Title: Awe After Mortality Salience: Differential Effects of Positive and Threat Awe on Defensive Responses
Introduction: Death is an inevitable, universal threat that people strive to buffer. Based on Terror Management Theory (TMT), mortality salience (MS)—awareness of the inevitability of death—typically heightens defense of self-esteem and cultural worldviews (e.g., in-group favoritism, out group derogation, strengthened materialism). Awe, a self-transcendent emotion elicited by vast stimuli that update existing cognitive schemas and evoke a "small self," is known to promote prosociality and social connectedness. Recent work suggests awe after MS might buffer worldview/self-esteem defenses, with a critical distinction between aesthetically induced positive awe and threat-induced awe.
Purpose: This study tested whether awe reduces MS-related defenses and whether effects differ between positive-awe and threat-awe.
Method: Thirty University students underwent an MS induction (e.g., death reminders), then watched video stimuli designed to elicit positive-awe, threat-awe, or serve as a control. materialism and self-esteem were measured before and after as indicators of cultural-worldview and self-esteem defense.
Results: Contrary to predictions, MS did not produce observable increases in worldview or self-esteem defenses. This null pattern was interpreted as potentially shaped by religious/belief systems specific to Japanese participants. Nonetheless, awe after MS showed differentiated effects: the positive-awe group displayed increased self-esteem, whereas the threat-awe group showed heightened materialism. Materialism increases under threat-awe ran counter to prior findings. It may reflect Japanese participants' tendency to associate threat awe with disasters, or residual MS effects.
Conclusion: Awe following MS does not uniformly dampen defensive processes; its impact depends on awe type. positive awe may elevate self-esteem via a small self pathway that fosters prosociality and humility, while threat awe may intensify materialism, possibly through disaster-linked interpretations or lingering MS. These results highlight culturally situated mechanisms and the importance of distinguishing awe subtypes when examining emotion-based interventions in TMT contexts.