Master of Arts, Marietta College, 2024, Psychology

The college age group has shown the highest levels of risk-taking in research, which has serious implications for their social, health, and safety outcomes. Hence, researchers have aimed to create programs that reduce such behaviors. These interventions have been implemented with limited success, indicating further research is needed to shed more light on the underlying factors involved in this behavior. I suggest including Mortality Salience (MS) as a factor of understanding this phenomenon due to prior research showing the influence it has in the unconscious processing leading to this behavior. Past researchers investigating risk-taking behavior have not used a behavioral task of risk-taking while exploring MS effects. Our research addressed this limitation by using the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) as our main measure of risk-taking. Our first goal of this study was to investigate how under the Mortality Salience condition, the best model for predicting participants' risk-taking behavior on the BART would include measures of participant self-esteem, impulsiveness, perception of risk benefits, importance of money, and gender. Our secondary goal was to investigate the hypothesis that the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT) subdomain scales scores would be significantly associated with risk-taking behavior measured by the BART. I tested the best regression model to predict performance on the BART from the factors of MS, self-esteem, gender, importance of money, impulsivity, and perception of risk benefits. A second hypothesis involved testing the convergent validity of the BART task with the DOSPERT behavioral measure. The results did not support the hypotheses of this study. The limitations of this study involving the methods and measures used with the participant population indicated directions future research investigating risk-taking with the BART and DOSPERT could utilize.

Committee: Mark Sibicky (Advisor); Charles Doan (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2023, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

A large body of research has investigated the role of religious belief within terror management theory and the cognitive science of religion, with interesting results emerging for atheists as compared to religious individuals. While atheists explicitly disavow religion, implicit measurement techniques have revealed an intuitive belief in religious concepts, particularly following reminders of death (Jong et al., 2012). However, to date, no studies have directly observed the cognitive processes that underlie these effects. In response to this gap in the literature, the present study seeks to propose and test a model of the cognitive pathways utilized by religious and atheistic individuals as they manage existential concerns. Specifically, this model proposes that following mortality salience (MS), both religious and atheistic individuals experience intuitive religious belief due to evolutionary cognitive biases. These intuitions are then consciously shaped in accordance with explicitly endorsed ideologies, leading religious individuals to accept intuitive religious belief and atheistic individuals to override their intuitions with a more analytic orientation. As such, the present study hypothesized that MS (compared to pain) would lead to decreased need for cognition (NFC) in Christians but increased NFC in atheists. In a sample of 248 adults, an ANOVA indicated that Christians primed with MS reported lower NFC than those primed with pain, while the opposite effect emerged for atheists, providing compelling evidence for the proposed model. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Committee: Kenneth Vail III (Advisor); Kathleen Reardon (Committee Member); Michael Horvath (Committee Member); Eric Allard (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; Religion; Social Psychology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2019, Psychology

When people experience existential threats, they are motivated to focus on positive information that supports their worldview and self-esteem. However, people also regularly make mistakes and experience the threatening emotion of regret. The current research explores how individuals regulate their regret experiences when facing the terror of death reminders. Study 1 suggests mortality salience (MS) differentially impacts the affective experience of regrets across social and non-social life domains. After MS, people experienced less intense social regrets than non-social regrets. In Study 2, I found additional support that people are motivated to regulate social regrets after MS. Study 2 investigated potential regulatory mechanisms, specifically psychological repair work. Based on the findings from Study 2, there was greater support for a cognitive regulatory mechanism than the initially hypothesized psychological repair work. Future work should more comprehensively measure cognitive regret regulation following MS.

Committee: Amy Summerville PhD (Committee Chair); Heather Claypool PhD (Committee Member); Christina Roylance PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2019, College of Sciences and Health Professions

Terror Management Theory posits that people are motivated to defend against death awareness by maintaining cultural beliefs and behaviors that transcend mortality— sometimes motivating hostile, even militaristic, defenses of one's culture. In contrast, self-determination theory suggests that autonomous regulation (self-determination) serves as a platform for personal growth and well-being. However, the present thesis suggests that, in addition to fueling growth, self-determination may also help buffer against the awareness of mortality, thus mitigating the impact of death awareness on hostile cultural worldview defense. To test this hypothesis, American participants were randomly assigned to be reminded of mortality or a control topic, then randomly assigned to be reminded of feelings of autonomy or being controlled, and then lastly completed a measure of one possible form of worldview defense: support for militaristic defense of American foreign policy interests in Syria. The present analysis found that death reminders increased that form of worldview defense, unless participants were first prompted to recall self-determination experiences.

Committee: Kenneth Vail Ph.D. (Advisor); Eric Allard Ph.D. (Committee Member); Elizabeth Goncy Ph.D. (Committee Member); Shereen Naser Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Experimental Psychology; Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2019, College of Sciences and Health Professions

The present research built on prior work suggesting that mortality salience (MS) can undermine psychological well-being and explored the previously-untested hypothesis that autonomy can mitigate that effect. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of primed autonomy on measured death anxiety following a reminder of mortality. Participants (n = 119) were randomly assigned to either an MS or control condition and then, following a delay, were primed with the concept of either autonomy or being controlled. Death anxiety was then measured. Results found that MS increased death anxiety among those in the controlled prime condition, but not among those in the autonomous/self-determined prime condition. These findings suggest that autonomy serves an important terror management function that can mitigate the effect of death-related thoughts on well-being. Importantly, the results also highlight the potential intersection between existential defense and growth.

Committee: Kenneth Vail Ph.D. (Advisor); Eric Allard Ph.D. (Committee Member); Elizabeth Goncy Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robert Hurley Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Experimental Psychology; Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2018, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The scenario of the atheist in the proverbial foxhole has been a topic of discussion in religious circles for centuries. Building on prior research utilizing terror management theory (TMT), a dual process model of cognition, and previous work suggesting that humans are intuitively wired for teleological and religious concepts, the researchers set out to examine atheist's religiosity when confronted with the reality of one's impermanence. To explore this idea, the present experiment recruited a sample of atheists, manipulated their awareness of mortality, manipulated their ability to employ analytic thinking, and measured various intuitive cognitions (e.g., teleological reasoning) alongside religious belief. Results suggest that atheists in the speeded conditions reported higher agreement with teleological items; but the same did not happen for religious items. Additionally, atheists primed with mortality salience (vs. control) reported lower agreement with religious items in the un-speeded condition, but not in the speeded condition; a similar interaction was not observed for the teleology items. Limitations and potential directions for future research are discussed.

Committee: Kenneth Vail (Advisor) Subjects: Experimental Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2018, Experimental Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Busyness is often preferred over idleness (Hsee, Yang, & Wang, 2010). Drawing from Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986), I argue that existential concerns regarding inevitable personal mortality, in part, contribute to preference for busyness. Three studies support this reasoning. In Study 1, mortality salience increased behavioral busyness. In Study 2, mortality salience marginally elevated favorability toward a busy (vs. idle) individual. In Study 3, being busy reduced the need to engage alternative self-esteem striving-related defenses following a reminder of death. Discussion considers the terror management function of busyness.

Committee: Mark Alicke PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Social Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Communication

When people experience reminders of their mortality, anxiety heightens. This, in turn, can increase worldview defenses such as outgroup derogation. In this experiment, White participants (N = 190) read an online news story that presented a death threat (death threat, non-death threat) and identity threat (White threat, Black threat, race-neutral threat) manipulation. Following exposure to the experimental manipulation, participants completed measures of anxiety, specific self-esteem, and worldview defense. A multicategorical moderation supported the integration of specific self-esteem in social identity processes. The findings from moderated mediation analyses support previous terror management research (Greenberg et al., 1997): When exposure to a death threat has not been sufficiently suppressed, anxiety from the threat can manifest in worldview defenses. Results demonstrate that specific self-esteem buffers anxiety elicited from threats unrelated to racial identity. Implications include identity processes by which the effects of threat can be mitigated.

Committee: Jesse Fox (Advisor); Lanier Holt (Committee Member); Nancy Rhodes (Committee Member); Zheng Wang (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Psychology; Social Psychology; Social Research; Statistics; Web Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2015, Psychology

There are many processes by which people can become more extreme in their attitudes and judgments—some more reasonable and rational, some more unconscious and motivational in nature. Across two studies, this thesis focuses on one process that has demonstrated the potential to polarize judgments: defensive bolstering. There are many concurrent theories attempting to explain why, when we feel uncertain and/or threatened, we compensate by bolstering, or extremitizing, various judgments. None of these theories, however, have manipulated threat and uncertainty in an orthogonal manner. Thus, it has been unclear whether feelings of uncertainty are driving the bolstering effects as some theories argue, whether feelings of threat are the driving force as others argue, or if there is something special about the confluence of both uncertainty and threat that is pervasive amongst manipulations in the field. Study 1 examined the viability of a procedure which required participants to imagine hypothetical scenarios to vary threat and uncertainty. This study showed that the combination of threat and uncertainty produced more defensive bolstering than their absence. Bolstering was shown across three measures frequently used in the psychological defense literature. Study 2 then applied these vignettes to disentangle threat from uncertainty and demonstrated that imagining the scenario high in both uncertainty and threat produced greater bolstering on the same measures used in Study 1 than just uncertainty or threat, alone. Collapsing across Studies 1 and 2 in an exploratory analysis suggested that the only condition in which participants extremitized on the dependent variables was when uncertainty was combined with threat. This research suggests that defensive, compensatory bolstering effects may not be due solely to either the experience of uncertainty or threat, as many theories claim, but that it may actually rely on the experience of both.

Committee: Richard Petty PhD (Advisor); Duane Wegener PhD (Committee Member); Ellen Peters PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Communication

This study examined the effects of mortality salience on the opinions and preferences of people with different religious or philosophical worldviews. Specifically, participants completed a religious fundamentalist scale, a post-materialist index, and a cultural creativity index. Each participant was then randomly asked to think about the concept of death or a control topic. Finally, participants were asked to provide their opinions on a number of topics regarding prayer efficacy, media preference, and risk assessment. This study found supporting evidence that reminders of one's mortality tend to exaggerate any distrust of modern medicine held by religious fundamentalists, even if those reminders are not related to the medical issue at hand. It also provided some evidence that similar concerns held by post-materialists may be generally exaggerated under similar conditions. In addition, it was hypothesized that participants would consider potentially risky driving behaviors to be less dangerous when mortality was salient. This study found supporting evidence that religious fundamentalists were less concerned about the risks of driving with multiple passengers when mortality was salient. If assessments of other, riskier behaviors (such as texting while driving) mirror these results, mortality salience and religious perspective must be considered when attempting to discourage such behavior. It was also hypothesized that participants in the mortality salient group would prefer to get their news from sources that shared their point of view. However, no evidence was found to support this hypothesis. In fact, politically liberal participants were less likely to prefer liberal news sources when mortality was made salient. Since so many news stories and television shows deal with issues of mortality, media selection may depend in part on a combination of philosophical perspectives and the content of the news.

Committee: Gerald Kosicki PhD (Advisor); Michael McCluskey PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Political Science; Psychology; Religion; Social Psychology; Sociology; Spirituality

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Marietta College, 2010, Psychology

Research on terror management theory suggests that mortality salience (MS) leads people to reject out-group members. The present study investigated the influence of MS on perceptions of a target labeled with anorexia in contrast to a target labeled with diabetes using a 2 (mortality salience: high vs. control) x2 (diagnostic label: anorexia vs. diabetic) random block design. I expected to find a significant MS by diagnostic label interaction, hypothesizing that participants would give significantly lower opinion ratings to the anorexic target under the high MS condition than those in other conditions. Results showed no significant interaction. There was a significant main effect between diagnostic label and several opinion ratings. This finding supports previous research on the stigma of mental disorders.

Committee: Mark Sibicky PhD (Advisor); Jacqueline Khorassani PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology