Hopelessly mortal: The role of mortality salience, immortality and trait self-esteem in personal hope

Abstract

Do people lose hope when thinking about death? Based on Terror Management Theory, we predicted that thoughts of death (i.e., mortality salience) would reduce personal hope for people low, but not high, in self-esteem, and that this reduction in hope would be ameliorated by promises of immortality. In Studies 1 and 2, mortality salience reduced personal hope for people low in self-esteem, but not for people high in self-esteem. In Study 3, mortality salience reduced hope for people low in self-esteem when they read an argument that there is no afterlife, but not when they read “evidence” supporting life after death. In Study 4, this effect was replicated with an essay affirming scientific medical advances that promise immortality. Together, these findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of mortality interact with trait self-esteem to cause changes in personal hope, and that literal immortality beliefs can aid psychological adjustment when thinking about death. Implications for understanding personal hope, trait self-esteem, afterlife beliefs and terror management are discussed.

Keywords:

• Hope
• Death
• Self-esteem
• Afterlife beliefs
• Religion
• Mortality salience

Notes

¹ There is ample evidence that hope is related to, but distinct from, optimism (e.g., hope is more affective and more future oriented than optimism; Bruininks & Malle, 2005) and from self-efficacy and self-esteem (hope persists even when people perceive no control over desired outcomes; Aspinwall & Leaf, 2002; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985).

² For all reported studies, we report all data exclusions and all included measurements in text, in accordance with journal policy. Sample size was determined using an end of semester stopping point (Studies 1 and 3) or using a planned sample size (Studies 2 and 4) that would provide at least 80% power based on the average effect size of .35 (found across hundreds of studies priming mortality; see Burke et al., 2010, but see Yen & Cheng, 2013, for slightly smaller estimates). At no point were additional data collected after data were initially analysed.

³ In Study 2, we found a marginally significant mortality salience by self-esteem interaction on positive affect, B = .02, SE = .01, t = 1.91, p = .060. However, importantly, covarying positive affect and negative affect did not significantly impact any of the significant interaction effects across all four studies. There was a main effect of self-esteem on positive affect (related to higher levels) and negative affect (related to lower levels), but no interaction effect or mortality salience main effect emerged on either positive or negative affect in Studies 1, 3 and 4.