Loss Anxiety: An Alternative Explanation for the Fundamental Fears in Human Beings


Koca-Atabey M., ÖNER ÖZKAN B.

DEATH STUDIES, cilt.38, sa.10, ss.662-671, 2014 (SSCI) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 38 Sayı: 10
  • Basım Tarihi: 2014
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/07481187.2013.844748
  • Dergi Adı: DEATH STUDIES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.662-671
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

In this article, fear of loss as well as fear of death are introduced to explain cultural worldview defence reactions of individuals. Participants were subjected to mortality salience, disability salience and control conditions. Mortality salience and paralysis salience were found to lead to a change in conservatism scores. In a qualitative follow-up study, when reminded about mortality, the participants reported less individual sadness than expected; whereas when the participants were reminded about paralysis, greater individual sadness was reported. Any kind of loss manipulation that is moderately fearful, highly imaginable, and highly self-relevant is suggested to affect cultural worldview defence reactions.