Meaning & use
mortality salience
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountabletechnical
The condition of being aware that one will eventually die, often studied for its effects on behavior and beliefs.
Grammar: Uncountable; used in academic writing, often with 'high' or 'low': high mortality salience.
Patterns
- mortality salience increases something
- high mortality salience
- the effect of mortality salience
Studies show that mortality salience can make people more defensive of their cultural beliefs.
In the experiment, mortality salience was induced by asking participants to write about their own death.
Researchers measured mortality salience by using a questionnaire about fear of death.
Common combinations
- high mortality salience
- High mortality salience may lead to stronger group loyalty.
- mortality salience theory
- Terror management theory relies heavily on the concept of mortality salience.
- induce mortality salience
- The researchers induced mortality salience by showing participants images of funerals.
Synonyms and how they differ
- death awareness
- A more general term; mortality salience is the specific psychological term for the state of being aware of death's inevitability.
- fear of death
- Fear of death is an emotional response; mortality salience is the cognitive awareness, which may or may not involve fear.
Word family
Commonly confused: mortality salience or mortality rate?
mortality salience vs mortality rate
Mortality rate is the number of deaths in a group; mortality salience is the awareness of death.
Practice
In psychology, 'mortality salience' refers to ______.
Choose one answer.
Mortality salience is specifically the awareness of one's own eventual death, not the fear itself or a statistical rate.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mortality salience”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.