Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
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Date of Graduation
Spring 2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Department
Department of Psychology
Advisor(s)
Kevin Apple
Abstract
Seventy-eight participants were randomly assigned to receive either a serene, neutral, or fearful mood induction, followed by either a neutral salience or mortality salience induction. After these manipulations, participants read a political essay that opposed their world view. Participants then completed several measures examining how much they liked/did not like the author of the essay, along with a measure assessing their opinion on an ethnic out-group. It was hypothesized that participants who received the serene mood induction would derogate the author of the opposing essay and ethnic out-group members significantly less than those who received the fearful or neutral mood manipulation. After conducting a 2 x 3 ANOVA, no significant interactions were found between mood and salience, but there were several main effects of mood and salience that approached significance. However, exploratory analysis revealed that participants in the fearful mood condition derogated the ethnic out-group significantly more than those in the neutral or serene mood conditions. Additionally, participants in the mortality salience condition derogated the author of the essay significantly more than those in the neutral salience condition.
Recommended Citation
Howard, Kathryn A., "The impact of “fearful” and “serene” mood on mortality salience" (2015). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019. 56.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/56
