Philip J. Cozzolino

Being present in the face of existential threat: The role of trait mindfulness in reducing defensive responses to mortality salience

Terror management theory posits that people tend to respond defensively to reminders of death, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. Seven experiments examined whether trait mindfulness-a disposition characterized by receptive attention to present experience-reduced defensive responses to mortality salience (MS). Under MS, less mindful individuals showed higher worldview defense (Studies 1-3) and self-esteem striving (Study 5), yet more mindful individuals did not defend a constellation of values theoretically associated with mindfulness (Study 4). To explain these findings through proximal defense processes, Study 6 showed that more mindful individuals wrote about their death for a longer period of time, which partially mediated the inverse association between trait mindfulness and worldview defense. Study 7 demonstrated that trait mindfulness predicted less suppression of death thoughts immediately following MS. The discussion highlights the relevance of mindfulness to theories that emphasize the nature of conscious processing in understanding responses to threat.

Greed, Death, and Values: From Terror Management to Transcendence Management Theory

Research supporting terror management theory has shown that participants facing their death (via mortality salience) exhibit more greed than do control participants. The present research attempts to distinguish mortality salience from other forms of mortality awareness. Specifically, the authors look to reports of near-death experiences and posttraumatic growth which reveal that many people who nearly die come to view seeking wealth and possessions as empty and meaningless. Guided by these reports, a manipulation called death reflection was generated. In Study 1, highly extrinsic participants who experienced death reflection exhibited intrinsic behavior. In Study 2, the manipulation was validated, and in Study 3, death reflection and mortality salience manipulations were compared. Results showed that mortality salience led highly extrinsic participants to manifest greed, whereas death reflection again generated intrinsic, unselfish behavior. The construct of value orientation is discussed along with the contrast between death reflection manipulation and mortality salience.

Death Contemplation, Growth, and Defense: Converging Evidence of Dual-Existential Systems?

The psychology underlying individuals’ attempts to pursue a path of growth as a result of death contemplation is the focus of this article. More directly, I attempt to reconcile diverging paths in the study of death awareness and its impact on human experience; specifically, I present empirical and theoretical support for dual-existential systems that are capable of explaining mortality-induced defensiveness predicted by terror management theory (TMT), and mortality-induced growth observed among individuals who contemplate their mortality as a result of illness or trauma. I suggest that individuals process their existence either via a specific and personalized existential system, or via an abstract and categorical existential system. I also suggest that these dual-existential systems begin with differential information-processing styles and end with growth-oriented or defense-oriented motivational states and self-regulatory processes. The psychological and the societal outcomes of processing existential matters via these dual-systems are also discussed.

Temporal perspective and parental intention to accept the human papillomavirus vaccination for their daughter

OBJECTIVE A school-based vaccination programme to prevent infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus that causes cervical cancer, began in October 2008 in England. The present study evaluated the role of temporal perspective in the formation of attitudes and intentions towards the vaccine. DESIGN A cross-sectional correlational survey of 245 parents of 11-12-year-old girls. METHODS Parents read a passage about the HPV vaccine containing information about benefits and concerns parents might have about the vaccine. They then completed a thought listing task and measures of attitude, vaccine efficacy, anticipated regret, intention, and consideration of future consequences. RESULTS Parents with higher consideration of future consequences generated more positive relative to negative thoughts, held more positive attitudes, higher response efficacy, reported higher anticipated regret about not vaccinating their daughters and held more positive intentions. Mediation analyses suggested that the influence of thoughts generated on intention to vaccinate was partially mediated by attitude, perceived vaccine efficacy, and anticipated regret if the vaccine were not taken up. CONCLUSION Messages emphasizing efficacy of vaccination and anticipated regret are likely to promote vaccination uptake.

Good Times, Bad Times: How Personal Disadvantage Moderates the Relationship Between Social Dominance and Efforts to Win

Recent work has linked social dominance orientation (SDO) to ruthless, uncaring individuals who see the world as a competitive jungle. This need to “rule the jungle,” then, should become activated when high SDOs are in positions that threaten their chances of victory. In Study 1, the authors manipulated advantage and disadvantage in the form of resources; in an ensuing task, they observed higher levels of greed only among disadvantaged high SDOs. In Study 2, high SDOs with less opportunity to compete relative to others evidenced significantly more extra-effort to win, even though their effort broke the rules. In Study 3, the authors replicated this effect and demonstrated that extra-effort predicted increased beliefs in actual performance, which in turn predicted decisions to argue for a higher score. In sum, the results provide support for the notion of SDO reflecting underlying needs to compete and win at all costs.

Trust, cooperation, and equality: A psychological analysis of the formation of social capital

Research suggests that in modern Western culture there is a positive relationship between the equality of resources and the formation of trust and cooperation, two psychological components of social capital. Two studies elucidate the psychological processes underlying that relationship. Study 1 experimentally tested the influence of resource distributions on the formation of trust and intentions to cooperate; individuals receiving a deficit of resources and a surplus of resources evidenced lower levels of social capital (i.e., trust and cooperation) than did individuals receiving equal amounts. Analyses revealed the process was affective for deficit participants and cognitive for surplus participants. Study 2 provided suggestive support for the affective-model of equality and social capital using proxy variables in the 1996 General Social Survey data set. Results suggest support for a causal path of unequal resource distributions generating affective experiences and cognitive concerns of justice, which mediate disengagement and distrust of others.

Of Blood and Death: A Test of Dual-Existential Systems in the Context of Prosocial Intentions

Blood donation is an important expression of prosocial behavior in modern society. The extent to which thinking about death increases intentions to donate blood is the focus of the experiment reported in this article.

I Die, Therefore I Am: The Pursuit of Meaning in the Light of Death

In this chapter we discuss how individuals can find a personal sense of meaning after confronting their own mortality. We assert that the pursuit of personal meaning can take one of two divergent paths depending on how the individual construes death. Specifically, we predict that thinking about death in an abstract and unspecified manner, in which an individual is able to deny the reality of death, leads to defensive attempts to seek meaning from symbolic sources that are external to the self. Alternatively, we predict that thinking about death in a specific and individuated manner, in which individuals consider their death as an experiential reality, leads to authentic, open, and more intrinsic strivings toward personal meaning. We review empirical evidence in support of these divergent paths of meaning in the context of altruism, creativity, psychological needs, values, and the motivation to pursue (or escape from) freedom.

Self-Related Consequences of Death Fear and Death Denial

This study explores self-related outcomes (e.g., esteem, self-concept clarity, existential well-being) as a function of the interaction between self-reported levels of death fear and death denial. Consistent with the idea that positive existential growth can come from individuals facing, rather than denying, their mortality (Cozzolino, 2006), the authors observed that not fearing and denying death can bolster important positive components of the self. That is, individuals low in death denial and death fear evidenced an enhanced self that is valued, clearly conceived, efficacious, and that has meaning and purpose.

How Psychological Stress Affects Emotional Prosody.

We explored how experimentally induced psychological stress affects the production and recognition of vocal emotions. In Study 1a, we demonstrate that sentences spoken by stressed speakers are judged by naïve listeners as sounding more stressed than sentences uttered by non-stressed speakers. In Study 1b, negative emotions produced by stressed speakers are generally less well recognized than the same emotions produced by non-stressed speakers. Multiple mediation analyses suggest this poorer recognition of negative stimuli was due to a mismatch between the variation of volume voiced by speakers and the range of volume expected by listeners. Together, this suggests that the stress level of the speaker affects judgments made by the receiver. In Study 2, we demonstrate that participants who were induced with a feeling of stress before carrying out an emotional prosody recognition task performed worse than non-stressed participants. Overall, findings suggest detrimental effects of induced stress on interpersonal sensitivity.