Reflecting on Existential Threats Elicits Self-Reported Negative Affect but No Physiological Arousal.

ABSTRACT: There is mixed evidence whether reflecting on an existential threat increases negative affect and thereby elicits subjective arousal and physiological activation. Additionally, it is debated whether different existential and non-existential threats elicit different arousal responses, although systematic comparisons are lacking. The current study explored affective, subjective, and physiological arousal responses while comparing several existential threats with a non-existential threat and with a control condition. One-hundred-and-seventy-one undergraduate students were randomly allocated to one of four existential threat conditions: mortality salience (MS), freedom restriction, uncontrollability, and uncertainty; or to the non-existential threat condition: social-evaluative threat (SET); o

SUBMITTER: Poppelaars ES 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7273972 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature