The control of death and the death of control: The effects of mortality salience, neuroticism, and worldview threat on the desire for control

JOURNAL OF

RESEARCH IN PERSONALITY

Journal of Research in Personality 37 (2003) 1–22

www.elsevier.com/locate/jrp

The control of death and the death of control: The effects of mortality salience, neuroticism, and worldview threat on the desire for control Jamie Arndta,* and Sheldon Solomonb a

Department of Psychological Sciences, McAlester Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA b Skidmore College, NY, USA

Abstract Two studies were designed to examine whether neuroticism would moderate the effect of mortality salience on desire for control. In Study 1, participants completed a neuroticism scale, contemplated their mortality or a control topic, and then completed a desire for control scale. Results indicated that those low in neuroticism evidenced an increase in desire for control following mortality salience whereas those high in neuroticism showed decreased desire for control. Study 2 used a 2 (neuroticism level)
2 (worldview threat)
2 (mortality salience) design to examine whether confident faith in a belief system is responsible for the increased desire for control among low neuroticism participants. Here results indicated that if participants scoring low in neuroticism were confronted with a threat to their worldview and were then reminded of their death, they showed reduced desires for control. Discussion focuses on the implications of these results for understanding the relationship between neuroticism, desire for control, and terror management processes. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author. Fax: 1-573-882-7710. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Arndt).

0092-6566/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00530-5

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1. Introduction Imagine this scenario: you are walking along the road toward the neighborhood kids and their lemonade stand on the corner; the thick crayon sign advertising the youthful afternoon venture just barely visible around the bend. You step off the curb and suddenly feel the exasperating pull of warm bubble gum connecting your shoe to the pavement. As you bend down to disengage gum from shoe, an approaching UPS truck catches an oil slick, veers abruptly in your direction, and bam!—your body is transformed into a Jackson Pollock painting on the road. Certainly not a pleasant picture: yet, each of us must navigate through our daily affairs aware that these kinds of scenarios can and do happen; or, at the very least, that later, if not sooner, death inevitability awaits. According to terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986), to function with relative equanimity in light of awareness of death, humans must be securely invested in a culturally derived view of reality that imbues the world with meaning, order, and permanence (cultural worldview); and, perceive themselves to be persons of significance in the cultural drama to which they subscribe (selfesteem). The protection afforded by the cultural worldview confers a sense that the world is stable, orderly, and potentially controllable. Therefore, when securely embedded in a cultural worldview, reminders of death should increase peopleÕs desire for personal control. However, when faith in the worldview is tenuous, or a basic tenet of the cultural worldview is threatened, the world may seem chaotic rather than controllable. Under these circumstances mortality salience may instead engender less desire for personal control. This research was designed to test these ideas by examining the effects of mortality salience and worldview threat on desire for control as a function of neuroticism.

2. Terror management theory and research Terror management theory (TMT; for a thorough exposition of the theory and the research it has generated, see Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) is derived from the work of cultural anthropologist Becker (1962/1971, 1973, 1975), whoÕs ideas were in turn based on a number of theorists, most notably Otto Rank, Sigmund Freud, Soren Kierkegaard, and Norman Brown. TMT posits that sophisticated cognitive abilities to think abstractly and symbolically led to the uniquely human awareness of the fragility of existence and the inevitability of oneÕs own death. This awareness, when juxtaposed with a biological proclivity for self-preservation that humans share with all forms of life, creates the potential for paralyzing existential terror. To manage this terror, people invest in, and identify with, culture: humanly constructed beliefs about reality shared by individuals in a group. Cultural worldviews facilitate terror management by explaining the origin of the universe, and the purpose and inevitable termination of oneÕs existence, in ways which provide for literal or symbolic continuance beyond death to those who meet prescribed standards of value. Thus, faith in a cultural worldview

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is of utmost importance because it imbues the world with a sense of meaning, order, and permanence. Because of the Ôdeath denyingÕ function of cultural worldviews, TMT predicts that reminding participants of their death will provoke increased allegiance to the worldview. This proposition, known as the mortality salience hypothesis, has received considerable support from studies demonstrating that after contemplation of personal mortality, participants become more positive in their evaluations of those who support their worldview and more negative in their evaluations of those who challenge it (e.g., Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Mortality salience effects have been replicated by independent researchers in at least seven other countries (e.g., Canada: Baldwin & Wesley, 1996; Israel: Florian & Mikulincer, 1997; the Netherlands: Dechesne, Janssen, & van Knippenberg, 2000a; Italy: Castano, Yzerbyt, Paladino, & Sacchi, 2002), using a variety of operationalizations of mortality salience (e.g., fear of death scales: Greenberg et al., 1995; fatal accident footage: Nelson, Moore, Olivetti, & Scott, 1997; proximity to a funeral home: Pyszczynski et al., 1996; and subliminal death primes: Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997), and do not occur in response to a number of other aversive control topics (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1995). 2.1. Desire for control Desire for control is conceptualized as the motivation to control events in oneÕs environment, and as a personality trait, individuals high in desire for control are characterized as assertive, decisive, and capable of manipulating the environment and events to achieve desired outcomes (Burger & Cooper, 1979). Studies have documented the importance of individual differences in desire for control on a wide range of social behaviors and personality traits that include conformity, crowding, health habits, gambling, anxiety, and achievement motivation (see Burger, 1992 for a review). Although high desire for control can be associated with biases and distortions of ‘‘objective reality’’ (Burger, 1986; Burger & Hemans, 1988), these distortions often contribute to the individualsÕ effective navigation through a social world and facilitate psychological adjustment and subjective well-being (Cooper, Okamura, & McNeil, 1995). The association between issues of control and psychological well-being of course has a long and rich empirical history. For example, an important take-home message of the illusion of control literature (e.g, Langer, 1975; Presson & Benassi, 1996) is that individuals who hold such ‘‘illusions’’ generally report more positive mental health (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1982; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Similar findings also emerge from the literatures on the correlates and effects of perceived control (e.g., Burgess, Morris, & Pettingale, 1988; Thompson, Sobolew-Shubin, Galbraith, Schwankovsky, & Cruzen, 1993). This is not to say that perceptions of control are always associated with positive outcomes, as there are situations where such perceptions and abilities can be problematic (Affleck, Tennen, Urrows, & Higgins, 1994). Indeed, one important characteristic of the beneficial effects of perceived control appears to be the expectancy that it will lead to positive outcomes (Carver et al., 2000).

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From the perspective of terror management theory, an individual is more likely to expect that control can have positive outcomes when he or she is securely embedded in a meaningful cultural worldview. To the extent that desires for personal control are predicated on the belief that the world has some degree of order, purpose, and meaning, the worldview provides the context in which individuals are able to maintain the perception that control is feasible (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1998). It provides the psychological basis upon which to desire control over the events in oneÕs life. Moreover, because many worldviews espouse the notion that desiring control is a valued trait, individuals may be more likely to follow this value prescription when they are embedded in such a worldview. This view is based heavily on BeckerÕs (e.g., 1971) broad analysis of human social development. According to Becker, while all creatures may be oriented toward volitional and effective action (see also Bandura, 1977; White, 1959), for humans this expression requires a certain amount of security and confident engagement with the world. This sense of security is first acquired in the context of attachment to parents (see also Bowlby, 1969), and then later in the context of belief that one is a valuable member of a meaningful universe (i.e., securely embedded in cultural worldview). Thus, initially, one may observe the insecurely attached child scurry behind a parental leg as an uncertain stimulus approaches (e.g., the neighborÕs dog galloping toward them), whereas the securely attached child may be more prone to try to engage and control the situation. Similarly, with the shift in basis of psychological security that occurs as children develop, control becomes possible and thus desirable when securely embedded in cultural worldview, ‘‘Culture provides just those rules and customs, goals of conduct, that place right actions automatically at the individualÕs disposal. . .The ego thrives on control’’ (Becker, 1971, p. 84). To the extent that reminding participants of their mortality leads to greater reliance on the cultural worldview (Greenberg et al., 1997 for a review), and the worldview is what fosters a desire for control, then reminding participants of their mortality should increase desires for control when the individual has the secure worldview attachment to which they can turn. 2.2. Death, neuroticism, and desire for control But what about individuals who lack a secure investment in a meaningful cultural reality? If this is what provides the basis for desiring control, how would mortality salience influence their desire for control? One potential way to broach this question is to consider the personality trait of neuroticism, which of course has a history of being studied as a generalized condition of anxiety and maladjustment (e.g., Eysenck, 1971; Freud, 1938/1966; Horney, 1937). With the recent proliferation of research on correlates of the Big-5 model of personality (e.g., Costa & MaCrae, 1995), as one of these five, neuroticism has been implicated in a host of psychological processes and characteristics. This research has documented, among other findings, how individuals high in neuroticism generally exhibit greater emotional reactivity (Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991), and show poorer coping responses to a number of types of stresses (e.g., Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995; Gunthert, Cohen, & Armeli, 1999;

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Ormel & Wohlfarth, 1991). Indeed, in a recent meta-analysis of over 100 personality traits, DeNeve and Cooper (1998) found neuroticism to be the single best predictor of subjective well-being. According to recent terror management theory and research, a basic cause of neurotic individualsÕ inability to effectively manage stress and anxiety is a lack of secure investment in a meaningful cultural drama. This perspective thus suggests neuroticism should be negatively associated with a range of benefits the worldview is posited to provide, that consequences of neuroticism should mirror problems associated with weak attachments to cultural meaning systems, and that those high in neuroticism should in fact have weaker worldview attachments. A number of studies are consistent with these implications. For example, with regard to the benefits of worldview investment, cultural worldviews are thought to provide a sense of purpose and meaning and individuals who are high in neuroticism report lower levels of purpose in life (Bond & Feather, 1988; Pearson & Sheffield, 1974) and lower perceptions of meaning (Moomal, 1999). Those high in neuroticism also confront additional problems from a lack of worldview investment. Previous research suggests a lack of secure investment in cultural worldviews contributes to depression (e.g., Simon, Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1998) and neuroticism is in turn associated with increased vulnerability to depressed symptoms (even after controlling for self-esteem; Roberts & Kendler, 1999). In addition, as Rank (1932/1989) explained, without the protection afforded by identification with a cultural worldview, individuals high in neuroticism are particularly vulnerable to concerns associated with awareness of mortality; notably, such individuals have been found to spend more time ruminating about death (Abdel-Khalek, 1998). Moreover, just as neuroticism is associated with higher levels of anxiety (e.g., Gross, Sutton, & Ketelaar, 1998), individuals high on cultural estrangement are also more prone to anxiety and maladjustment (Cozzarelli & Karafa, 1998). Further evidence for the link between neuroticism and worldview investment comes from studies indicating that neuroticism is associated with not feeling connected to or a part of oneÕs cultural and social fabric. For example, those who report higher levels of neuroticism also report higher levels of alienation (Carmody, Crossen, & Wiens, 1989; Mahoney & Quick, 2000) and loneliness (Stokes, 1985). Individuals high in neuroticism also show connections between threatening cognitions that the worldview is posited to obscure. Goldenberg, Pyszczynski, McCoy, Greenberg, and Solomon (1999) hypothesized that sex, with its association with creatureliness and corporeality, should be problematic for individuals high in neuroticism if they indeed lack investment in a worldview that serves to embed sex in a meaningful, and generally romantic, context. In accord with this view, Goldenberg et al. demonstrated that neurotic individuals asked to think about their mortality found the physical aspects of sex less appealing than a group of low neurotic participants. Neurotic individuals also showed elevated accessibility of death thoughts after thinking about sex. Finally and perhaps most importantly, when individuals scoring high in neuroticism were given an opportunity to supplement thoughts of physical sex with a conscious consideration of love, death accessibility decreased accordingly.

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These studies thus support the idea that neurotics lack faith in a cultural meaning system that lends order and meaning to life. High neurotic individuals, with only a tenuous hold on the beliefs and values that render desires for control feasible, might therefore be expected to respond quite differently to reminders of mortality than individuals low in neuroticism. Whereas low neurotics should increase in desire for control following mortality salience, this assumption about the neuroticÕs lack of worldview investment suggests that neurotic individuals will abdicate their desire for personal control after pondering their own demise. In MillerÕs (1965, p. 338) colorful words: To be sick, to be neurotic, if you like, is to ask for guarantees. The neurotic is the flounder that lies on the bed of the river, securely settled in the mud, waiting to be speared. For him, death is the only certainty, and dread of that grim certainty immobilizes him in a living death far more horrible than the one he imagines but knows nothing about.

The first study was designed to assess this idea by examining whether level of neuroticism would moderate the effects of mortality salience on desires for control.

3. Study 1 The effects of mortality salience on desire for control should not be straightforward; but rather, should critically depend on the integrity of the individualsÕ terror management structures. This reasoning is thus somewhat different from what might be otherwise predicted in the absence of terror management ideas. For example, one might predict that being more protected from threat would allow one to face threats with less need for the exertion of control. However, by our account, individuals low in neuroticism, securely embedded in a cultural worldview that confers security and a sense of personal efficacy, should report increased desire for control after mortality salience. However, neurotic individuals, lacking secure faith in the order and meaning provided by the cultural worldview, should show a decreased desire for control following reminders of their death. Without the context of meaning through which control is feasible, they should prefer that control reside outside of themselves. In order to test these hypotheses, we first had participants complete the Neuroticism subscale of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1967). This scale, used in an array of both classic and contemporary studies (e.g., Berenbaum & Williams, 1995; Goldenberg et al., 1999; Howarth & Zumbo, 1989), targets that facet of neuroticism that primarily reflects its accompanying proneness to anxiety, worry, and emotional instability. The scale has similar face validity to, and significantly correlates with, other contemporary measures (Costa & MaCrae, 1995). In the present study, after completing this inventory, participants wrote about their mortality or dental pain and they later completed The Desire for Control Scale (Burger & Cooper, 1979). We expected to find that ‘‘low neurotics’’ would report greater desire for control after mortality salience, but that ‘‘high neurotics’’ reminded of their mortality would report less desire for control.

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3.1. Method Participants and design. Seventy-six female and 86 male third year medical students at the Albany Medical College were recruited from a class during one of two consecutive summers and were run in group sessions consisting of 15–20 individuals in each session. Using a median split on the Neuroticism subscale, the study featured a 2 (neuroticism: high vs low)
2 (salience: mortality vs dental pain) between-subjects design. Procedure. Upon arriving at the session, participants were asked to complete a survey of personality attributes of medical practitioners. The experimenter then gave each participant the packet of materials and instructed them to complete the questionnaires in order with their first natural response. The packet first contained the Neuroticism subscale of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1967). The measure was composed of 23 items that could be answered yes or no (e.g., ‘‘Do you ever feel Ôjust miserableÕ for no reason?,’’ ‘‘Would you call yourself a nervous person?,’’ ‘‘Would you call yourself tense or high-strung?,’’ ‘‘Do you worry too long after an embarrassing experience?’’). With the present sample, the scale demonstrated acceptable internal consistency with CronbachÕs a ¼ .86.1 Participants were then asked to complete either the mortality or dental pain salience treatment. The mortality salience treatment (Rosenblatt et al., 1989) consisted of having participants respond to two open-ended questions: ‘‘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 physically as you die and once you are physically dead.’’ The dental pain treatment consisted of parallel questions with respect to the experience of dental pain. This was followed by the positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS-X; Watson & Clark, 1992). The PANAS-X is a 60 item adjective checklist (scored on a 5-point scale with one being low and five being high) that contains subscales for positive and negative mood, as well as subscales for fear, shyness, happiness, hostility, self-assuredness, guilt, sadness, serenity, surprise, attentiveness, and fatigue. Finally, participants completed The Desire for Control Scale (Burger & Cooper, 1979), our primary dependent measure. The scale asks participants the extent to which they endorse 20 statements concerned with issues of control (e.g., ‘‘I prefer a job where I have a lot of control over what I do and when I do it; I wish I could push many of lifeÕs daily decisions off on someone else; When it comes to orders, I would rather give them than receive them; I enjoy making my own decisions’’). Responses are made on 7-point scales where 1 indicates the statement does not apply at all and 7 indicates the statement always applies. Higher scores indicate a greater desire for control (after reverse scoring the items that reflect a desire for someone else to exert control). Previous research attests to the psychometric properties of the scale in finding that it is only moderately correlated with locus of control scales, has strong 1

SPSS reports that computation of CronbachÕs a with dichotomous data yields an equivalent reliability estimation as does the Kuder–Richardson 20 index, which is typically considered more appropriate for dichotomous data.

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internal consistency, and is relatively free from social desirability concerns (e.g., Burger, 1984, 1985 Burger & Cooper, 1979). In the present sample, the internal consistency of the scale was acceptable with a CronbachÕs a of .74 After participants completed the materials, they were debriefed and thanked for their time. 3.2. Results We performed a median split on neuroticism scores, yielding a high-neuroticism group (those scoring 11 or above) and a low-neuroticism group (those scoring 10 or below). The mean responses for the high and low neuroticism groups were 12.52 and 4.67, respectively. A 2 (salience: mortality vs dental pain)
2 (neuroticism: high vs low) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was then conducted on the desire for control scale.2 This analysis revealed a main effect for neuroticism, F ð1; 161Þ ¼ 11:68, p < :001 which reflected higher desire for control scores for the low neurotic group (M ¼ 102:74) than the high neurotic group (M ¼ 97:42). This effect, however, was qualified by the predicted interaction between mortality salience and neuroticism, F ð1; 161Þ ¼ 13:47, p < :01.3 The pattern for this interaction is depicted in Fig. 1. To assess the merit of our hypotheses, we conducted planned pairwise comparisons. In the dental pain conditions, there was no difference between those participants high or low in neuroticism on desires for control, t < 1. However, consistent with our expectation, after mortality salience, participants higher in neuroticism showed less desire for control than participants low in neuroticism, tð161Þ ¼ 4:89, p < :001. Looked at differently, participants low in neuroticism reported more desire for control after mortality salience than they did after dental pain salience, tð161Þ ¼ 2:58, p < :01. However, participants high in neuroticism reported less desire for control after mortality salience than after dental pain, tð161Þ ¼ 2:62, p < :01. We also assessed whether mortality salience, alone or in conjunction with neuroticism, had any effect on self-reported mood as measured by the PANAS-X. Because items in the positive and negative mood scales also appear in the other subscales, we conducted a 2 (salience)
2 (neuroticism) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) on the eleven specific subscales and 2
2 ANOVAs on the positive and negative mood scales. We then conducted 2
2 analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) to assess whether scores on any significant subscale mediated the mortality salience by 2

Initial analyses in this study and in Study 2 included participantsÕ sex. In Study 1, there was a main effect for sex on desires for control, F ð1; 159Þ ¼ 5:54, p < :01, which reflected higher desires for control among males (M ¼ 102:38, SD ¼ 10:53) than females (M ¼ 97:20, SD ¼ 11:04). In Study 2, there was a similar trend that only approached significance. However, in both studies, there were no significant interactions involving this variable, and thus it is not discussed further. 3 To ascertain whether the same two-way interaction would be obtained using the continuous neuroticism scores, we conducted multiple regressions that first entered the main effects of neuroticism and in the second step entered their interaction. This technique revealed the same neuroticism by mortality salience interaction on desires for control, t ¼ 2:93, p < :01. However, because we were primarily interested in the broad differences among those who tend to score high versus low on this measure, we focus in the text on the analyses using median splits.

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Fig. 1. Means for the two-way interaction of salience and neuroticism on desire for control in Study 1. Note. Higher numbers reflect greater desire for control.

neuroticism interaction. As with previous terror management research (see Greenberg et al., 1997), these analyses suggested that self-report affect did not play a role in these effects.4 3.3. Discussion The present results provide clear support for our predictions: when participants who scored low in neuroticism thought about their mortality they reported heightened desire for control. This buttresses our view that among many people the awareness of death motivates a need to control oneÕs environment. However, we further reasoned that if the basis of such desires stems from a secure investment in onesÕ cultural worldview, when a person lacks that protection, desire for control should be reduced after reminders of death. In support of this hypothesis, participants who scored high in neuroticism showed a marked decrease in desire for control following mortality salience. According to the present analysis, an important feature of neuroticism that leads such individuals to respond so differently to reminders of their death is a more precarious investment in a cultural worldview that imparts some sense of meaning, order, and permanence. Lacking confident faith in a belief system, neurotics prefer to divest themselves of control when confronted with mortality salience; whereas those low in neuroticism appear to embrace the control they may exert over their life. Although this interpretation was used to generate the hypotheses that Study 1 4 There were significant main effects for neuroticism with the MANOVA and with the ANOVAs on positive and negative mood, all F s > 5:11, ps < :001, which generally indicated that high neuroticism participants reported higher negatively valenced affect and lower positively valenced affect than low neuroticism participants. The ANOVA on positive mood also revealed a marginally significant effect for mortality salience, F ð1; 159Þ ¼ 3:60, p < :07, with mortality salient participants reporting less positive mood than dental pain participants (Ms ¼ 2:86 and 3.08). No other effects reached significance, all F s < 1:13. An ANCOVA on desire for control with positive mood as a covariate found that the critical interaction did in fact remain significant, F ð1; 156Þ ¼ 12:32, p < :001.

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supported, it might be that high and low neurotics have different tendencies toward desire for control for reasons other than worldview investment, and mortality salience may just be increasing these Ôdominant responses.Õ However, if confident faith in the validity of the worldview is necessary for mortality salience to increase desire for control, then threatening the validity of the worldview should lead those low in neuroticism to react similarly to those high in neuroticism; that is, to report decreased desires for control after mortality salience.

4. Study 2 A number of terror management studies have suggested the cultural worldview only provides protection in the face death-related concerns when the individual is able to sustain faith in its validity (e.g., Arndt & Greenberg, 1999). For this reason, following mortality salience, participants respond with vigorous defense of those beliefs (see Greenberg et al., 1997 for a review). Thus, if participants are exposed to a target who threatens their beliefs (but are not permitted to respond to that target), such exposure might sufficiently threaten the worldview to create the conditions necessary to test our present hypothesis. One important challenge in the design of the present study was to therefore identify a way to threaten participantsÕ worldview, which is posited to be composed of a variety of attitudes, values, and beliefs. Indeed, previous research has indicated that the mortality buffering aspects of worldviews include such domains as political preferences (e.g., McGregor et al., 1998), gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual stereotypes (Schimel et al., 1999), religious orientation (Greenberg et al., 1990), sports team fanship (Dechesne, Greenberg, Arndt, & Schimel, 2000b), and materialism (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000). However, one of the more robust types of worldview defense that has been observed in many terror management studies is for mortality salience to increase the fervor with which American participants report disdain for those who derogate the United States (e.g., Arndt et al., 1997; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994). In the present study therefore, we selected a sample of undergraduate students at an American university who had previously indicated their identification with the United States was of at least moderate importance. We followed a similar procedure to Study 1 but prior to the mortality salience manipulation exposed participants to an essay that either did or did not verbally attack the United States. As suggested above, prior research has indicated that similar essays evoke considerable defense of oneÕs nationalistic pride after mortality salience. We were therefore confident that these essays would in fact be threatening to worldview investment. The critical prediction of this study is that whereas mortality salience should generally lead to increased desires for control among low neuroticism participants relative to those high in neuroticism, when the worldview of those low in neuroticism is first threatened, mortality salience should motivate decreased desire for control. We also thought it might be interesting to consider how a worldview threat combined with a mortality salience manipulation would affect the desire for control among

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those high in neuroticism. Perhaps weakening the worldview through exposure to the anti-US essay will lead those high in neuroticism to show an even greater decrement in desire for control. However, based on previous terror management research, such exposure may actually have the opposite effect and increase desires for control among individuals high in neuroticism. Simon et al. (1998) found that among mildly depressed participants who faced a worldview threat, reminders of death increased perceptions of meaning in life. The authors suggested this occurred because the juxtaposition of the two stimulated depressed participants to reinvest in their worldview, and the consequent psychological resources that were made available enabled them to perceive more meaning in life. If a similar process was to occur in the present context, than individuals high in neuroticism might also report increased desires for control following the worldview threat and mortality salience. 4.1. Method Participants and design. Eighty-eight female and 53 male introductory psychology students at the University of Missouri participated in the study for partial fulfillment of a course research credit. Only those participants who in an earlier mass testing session indicated that their identification as an American was of at least moderate importance to them were retained for the study (e.g., answered the question ‘‘How important to you is your identification as an American?’’ with at least a 3 on a 5point scale). Again using a median split on the Neuroticism scale (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1967), participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (essay: worldview threat vs neutral)
2 (salience: mortality vs dental pain) between-subjects design. Procedure. Participants were run in sessions consisting of 10–30 participants. Upon arriving, the experimenter, who was blind to all conditions, introduced the study as an investigation of the relationship between personality characteristics and how people make judgements of others. Participants were told they would therefore complete a number of personality questionnaires, read an essay a student at their university wrote about taking classes, and that they would later be asked some questions about the individual whose essay they read. Additionally, participants were assured of the anonymity of their responses, were given blank envelopes in which to put their packets upon completion, and were spread out across the classroom to facilitate a sense of privacy. Participants then read and signed a consent form that described the study in the above fashion. The packet of materials contained a filler questionnaire followed by the neuroticism subscale of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1967). This scale again demonstrated acceptable reliability with the present sample (CronbachÕs a ¼ .86). The next page introduced an essay about classes written by a student at the University of Missouri and stated they should read the essay, and then proceed with the packet. The essay constituted our manipulation of worldview threat and was based on American worldview threatening essays used in previous research (e.g., Arndt et al., 1997; Greenberg et al., 1994). For participants in the worldview threat condition, the author started by mentioning taking a number of classes about the United StatesÕ history, politics, and economics. The author then proceeded to express

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strongly negative sentiments about the US, ranging from the embarrassment of the educational system to the morality of our political leaders to Americans being selfabsorbed. For participants in the neutral essay condition, the author began in the same fashion but then discussed some of the difficulties of registering for classes and related topics. The rest of the packet contained the same materials used in Study 1. Participants completed the mortality or dental pain salience treatment, followed by the PANASX (Watson & Clark, 1992), and the desire for control scale (Burger & Cooper, 1979). The reliability of the desire for control scale was again adequate (CronbachÕs a ¼ .73). After completing all materials, participants were debriefed, given credit, and thanked for their time. 4.2. Results We again performed a median split on neuroticism scores, yielding a high-neuroticism group (those scoring 11 or above) and a low-neuroticism group (those scoring 10 or below). The mean responses for the high and low neuroticism groups were 15.03 and 6.37, respectively. A 2 (salience: mortality vs dental pain)
2 (essay: threat vs neutral) 2 (neuroticism: high vs low) ANOVA was then conducted on participantsÕ responses to the desire for control scale. This analysis revealed a marginal main effect for neuroticism, F ð1; 130Þ ¼ 3:46; p < :07 which reflected a trend for higher desire for control scores for the low neurotic group (M ¼ 100:19) than the high neurotic group (M ¼ 96:57). This effect, however, was qualified by the predicted three-way interaction between mortality salience, essay, and neuroticism, F ð1; 130Þ ¼ 4:60, p < :04.5 The pattern of means for this interaction is depicted in Fig. 2. In order to breakdown the three-way interaction and explore further the nature of these effects, we conducted 2 (essay)
2 (neuroticism) ANOVAs within both the mortality salience and dental pain conditions. As can be seen in the right half of Fig. 2, among dental pain participants, the two-way ANOVA revealed only a marginal effect for essay, F ð1; 66Þ ¼ 3:06, p < :09, reflecting lower desire for control scores among those dental pain participants given the worldview threat essay (M ¼ 96:03) relative to those given the neutral essay (M ¼ 101:21). No other effects were significant in the dental pain conditions, F s < 1. This trend, although in general accord with the basic theoretical prediction that undermining the cultural worldview leads to decreased desire for control, was not the main question of interest for the present study. Of primary interest was whether not there would be a significant interaction between essay and neuroticism for mortality salient participants on desire for control, and as predicted, this was indeed the case, F ð1; 64Þ ¼ 8:35; p < :01. Pairwise comparisons within the mortality salient conditions supported our hypotheses. As depicted in the left half of Fig. 2, after reading the neutral essay and being reminded of their mortality, participants low in neuroticism reported greater 5

As in Study 1, we also assessed and found that use of the continuous neuroticism scores in multiple regression analyses revealed the same critical neuroticism by worldview threat by mortality salience interaction, t ¼ 2:14, p < :04.

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Fig. 2. Means for the three-way interaction of essay, salience and neuroticism on desire for control in Study 2. Note. Higher numbers reflect greater desire for control.

desires for control than did participants high in neuroticism, tð64Þ ¼ 3:44; p < :01, thus replicating the results of Study 1. However, this effect was eliminated when participants read the anti-US essay and then contemplate their mortality, t < 1. Looked at differently, after mortality salience, low neuroticism participants showed less desire for control when they had previously read the anti-US essay than when they had previously read the neutral essay, tð64Þ ¼ 2:36, p < :05. Thus, as predicted, threatening the worldview of low neuroticism participants led them to act much like high neuroticism participants in the neutral essay conditions in reporting low desire for control after mortality salience. Interestingly, after mortality salience, the antiUS essay also led to a trend of increasing desire for control among high neuroticism participants relative to their neutral essay counterparts, tð64Þ ¼ 1:74, p < :09. We then, as in Study 1, checked for any effects on self-reported mood as measured by the PANAS-X. These analyses again suggested that affect did not play a central role in these effects.6 4.3. Discussion These results provide additional insight about the moderating role of neuroticism on the effects of mortality salience on desires for control. Whereas participants 6

The only significant effects were both in regard to the MANOVA on the 11 subscales and were for neuroticism, F ¼ 4:09, p < :001, and mortality salience, F ¼ 2:36, p < :05. Inspection of the univariate ANOVAs revealed that, not surprisingly, the main effect for neuroticism reflected higher levels of negatively valenced affect (and lower levels of positively valenced affect) for high relative to low neuroticism participants on the following subscales: fear, hostility, guilt, self-assuredness, sadness, serenity, and shyness. Inspection of the univariate ANOVAs for the main effect of mortality salience revealed significant effects only on fear, F ð1; 124Þ ¼ 4:11, p < :05, and surprise, F ð1; 124Þ ¼ 5:46, p < :05. Mortality salient participants reported more fear (Ms ¼ 1:52 vs 1.34) and more surprise (Ms ¼ 1:72 vs 1.43) than did participants in the dental pain conditions. Two 2 (neuroticism)
2 (essay)
2 (salience) ANCOVAs with each of the aforementioned subscales as the covariate, respectively, revealed that the critical three-way interaction remained significant, all F s > 4:11, ps < :05.

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who scored high in neuroticism showed less desire for control following reminders of death (and a neutral essay), a finding which replicates Study 1, a parallel decrease in control was also found among those low in neuroticism when they were exposed to a worldview threat and were then reminded of their mortality. Thus, these data are not consistent with the notion that mortality salience simply enhances individualsÕ pre-existing tendencies toward desire for control. Rather, the findings attest to the instrumental role that the cultural worldview appears to play in facilitating desires for control in the face of confrontation with deeply rooted concerns with death. In Study 2 we targeted nationalistic identification, but presumably a number of beliefs relevant and important to an individualsÕ worldview could function similarly. There are some ambiguities with this study that should be noted. First, the findings among neutral essay participants were a bit weaker than those found in Study 1. Although high and low neuroticism participants significantly differed in the neutral essay mortality salient conditions, and neutral essay mortality salient high neuroticism participants showed significantly less desire for control than their dental pain counterparts, neutral essay low neuroticism mortality salient participants did not significantly differ from their dental pain counterparts. Notably, in Study 2 we specifically selected participants whose identification as an American was of at least moderate importance. This seemed necessary so as to ensure that the anti-US content did in fact threaten participantsÕ worldviews. However, the fact that all participants had at least moderately strong identifications may render them somewhat less prone to neuroticism. Consistent with this possibility, the mean neuroticism score for low neurotics in Study 2 was a bit higher than in Study 1 (6.37 vs 4.67). Although not a substantial difference, this may account in part for why the effects for low neurotics in Study 2 were a bit weaker. Certainly these issues warrant the attention of future research. However, we note that when the low neurotics in Study 1 are combined with the low neurotics in the neutral essay condition of Study 2, and a 2 (mortality salience vs dental pain)
2 (Study 1 vs Study 2) ANOVA is performed, mortality salience led to significantly higher desire for control than did dental pain salience, F ð1; 114Þ ¼ 9:06, p < :01, but there are no significant effects involving study, all F s < 1. It is also interesting to consider the trend for participants who scored high in neuroticism to report increased desire for control following mortality salience and the worldview threat. We caution against confident interpretation of this effect given that it was only tentatively predicted and marginally significant. However, consider again MillerÕs (1965, p. 337) provocative proclamation, As long as we live selfconsciously we must always fail to cope with the world. It is not necessary to die in order to come at last face to face with reality. Prisons and even lunatic asylums are emptied of their inmates when a more vital danger menaces the community. When our very lives are threatened we begin to live. Even the psychic invalid throws away his crutches, in such moments.

From this perspective, confrontation with the combination of worldview threat and mortality salience may have stimulated a ‘‘jumpstart,’’ so to speak, whereby

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neurotics became re-engaged in what the worldview had to offer and were then in a position to benefit from the foundation for control that it provides. As previously noted, there is empirical precedent for such reactions in previous terror management research on mildly depressed individuals (Simon, Harmon-Jones, Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1996; Simon et al., 1998). In that research, the jumpstart appeared to occur through exaggerated defense of the worldview. In this study, threatening the worldview of individuals high in neuroticism may offer the challenge necessary to get them re-engaged in the business of living and wanting to control their environment. In effect, therefore, the impact of mortality salience and worldview threat may have served to cancel each other out in terms of reducing desire for control.

5. General discussion These studies offer an extension of terror management theory that facilitates understanding of two prevalent characteristics of interest to social and personality psychologists. Both neuroticism and the desire for control have received a wealth of attention in theory and research, yet somewhat surprisingly, these are some of the first studies to explicitly consider how they are connected. This research indicates that concerns with mortality and the success with which the individual is able to sustain structures that manage those concerns influence a generalized desire for control. Study 1 showed that whereas those low in neuroticism are motivated to desire greater personal control over events in their life after mortality salience, those high in neuroticism move in the opposite direction and report a decreased desire for control. Study 2 provided evidence that an important component of low neuroticÕs mortality salience induced desire for control is the extent to which they can maintain confident faith in their cultural worldview. After being exposed to a threat to the worldview in the form an essay attacking the US, low neuroticism participants responded to mortality salience like high neurotics in the absence of worldview threat, moving in the direction of desiring less control. The Desire for Control Scale (Burger & Cooper, 1979) has in many previous studies demonstrated impressive reliability, stability, and discriminant validity as a trait measure of this characteristic (e.g., Burger, 1984, 1985). Thus, the fact that the predicted effects of mortality salience and neuroticism were obtained with responses to this questionnaire points to the powerful role deeply rooted concerns with death can play in the motivation to desire personal control. An important task of future research is to address the implications of these findings for other facets with which desires for control are associated, as well as for further understanding of the causes and consequences of neuroticism. 5.1. Implications for understanding neuroticism Neuroticism is of course often construed as a rather broad aspect of personality and indeed, from the perspective of the Big-five models (e.g., Costa & MaCrae,

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1995), is perhaps better conceptualized as a core personality dimension. In the present studies, we opted to measure neuroticism in a way that reflects emotional instability and proneness to anxiety; believing that these are important benefits derived from secure worldview investment. There are two important points to make with regard to our use of this measure. First, a number of contemporary studies adopt this measure (e.g., Berenbaum & Williams, 1995; Goldenberg et al., 1999; Howarth & Zumbo, 1989). Given the similar face validity of this measure to other neuroticism scales such as the Neuroticism subscale of the revised NEO personality inventory, and the significant correlation between them (Costa & MaCrae, 1995), there is good reason to expect similar patterns would emerge were other neuroticism measures to be used in the present context. Second, however, it may also be the case that other personality dimensions that feature anxiety as a core facet would show similar effects. Though future research is needed to determine the specific aspect of neuroticism that underlies these effects, the present studies suggest a critical role is played by faith in the worldview that enables people to sustain a sense of meaning. Indeed, it is this assumption about the role of worldview investment that led to these predictions and explains the observed pattern of results. Following prior work that converges on the connection between neuroticism and worldview investment (e.g., Goldenberg et al., 1999; Roberts & Kendler, 1999; Mahoney & Quick, 2000; Moomal, 1999; Pearson & Sheffield, 1974), those who score high on neuroticism scales appear to be people who lack those meaningful belief structures and are thus exposed to greater difficulties in their management of concerns associated with the awareness of mortality. It appears also that these difficulties may be wide ranging and not just confined to particular outcomes. Whereas the present studies show that neuroticism moderates the effect of mortality salience on desires for control, previous research has shown that neuroticism moderates the extent to which sex can be problematic for individuals because of its connection to creatureliness and thus oneÕs ultimate death (Goldenberg et al., 1999). Moreover, in that research, when neurotic individuals were primed to think of sex in a way that invested it with love and meaning, the threatening connection between sex and death was attenuated. Taken together, these sets of findings on two such different areas of judgement as desire for control and reactions to sex suggest that neuroticism is an important reflection of the success with which an individual is able to effectively manage deeply-rooted existential fears by investing in a meaningful belief system. 5.2. Implications for understanding desires for control These studies also provide insights into the nature of the desire for control, and in so doing, suggest avenues for future empirical investigation. One direction of inquiry might consider whether desires for control buffer mortality concerns in and of themselves or whether they also serve other psychological needs provoked by reminders of death. For example, research indicates mortality salience increases self-esteem striving (e.g., Taubman Ben-Ari, Florian, & Mikulincer, 1999). It may be, therefore, that high and low neurotics seek self-esteem in different ways with respect to desiring

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control, and mortality salience is amplifying this need. That is, desire for control represents a culturally sanctioned avenue by which individuals may garner feelings of self-worth. With secure faith in the worldview, as is likely the case with low neurotics when their worldview is not first threatened, individuals may therefore desire control as a means to feel good about themselves and thus buffer existential concerns. In contrast, lacking a secure worldview, as may be the case with high neurotics or when the worldview is threatened, an individual may not respond to mortality salience with faith in oneÕs own powers, but instead prefer that control resides outside him/herself. Future studies should consider how to disentangle the self-esteem benefits a desire for control might facilitate from other consequences of this motivation. Of course, in the present studies, we examined desire for control and not actual behavior through which an individual may try to exert control. It would therefore be interesting in future research to assess whether the present manipulations would affect actual attempts to exert control through oneÕs behavior. There is certainly reason to expect that attempting control, if successful, would be an effective means of managing concerns with mortality. Solomon, Holmes, and McCaul (1980) found that control reduced physiological arousal from threat of electric shock, though only if that control was relatively easily exerted. The present analysis suggests the possibility that this may have occurred because more difficult control does not as effectively bolster the individualÕs view that the world is an orderly place in which they may be significant contributors. From a defensive terror management perspective, the important feature of control motivation is a desire to have control and the need to perceive that one has control, whether or not that control is actually present in objective reality (Pyszczynski et al., 1998). Although there are certainly situations in which a lack of perceived control can motivate individuals to try to exert more control (e.g., Keinan & Sivan, 2001), at least when dealing with the management of existential concerns, it may be that what is at stake is the ‘‘psychological punch-line’’ of believing that one can in fact exert control over an orderly world. Consistent with this analysis, Lieberman (1999) found that mortality salience increases peopleÕs tendencies to see illusory correlations (cf. Ward & Jenkins, 1965), that is, relationships that donÕt actually exist. Of course, to the extent that mastery of and optimal engagement in oneÕs environment calls for accurate feedback about the extent of oneÕs powers, the actual control that an individual can exert may prove to be a more effective buffer in the long run than those feelings advanced by deceptive self-enhancement (Paulhus & John, 1998). Further research is needed to understand these intricacies, as well as to consider how the present findings on desire for control may extend to other related domains such as the need for power (Fodor, 1984; Winter, 1968). Notably, many of the outcomes with which a desire for control is associated are often construed as productive responses (e.g., less conformity, better health habits; Burger, 1992). In this way, the mortality salience inspired increase in desires for control among those low in neuroticism suggests what could be one of many positive terror management consequences. Along similar lines is the tentative implication from Study 2 that challenging the beliefs of an individual high in neuroticism might in conjunction with mortality salience increase desire for control. Previous research

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has tended to focus on the defensive reactions to death-related concerns that feature often negative consequences for the individual and those who are different (e.g., stereotypes and prejudice: Schimel et al., 1999; guilt from creativity: Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Schimel, 1999). However, despite what may be perceived as the tenor of this prior research, as Yalom (1980) and others have argued, defensive responses to awareness of death can also be a productive source of motivation and meaning. Indeed, the theory maintains that it is in large part the motivation to defend oneself against mortality concerns that makes life meaningful and worth living. In the present studies, this potential of mortality awareness was demonstrated by examining desires for control but in future research a number of other responses might also be studied. Finally, an important issue that could be clarified with future research concerns what exactly low scores on the Desire for Control scale reflect. That is, as with all studies using this measure, it is not clear whether individuals who score low, in desiring less personal control, are also desiring that control be absent altogether and/or that other people take control instead. In the present context this amounts to ambiguity with whether high neurotics (or low neurotics with worldview threat in Study 2) are responding to mortality salience with a generalized abdication of control, whether they are preferring that control resides with others as opposed to the self, or whether the results are best construed as the individual simply wanting less personal control without attention to these other issues. The terror management analysis would suggest that because the abdication of all control would be most psychologically disturbing, the initial consequence of tenuous worldview investment would be preferring that others take control. Then, only if such beliefs were unsustainable, as may be the case with individuals confronting extreme psychological difficulties, might an individual give up all sense that control is possible. With this reasoning in mind, it would still be informative to empirically uncover which response primarily accounts for these and other results. Many of the scale items would seem to suggest a shift toward others taking control. In addition, Burger (1987) found that individuals who score low on the measure are more prone to conformity in their judgements, suggesting that it is in fact a shift towards subservience to others. If low scores on this measure reflected an abdication of all control, there would be no reason to expect such people to conform more to others. Notably though, even the lowest scores in the present studies (i.e., mortality salience high neurotics in Study 1) are still scoring above the midpoint of the scale (94 vs 70); an observation that would seem to indicate the individual is not giving up control altogether, just desiring less of it.

6. Conclusion Neuroticism, desires for control, and terror management have all been widely researched topics in psychology. Yet surprisingly given the conceptual overlap illustrated by this research, they have not been empirically studied in conjunction with

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one another. Despite what may have appeared to be an intuitive relationship between neuroticism and desire for control, the relationship is not straightforward. Nor is it a simple case of mortality salience increasing the desire for control. Rather, there is a critical interaction between neuroticism and thoughts of death. The desire for control has been implicated in a wide number of behaviors and responses (Burger, 1992) and the present results, by examining level of neuroticism and mortality salience, provide insights into those situations that can promote increased desire for control and those that can reduce it. These findings also complement a growing chorus of research that examines individual differences in the way that people respond to confrontation with their inevitable physical demise. For example, studies have also recently examined such traits as self-esteem (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997), depression (Simon et al., 1998), authoritarianism and tolerance (Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992), attachment style (Mikulincer & Florian, 2000), and need for structure (Dechesne et al., 2000a). The present work thus converges with prior efforts to buttress the importance of considering how awareness of deeply-rooted concerns with mortality interacts with personality traits to influence desires that have the capacity to substantially affect our actions and cognitions in daily life. References Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (1998). The structure and measurement of death obsession. Personality and Individual Differences, 24, 159–165. Affleck, G., Tennen, H., Urrows, S., & Higgins, P. (1994). Person and contextual features of daily stress reactivity: Individual differences in relations of undesirable daily events with mood disturbance and chronic pain intensity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 329–340. Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1982). Learned helplessness, depression, and the illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 1114–1126. Arndt, J., & Greenberg, J. (1999). The effects of a self-esteem boost and mortality salience on responses to boost relevant and irrelevant worldview threats. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 25, 1331–1341. Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1997). Subliminal exposure to death-related stimuli increases defense of the cultural worldview. Psychological Science, 8, 379–385. Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Schimel, J. (1999). Creativity and terror management: The effects of creative activity on guilt and social projection following mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 19–32. Baldwin, M. W., & Wesley, R. (1996). Effects of existential anxiety and self-esteem on the perception of others. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 10, 75–95. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–215. Becker, E. (1962/1971). The birth and death of meaning. New York: Free Press. Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. New York: Free Press. Becker, E. (1975). Escape from evil. New York: Free Press. Berenbaum, H., & Williams, M. (1995). Personality and emotional reactivity. Journal of Research in Personality, 29, 24–34. Bolger, N., & Zuckerman, A. (1995). A framework for studying personality in the stress process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 890–902. Bond, M. J., & Feather, N. T. (1988). Some correlates of structure and purpose in the use of time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 321–329.

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