The Appeal of Tragedy: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Emotional Response
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1999
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532785xmep0104_2
Abstract
The experiment reported in this article assessed the terror management explanation of the appeal of tragedy. From this perspective, vicarious experience of tragedy, such as through film and literature, provides a safe way of approaching the fear associated with one's own mortality. Thus, we hypothesized that reminding participants of their mortality would increase liking for and emotional response to a tragic excerpt from a novel. Participants were randomly assigned to answer open-ended questions about either their own death or a neutral topic and then read two excerpts from Ernest Hemingway novels, one tragic and one nontragic in content. In support of the terror management hypothesis, participants in the mortality salience condition responded more emotionally to, and were more touched by, the tragic excerpt, found the nontragic excerpt less enjoyable, and cared less for the female character in the nontragic passage than did the control participants.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
No
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Media Psychology, v. 1, issue 4, p. 313-329
Scholar Commons Citation
Goldenberg, Jamie L.; Pyszczynski, Tom; Johnson, Kern D.; Greenberg, Jeff; and Solomon, Sheldon, "The Appeal of Tragedy: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Emotional Response" (1999). Psychology Faculty Publications. 1531.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/psy_facpub/1531
