The Influence Of Close Relationship And Social Norms On The Judgment Of Immoral Behavior In Mortality Salience

Since Terror Management Theory(TMT)has been put forward,The research on it is unfailing.Terror Management Theory(TMT)points out that the difference between humans and other animals is that people are the only ones who realize that death is inevitable.And the inevitability of death causes fear and anxiety.People seek cultural worldview defense in order to manage death fears.Culture provides people with value,meaning and eternity.So people tend to defend their own group’s cultural worldview in death,and thus have many negative effects.For example,prejudice,stereotyping,aggression,hostility,racism,even group conflict,etc.In society,there are often some excesses in the condemnation and abuse of immoral behavior,the moral abduction of others and even the moral trial.Whether these excesses are related to death anxiety.There have also been scholars at home and abroad who have shown that death highlights situations that are more severe in the judgment of immoral behavior in society.However,because previous studies have been largely confined to the study of the effects of participants’ judgment on the immoral behavior of strangers when they are mortality salience(MS).Therefore,it is necessary to study the influence of different types of close relationship on the judgment of immoral behavior according to the interpersonal "differential pattern" of Chinese society.Furthermore,we further combine the normative focus theory to explore whether the benevolence/universalism norms will counteract the negative effects of death highlighting on the immoral behavior of strangers.This study contains two sub-studies.In the study one,216 students from Jiangxi Normal University were used as subjects.To study the moral judgments of immoral behaviors of different close relationships,such as relatives,friends and strangers,under the situation of death.In the study two,140 students from Jiangxi Normal University were used as subjects.To explore whether the benevolence/universalism norms would offset the harsh judgments of strangers on immoral situations caused by deaths.The results are as follows:1.Compared with dentist-visit prime,the subjects considered the immoral behavior of strangers more immoral when they are mortality salience.2.Compared with dentist-visit prime,the subjects believed that the immoral degree of the immoral behavior of the relatives and friends were lower in the situationof death prominence.3.Compared with the control conditions,the subjects believed that the immoral degree of a stranger’s lower immoral behavior when the benevolence/universalism norms primed.4.At the level of death prominence,compared with the control conditions,the subjects were lower in the immoral degree of a stranger’s immoral behavior when the benevolence/universalism norms primed.5.On the level of the benevolence/universalism norms,there is no significant difference between the subjects’ moral judgments about the immoral behavior of strangers in the situation of death prominence and the situation of dentist-visit prominence.