Defensive or existential religious orientations and mortality salience hypothesis: using conservatism as a dependent...

Area of Science:

• Psychology of Religion
• Social Psychology
• Mortality Salience Research

Background:

• The mortality salience hypothesis suggests that reminders of death increase adherence to cultural worldviews and self-esteem.
• Previous research has primarily focused on Western, Christian-majority samples, leaving a gap in understanding these effects in Islamic contexts.
• Religious orientation (defensive vs. existential) may moderate reactions to mortality salience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between defensive and existential religious orientations and the mortality salience hypothesis within a Muslim cultural context.
• To examine whether conservatism, as a measure of worldview defense, is influenced by mortality salience across different religious orientations in a Muslim sample.

Main Methods:

• Participants from a Muslim-majority country were assessed for their religious orientation (defensive vs. existential).
• A mortality salience manipulation was administered, alongside control conditions (failure salience, TV salience).
• Conservatism was measured as the dependent variable to assess reactions to the salience manipulations.

Main Results:

• Defensively religious participants exhibited increased conservatism when exposed to mortality salience compared to control conditions.
• Contrary to predictions, existentially religious participants did not show significant changes in conservatism following mortality salience.
• The findings suggest that the self-relevance of conservatism may play a role in moderating mortality salience effects.

Conclusions:

• The study partially supports the mortality salience hypothesis within a Muslim sample, specifically for defensively religious individuals.
• The lack of reaction among existentially religious participants indicates a potential difference in how religious orientations interact with mortality concerns.
• Future research should further explore the role of cultural context and the specific meaning of conservatism in relation to mortality salience.