https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8773-8264
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Abstract
Purpose
This study explored the relationship between emotion and death-thought accessibility (DTA) in individuals experiencing true mortality salience (MS), specifically, patients with cancer.
Patients and Methods
The study included 255 participants; among them, 132 patients had cancer and represented the MS group, and 123 had dental pain and served as a control group. Participants completed the Projective Diseases Attitude Assessment Questionnaire to induce priming, completed an affect scale, completed one of four calculation tasks as manipulation of cognitive load (all four were done over several sessions), and performed a Pinyin-Chinese characters exercise to measure DTA.
Results
MS was associated with strong negative emotional arousal. When these negative emotions are generated, they enter an individual’s consciousness and activate proximal defense mechanisms. At this point, DTA can be measured. Patients with cancer had significantly higher levels of DTA in the high-frequency cognitive load condition than in the other three conditions (no task, simple delay task, and single cognitive load task). Patients with dental pain had significantly higher levels of DTA in the no task and simple delay conditions than in the single cognitive load or high-frequency cognitive load conditions. This study also found that negative experiences without MS (specifically, dental pain) are associated with higher levels of DTA.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that in addition to death-related events, both negative and stress-inducing events can produce DTA.
Abbreviations
DTA, death-thought accessibility; MS, mortality salience; TMT, terror management theory; PANAS, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule.
Ethical Approval and Informed Consent
This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Southwest University and the Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University (reference no. XNYD2017268). The study’s purpose, procedures, and benefits were explained to all participants. Participants were also informed of their right to confidentiality and withdrawal. Our study complies with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. All the participants provided written informed consent in accordance to the human participants’ guidelines of the institutional ethics committee. Participants were offered a gift (one set of bowls valued at about 3 USD) and monetary rewards (about 16 USD) for their participation, after completing the experiments.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Postdoctoral Research Startup Foundation of Southwest Medical University (08/002300602) and the School-level Project of Southwest Medical University (08/00031508).
Disclosure
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.