Death and Sexuality: Mortality Salience Increases Heteronormative Preferences and Stereotyping Among Those with High Need for Closure

ABSTRACT

Terror Management Theory has shown that mortality salience can increase outgroup stereotyping and dislike of people who are different. We examined heterosexual participant reactions to profiles of homosexual and heterosexual men after mortality salience utilizing need for closure (NFC) as a moderating variable. We also examined the role of death-thought accessibility (DTA) in these effects. Among those with high NFC, mortality salience increased stereotyping and preference for the heterosexual individual. This effect only occurred when participants examined the profiles before completing the DTA measure. Control participants showed parallel reactions to the mortality salience condition when completing the DTA measure first. We found no reliable effects of mortality salience increasing DTA, and defensiveness decreasing DTA. The current findings demonstrate how two different death reminders can affect reactions to homosexual men among those in high NFC. Potential reasons for the lack of support for DTA in these effects are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Terror management
• mortality salience
• homosexuality
• stereotyping
• discrimination

Introduction

Negative attitudes toward homosexuals remain pervasive, with homosexuality criminalized in over 70 countries around the world (Gerber et al., 2021), and homosexuals experiencing high levels of discrimination in many aspects of society (e.g., Casey et al., 2019). Identifying factors driving discrimination toward homosexuals is therefore important. According to Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg et al., 1986), the awareness of death plays a pivotal role in social phenomena such as prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination (Pyszczynski et al., 2015). Despite hundreds of experiments supporting TMT’s assertions regarding cultural defensiveness, studies investigating its claims in relation to homosexuality are sparse (though see Piwowarski et al., 2011; Webster & Saucier, 2011). We sought to examine TMT’s claims in relation to discriminatory and stereotyping tendencies toward homosexual men, examining the moderating role of Need for Closure (Roets & Van Hiel, 2011).

Terror management theory

TMT (Greenberg et al., 1986) assumes that, like other animals, humans are evolutionarily predisposed toward survival, but are unique in their awareness that death is inevitable. This juxtaposition provides the potential for a debilitating sense of existential terror. The theory further stipulates that humans manage this problem by investing in cultural worldviews that provide a sense of meaning, order, and predictability. Additionally, these worldviews provide associated standards of conduct that if, lived up to or exceeded, can impart a sense of self-esteem that transcends their mortal, physical self.

Support for the theory comes from the mortality salience (MS) hypothesis, which suggests that if individuals manage their death-related anxieties by investing in cultural worldviews, then reminders of death should increase the need to adhere to and defend these worldviews (B. L. Burke et al., 2010). Typically, MS is manipulated by asking individuals to answer questions about their own death, while control participants answer parallel questions about something negative or aversive (e.g., dental pain; future worries, B. L. Burke et al., 2010). Supporting the hypothesis, studies have shown that MS increases preference for members of one’s own group (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990), as well as derogation and aggression toward those who threaten or criticize one’s worldview (e.g., McGregor et al., 1998). Additionally, MS increases the tendency to stereotype outgroup members because stereotypes help to provide a predictable, orderly and stable conception of the world (e.g., Schimel et al., 1999).

Typically, MS effects occur after a short delay (5–10 minutes) once thoughts of death have left focal attention (B. L. Burke et al., 2010). This is because TMT outlines a dual-process model whereby people engage in proximal and distal defenses to manage death-related thoughts (Pyszczynski et al., 1999). Proximal defenses are engaged immediately after MS and entail tactics that seek to push conscious death thoughts outside of conscious awareness, such as through effortful suppression (Arndt et al., 1997a) or denying one’s vulnerability to the threat (Cooper et al., 2010). However, once death thoughts are outside of conscious awareness, albeit remain non-consciously accessible, people engage in distal defenses that have no logical connection to the problem of death but defuse the threat on a symbolic level (e.g., cultural worldviews, self-esteem).

Additional support for the theory comes from the death-thought accessibility (DTA) hypothesis, which suggests if cultural worldviews manage death-related anxieties, then threatening those worldviews should heighten thoughts of death (Pyszczynski et al., 2015). DTA is commonly measured using word fragment tasks whereby some of the words can potentially be completed in a death-related manner (e.g., SK _ _ L can be skill or skull, Hayes et al., 2010). Supporting this hypothesis, research has shown that exposure to worldview-threatening information increases DTA but not the accessibility of negative thoughts (e.g., Schimel et al., 2007).

DTA also appears to play a key role in the MS-worldview defense link. Firstly, MS has been shown to heighten DTA after a delay (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1994). Secondly, providing individuals with the opportunity to defend their worldview after MS decreases DTA in comparison to those who have not been given this opportunity (e.g., Arndt et al., 1997a). Although this provides good converging evidence for the role that DTA plays in the MS-worldview defense link, it is difficult to demonstrate this statistically because measuring DTA itself can act as a death prime (Hayes & Schimel, 2018). Thus, one solution is to manipulate measuring DTA before or after taking a worldview defense measure to assess how cultural worldview defense may reduce the accessibility of death thoughts.

Despite considerable support for TMT, few studies have examined how TMT might provide insight into attitudes regarding homosexuality. Since worldviews typically espouse heteronormative assumptions, homosexuality may represent a threat to one’s cultural beliefs (e.g., Herek, 2000). Additionally, sex can be a reminder of our creatureliness and ultimately our finitude (Goldenberg et al., 1999). Sex is therefore distanced from its animalistic status and transformed into something symbolic by embedding it into systems of meaning (e.g., marriage, romance; Goldenberg et al., 2000), thereby reducing the threatening nature of sex. When sexual acts deviate from these accepted norms, they are suggested to elicit disgust (Haidt et al., 1994). For example, homosexual acts elicit increased disgust in comparison to heterosexual acts (e.g., Giner-Sorolla et al., 2012), and homosexuals are often dehumanized, particularly in animalistic terms (Herek, 2009).

What limited evidence that does exist is consistent with this terror management account. For example, evidence suggests that MS increases negative attitudes toward homosexuality (Webster & Saucier, 2011), particularly when evidence of an afterlife has not first been affirmed (Piwowarski et al., 2011). MS also decreases the willingness to be punitive of hate crimes against homosexual individuals (Lieberman et al., 2001). Though these studies support a TMT account of anti-homosexual attitudes, they are limited as they do not examine potential moderators to sexuality-based worldview defense after MS. Indeed, MS effects are never really main effects as it depends on one’s individual cultural worldview and what values they promote (Pyszczynski et al., 2015).

One particular moderator to sexuality-based worldview defense may be the role of Need for Closure (NFC), a personality style that evinces close-mindedness, preference for certainty, and unambiguous representations of reality (Brandt & Reyna, 2010). These individuals tend to “seize” on information quickly and “freeze” their views to maintain a sense of certainty (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). NFC has been conceptually linked with increased discrimination toward homosexuals (Brandt & Reyna, 2010; S. E. Burke et al., 2017). One reason for this is because high NFC individuals prefer essentialist categorization and authoritarian beliefs (Roets & Van Hiel, 2011), which are associated with beliefs regarding traditional binary gender roles that homosexuality is perceived to threaten (Kite & Whitley, 1996). Additionally, high NFC individuals may also particularly rely on structures that help them see sexuality as meaningful rather than revealing our sense of creatureliness, and thus react negatively to violations of traditional views regarding gender and sexuality. Consistent with this view, Webster and Saucier (2011) found that the effect of MS on increased negative attitudes toward homosexuality was mediated by increased beliefs regarding traditional gender roles. One would expect that these heteronormative preferences may be evident in those with high NFC, as they seek to maintain a clear conception of reality, particularly under conditions of MS.

To our knowledge, only one study has examined the moderating role of NFC in MS reactions to homosexual targets (Schimel et al., 1999; Study 5). This study found that MS increased preferences (i.e., liking) for a stereotypical (vs. non-stereotypical) homosexual individual for participants high in NFC. Although evidence for our assertion that NFC should moderate MS effects, the study is limited in the capacity in testing our current hypotheses as it examined a different hypothesis regarding whether people prefer a stereotypical over non-stereotypical homosexual member. Therefore, it is unable to assess whether those high in NFC would tend to stereotype homosexual men under ambiguous (i.e., mere knowledge of their membership) circumstances, and moreover, would exhibit preferences for heterosexual men in comparison to homosexual men.

The present study

The present study aims to investigate whether MS increases discrimination and stereotyping of homosexual men among those with high NFC. To examine this, we conducted an online study with heterosexual participants where they completed a measure of NFC and were given an MS (vs. dental pain) induction. After a delay, participants completed a measure of DTA and evaluated two similar profiles of men that differed in sexuality (heterosexual vs. homosexual). We took measures that assessed their bias to stereotype the homosexual individual and preference for the heterosexual individual. The order of the DTA and profile evaluation task was counterbalanced so that we could examine the role of DTA in worldview defense.

Our core hypothesis was a three-way interaction between MS, task order and NFC. We expected that MS would increase stereotyping of the homosexual profile and interpersonal preference for the heterosexual profile amongst those high in NFC when they completed the DTA task last (i.e., profile evaluation first). Additionally, we expected that MS would increase DTA, but only when completed first, and that DTA would no longer be increased after completing the profile evaluation task. We did not have any firm predictions regarding whether NFC would moderate our effects on DTA.

Method

Participants

Participants were recruited via social media and online forums with the incentive to win a £50 Amazon voucher. Four hundred and fifty-one participants completed the study, however, 121 of these did not meet our sample criteria (heterosexual). We further excluded 63 participants on the following basis: (i) 13 did not complete the MS manipulation; (ii) 30 failed one or more attention checks; (iii) 14 did not attempt enough word fragments on the DTA task to be included (more than three out of seven) (iv) four guessed the study aim or indicated they had taken part in a prior TMT experiment; (v) two participants indicated that we should not use their data as it was not reliable.

The final sample therefore included 267 participants (M_age = 24.8, SD_age = 10.8) with 185 females and 78 males (four participants did not provide their gender). Post-hoc sensitivity analyses suggested we had 95% power to detect a small-medium three-way interaction effect (f² = .05). Participants were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: MS/DTA first (n = 65), MS/DTA last (n = 70), control/DTA first (n = 65), control/DTA last (n = 67). The study was ethically approved by the university.

Materials and procedure

The study was pitched as examining the relationship between personality types and forming impressions of others. After providing consent, participants completed the following materials in this order.

Participants first completed a 15-item Need for Closure scale (Roets & Van Hiel, 2011), on a 7-point Likert scale (“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). An example of one of the items is “I don’t like situations that are uncertain.” We calculated a mean score, with higher scores reflecting greater NFC (α = .82). We also included an attachment scale (Fraley et al., 2011) to maintain the cover story and further mask the MS manipulation.

We then randomly assigned participants to either answer two open-ended questions about their own death (“please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you” and “jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead”) or parallel questions about dental pain (DP; control condition). This is a typical MS manipulation used in TMT research (B. L. Burke et al., 2010).

After this, participants completed the 60-item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule—Expanded Form (PANAS-X; Watson & Clark, 1999), and a 20-item Big-Five Short form (Donnellan et al., 2006) to further aid the cover story, and also provide a delay between the MS manipulation and dependent measures to ensure thoughts of death had left focal attention (Pyszczynski et al., 1999). The findings regarding affect can be found in the Supplementary Analyses. After completing the delay tasks, participants then completed the DTA word fragment task and the profile evaluation task. The order of these tasks was counterbalanced.

We used a traditional DTA task (Greenberg et al., 1994) that required participants to complete word fragments by filling in the blanks with the first word that came to mind. Seven of these words (the other 24 were filler items) could be completed in a neutral, or death-related, manner (dead, corpse, grave, skull, mortal, fatal, buried). We took a sum of the death word completions. Higher scores reflect increased DTA (0–7).

The profile evaluation task involved participants rating two individual profiles that were randomly selected and ostensibly written by participants from a previous experiment. Participants were informed that these participants had written ten things about themselves in response to a “Who Am I?” activity and that we wanted to examine their first impressions of these profiles. Both profiles were handwritten in similar, albeit different handwriting styles to increase authenticity. Both profiles indicated that the individual was male, but the manipulation consisted of one profile stating that the individual was homosexual (“gay”) while the other implied that they were heterosexual because they referred to their girlfriend (“my girlfriend”). We opted to take this approach regarding the heterosexual profile to avoid arousing suspicion about the task aim. All other traits were kept consistent across the two profiles by using synonyms and a slight reordering of the traits. For example, the heterosexual profile included traits such as, “friendly,” “shy” and “clever,” while the homosexual profile included, “kind,” “quiet” and “intelligent.” We counterbalanced the order of the profiles across participants.¹

To measure the participants’ impressions of these individuals, they were asked to complete the Interpersonal Judgment Scale, used in past Terror Management Research (Greenberg et al., 1990) and a Stereotype Index. Participants completed both measures on 9-point Likert scales.

The Interpersonal Judgment Scale required evaluating each profile regarding whether they fit the adjectives of “intelligent,” “moral” and “knowledgeable,” as well as how much they thought they would like, and want to work with, the person. We calculated a mean score for the homosexual (α = .86) and heterosexual (α = .87) profiles and subtracted the score of the homosexual profile from the heterosexual profile to obtain a preference score. Higher scores reflect a greater interpersonal preference for the heterosexual profile relative to the homosexual profile.

The Stereotype Index consisted of 16 traits and asked participants the extent to which each individual profile evinced these characteristics. Only five of these traits related to homosexual stereotypes and therefore were our focus of interest (concerned with appearance, flamboyant, fashionable, masculine (reversed), promiscuous²). These traits were informed by prior research on homosexual stereotyping (e.g., Madon, 1997). The other traits were either based on other characteristics noted in the profile or were filler traits to mask our intention of measuring homosexual stereotyping.

Finally, participants provided basic demographic information (including their sexual orientation), and were asked about their participation, probed for suspicion about the study aims, and asked if any of the materials used in the study were familiar to them.

Results

We first assessed whether our stereotype traits formed a reliable solution. The homosexual profile produced a one factor solution with adequate reliability (α = .66). For the heterosexual profile, four of the traits loaded onto the same factor with masculinity loading onto a separate factor. The five traits also displayed poor reliability (α = .48). This might reflect how masculinity may mean different things when considering heterosexuality in comparison to homosexuality (Clarke & Arnold, 2017). Nonetheless, because our interest primarily concerned the homosexual profile which provided a reliable one factor solution, we opted to include the masculinity item when constructing mean scores of both scales. Analyzing the data with the masculinity item excluded does not change the findings reported. We subtracted the stereotype score for the heterosexual profile from the homosexual profile to obtain a bias. Higher scores therefore reflect a greater tendency to stereotype the homosexual profile.

To examine our hypotheses regarding bias in stereotyping and interpersonal preference, we utilized Model 3 in PROCESS (Hayes, 2018). MS (−.5 DP, +.5 MS) was entered as the independent variable. Task order (−.5 DTA Last, +.5 DTA First) and NFC (standardized) were entered as moderating variables.

Stereotyping

There was an MS X Task Order interaction, b = −.99, t(259) = 2.68, p = .008, 95% CI [−1.76, −.26], which was qualified by an MS X Task Order X NFC interaction, b = −.85, t(259) = 2.26, p = .025, 95% CI [−1.58, −.11] (See Figures 1 and 2). Examining the two-way interactions in participants with high (+1 SD) and low (−1 SD) levels of NFC showed that there was only an MS X Task Order interaction among participants with high NFC, b = −1.84, p = .001. At high levels of NFC, MS increased stereotyping of the homosexual profile when the DTA task was completed last (i.e., profile was completed first), b = .81, t(259) = 2.20, p = .029, 95% CI [.09, 1.53]. This effect was reversed when the DTA task was completed first, b = −1.03, t(259) = 2.73, p = .007, 95% CI [−1.77, −.29]. There were no effects at low levels of NFC, p’s >.50.

Figure 1. Effect of MS on stereotyping among those with high (+1 SD) NFC when the DTA task was completed last. Higher scores reflect greater stereotyping of the homosexual profile.

Figure 2. Effect of the DTA Task on stereotyping among those with high (+1 SD) NFC in the dental pain condition. Higher scores reflect greater stereotyping of the homosexual profile.

We also examined this interaction by examining the effect of task order by switching task order to the independent variable and MS to the moderator. In the MS condition, completing the DTA task first marginally decreased stereotyping amongst those with high NFC, b = −.61, t(259) = 1.68, p = .094, 95% CI [−1.32, .10]. In the DP condition, completing the DTA task first significantly increased stereotyping amongst those with high NFC, b = 1.23, t(259) = 3.21, p = .002, 95% CI [.48, 1.99].

Interpersonal preference

The only effect that reached significance was the MS X Task Order X NFC interaction, b = −1.21, t(259) = 3.21, p = .002, 95% CI [−1.96 −.47] (See Figures 3 and 4). Examining the MS X Task Order interaction in those with low and high NFC showed that the predicted interaction was significant among those with high NFC, b = 1.27, p = .018. There was also a two-way interaction among those with low NFC, b = −1.16, p = .031.

Figure 3. Effect of MS on interpersonal preference among those with high (+1 SD) NFC when the DTA task was completed last. Higher scores reflect preference toward the heterosexual profile.

Figure 4. Effect of the DTA Task on interpersonal preference among those with high (+1 SD) NFC in the dental pain condition. Higher scores reflect preference toward the heterosexual profile.

Examining the simple effects showed that there was a marginal effect of MS increasing interpersonal preference for the heterosexual profile at high levels of NFC when the DTA task was completed last (i.e., profile was completed first), b = .63, t(259) = 1.71, p = .089, 95% CI [−.10, 1.37]. This effect was again reversed when the DTA task was completed first, albeit only marginal, b = −.63, t(259) = 1.66, p = .098, 95% CI [−1.39, .12]. There was also an effect of MS increasing preference for the heterosexual profile amongst those with low NFC when the DTA task was completed first, b = .99, t(259) = 2.55, p = .011, 95% CI [.23, 1.76].

Again, we examined this interaction by looking at the effect of task order. In the MS condition, completing the DTA task first decreased interpersonal preference for the heterosexual profile at high levels of NFC, b = −.72, t(259) = 1.96, p = .051, 95% CI [−1.43, .00]. In the DP condition, completing the DTA task first increased interpersonal preference for the heterosexual profile although this effect was not significant, b = .55, t(259) = 1.43, p = .155, 95% CI [−.21, 1.32]. Finally, there was a marginal effect in the DP condition that showed that completing DTA task first decreased preference for the heterosexual profile amongst those with low NFC, b = −.68, t(259) = 1.83, p = .069, 95% CI [−1.40, .05].

DTA

We assessed whether our manipulations affected levels of DTA by running a 2 (Prime: MS vs DP) x 2 (Task Order: DTA First vs DTA Last) ANOVA. There was a marginal effect of MS increasing DTA, F (1, 263) = 3.60, p = .059, η_p² = .01. The effect of task order and the interaction were not significant, p’s >.40 (see Table 1 for descriptive statistics).

Table 1. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for DTA scores.

	MS	DP
DTA First	2.33 (1.45)	1.88 (1.27)
DTA Last	2.11 (1.29)	1.92 (1.44)

Higher scores reflect increased DTA.

We further examined whether NFC might have qualified our effects on DTA because our hypothesis was limited to defensive reactions in those with high NFC. The three-way interaction was not significant, p > .50. Additionally, we also examined whether there was an indirect effect of MS on DTA through the interpersonal judgment and stereotyping measures, among participants with high NFC who completed the DTA task last (i.e., moderated mediation). To examine this, we utilized Model 73 in PROCESS (Hayes, 2018) using 10,000 bootstrapped samples. This did not support a mediation effect as all confidence intervals included zero.

Discussion

Our findings support our hypothesis that MS increases homosexual-related stereotyping, and interpersonal preference for heterosexual men at high levels of NFC. As expected, our findings showed that this effect only occurred when the profile evaluation task was completed first (i.e., the DTA task was completed last). Although our original intention for including the DTA task was to examine whether worldview defense would decrease DTA, interestingly, when participants in the control group completed the DTA task first, we found analogous effects to those observed in our MS condition suggesting it acted as a subtle death prime (Hayes & Schimel, 2018). Regarding our original hypothesis regarding DTA, we found little support for the idea that MS increases DTA, and that worldview defense decreases DTA.

It is worth briefly elaborating on why the DTA task would operate differently in the experimental and control condition. TMT’s dual process model suggests that people manage death thoughts with a combination of proximal and distal defenses (Pyszczynski et al., 1999). After MS, proximal defenses are engaged, and once death thoughts have left focal attention, people engage in distal defenses (e.g., worldview defense). The DTA task likely disrupts this process as it may push death thoughts back to a conscious level (Hayes & Schimel, 2018). However, in the control group, the DTA task is likely subtle enough that it bypasses the need for proximal defenses, and instead causes distal defenses immediately akin to other studies that have deployed subtle or subliminal death primes (e.g., Arndt et al., 1997b; Pyszczynski et al., 1996). This finding implies that if researchers deploy the DTA task as a manipulation check for MS, this might obscure identifying an effect, or even possibly reverse the pattern of effects identified (for further elaboration see Hayes & Schimel, 2018).

Our findings support prior research examining TMT in relation to homosexuality (Piwowarski et al., 2011; Webster & Saucier, 2011), but add to this by showing that sexuality-based defensiveness after MS is heightened among those with high levels of NFC. Additionally, our research identified that two different death primes produced functionally equivalent effects, which should increase confidence that our findings reflect genuine effects. More generally, our research may illuminate at least one reason (i.e., the awareness of death) why NFC is associated with an increased anti-homosexual sentiment (e.g., Brandt & Reyna, 2010).

These findings suggest that attempting to reduce levels of NFC may be useful in promoting more positive reactions toward homosexuality. For example, exposure to multicultural experiences appears to reduce prejudice through reducing levels of NFC (Tadmor et al., 2012; see also Djikic et al., 2013). While interventions seeking to decrease NFC may be fruitful, it may alternatively be useful to consider how NFC can be channeled into more positive reactions. For example, because individuals high in NFC dislike ambiguity and unfamiliar situations, contact with outgroup members can be stressful. However, increasing intergroup contact can improve outgroup attitudes among those with high NFC because it lowers anxiety and increases the familiarity of outgroups (Dhont et al., 2011). More generally, increased contact may help positive views of homosexuals replace current negative views that high NFC individuals might seize on when making judgments about homosexual individuals (Roets et al., 2015). Thus, increasing the visibility and familiarity of people with different sexual orientations may weaken the link between NFC and anti-homosexual attitudes and reduce the tendency to endorse traditional stereotypes surrounding homosexuality. Future research could examine this possibility further, particularly under conditions of MS.

While we focused our hypotheses on the effects of MS on high NFC individuals, our findings demonstrated some partial evidence for changes in low NFC individuals. On the interpersonal judgment measure, we found that the DTA task lowered people’s preference for the heterosexual profile in the control condition. This could reflect that people with low levels of NFC are more positive toward homosexuality when reminded of death, as their personality style relates to openness and exploration (cf., Routledge et al., 2013). However, it is unclear why such an effect would be limited to the DTA task, and not our MS manipulation. Thus, unlike our hypothesized effects, we do not receive the double confidence by demonstrating analogous effects with two different death primes. Additionally, as we did not specifically hypothesize an effect for those with low NFC, we would recommend interpreting this finding with caution.

One limitation of the present work is that while we provide supporting evidence for the moderating role of NFC, we do not examine the mechanisms by which NFC moderates our effects. As we noted in our rationale, we suspect that NFC individuals may be more likely to endorse worldviews that support traditional views on sexuality and gender that homosexuality challenges (Kite & Whitley, 1996), and moreover these individuals may rely on structures that imbue sex as meaningful and distance humans from their creatureliness (Goldenberg et al., 2000). However, as our study did not explicitly test for these explanations, we cannot firmly state that either process underpinned our effect. For example, our findings may reflect how homosexuality might be perceived to violate the moral guidelines of some people’s cultural worldviews. This latter explanation would also be compatible with research that shows NFC is more strongly associated with prejudice when the ingroup (in this case heterosexuals) is viewed as morally superior to the outgroup (in this case homosexuals, e.g., Theodorou & Kosic, 2021). Future research should seek to examine these possibilities. Doing so may also aid further understanding of whether sexuality-based defensiveness after MS reflects a typical terror management process or if it is unique from other types of defensiveness observed in the literature. For example, the possibility that sexuality is linked with issues of creatureliness may suggest that sex-based prejudices are somewhat unique from other forms of prejudice.

While we found some marginal support that MS increases DTA, our findings did not support our hypothesis that engagement in worldview defense (i.e., evaluating the profiles) would decrease DTA. We had hoped that by observing a decrease in DTA after engaging with worldview defense, we could increase confidence that our findings reflect a terror management process. Naturally then a limitation of our research is that our findings could be explained by alternative theories that suggest these effects are driven by concerns other than death-related ones, such as heightened uncertainty (Van Den Bos, 2009). While we cannot rule out these explanations, we would also note that the general pattern of the data does fit our proposed hypothesis regarding the role of DTA. Indeed, although the interaction effect did not reach significance, examining a contrast between our critical condition of the MS/DTA task first vs. all other conditions (see Supplementary Analyses) did provide slightly more support for our prediction, although it did not reach conventional levels of significance (p < .08). One possibility is that death word-fragment tasks have low sensitivity to detecting effects due to factors impacting recall (e.g., frequency; Naidu et al., 2020). This might especially be the case in an online setting where there is less control over extraneous factors that might subtly influence word completion.

More generally, the online context is a limitation of this work as it may be more difficult to obtain MS effects in comparison to lab studies, though some TMT research has been successful in an online setting (e.g., Hubley et al., 2020). Perhaps with a larger sample or different measure of DTA (e.g., lexical decision task; Schimel et al., 2007) our pattern of findings might have reached conventional thresholds of statistical significance. Indeed, although our analysis was generally well-powered enough to detect our three-way interactions, it should be noted that our study lacked power relating to the simple effects of our hypotheses. This might have contributed to why some of our simple effects were marginal at best and should therefore lead to some caution when interpreting our findings. Indeed, future work should seek to conceptually replicate our effects to increase further confidence in them.

It should also be noted that participants generally favored the homosexual profile over the heterosexual profile, opposite to what we expected. One possibility is that this tendency reflects socially desirable responding. A second possibility pertains to our sample that was typically young and female who exhibit lower levels of homophobic attitudes (e.g., Kite & Whitley, 1996). Another possibility is that by keeping the other aspects of the profile banal to avoid inducing other types of worldview defense, the heterosexual profile may have been perceived as bland. Contrastingly, the willingness to self-disclose one’s sexual orientation within the homosexual profile may have increased interest and likability toward that individual. Regardless, this issue does not alter the take-home conclusions of our findings as this preference evaporated, or was reversed, under conditions of MS. Nonetheless, future research could ascertain if these findings would generalize to other populations or measures that reflect sexuality-based worldview defense.

One limitation of this study is that our profiles stated that the individuals were male, and so they are limited in the extent to which we can claim that MS may increase stereotyping and decrease preferences for lesbian individuals. Similarly, it would be interesting to examine how MS influences reactions to bi-sexual or transgender individuals. One possibility is that MS reactions might be substantially more exaggerated, particularly at high levels of NFC, because these sexualities challenge conventional binary views of sexuality and gender (S. E. Burke et al., 2017). Understanding the role that terror management processes play, if any, in attitudes toward various sexual minorities is important and should be the focus of future research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2022.2132575

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes

1. Order of the profiles did not significantly qualify our findings thus we collapsed by order of presentation, and this will be discussed no further.

2. One reviewer pointed out that as the profiles differed in respect to disclosure of relationship status, this might have inadvertently altered how people responded to the item promiscuous as a function of profile. Analyzing the data with this item removed did not change the findings reported as the interaction was still significant, b = −.89, t(259) = 2.13 p = .034, 95% CI [−1.71, −.07].