Citation

Niemiec CP, Brown KW, Kashdan TB, Cozzolino PJ, Breen WE, Levesque-Bristol C, Ryan RM. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 2010; 99(2): 344-365.

Affiliation

Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/a0019388

PMID

20658848

Abstract

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Language: en