Abstract

CAMPOS, Sebastián  and  ESPINOSA, Agustín. Mortality salience and its influence on individual and collective identity reasons: an experimental study. liber. [online]. 2016, vol.22, n.1, pp.67-76. ISSN 1729-4827.

The present research aims to determine the impact of mortality salience on grounds of identity – both individual and collective – such as self-esteem, effectiveness, belonging, distinctiveness, continuity and meaning. It was hypothesized that awareness of one’s own death would enhance, at both the individual and the collective level, the identity reasons described. Through an experimental design, it was found that at the individual identity level, the experimental group (exposed to one’s own mortality salience) showed scores marginally higher than the control group on the grounds of self-esteem and distinctiveness; and significantly higher scores on continuity grounds. At the collective identification level, no mortality effect is shown over identity reasons.

Keywords : Individual identity; collective identity; grounds for identity; theory of terror management; mortality salience.

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