The effect of meditation on death-thought accessibility and worldview defense in response to mortality salience

Research suggests that people typically respond to reminders of their own death by suppressing death-related thoughts and becoming more negative in their attitudes to people who criticize their worldview. However, research has found that there is great variability in one's reaction to reminders of death. The present study investigated the effect of a brief meditation on the way mortality salience affects death-thought accessibility (DTA) and worldview defense. One hundred twenty-nine adult novice meditators in the US were randomly assigned to either no-meditation or meditation groups, followed by a mortality salience (MS) or neutral prime. DTA was measured both immediately after MS and again after a delay, after which worldview defense was measured. Results showed that for the no-meditation condition, MS led to initial suppression and a delayed increase in DTA, and greater worldview defense. However, participants in the meditation condition did not respond to MS with increased worldview defense or suppression of death thoughts. Moderated mediation analyses showed that MS led to greater death-thought rebounds following suppression, which in turn increased worldview defense only among participants in the no-meditation condition. These relationships were moderated by meditation training, with meditation training completely eliminating the MS effects on both DTA and worldview defense. Possible explanations were discussed for these findings.