A Quiet Ego Quiets Death Anxiety: Humility as an Existential Anxiety Buffer

Transcription

1 A Quiet Ego Quiets Death Anxiety: Humility as an Existential Anxiety Buffer Pelin Kesebir C E N T E R F O R I N V E S T I G A T I N G H E A L T H Y M I N D S University of Wisconsin-Madison

2 His Majesty The Self The intertwined motives for self-esteem, self-enhancement, and selfprotection are exceptionally strong. The hunger for perceiving me and mine favorably leads to distortions in the way we perceive ourselves, others, and the world. Relentlessly striving to maintain and present a certain image of the self can prove destructive or self-destructive. The pursuit of self-esteem can reduce learning and prosocial behavior, impair self-regulation, increase aggression in the face of ego threats, and end up proving detrimental to one s mental and physical health (e.g., Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996; Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Crocker & Park, 2004; Leary, Tchividjian, & Kraxberger, 1994).

3 The Quiet Self The recognition of the dark side of the self has generated an interest in the quiet ego in recent years (Wayment & Bauer, 2008). Self-compassion (Neff, 2003) Ecosystem vs. egosystem perspectives (Crocker, 2008) Hypoegoic self-processes (Leary & Guadagno, 2011) A quieter ego would be less under the curse of the self (Leary, 2004).

4 Humility Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in humility as a research topic (Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Tangney, 2000). Humility is the ability to see the self in true perspective. Awareness of one s strengths and weaknesses, coming to terms with one s imperfections. Accurately judging the self s place within the larger context of existence.

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8 The Benefits of Humility Humility has been related to a variety of desirable qualities, including: Forgiveness Generosity Helpfulness Better social relationships Excellence in leadership Lower neuroticism Lower narcissism Collins, 2001; Davis et al., 2013; Exline & Hill, 2012; LaBouff, Rowatt, Johnson, Tsang, & Willerton, 2012; Owens & Hekman, 2012; Peters & Rowatt, 2011; Rowatt et al., 2006; Vera & Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004

9 The Mortal Self The human awareness of mortality creates a potential for extreme terror. For effective functioning, we need to manage this terror.

10 Terror Management Theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) Existential Anxiety ANXIETY BUFFER Existential Well-Being

11 Terror Management Theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) Existential Anxiety ANXIETY BUFFER Existential Anxiety

12 Terror Management Theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) Existential Anxiety Security Value ANXIETY BUFFER Meaning Transcendence Existential Well-Being

13 Terror Management Theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) Existential Anxiety Cultural worldviews Self-esteem ANXIETY BUFFER Close personal relationships Existential Well-Being

14 Humility as an Existential Anxiety Buffer Those who possess humility have a less intrusive ego that is secure in its reality. Threats to the self, including the prospect of death, should thus be less alarming for humble people. Humility also entails seeing the larger context and accurately and nondefensively appraising one s place in it. As a result, humble people should be more at peace with their mortality. Five studies tested the idea that high levels of trait and state humility would be associated with lower death anxiety and lower defensiveness in the face of death thoughts.

15 Study 1 Hypothesis: Humility as an individual difference variable will buffer the tendency to engage in self-serving moral disengagement following mortality reminders. 88 American participants were recruited on Amazon s Mturk. They were given a list of 40 virtues, and indicated on a 7-point Likert scale how much they possessed each. Honesty, Patience, Compassion, Integrity, Honor, Truthfulness, Loyalty, Kindness, Sincerity, Trustworthiness, Courage, Forgiveness, Generosity, Mercy, Wisdom, Respect, Fairness, Tolerance, Humility, Faithfulness, Charity, Humbleness, Selflessness, Bravery, Discipline, Thoughtfulness, Dependability, Grace, Helpfulness, Courtesy, Love, Perseverance, Modesty, Politeness, Fidelity, Justice, Gratitude, Reliability, Diligence, Thankfulness

16 Study 1 Hypothesis: Humility as an individual difference variable will buffer the tendency to engage in self-serving moral disengagement following mortality reminders. 88 American participants were recruited on Amazon s Mturk. They were given a list of 40 virtues, and indicated on a 7-point Likert scale how much they possessed each. Honesty, Patience, Compassion, Integrity, Honor, Truthfulness, Loyalty, Kindness, Sincerity, Trustworthiness, Courage, Forgiveness, Generosity, Mercy, Wisdom, Respect, Fairness, Tolerance, Humility, Faithfulness, Charity, Humbleness, Selflessness, Bravery, Discipline, Thoughtfulness, Dependability, Grace, Helpfulness, Courtesy, Love, Perseverance, Modesty, Politeness, Fidelity, Justice, Gratitude, Reliability, Diligence, Thankfulness

17 Study 1 88 American participants were recruited on Amazon s Mturk. They were given a list of 40 virtues, and indicated on a 7-point Likert scale how much they possessed each. Participants were assigned to a mortality salience or control condition, followed by distraction and delay tasks.

18 Study 1 The dependent variable was moral disengagement in the service of one s existential anxiety buffer, captured with the Moral Disengagement Scale (Moore, Detert, Treviño, Baker, & Mayer, 2012). Considering the ways people grossly misrepresent themselves, it s hardly a sin to inflate your own credentials. It is okay to spread rumors to defend those you care about. People who get mistreated have usually done something to bring it on themselves. Participants also completed the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR).

19 Study 1 Whereas people low in humility responded to death reminders with increased willingness to morally disengage in the service of their existential anxiety buffer, people high in humility responded with decreased willingness. The effect was still significant after controlling for impression management, p =.001, Humility x Mortality Salience interaction: β = -.32, t(84) = -3.09, p =.003

20 Study 2 Hypothesis: For those high in humility, death thoughts will not increase fear of death. This effect will hold after controlling for personality traits that are potentially related to humility. 142 Americans were recruited on Mturk. They completed measures of humility, self-esteem, secure attachment, virtuousness, and mindfulness. Next, they were assigned to a mortality salience or control condition. Fear of death was captured with the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale. How much do you fear never thinking or experiencing anything again? How much do you fear the disintegration of your body after you die?

21 Study 2 For those low in humility mortality reminders increased death fear, whereas for those high in humility they decreased it. After controlling for selfesteem, secure attachment, mindfulness, and general virtuousness, humility still moderated the effect of mortality reminders on death fear (p <.001). Humility x Mortality Salience interaction: β = -.22, t(138) = -2.63, p =.009

22 Study 3 Hypothesis: Those with a low sense of entitlement will not respond to mortality salience with increased worldview defense in the form of anti-islam prejudice. 78 Americans recruited on MTurk completed the Psychological Entitlement Scale (Campbell et al., 2004). I honestly feel I m just more deserving than others. If I were on the Titanic, I would deserve to be on the first lifeboat! Participants were then assigned to a mortality salience or control condition. Please write two sentences about what you feel when you think about the fact that you will die someday, vs. Please write two sentences about what you feel when you think about experiencing intense pain during a visit to the dentist. Anti-Islam prejudice was captured with a 6-item measure (Imhoff & Recker, 2012). Compared to other religious and philosophical approaches Islam is rather primitive. Any critique of the West brought forward by representatives of Islam is exaggerated and unjustified.

23 Study 3 For those high in entitlement, reminders of mortality marginally increased anti-islam prejudice. For those low in entitlement, mortality thoughts significantly decreased anti-islam prejudice. Entitlement x Mortality Salience interaction: β =.33, t(73) = 3.01, p =.004

24 Study 4 Hypothesis: Priming humility will reduce self-reported death anxiety relative to both a baseline and a pride priming condition. 165 participants recruited on Mturk were assigned to write about a humbling experience (Humility), proud experience (Pride), or nothing (Baseline). Humility condition: Please write about a time in your life when you felt humility. How did you feel and what did you think? Pride condition: Please write about a time in your life when you felt pride. How did you feel and what did you think? Death anxiety was assessed with the Death Anxiety Scale (Templer, 1970). I am very much afraid to die. The thought of death never bothers me.

25 Study 4 Relative to participants in both the Baseline and Pride conditions, those who remembered a humbling moment in their lives reported lower death anxiety. One-way ANOVA: F(2, 148) = 4.05, p =.019

26 I visited a homeless shelter and it humbled me because I realized how much I really have. Once I got stranded and had to walk over ten miles to get home... I got a good look at people's houses and the way they live, and that made me realize each one of those houses had a family in it just like mine, all trying to live and survive every day, just like mine. One time when I was younger, and still thought that I was pretty much the center of the universe, I remember complaining to my friend about some trivial issue that I was having with my parents. I was going on and on about how my life was falling apart and miserable. My friend then proceeded to tell me she understood, she felt the same way because her mother was sick with cancer and she too felt like her life was falling apart. I was immediately grounded One time I was so sure of a point I was trying to make in a discussion. I kept insisting I was correct, but came to find out I was wrong all along. A couple of years ago, my girlfriend and I camped in an unimproved area near Lake Superior, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In the middle of the night, I got up to go to the bathroom. There were no clouds that night, and no artificial lights anywhere. The skies were ablaze with millions of stars It really made me reflect on how tiny I was relative to the rest of the universe, yet I did not feel unimportant; it was my viewing of the scene that caused it to appear. In that moment, I felt humble, but happy.

27 Study 4 Relative to participants in both the Baseline and Pride conditions, those who remembered a humbling moment in their lives reported lower death anxiety. One-way ANOVA: F(2, 148) = 4.05, p =.019

28 Study 5 Hypothesis: Experimentally induced feelings of humility will prevent mortality reminders from leading to depleted self-control. 197 Americans recruited on Mturk were exposed to a Humility or Control condition. Please write about a time in your life when you felt humility. How did you feel and what did you think? Please write about a time in your life when you felt humidity (in the air). How did you feel and what did you think?

29 Study 5 After the humility manipulation, participants were assigned to a mortality salience or control condition. The dependent variable, self-control, was assessed with a measure of felt temptation. How tempted would you be to do the following activities right now? (on a 5- point Likert scale) Putting off work that needs to get done, purchasing things, procrastinating, drinking beer, doing nothing, eating fried food, spending rather than saving your money, getting drunk

30 Study 5 Mortality salience increased felt temptation when not accompanied by the humility prime. Yet when humility thoughts preceded mortality reminders, this effect was eliminated. Humility x Mortality Salience interaction: F(1, 188) = 7.20, p =.008

31 Conclusion The picture of the humble self emerging from these five studies is one that is naturally fortified against death anxiety. Only a magnified sense of self brings out the dark side of existential anxiety, whereas a quiet, humble self, if anything, is associated with desirable behavior patterns in response to mortality thoughts. Humble people likely see themselves from a higher, broader, truer perspective, and struggle less with accepting what they see. This presumably renders threats to the self less distressing and the reality of death easier to accept.

32 Where Do We Go From Here? In the US, the past several decades witnessed increased glorification of a self-oriented worldview, accompanied by a rise in phenomena such as narcissism, psychological entitlement, overcompetitiveness, and attention seeking (Twenge & Campbell, 2009). A survey of a large corpus of American books documents an average drop of 44.33% in the appearance frequency of the words humility and humbleness from 1901 to 2000 (Kesebir & Kesebir, 2012).

33 Where Do We Go From Here? In light of the existing body of work on the benefits of humility, the waning cultural importance of humility does not bode well for individual and societal well-being. HOW CAN WE INCREASE QUALITIES SUCH AS HUMILITY, SELF-ACCEPTANCE, PERSPECTIVE, AND WISDOM IN PEOPLE?

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