The investigation of basic hypothesis of Terror Management Theory

Present study tested basic hypothesis of Terror Management Theory namely, the effects of mortality salience condition (remind own mortality-related thoughts) on effort to increase self-esteem and tendency to cultural worldview in two studies. Both studies were experimental and by post test with control group design. In the first study, 180 students from University of Tehran were randomly assigned to two experimental (remind ourselves of death) and control groups (the conditions remind topic except ourselves of death) and with using two tools of the task of called death-related thoughts and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) tested the effect of remind of death on the effort to increase self-esteem among those. Also in the second study tested the effect of remind of death on tendency to cultural worldview with using a measure of cultural worldview defense among the 120 students of the Kharazmi University and Sharif University of Technology. The results of two-way ANOVA showed that in the first study remind of death increased effort to increase self-esteem among girls but in the second study the effect of remind of death there was no significant on cultural worldview. The results were discussed based on Terror Management Theory, Self-Determination Theory and Contingencies of Self-Worth Theory.