Mother's Milk: An Existential Perspective on Negative Reactions to Breast-Feeding
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2007
Keywords
terror management theory, death anxiety, breast-feeding, evaluation of women, evaluation of the body
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0146167206294202
Abstract
Drawing from an existential perspective rooted in terror management theory, four studies examined the hypothesis that breast-feeding women serve as reminders of the physical, animal nature of humanity and that such recognition is threatening in the face of one's unalterable mortality. Study 1 demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) led to more negative reactions toward a scenario depicting a woman breast-feeding her infant in public, and in Study 2, MS decreased liking and increased physical avoidance of a potential task partner described as breast-feeding in another room. Further supporting the hypothesis that such reactions are rooted in threats associated with human creatureliness, MS in conjunction with a breast-feeding prime led to an increase in the accessibility of creaturely related cognitions (Study 3) and priming human/animal similarities (i.e., creatureliness) led to increased negativity toward a magazine cover depicting a woman breast-feeding her child (Study 4). Implications of this research are discussed.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, v. 33, issue 1, p. 110-122.
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