Date of Award

6-2011

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Joshua Hart

Language

English

Keywords

film, terror, defense, mortality, experiment, study

Abstract

In an effort to expand the scope of Terror Management Theory (TMT), the author proposed that viewing film clips involving death of non-animated and animated humans and animals would lead to an increase in worldview defense. Although worldview defense means were not statistically significantly different between conditions, there was a clear linear trend of increasing worldview defense from commercials to non-animated animals, suggesting that animation had less of an effect than live action and that individuals who watched clips of non-animated animals were most likely to exhibit an increase in worldview defense. The author's findings broaden TMT research by suggesting that worldview defense could potentially be affected by watching death clips of non-animated and animated fictional characters.

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