Terror Management among Chinese: Worldview Defense, and Intergroup Bias in Resource Allocation

• Main Authors: TAM, Kim-Pong, CHIU, Chi-Yue, LAU, Ivy Yee-Man
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2007
• Subjects: Chinese culture; intergroup bias; mortality salience; terror management theory; worldview defence; Asian Studies; Social Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/147
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Management of terror of death and its subsequent reactions has been held to be universal. However, with only a few exceptions empirical efforts have so far been focused on people from North American and European countries. Would Eastern philosophical traditions render differential management of the terror of death? The present research aimed at testing the generality of terror management in Hong Kong Chinese samples. Across four studies, we found robust and consistent mortality salience effects, which attest to the generality of terror management. As in previous studies, compared to control participants, mortality salient participants displayed a stronger ingroup bias in person evaluation (Studies 1, 3). Additionally, we found a robust mortality salience effect on intergroup bias in resource allocation (Studies 2A, 2B, 3), which has not been examined in previous terror management research.