Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Graham, Steven

Keywords

Terror Management, Death Psychology, Anxiety

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Death themed humor is a curious phenomenon because it makes light of an anxiety-inducing subject. What motivates the production and enjoyment of death themed humor? This thesis investigated the possibility that death humor can reduce concerns about death. I hypothesized that viewing a death-related cartoon would reduce death thought accessibility (DTA) after a mortality salience (MS) prompt. Forty participants, recruited from a small liberal arts college, participated in the study. Participants were reminded of their own mortality, and then exposed to one of four images. The images were a death-related cartoon, a non-death-related cartoon, a drawing of the grim reaper, and a drawing of an apple. Then, participants' DTA was assessed. Contrary to the hypothesis, participants who viewed the death-related cartoon did not exhibit lower DTA than participants in other conditions. Surprisingly, no participants exposed to MS exhibited elevated DTA. Furthermore, a sample of students who were not exposed to MS exhibited elevated DTA. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

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