The Psychology of the Soul (GTA Natalie Presentation)

The study o being an becoming

Existential Psychology

What are the 5 essential concerns of existential psychology?

Death, isolation, identity, freedom, and meaning

Human behavior is partly driven by the awareness and fear humans have about their own death

Terror Management Theory

How do we manage terror?

• Cultural Anxiety Buffer

• Learning validity of our worldview from caregiver, society, and environment

• Feeling valued for following the rules of our cultural worldview

Investing in views of reality that provide order, meaning, and permanence to ones life

Cultural Worldview

Why is TMT perspective important?

• Explains why self-esteem and belief validation are important

• Explains why we cling to beliefs, fear rejection, favor ingroups, care about what others think, religion, etc.

• Does mortality salience increase positive attitudes toward those that validate our beliefs and negative attitudes towards those who threaten our beliefs

• Participants who identified their religion as Christian were instructed to form impressions about a Christian and a Jewish target person

• ½ of participants received a mortality salience manipulation

• Rated target persons intelligence, current events knowledge, mortality, adjustment, and extent to which they would enjoy working with the target person

  What were the results of this experiment?

The Mortality salient condition rated the Christian target person higher than the control and the Jewish target person lower than the control

• Increase disgust reaction towards animals and other creatures

• Increase self-esteem strivings

• Increase self-serving attributions

• Lead to harsher punishment for those who violate participant’s worldview

• Increase interest in close relationships

Mortality Salience effects

In the Principles of Psychology, James conceptualizes the self as the “me” and the “I” what do these two interpretations mean?

“me” is the self as object and “I” is the self as subject

Feelings of separateness that occur when faced with the truth that we are alone in our experience of reality

Existential isolation

Overlap between 2 or more people with regard to objective features of the self

Me-sharing

When there is felt overlap between 2 or more people subjective experience of reality

I-sharing

We both live in Vermont

Me-sharing example

A person in a clown costume just ran behind us in the back row, only the people in the back row experienced this

I-sharing example

The feeling of connectedness that occurs when one feels they are not alone in their experience of reality

Existential connection

What causes existential connection?

I-sharing

• Recruited participants 3 days prior to the 2020 presidential election

• Participants indicated their preference for presidential candidate and were paired with a partner that their shared or did not share their presidential candidate

• Participants then underwent an I-sharing manipulation

• Did I-sharing impact participants liking for their partner? Belief in a productive dialogue?

  What were the results of this experiment?

People who did I-share had more liking for their partners for both candidates

Being a valued member of a valid cultural worldview

Cultural anxiety buffer