RESEARCH ARTICLE
Mortality Salience Increases Belief in a Just World but Not Schadenfreude in Response to a Natural Disaster Affecting a Religious Out-group
Jonathan F. Bassett1, *, Kelly L. Cate2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2014Volume: 7
First Page: 64
Last Page: 69
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-7-64
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101407010064
Article History:
Received Date: 25/11/2014Revision Received Date: 04/12/2014
Acceptance Date: 09/12/2014
Electronic publication date: 30/12/2014
Collection year: 2014
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
This study examined the hypothesis derived from Terror Management Theory that reminders of death would influence both belief in a just world and Schadenfreude, in response to reading about members of a religious out-group affect by a natural disaster. Christian students (N = 88, Mage = 19.9) were primed with thoughts of death or dental pain before reading about a natural disaster that destroyed either a Christian Church or an Islamic Mosque. Participants then completed measures of belief in a just world and schadenfreude. Mortality salience did not affect schadenfreude but social desirability may have masked this effect. Mortality salience did increase beliefs in a just world when a natural disaster affected a religious out-group, suggesting that cultural worldview may be buttressed by evidence that bad things happen to proponents of opposing belief systems.
