Spiritual transcendence as a buffer against death anxiety

Terror Management Theory assumes the existence of two basic buffers against mortality salience: self-esteem and worldview. The aim of the current paper is to propose another buffer against mortality salience, namely spiritual transcendence. In the first study, we studied the impact of activation of spiritual transcendence as a moderator of mortality salience. Activating spiritual transcendence reduced the effect of the increase of the level of altruistic tendencies after exposure to mortality salience. In the second study, we replicated this finding based on the research procedures of former TMT research, using essay attacking participants’ worldview. Results showed that spiritual transcendence acts as a buffer against mortality salience both among religious and non-religious individuals. Therefore, spiritual transcendence seems to be an additional buffer against mortality salience, independent from worldview and self-esteem, and it could be further examined from TMT perspective.