bodhi tree swaying

Jesse Bering, who has been mentioned in this blog before, has an interesting column in Scientific American outlining a couple of experiments investigating mortality salience (the effect that an awareness of death has on us).

These rather elegant experiments show that when presented with reminders of death, people are more likely to make patriotic statements and to overestimate how many people share their opinions. In general it seems people cling to group membership as a protection against the idea of their own mortality.

Another such study found that judges presented with cues reminding them of death would set bond almost 10 times higher than they otherwise would.

In a 2005 study published in the Journal of Economic Psychology, German psychologist Eva Jonas from Ludwig-Maximilians University and Immo Fritsche from Otto-von-Guericke University teamed up with terror management theory co-founder, social psychologist

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