Investigating the Role of Normative Support in Atheists' Perceptions of Meaning Following Reminders of Death

According to terror management theory, humans rely on meaningful and permanence-promising cultural worldviews, like religion, to manage mortality concerns. Prior research indicates that, compared to religious individuals, atheists experience lower levels of meaning in life following reminders of death. The present study investigated whether reminders of death would change atheists' meaning in life after exposure to normative support for atheism. Atheists (N = 222) were either reminded of death or a control topic (dental pain) and exposed to information portraying atheism as either common or rare, and then asked to rate their perceived meaning in life. Results showed that reminders of death reduced meaning in life among atheists who were told that atheism is common. Results were consistent with the view that atheism reflects the rejection of religious faith rather than a meaningful secular terror managing worldview. Discussion considers implications for maintaining healthy existential wellbeing, identifies limitations, and highlights future research directions

Women want the heavens, men want the earth

This version of the article may not completely replicate the final version published in Journal of Individual Differences.. It is not the version of record and is therefore not suitable for citation. The version of record can be found at https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a00028

The role of positive emotion eliciting activities at promoting physiological recovery from sadness

The current study investigated whether positive emotion eliciting activities facilitate the physiological, as well as subjective emotional, recovery from feelings of sadness and grief. Results indicated that participants who read a funny or neutral article after writing about the death of someone close had greater decreases in sadness and increases in positive emotion than participants who read an article about coping with grief. The funny and neutral articles were also associated with greater decreases in corrugator supercilii muscle activity. Positive emotion eliciting activities had no effect on zygomaticus major and orbicularis oculi muscle activity, heart rate, or respiratory sinus arrhythmia

The Impact of Mortality Awareness on Meaning in Life Among Christians and Atheists

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Research derived from terror management theory suggests that reliance on a terror-managing set of beliefs when reminded of death can influence one’s perception of meaning in life. The present research builds on prior work suggesting that religious concepts help to manage the awareness of death, and expands on that work to explore the challenges of religious and atheistic terror management. It was hypothesized that religious participants would be able to sustain perceived meaning in life when reminded of death, but that atheists would be vulnerable to a reduction in meaning when reminded of death. To test that idea, Christians and atheists were first reminded of either mortality or a control topic, and then asked to rate how strongly they felt life was meaningful. Results indicated that ratings of meaning in life were lower in the mortality salience condition, relative to the control condition, among the atheists but not among the Christians. Implications regarding religious and non-religious terror management strategies are discussed

Evidence for a role of death thought in American attitudes toward symbols of Islam

Four studies were conducted to examine how concerns about mortality contribute to Americans\u27 negative attitudes and behavior toward symbols of Islam. Study 1 found that a subtle reminder of death decreased support for the Ground Zero mosque, and increased the distance from Ground Zero that people felt was appropriate for a mosque to be built. Study 2 found that asking people to think about a mosque being built in their neighborhood increased the accessibility of implicit death thoughts. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 2 and showed that thinking of a church or synagogue did not produce the same effect as thinking of a mosque. Study 4 found that heightened death thought accessibility in response to a mortality salience induction was eliminated when the participants read a newspaper account of the desecration of the Quran

Photo-Cross-Linked Anion Exchange Membranes with Improved Water Management and Conductivity

Robust, cross-linked anion exchange membranes (AEMs) were prepared from solvent-processable polyisoprene-<i>ran</i>-poly­(vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium chloride) (PI-<i>ran</i>-P­[VBTMA]­[Cl]) ionomers via photoinitiated thiol–ene chemistry. Two series of membranes were prepared choosing two dithiol cross-linkers, 1,10-decanedithiol and 2,2′-(ethylenedioxy)­diethanethiol, selected for their different hydrophobicities. A strong correlation was found between the choice of dithiol cross-linker, water uptake, morphology, and the ion conductivity of the membranes. Results were compared with previous findings of thermally cross-linked AEMs from analogous random copolymers. Comparably high chloride ion conductivities were obtained at low to moderate ion exchange capacities (IECs) with significantly low water uptake values. It was shown that by choosing a hydrophilic cross-linker ion cluster formation may be suppressed and ion conduction improved. This study highlights that it is possible to promote ion conductivities for low IEC membranes (<1 mmol/g) by forming well-connected, ion conducting network morphology. This observation paves the way for mechanically robust ion conducting membranes with enhanced conductivities and better water management

A round‐robin approach provides a detailed assessment of biomolecular small‐angle scattering data reproducibility and yields consensus curves for benchmarking

Through an expansive international effort that involved data collection on 12 small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and four small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) instruments, 171 SAXS and 76 SANS measurements for five proteins (ribonuclease A, lysozyme, xylanase, urate oxidase and xylose isomerase) were acquired. From these data, the solvent-subtracted protein scattering profiles were shown to be reproducible, with the caveat that an additive constant adjustment was required to account for small errors in solvent subtraction. Further, the major features of the obtained consensus SAXS data over the q measurement range 0-1 Å-1 are consistent with theoretical prediction. The inherently lower statistical precision for SANS limited the reliably measured q-range to &lt;0.5 Å-1, but within the limits of experimental uncertainties the major features of the consensus SANS data were also consistent with prediction for all five proteins measured in H2O and in D2O. Thus, a foundation set of consensus SAS profiles has been obtained for benchmarking scattering-profile prediction from atomic coordinates. Additionally, two sets of SAXS data measured at different facilities to q &gt; 2.2 Å-1 showed good mutual agreement, affirming that this region has interpretable features for structural modelling. SAS measurements with inline size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) proved to be generally superior for eliminating sample heterogeneity, but with unavoidable sample dilution during column elution, while batch SAS data collected at higher concentrations and for longer times provided superior statistical precision. Careful merging of data measured using inline SEC and batch modes, or low- and high-concentration data from batch measurements, was successful in eliminating small amounts of aggregate or interparticle interference from the scattering while providing improved statistical precision overall for the benchmarking data set