Does the thought of death accelerate a fast life history strategy?: Evaluating a mortality salience prime

dc.contributor.authorFrederick, Michael
dc.contributor.authorKhan, Humama
dc.contributor.authorAncona, Matthew
dc.date.accessioned2017-06-14T16:21:21Z
dc.date.available2017-06-14T16:21:21Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.description.abstractThe characteristics of the developmental environment can have long-term effects on an individual's metabolism, stress-sensitivity, hormone levels, and gene expression. Life history theory suggests these outcomes can be broadly viewed as individual strategies along a continuum from 'fast' to 'slow', with stressful environments predisposing individuals towards faster, more short-term oriented strategies. Griskevicius et al. (2011a) reported an interaction between childhood socioeconomic status and a mortality prime when measuring economic impulsivity using a delay-discounting task. Specifically, participants who grew up in wealthier homes responded to a mortality prime by becoming less impulsive, while those who grew up less wealthy reacted to the prime by becoming more impulsive. The current study sought to replicate and expand upon these findings using a sample of university undergraduates (66 females and 19 males). Participants were exposed to a mortality prime, an anxiety prime, or a neutral prime before completing a questionnaire that included questions about childhood socioeconomic status and a delay discounting survey. When the results of the delay discounting measure were analyzed, no significant interaction between childhood environment and priming condition was observed. Thus, we failed to replicate the findings of Griskevicius et al. (2011a). We suggest that the limited saliency of the mortality prime may account for this discrepancy, and note that the results of other priming studies have often been difficult to replicate. Limitations and future directions for priming studies and life history research are discussed.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Frederick5/publication/307953126_Does_the_thought_of_death_accelerate_a_fast_life_history_strategy_Evaluating_a_mortality_salience_prime/links/57d2ecb408ae6399a38d9ad0/Does-the-thought-of-death-accelerate-a-fast-life-history-strategy-Evaluating-a-mortality-salience-prime.pdfen_US
dc.format.extent10 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/M2QC4G
dc.identifier.citationFrederick, M; Khan, H; Ancona, M. (2016). Does the thought of death accelerate a fast life history strategy?: Evaluating a mortality salience prime. EvoS Journal: The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium. pp. 13-21.en_US
dc.identifier.issn1944-1932
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/4064
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtUniversity of Baltimore
dc.subjectLife historyen_US
dc.subjectmortality salienceen_US
dc.subjectdelay discountingen_US
dc.subjectsocioeconomic statusen_US
dc.subjectimpulsivityen_US
dc.titleDoes the thought of death accelerate a fast life history strategy?: Evaluating a mortality salience primeen_US
dc.typeTexten_US

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