The Impact of Mortality Salience on Mind Wandering During Reading: A Cognitive Test of Terror Management Theory
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: The effects of mind wandering on normal reading have been explored recently in studies using self-paced reading (Schooler, Reichle, & Halpern, 2004) and eye tracking (Reichle, Reineberg, & Schooler, 2009). These studies demonstrate our propensity to lapse into episodes of mindless reading, but shed little light on its causality. Furthermore, behavioral studies suggest that reminders of death (mortality salience) evoke an evolutionary defense mechanism capable of embracing distractions to eliminate thoughts of death (Pysczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). Thirty participants were primed with either reminders of their own death or reminders of a painful experience. Participants then read a neutral passage while self-reporting episodes of mind wandering and while responding to probes inquiring the status of their level of awareness. It was predicted that participants primed to be mortality salient would be caught by probes and mind wander less frequently due to increased engagement in the text in order to distract themselves from notions of their mortal vulnerability. The results partially confirm these predictions: All participants engaged in mind wandering to a comparable extent. Mortality salience-primed individuals self-reported far fewer instances of mind wandering than individuals who received a control (pain) prime, suggesting that reminders of death affect the ability to realize that mind wandering is happening.
Author: Andrew E. Reineberg
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2108878762