Finding the Terror that the Social Self Manages: Interdependent Self-Construal Protects Against the Anxiety Engendered by Death Awareness

Existentialists have theorized that defining one's self in terms of the broader groups to which one belongs (i.e., interdependent self-construal) helps prevent humans' awareness of death from causing anxiety. Consistent with this assertion, research has shown that when death-awareness is experimentally heightened, people's investment in their social groups increases. However, no research has tested the central assertion that high levels of interdependent self-construal attenuate the effect of heightened death-awareness on anxiety. In two experiments, we assessed participants' interdependent self-construal, then experimentally heightened death awareness, and subsequently assessed death anxiety (Study 1) and unspecified anxiety (Study 2). Results showed that heightened death awareness increased death anxiety and unspecified anxiety, but only for those with a low, not high, interdependent self-construal.