dissimilar Others

ABSTRACT The authors examine the idea, derived from Terror Management Theory, that concerns about undocumented immigrants stem from the need to protect death-buffering cultural values against the symbolic threat posed by dissimilar others. It is hypothesized that reminders of death will intensify aversion to culturally dissimilar immigrants. Forty-six university students were randomly assigned to a mortality salience or a control condition prior to evaluating either an illegal alien named Ben Johnson from Vancouver or Carlos Suarez from Mexico City. Consistent with the hypothesis, reactions to the Canadian target did not differ in the control and mortality salience conditions, whereas reactions to the Mexican immigrant were more negative in the mortality salience than in the control condition.

Individual Differences in Self-Presentation Style: Driving an Automobile and Meeting a Stranger

The present study investigated the relation of self-presentation style to automobile driving behavior and behavior while meeting a stranger. Eighty-eight female and 51 male undergraduate psychology students completed a 40-item self-presentation style inventory and a 20-item Road Rage Survey. One-hundred and two of these participants were then videotaped walking into a room and introducing themselves to a confederate. Aggressive driving behavior correlated positively with the self-presentational style of intimidation and negatively with ingratiation and exemplification. Nonverbal behavior when meeting a person was related to intimidation, exemplification, and self-promotion, with intimidation and self-promotion associated with not hesitating prior to sitting down, intimidation associated with focusing on the target, and exemplification associated with initiating a handshake.

Are they paying attention? Students’ lack of motivation and attention potentially threaten the utility of course evaluations

Student evaluations are a common source of information used by instructors and administrators, but their utility depends on students’ motivation and attention. This paper presents evidence from two studies indicating that insufficient effort responding and lack of motivation may be problems in course evaluations. In the first study, approximately one in four students responded in an improbable way to ‘catch items’ embedded in actual course evaluation instruments, suggesting a lack of attention. In the second study, students’ responses to an online survey indicated that they doubted that their responses to course evaluations would be used by instructors or administrators. The majority of students admitted to only occasionally putting sufficient effort into their responses. Potential means for identifying insufficient effort responding and mechanisms for increasing student attention and motivation during the course evaluation process are discussed.

Personifications of personal and typical death as related to death attitudes.

The present article examined differences in personifications of personal and typical death as a function of attitudes about death. Ninety-eight students enrolled in psychology classes were randomly assigned to personify death as a character in a movie depicting either their own deathbed scene or the deathbed scene of the typical person prior to completing the Death Attitude Profile-Revised. The results supported the conceptual distinction between attitudes about personal death and death in general. Participants in the personal death condition personified death more frequently as a gentle-comforting image and less frequently as a cold-remote image than did participants in the typical death condition. The results also further validated the relation between personifications of death and death attitudes. Across both conditions, participants who selected the grim-terrifying image reported more fear of death and death avoidance; whereas, participants who selected the cold-remote or robot-like images reported more neutral acceptance.

Disgust Sensitivity Accounts for Some But Not All Gender Differences in Death Attitudes

The present study investigated whether gender differences in death attitudes could be attributable to social desirability, locus of control, and disgust sensitivity. A total of 238 university students completed the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale and the Revised Death Attitude Profile in addition to measures of social desirability, locus of control, and disgust sensitivity. Women scored higher than men on many of the fear dimensions and also on approach and escape acceptance. There were no gender differences on locus of control or social desirability, but women reported more disgust sensitivity than did men. Locus of control was unrelated to any death attitudes. Social desirability was associated only with less reported fear of premature death. Disgust sensitivity was associated with all death attitudes except neutral acceptance. Some but not all of the gender differences in death attitudes were no longer significant when controlling for disgust sensitivity.

The Effects of Mortality Salience on Disgust Sensitivity Among University Students, Older Adults, and Mortuary Students

The present study tested the Terror Management perspective on disgust by examining the effects of mortality salience on disgust sensitivity among 137 university students, 48 older adults, and 44 mortuary students preparing for a career in the funeral service industry. Participants were randomly assigned to a mortality salience, uncertainty salience, or television salience induction. Following a delay, participants completed the core disgust and contamination disgust sub- scales of the Disgust Scale Revised. University students reported more core disgust than did older adults and mortuary students. Women reported more core and contamination disgust than did men. Mortality salience led to increased disgust sensitivity among all three groups but only on a small number of items related to animals. The results suggest a limited role of terror management defenses in the experience of disgust in response to stimuli that remind people of their animal nature.

Development of the Teacher Control and Nurturance Scale: Assessing student perception of the underlying dimensions of teaching style.

The results of 3 studies (n1 = 498, n2 = 774, n3 = 299) are reported focusing on the development and validation of a brief, psychometrically sound measure of students’ perceptions of 2 dimensions that may underlie differences in teaching. This approach resulted from applying parenting style and interpersonal theories to a teaching context, specifically these theories’ emphasis on control and nurturance as dimensions that capture a wide range of behavior. Across exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the Teacher Control and Nurturance Scale (TCANS) items demonstrated a 2-factor structure corresponding to teacher control and nurturance. In addition to good internal consistency, the control and nurturance scales demonstrated initial concurrent and convergent validity. TCANS scores differed as predicted across the stylistic categories students selected as descriptive of their teachers, and TCANS scores from students within the same course corresponded to that teacher’s self-reported levels of control and nurturance. Control and nurturance were related to students’ perceptions of other teacher qualities and self-reported learning but not to objective measures of learning. The TCANS potential utility as an instrument in future research attempting to extend the parenting style construct to the classroom is discussed.