Does this photo make you feel like dying, or punishing a prostitute?
Should prostitutes be fined and if so how much? It probably depends upon whether you are East Asian or Western.
That was the question that Travis Proulx and Steven Heine (2006) asked subjects in a variety of experiment conditions designed to test their "Meaning Maintenance Model"
Terror Management Theory demonstrates that subjects who have been encouraged to think about their own death tend to want to think that they themselves and the culture to which they belong is "good." In this way, subjects in a "mortality salience" condition atttempt to obtain a degree of "symbolic immortality" - that their name will live on. It is also found that subjects in the mortality salience condition are more severe in their disaproval of critics and those that behave in ways typically considered to be immoral, such as prostitutes. Specifically, when faced with death, subjects are found to fine prostitutes more heavily.
Proulx and Heine (2006) adapted and advanced this theory to argue that it is not death itself that encourages us to cling to symbols and meanings, but the absense of meaning itself. They argue that humans are simply motivate to maintain a sense of meaning and order to their lives. In their novel experiments they found that people faced with experiences that threaten their meaning-frameworks, such as the above image, behaved in the same way as those encouraged to think about their death, including being more severe with prostitutes.
The above image shows the colours of the trumps (hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades) reversed. Looking at the image you should feel that something is wrong, that meaning is not being maintained.
Proulx, T., & Heine, S.J. (2006). Death and black diamonds. Meaning, mortality, and the meaning maintenance model. Psychological Inquiry, 17, 309-318.
Original photo Playing Cards by Number 34 which is all rights reserved, with special permission - Thank you.
Does this photo make you feel like dying, or punishing a prostitute?
Should prostitutes be fined and if so how much? It probably depends upon whether you are East Asian or Western.
That was the question that Travis Proulx and Steven Heine (2006) asked subjects in a variety of experiment conditions designed to test their "Meaning Maintenance Model"
Terror Management Theory demonstrates that subjects who have been encouraged to think about their own death tend to want to think that they themselves and the culture to which they belong is "good." In this way, subjects in a "mortality salience" condition atttempt to obtain a degree of "symbolic immortality" - that their name will live on. It is also found that subjects in the mortality salience condition are more severe in their disaproval of critics and those that behave in ways typically considered to be immoral, such as prostitutes. Specifically, when faced with death, subjects are found to fine prostitutes more heavily.
Proulx and Heine (2006) adapted and advanced this theory to argue that it is not death itself that encourages us to cling to symbols and meanings, but the absense of meaning itself. They argue that humans are simply motivate to maintain a sense of meaning and order to their lives. In their novel experiments they found that people faced with experiences that threaten their meaning-frameworks, such as the above image, behaved in the same way as those encouraged to think about their death, including being more severe with prostitutes.
The above image shows the colours of the trumps (hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades) reversed. Looking at the image you should feel that something is wrong, that meaning is not being maintained.
Proulx, T., & Heine, S.J. (2006). Death and black diamonds. Meaning, mortality, and the meaning maintenance model. Psychological Inquiry, 17, 309-318.
Original photo Playing Cards by Number 34 which is all rights reserved, with special permission - Thank you.