Death Reflection
Research on death awareness has predominantly focused on the anxiety-provoking aspect of death-related cognitions, thus overlooking the positive aspect of death awareness, death reflection. This gap is exacerbated by the lack of a valid research instrument to measure death reflection. To address this issue, we offer a systematic conceptualization of death reflection, develop the Death Reflection Scale and assess its psychometric properties across four studies.
Further, using a sample of 268 firefighters, we examine whether death reflection buffers the detrimental impact of mortality cues at work on employee well-being and safety performance. Results provide strong support for the psychometric properties of the Death Reflection Scale. Further, moderation analysis indicates death reflection weakens the negative effect of mortality cues on firefighters’ safety performance.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260115000052
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Terror Management Theory
Terror Management Theory suggests that large groups, and even entire societies, may make decisions, or put them off, primarily to gain comfort from avoiding thoughts of death or reassurance that their ideas will live on after they are gone. Research finds that this plays out in some unexpected ways, both beneficial and potentially hazardous.
Terror management theory posits that human awareness of the inevitability of death exerts a profound influence on diverse aspects of human thought, emotion, motivation, and behavior
Angel and I collaborated for our final project titled Sanctuary. We were both heavily inspired by the art of nature that we experienced in the class lecture the week prior. We were thinking about types of sanctuaries for bugs or animals that could also be interactive as sanctuaries for humans, when we decided to change it up a little. Because the Earth isn’t made for humans. It was made as habitable for us as it is made habitable for spiders or cockroaches or bears. The concept of a spider web is something that is used in scary or creepy designs. The feeling of being trapped in an inescapable web is a source of great anxiety for the human defense system in the brain. But spider webs are for spiders. What humans may find anxiety inducing, spiders call ‘home’. Spider webs are their sanctuary. We can interact with the space but it’s not made to be pleasing and comfortable for humans. We decided to use both a heavy floral scent and pair it with a semi-rotting body scent. The scent mixed with the direct lighting and ominous, ambient music makes the scene that much more habitable for spiders, not for humans.