Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- May: Existential
Psychology
(^372) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
366 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories
reminded of their mortality, people would then be motivated to do things that de-
crease the likelihood of dying, such as perform healthy behaviors like exercising.
As implied in the previous section, terror management theory actively argues
for two distinct categories of defense against death, namely conscious and uncon-
scious. The conscious defenses are also referred to as proximal defenses and take the
form of “not me, not now” and are seen in active suppression of thoughts of death
as well as distancing and denying one’s vulnerability. When one’s death is uncon-
sciously activated, then distal defenses become activated. These involve identifying
with and defending cultural beliefs and ideologies and boosting one’s self-esteem.
With the distinction between proximal and distal defenses as a guide, Jamie
Arndt, Jeff Schimel, and Jamie Goldenberg (2003) reasoned that intention to exer-
cise should be an ideal avenue to study the different effects of both kinds of defense.
The intention to exercise is obviously a proximal defense in that people are moti-
vated by the desire to be healthy and avoid disease. It is also a distal defense in that
it bolsters self-esteem and body image. In support of this reasoning, health and ap-
pearance are often the first and second reasons given in surveys on why people de-
cide to exercise. The study by Arndt and colleagues examined the prediction that
mortality salience should therefore increase both reasons for wanting to exercise,
namely increasing fitness and looking better (self-esteem). More specifically, Study 1
examined the proximal defense theory (no delay) of exercise, and Study 2 examined
a combination of proximal and distal (delay) defenses. Both studies also recruited par-
ticipants for whom exercise was important to their self-esteem and participants for
whom it was not important.
Study 1 was a 2 2 design, with two levels of mortality salience (mortality ver-
sus dental pain) and two levels of fitness self-esteem. Participants were university
students (64% female) who were told they were participating in a study on the rela-
tionship between personality and fitness. They were given a packet of questionnaires
to complete, which included a similar mortality salience manipulation as those pre-
viously described (e.g., Cox, Goldenberg, Arndt, & Pyszczynski, 2007; Goldenberg
et al., 2001). But this time the control condition wrote about the pain associated with a
minor dental procedure. Dental pain was selected as a control in order to account for
the general negativity associated with physical pain. After the mortality salience ma-
nipulation, all participants then read a brief article on how exercise promotes
longevity and then completed two questions about their intention to exercise. The
first was how much they will exercise relative to their own norm over the next month,
and the second was how long (30 to 160 minutes) their next exercise will be. Re-
sponses to these two questions were standardized and added to create an overall
measure of intention to exercise.
Results showed that mortality salience did immediately increase intention to
exercise relative to the painful dental procedure condition. Fitness self-esteem also
was not related to intention to exercise. The 2 2 interaction between mortality
salience and fitness self-esteem, contrary to prediction, was also not significant. The
authors suggested that the two nonsignificant findings may be the result of everyone
getting the information on the health benefits of exercise and thereby making the in-
tention to exercise the socially desirable response. By delaying the fitness intention
measure after mortality salience, the fitness as a source of self-esteem should affect
the intention to exercise. Study 2 was conducted to test this idea and had the same