RESEARCH ARTICLE
A Terror Management Analysis of Perceived Purpose: The Effects of Mor-tality Salience on Attributions for Occurrences
Jonathan F. Bassett*, Stacey B. Going
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 5
First Page: 20
Last Page: 30
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-5-20
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101205010020
Article History:
Received Date: 23/07/2012Revision Received Date: 14/09/2012
Acceptance Date: 17/09/2012
Electronic publication date: 10/10/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The current paper presents the results from two studies designed to test the hypothesis, derived from Terror Management Theory, that reminders of death would increase the need to perceive telos or purpose behind occurrences in the social world. In Study 1, mortality salience increased university students’ perception that the events described in vi-gnettes happened for a reason or purpose but only when the consequences were life altering and negative. In Study 2, mortality salience decreased university students’ perception that life-altering occurrences that affected other people were due to luck or chance. The results of these studies are interpreted as evidence that the need to believe that everything hap-pens for a reason is motivated by a desire to manage existential anxiety.
