1. Parent Cultural Differences in the Defensive Self-Esteem/Child-Mortality Salience Connection
Jacob A. Jardel
Cameron University
Dr. Jenel T. Cavazos
Cameron University
Christopher P. Ditzfeld
University of Arkansas
BACKGROUND
RESULTS
Terror Management Theory and Self-Esteem
TMT (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) describes the existential crisis evoked upon reminder of self-mortality.
Mortality salience research notes two main responses to self-death primes: boosted self-esteem and enhanced attachment to one’s culture (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pysczynksi, 2000).
Previous research has demonstrated that mortality salience increases the desire for offspring (Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005) and raises the desire to name one's offspring after the self (Vicary, 2010).
More recently, research has shown that the threat of the death of one’s child raises self-esteem significantly more than the threat of self-death, demonstrating the importance of the child as a genetic legacy (Ditzfeld and Cavazos, 2013).
Cultural Look at TMT
In collectivist cultures, concerns are more directly related to one’s relational value in the cultural system. (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995, 2001).
While individuals from collectivist cultures show similar TMT effects for cultural worldview defense as those from individualistic cultures (Routledge & Arndt, 2008; Tam, Chiu, & Lau, 2007), findings differ in terms of self-esteem response.
In collectivist cultures, the threat of death is alleviated by affirming relational rather than personal value (Du, Jonas, Klackl, Agroskin, Hui, & Ma, 2013), and people are affected more by the threat of collective (i.e ingroup) mortality than by personal morality (E. Kashima, Halloran, Yuki, & Y. Kashima, 2004).
Ma-Kellams and Blascovich (2011, 2012) show that (1) in response to MS, individualists defend the self, whereas collectivists defend other people; and (2) diverging norms about life and death lead collectivists to find more enjoyment with life than individualists following MS.
Prompt (Child Death vs. Child Pain) x Location (U.S. vs. India) ANOVAs were performed on negative mood and explicit self-esteem variables.
Negative Mood:
Parents prompted by child death (M = 2.29) felt more negatively than did parents prompted by child pain (M = 1.72), F(1, 98) = 7.90, p = .006
Indian parents (M = 2.33) rated experiencing more negative mood than did U.S. parents (M = 1.69), irrespective of condition, F(1, 98) = 10.00, p = .002.
Self-Esteem:
Main effect of lower self-esteem in Indian parents (M = 3.73) than in U.S. parents (M = 4.19), F(1, 98) = 9.83, p = .002; this effect was qualified by the predicted two-way interaction, F(1, 98) = 6.69, p = .011.
U.S. parents’ self-esteem was lower in child-pain (M = 4.03) than in the child- death (M = 4.35) condition.
Indian parents’ self-esteem was higher in child-pain (M = 3.95) than in the child- death (M = 3.51) condition.
RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESIS
Is the defensive self-esteem increase in response to child-MS (Ditzfeld & Cavazos, 2013) restricted primarily to parents in Western (individualistic) culture?
We hypothesized that parents from individualistic cultures would display a culturally characteristic response by increasing self-esteem to deal with the threat of child mortality, whereas collectivist parents would display the opposite reaction by decreasing self-esteem after confronted with the threat of child mortality.
CONCLUSIONS
These results demonstrate that TMT-child threat effects may be restricted to parents in the U.S.; parents in the U.S. come to rely on the self when presented with particularly threatening thought of their child’s morality, presumably due to the focus within Western culture on finding strength in self, consistent with individualistic norms.
In contrast, Indian parents’ self-esteem diminishes in response to the threat of child mortality, presumably because the threat of broken relational bonds decreass feelings of self-worth, consistent with collectivist norms.
PARTICIPANTS
382 parents (one or more children) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. The sample included 203 parents (52% female; Mage = 32.0) from individualistic cultures (98% from the U.S.), while the rest of the sample included 179 parents (48% female; Mage = 40.23) from collectivist cultures (95% from India).
Selected Bibliography
METHODS
Ditzfeld, C., & Cavazos, J.T. (2013). Self, Give Me Strength: The Rise of Self-Esteem Following Child Mortality Salience. Manuscript under revision.
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp ). New York: Springer.
Ma-Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J. (2011). Culturally divergent responses to mortality salience. Psychological Science, 22,
Ma-Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J. (2012). Enjoying life in the face of death: East–West differences in responses to mortality salience. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 103(5),
Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2000). Pride and prejudice fear of death and social behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(6),
Triandis, H. C., (1995). Individualism & collectivism: New directions in social psychology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Triandis, H.C. (2001), Individualism-Collectivism and Personality. Journal of Personality, 69, 907–924.
Wisman, A., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2005). From the grave to the cradle: Evidence that mortality salience engenders a desire for offspring. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(1),
After giving consent, individuals completed an online questionnaire. Participants first completed a traditional TMT writing prompt (child mortality salience or child dental pain; Ditzfeld & Cavazos, 2013).
“Describe the emotions that the thought of the death of a child [a child experiencing dental pain] arouses in you. What will happen to the child as he or she physically dies [experiences dental pain]?”
After the MS manipulation, participants completed several questionnaires, including state mood (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) and explicit self-esteem (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965).