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Close Relationships Buffer the Effects of Mortality Salience Among Depressed Individuals
Lemke, Austin
Lemke, Austin
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2015
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2015-05-01
Abstract
People with depression often experience a lack of meaningfulness in the world around them, leaving them especially vulnerable to concerns about death. Although the existential anxieties of depressed individuals have been commented upon my many psychologists, very little work has examined the association between depression and thoughts of mortality. According to the perspective of terror management theory, people find meaning in life by adhering to belief systems (i.e., cultural worldviews) and living up to the standards of value of their culture (i.e., self-esteem). However, given that depression is associated with an ineffective functioning of a person's worldview, these individuals may respond to reminders of death with stronger defensiveness in an attempt to uphold what little views they have left. Unfortunately, previous terror management research has focused extensively on the extent to which persons with depression focus on thoughts of nationalism and American pride, leaving the question of what exactly becomes cognitively accessible for depressed individuals when thoughts of mortality are salient. The present research examined what highly depressed persons are likely to think about following reminders of death (Study 1), and whether boosting aspects of this anxiety-buffering system provide protection against mortality salience on the accessibility of death-related thought and worldview defense (Study 2).
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Psychology