JOURNAL OF CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY, 15(4), 275-287

Copyright O 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

A Terror Management Perspective

on the Persuasiveness of Fear Appeals
Omar Shehryar
Montana State University

David M. Hunt
University of Wyoming

We use terror management theory (TMT) to show that the nature of the threatening conse-
quences included in fear-appeal communications influences the responses to the messages pro-
moted in such communications. On the basis of differences between death-related conse-
quences and non-death-related consequences, they provide an explanation for maladaptive
responses to fear appeals. Results from 2 experiments indicate that participants who were
highly committed to a worldview of drinking alcohol rejected socially acceptable attitudes to-
ward drinking and driving when the message containing such attitudes was accompanied by a
fear appeal that contained death as a consequence, but not when fear appeals contained the fear
of arrest or serious injury. Participants perceived their level of experienced fear to be the same
across the experimental conditions. The results have implications for considering the qualita-
tive nature of the threatening consequence in fear-appeal research and for using TMT to under-
stand maladaptive responses to fear-appeal communications.

The dominant paradigm in fear-appeal research asserts that
differences in level of fear lead to differences in the persua-
siveness of the communication (Keller & Block, 1996; Rog-
ers, 1985; Witte, 1994). However, researchers have raised
concerns about using level of fear as a stand-alone measure
of the efficacy of fear-appeal communications (LaTour &
Rotfeld, 1997). Results observed in high-fear conditions in
past studies complicate the debate on the level-of-fear con-
struct. Specifically, reacting to a high-fear-arousing commu-
nication, some message recipients exhibit increased levels of
risky behavior, a response opposite to the intent of the mes-
sage (Rippetoe & Rogers, 1987; Rogers, 1983; Witte, 1994).
Evidence that high-fear messages can result in increased
risky behavior poses a serious threat to the efficacy of
fear-appeal communications. Unfortunately, such maladap-
tive responses have not generated sufficient research.
Pechmann, Zhao, Goldberg, and Reibiing (2003) acknowl-
edged that researchers have focused on factors that
strengthen intentions to refrain from risky behavior at the ex-
pense of understanding when fear-arousing communication
Requests for reprints should be sent to Omar Shehryar, College of Busi-
ness, Montana State University, 449 Reid Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717.
E-mail: omar@montana.edu
fails. Witte (1992) suggested that a thorough understanding
of fear appeals can be achieved only by studying cases in
which fear appeals work as well as cases in which fear ap-
peals d o not achieve their desired objectives.
In this research, we address the concern over the unex-
pected failure of high-fear appeals. We draw on terror man-
agement theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon,
1986) to propose that the qualitative nature of a perceived
threat influences the elicited response to the advocated mes-
sage accompanying the threat. We distinguish messages that
use death as a threatening consequence from messages that
use threats of nonfatal consequences. We use this distinction
to explain and predict increases in maladaptive responses to
fear-appeal communications. We suggest that a TMT per-
spective allows for a meaningful comparison of fear-appeal
efficacy on a dimension other than level of fear. Moreover, a
TMT approach augments our current understanding of mal-
adaptive responses to fear-appeal communications. Based on
theoretical distinctions between the psychodynamics evoked
by a fear of death versus those evoked by non-death-related
fears, a TMT perspective helps explain and predict maladap-
tive responses to fear appeals.
Our approach to differentiate fear appeals on the basis of
the nature of the threatening consequence deviates from the
276 SHEHRYAR AND HUNT
dominant paradigm that differentiates fear appeals on the ba-
sis of the level of evoked fear (Block & Keller, 1998;
Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953; Rogers, 1983; Witte, 1992).
However, we demonstrate that this alternative theoretical
perspective has the potential to supplement existing theory
and provide a new direction for research on fear appeals.
BACKGROUND
Fear-appeal communications are predominantly used to curb
undesirable social behaviors such as smoking, drug use, and
drinking and driving. Recently, fear appeals have also been
used to sell insurance, safety devices, over-the-counter diet
programs, and prescription drugs, to name just a few exam-
ples. The sustained interest in the use of fear as a persuasive
tool has fueled substantial research in the area of fear-appeal
communication. Three theories-(a) drive theory (Janis &
Feshbach, 1953), (b) protection motivation theory (PMT;
Rogers, 1983), and (c) parallel response theory (Tanner,
Hunt, & Eppright, 1991)-have guided much of the extant
research on fear appeals. More recently, fear-appeal re-
searchers have favored PMT because of its comprehensive
nature (Pechmann et al., 2003), and in some cases research-
ers have extended PMT to improve its explanatory power
(Block & Keller, 1998; Rogers, 1983; Tanner et al., 1991;
Witte, 1994; Witte & Allen, 2000).
Despite these theoretical advances, the extant research has
been criticized for its inability to explain or predict when fear
appeals will not work (Witte, 1994; Witte & Allen, 2000). In
some fear-appeal studies, message recipients who were ex-
posed to high-fear-arousing messages exhibited more favor-
able attitudes toward the undesirable behaviors, a response
that is opposite to the intent of the message (Amett, 2000).
Keller (1999) and Keller and Block (1996) suggested that
high-fear messages are more likely to be resisted because of
motivated reasoning and message discounting. Although this
explanation accounts for the avoidance of a message, it re-
mains unclear why resistance to high-fear messages is some-
times followed by greater affinity for the behavior that the
message intends to curb. A discussion of TMT offers insight
into this issue.
TMT
TMT is based on the notion that human beings' understand-
ing of their impending death combined with the instinctive
drive for self-preservation engenders a tremendous potential
for terror. Without a mechanism to cognitively manage the
understanding of our own mortality, the resulting terror can
be debilitating. The theory posits that cultural worldviews
are effective in protecting an individual from existential ter-
ror evoked by awareness of one's finitude (Greenberg et a].,
1986). Cultural worldviews are "humanly created and trans-
mitted beliefs about the nature of reality shared by groups of
individuals" (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997,
p. 65).
One important function of cultural worldviews is to con-
tribute to self-esteem by providing the satisfaction of adher-
ing to and upholding the shared values of one's society. In
this manner, cultural worldviews act as anxiety buffers by
weaving a web of order and meaning, by providing standards
of value, and by offering symbolic death transcendence to
those who strive to meet these standards (Greenberg et al.,
1997). Cultural worldviews vary across cultures and individ-
uals and may include religious and social values, political
and nationalistic beliefs, and moral codes (Greenberg et al.,
1997). However, worldviews are not restricted to these major
life domains. Mundane tasks such as evaluating a work of art
or playing a game of tennis do not necessarily constitute
worldviews. However, if a person derives self-esteem from
the belief that he or she is a connoisseur of art or a skilled ten-
nis player, then such beliefs do constitute worldviews.
TMT posits that reminders of mortality increase the need
to defend and strengthen one's worldview to sustain its anxi-
ety-buffering function. Support for this hypothesis exists in
more than 175 empirical studies (Arndt, Solomon, Kasser, &
Sheldon, 2004). Findings show that belief in one's
worldviews is stronger following mortality-salient manipula-
tions than following non-mortality-salient manipulations
(Pyszczynski et al., 1996; Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon,
Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Treatments considered equally
noxious, such as threatening someone with serious injury, or
intense pain, do not evoke mortality salience and do not lead
to a defense of cultural worldviews (Greenberg, Pyszczynski,
Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994). Moreover, the salience of
dental pain, a common threat used in fear-appeal research.
does not replicate the results obtained from the salience of
mortality (McGregor et al., 1998).
TERROR MANAGEMENT
AND FEAR APPEALS
The distinction between individuals' response to the fear of
death versus their response to other noxious outcomes has
important implications for fear-appeal research. If
fear-appeal communications that threaten audiences with
death make mortality salient, then it is likely that message re-
cipients will invest in their worldviews to assuage the fear
aroused by a reminder of their mortality. Past research has
found that the specific worldview used to buffer the fear of
death is the worldview made salient by the context
(Wischusen, Nelson, & Pollini, 2003). According to TMT,
following mortality salience, if a message's advocated
worldview admonishes the worldview held by a message re-
cipient, the message recipient will reject the advocated
worldview and defend the preexisting worldview relevant to
the context. Moreover, a message recipient is likely to defend

his or her worldview, even if it is distorted and delinquent
(Arndt, Goldenberg, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon,
2000).
Those who are highly committed to a worldview, and thus
derive self-esteem from that commitment, are labeled here as
having a high precommitment to that worldview. In contrast,
individuals who do not derive self-esteem from commitment
to a specific worldview are labeled here as having low pre-
commitment to that worldview. We predicted that when indi-
viduals with high precommitment to a worldview are ex-
posed to a message that conflicts with that worldview and
uses the threat of death as a consequence, they will reject the
recommendation of the message. We also predicted that mes-
sage rejection will not be observed when a message using the
threat of death is targeted to individuals with low precom-
mitment to a worldview. Moreover, consistent with past re-
search, we expected that fear appeals that do not make mor-
tality salient will be equally effective for audiences with high
or low precommitment to a specific worldview. Hypothesis 1
is based on this discussion.
HI: The qualitative nature of a threatening consequence
will moderate the relation between degree of pre-
commitment to an undesirable behavior and persua-
siveness of a message such that the following may oc-
cur:
HI a: When mortality is salient, high precommitment to an
undesirable behavior will lead to message rejection,
but low precommitment will lead to message accep-
tance.
Hlb: When mortality is not salient, both high and low
precommitment to an undesirable behavior will lead
to message acceptance.
TMT offers a second distinction between responses to a
fear of death and responses to other types of fears. Spe-
cifically, TMT research outlines two kinds of defensive re-
sponses to mortality salience: (a) proximal and (b) distal
(Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Simon, 1997).
A proximal defense involves suppression or defensive avoid-
ance of a message and thus mirrors fear-control processes
outlined in past fear-appeal research (Witte, 1994; Witte &
Allen, 2000). Fear-control processes involve immediate sup-
pression of a message to avoid the message altogether
(Keller, 1999; Liberman & Chaiken, 1992). A distal defense,
however, is unique to the contemplation of mortality. A distal
defense is used after the proximal defense has been invoked.
TMT suggests that it is the distal defense that encourages ad-
herence to a salient worldview, thereby restoring its anxi-
ety-buffering function and assuaging the fear aroused by
thoughts of one's mortality (Arndt et al., 1997). Analogous to
the distal defense suggested by TMT, fear-appeal research
suggests that once a fear-control process such as suppression
is accounted for, a danger-control process is activated. Dan-
ger-control processes encourage message acceptance in or-
TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY AND FEAR APPEALS 277
der to mitigate the danger posed by an imminent threat
(Witte, 1994). On the surface, a distal defense seems identi-
cal to a danger-control process; however, if one's salient
worldview is distorted, then a distal defense to the fear of
death that includes adherence to such a worldview will likely
lead to message rejection. In contrast, the predicted outcome
from a danger-control process would be message acceptance.
Thus, maladaptive responses that persist even after suppres-
sion has been accounted for pose a challenge to fear-appeal
research.
We suggest that by introducing a delay before measuring
participants' responses to fear appeals, initial suppression
can be mitigated. Past research indicates that two parallel
processes ensue when a thought is suppressed. One process
attempts to suppress the thought, and a second process at-
tempts to remember what needs to be suppressed (Wegner &
Erber, 1992). Hence, a suppressed message is still processed
subconsciously. In one study, Arndt et al. (1997) exposed
participants to a threat but imposed a cognitive load soon af-
ter exposure to the threat. The presence of the cognitive load
prevented suppression and resulted in conscious processing
instead of defensive avoidance. We predicted that by intro-
ducing a delay before measuring the audience's response to
viewing a fear appeal, it is possible to capture the distal re-
sponse to the fear of death. We expected that, if responses are
measured both with and without a delay, a distal defense,
characteristic of terror management functions, will be ob-
served after the delay but will not be observed immediately
following the threat. Such a defense will be evoked only in
response to a fear of death resulting in message rejection by
individuals with a high precommitment to an undesirable be-
havior. In contrast, danger-control processes that encourage
message acceptance will also ensue after a delay but only if
the threatening consequence is of a nonfatal nature. Thus, in-
dividuals with a high precommitment to an undesirable be-
havior are more likely to accept a recommended message
when their response to a nonfatal consequence is measured
after a delay as opposed to immediately following a threat.
Hypotheses 2 and 3 are based on this discussion.
H2: When response to a message accompanying a fear ap-
peal is measured without a delay, individuals with a
high precommitment to an undesirable behavior are
less likely to be persuaded by the message than indi-
viduals with a low precommitment to an undesirable
behavior.
H3: When response to a message accompanying a fear ap-
peal is measured with a delay, individuals with a high
precommitment to an undesirable behavior are more
likely to reject a message if the accompanying fear
appeal is death related than if it is not death related.
In Study 1, we tested HI. In Study 2, we tested H2 and H3.
Together, results from the two experiments provide converg-
ing evidence for the TMT perspective on fear appeals.
278 SHEHRYAR AND HUNT

STUDY 1 use the threat of death as a consequence evoke mortality sa-

lience. TMT researchers have evoked mortality salience
Sample through both conscious and subconscious manipulations. For
instance, Rosenblatt et al. (1989) evoked mortality salience
We tested H1 in a drinking-and-driving context, for several
by having participants write a short essay about their own
reasons. For convenience in regard to data collection, we in-
death. In contrast, Pyszczynski et al. (1996) measured the
tended to recruit college students for our sample. The rele-
mortality salience of pedestrians who had just walked past a
vance of drinking and driving for college-age adults im-
funeral home. Results of a standard measure of mortality sa-
proves the internal validity and the external generalizability
lience indicated that both approaches evoked mortality sa-
of the design. Evidence for relevance of drinking and driving
lience among participants. On the basis of studies that have
to college students comes from several studies that have
evoked mortality salience through normal, everyday remind-
noted the prevalence of alcohol-related problems on college
ers of death (e.g., walking past a funeral home), we expected
campuses (Engs, Diebold, & Hanson, 1996; Wechsler, Kuh,
that threats of death-related consequences in fear-appeal ad-
& Davenport, 1996). Converging evidence from secondary
vertisements also will evoke mortality salience. To verify
data indicates that the highest intoxication rates in fatal
this, we conducted a pretest of the stimuli. Forty-nine under-
crashes in 2003 were recorded for drivers aged 21 to 24
graduate students in a marketing class in a U.S. university
(39%; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
participated in the study for course credit. The average age of
2003). Furthermore, the drinking-and-driving context is es-
the participants was 21 years and 7 months. Seventy-five per-
pecially suitable for research on message rejection because
cent were female.
message rejection is prevalent among young adults (Arnett,
Fear appeals for the pretest consisted of two types of
2000). Studies show that despite being aware of the ill effects
anti-drinking-and-driving ads. Participants were randomly
of excessive alcohol consumption, college-age adults indulge
assigned to the two conditions (mortality salience vs. fear of
in binge drinking (Engs & Hanson, 1988; Substance Abuse
arrest). The ad for the mortality salience condition showed a
and Mental Health Service Administration, 2002; Wechsler,
family around a casket with statistics on drunk driving deaths
Davenport, Dowdall, Moeykens, & Castillo, 1994).
and the persuasive slogan "Don't let this be the occasion for
Because we are studying responses to threatening conse-
your next family gathering: Do not drink and drive." The
quences in the context of worldview defense, it is important to
fear-of-arrest condition showed a person being handcuffed
first establish that drinking alcohol is considered a worldview
by a police officer, and statistics including threats such as at-
among college students. According to TMT, to be considered a
torney fees, license revocation, and fines, along with the
worldview a behavior should be shared, and it should provide
same slogan, presented in the mortality salience condition.
self-esteem to buffer anxiety in the event of areminder of one's
Statistics used in the advertisements contained actual figures
death (Rosenblatt et al., 1989). Past research provides substan-
taken from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administra-
tial evidence that alcohol consumption among college stu-
tion (2003).
dents fulfills both conditions. College students are dispropor-
There were 25 participants in the fear-of-death condition
tionately involved in drinking and, as such, they represent a
and 24 in the fear-of-arrest condition. Each group of partici-
population within which alarge number of people share homo-
pants was brought into a room equipped with an overhead
geneous beliefs regarding alcohol consumption. Wechsler et
projection device used to show the print advertisement. A
al. (1994; Wechsler, Molnar, Davenport, & Baer, Sample
questionnaire titled "Advertising Appeals Survey" was dis-
1999) reported that 44% of college students were classified as
tributed among the participants. Participants were instructed
binge drinkers and that binge drinkers consumed 68% of all al-
to give their opinions on an advertisement projected onto the
cohol consumed by college students. Indeed, a variety of re-
screen. The ad was displayed for 20 sec.
search suggests that college students engage in drinking to en-
To test the notion that mere exposure to ads makes mortal-
hance their self-worth and strengthen their sense of belonging
ity salient, we asked participants to fill out a word fragment
(Glindemann, Geller, & Fortney, 1999; McCormack, Lay-
completion task. This instrument has been used in previous
bold, Dickerson-Nelson, & Budd, 1993; Workman & Beer,
TMT studies to test for mortality salience (Bassili & Smith,
1989). A sample of college students is likely to provide arepre-
1986; Greenberg et al., 1994). The task requires participants
sentative cross-section of levels of precommitment to alcohol
to fill in blanks to complete 25 incomplete words. Five of the
consumption, thereby allowing us to capture a variety of re-
25 word fragments are such that they can be completed by ei-
sponses to different types of threatening consequences. There-
ther death-related words or by neutral words. For example,
fore, using a college student sample in a drinking-and-driving
"d e - -" can be completed as dead, desk, or debt. Similarly
context is both pragmatic and theoretically justified.
"g r a - -" can be completed as grave, grace, or grape, and
"ki - - e d" may be completed as kissed or killed. The two
Pretest
other fragments that could be completed as death-related or
To test TMT hypotheses in a fear-appeal domain, it is impor- neutral words were "bur - - d" and "coff - -." Word frag-
tant to determine whether fear-appeal advertisements that ments that cannot be completed with death-related words

included "t r - -," "-- o k," and "f 1- w - r." The number of
death-related words completed by each participant is
summed, and the means are compared across the experimen-
tal conditions. Higher means suggest greater accessibility of
death-related words and provide evidence for mortality sa-
lience. In the pretest, the mean number of death-related
words completed in the mortality-salience condition was 2.3,
compared with 1.3 for the fear-of-arrest condition. This dif-
ference was significant, t(47) = 2.94, p = .005, providing evi-
dence that a mere 20-sec exposure to an advertisement can
evoke mortality salience.
Experimental Design
After ensuring that mere exposure to an advertisement can
make mortality salient, we tested HI in an experiment in-
volving 178 students enrolled in a U.S. university. The study
had a 4 x 2 between-subjects design and included three types
of fear appeals and a control condition (fear of arrest, fear of
death, fear of serious injury, and control with no fear) and
two levels of precommitment (high and low).
The condition involving fear of serious injury was added
because of a concern regarding the qualitative nature of the
consequences used in the pretest. Death is a physical danger,
whereas arrest, as used in the pretest, is a social threat. Re-
search empirically supports the distinction between social
and physical threats and the responses that each evokes (Ho,
1998). Schoenbachler and Whittler (1996) found that social
threats that warned teenagers of negative consequences of
drug use were more effective than physical threats. Their
findings are consistent with the ordered protection motiva-
tion model (Tanner et al., 1991), which suggests that,
following fear appeals, rather than choosing a response that
minimizes the threat, recipients may choose a suggested al-
ternative that maximizes social acceptance. If this is the case,
then it is no surprise that the threat of arrest, which evokes
embarrassment, will likely lead to greater message accep-
tance than the threat of death. Unless responses to
death-related consequences are established as qualitatively
different from responses to both social consequences and
other physical consequences, we cannot conclusively assert
that death-related consequences are unique in the responses
they evoke. Therefore, to test a purely physical threat we in-
cluded an advertisement involving threat of serious injury.
As a control, we also included a condition involving no threat
at all. In the serious-injury advertisement, a young man was
shown in a wheelchair with statistics regarding serious inju-
ries due to drinking and driving. The control condition fea-
tured an advertisement for J e l l - 0 8 brand dessert. The adver-
tisements for fear of death and fear of arrest were the same as
those used in the pretest.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of four
fear-appeal conditions. Each participant was given a booklet
containing dependent measures, control measures, and the
stimuli. The booklet included distraction tasks and filler
TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY AND FEAR APPEALS 279
measures designed to disguise the intent of the questionnaire
and reduce potential demand effects. The main stimulus was
one of the anti-drinking-and-driving advertisements or the
Jell-0 advertisement. It was preceded by a page from a life-
style and entertainment magazine as well as a full-page tiller
advertisement for a hybrid gasoline4ectric automobile. The
questionnaire measured level of fear arousal, perceived sus-
ceptibility to the threat, mortality salience evoked by the
stimuli, acceptance or rejection of the promoted attitude to-
ward drinking and driving, and demographic variables.
Manipulation Check: Mortality Salience
To assess mortality salience and distinguish it from other nox-
ious fears, we had participants fill out the word fragment
completion task used in the pretest. The mean number of
death-related words was calculated and compared across the
experimental conditions. Higher accessibility of death-related
words provides evidence for mortality salience.
Independent Variable:
Precommitment to Drinking
To measure precommitment to drinking alcohol, we asked
participants to complete a scale adapted from Neese and Tay-
lor (1994). Participants were asked to indicate their agree-
ment on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to
7 (strongly agree; a = .80) with such items as "Others view
me favorably because I drink alcohol," "When I have a cou-
ple of drinks with my friends, I feel that I can express the real
me," "I like being known as a person who drinks alcohol," "I
like being known as a person who has a high tolerance for al-
cohol,'' and "Drinking alcohol is an important part of who I
am." To reduce potential demand effects, we collected data
on precommitment to drinking alcohol 1 month before the
main data collection in the guise of a personality survey. Two
hundred participants completed this stage. Because of attri-
tion 178 participants took part in the main study. There were
101 women (56.7%) in the final sample. The average age of
the participants was 22.0 years (SD = 2.23).
Dependent Variable: Message
Acceptance and Rejection
Participants rated their agreement with the following items
on 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
(strongly agree; reverse coded; a = 3 5 ) to assess their atti-
tudes toward drinking and driving: "I think more time and ef-
fort should be spent patrolling for drunk drivers," "I think
drunk driving is a very serious problem," "I think people who
drink and drive have very low moral standards," "I think pen-
alties for drunk driving should be stiffened," and "I think
drunk driving is made out to be a bigger problem than it is."
The advocated message in both conditions recommended
that participants not drink and drive. Thus, a high score on the
280 SHEHRYAR AND HUNT
scale indicates that participants agreed with the recommen-
dation, resulting in message acceptance.
Confound Check
To support our argument that the nature of the threatening
consequence contained in a fear-arousing message influ-
ences the elicited response to that message, it is necessary to
account for the level of fear evoked by the four stimulus ads.
We measured level of fear using adjectives describing fearful
states. The adjectives were selected from the Positive and
Negative Affect Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988), and participants were instructed to rate their feelings
directly in response to the stimulus advertisements. The
scales included such adjectives as frightened, interested, in-
spired, excited, and nervous, among others and were rated on
a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
(strongly agree). Several past studies have used identical or
similar adjectives when measuring fear arousal (see Block &
Keller, 1998; Gleicher & Petty, 1992; Keller & Block, 1996;
Maddux & Rogers, 1983). The complete Positive and Nega-
tive Affect Schedule consists of 22 positive and negative
states. We used principal-component analysis to arrive at a
factor labeled Level of Fear, which included the affective
states labeled distressed, frightened, afraid, upset, anxious,
scared, and nervous ( a = 39).
A second potential confound could arise if participants do
not consider themselves susceptible to the consequences de-
picted in the stimulus advertisements. In fact, one explana-
tion for message rejection is that young adults do not con-
sider themselves vulnerable to the consequences depicted in
fear-arousing communications (Pechmann & Shih, 1999). If,
despite random assignment, participants are not homoge-
neous in terms of perceived susceptibility to threat, then
highly susceptible participants could exhibit greater message
acceptance, and vice versa. To account for this, we measured
participants' perceived susceptibility to the depicted threat
with the following two questions: "How likely is it that you
will be involved in a drunk driving accident that is your
fault?'and "How likely is it that you could be involved in an
alcohol-related traffic violation?" The responses were scored
on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (impossible), 2 (highly un-
likely), 3 (unlikely), 4 (likely), 5 (highly likely), to 6 (inevita-
ble; a = 36).
Procedure
Participants were instructed to look through the booklet as
they would normally look through a magazine. We screened
all filler material and found no content that could potentially
confound the study. Participants answered questions about
the filler advertisement for the hybrid automobile as well as
the issue of protecting the environment. A page containing
the fear appeal or Jell-0 advertisement followed these ques-
tions. Immediately following the main stimulus, participants
were given a word search task, to introduce a time delay be-
tween the stimulus and participants' responses. By
introducing a time delay after message exposure we at-
tempted to rule out immediate suppression or defensive
avoidance that may otherwise influence the results. The word
search task itself consisted of a search for neutral words re-
lated to television viewing, such as soap opera, actor, and
drama. Next, participants completed the word fragment
completion task and the items to measure level of fear and an-
swered questions measuring perceived susceptibility to
threat and message acceptance or rejection. Finally, partici-
pants recorded their thoughts on the purpose of the study.
None of the participants were able to guess the intent of the
study.
Analysis and Results
Manipulation check. To test whether the advertise-
ment that threatened participants with death as a conse-
quence made mortality salient, it is important to determine
whether participants in the mortality-salient condition com-
pleted more death-related words on the word fragment com-
pletion task than participants in the other conditions. A
one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the ef-
fect of nature of threatening consequence was significant,
F(3, 177) = 31.8, p < ,001. A post hoc comparison with
Bonferroni correction indicated that participants who viewed
the funeral advertisement completed more death-related
word fragments than participants in any other condition.
Means are as follows: death, M = 2.45 (SD = 0.59); serious
injury, M = 1.22 (SD = 0.94); arrest, M = 1.35 (SD = 0.70);
and control, M = 0.95 (SD = 0.81). All paired comparisons
testing the difference in mean numbers of death-related
words completed in the mortality-salient condition versus the
other conditions were statistically significant (p < .001). The
same post hoc Bonferroni test showed that paired compari-
sons testing the difference in numbers of death-related words
among the other three conditions were not significantly dif-
ferent at p < . l . Thus, the mortality-salience manipulation
was successful. We used a median split to create the low and
high conditions for precommitment to consuming alcohol
(median value of 3.0 on a 7-point scale; M = 2.57, minimum
= 1.O, maximum = 6.6).
Confound check. It is critical to test for any difference
in level of fear between the mortality-salience condition and
the other three conditions. Unless the level of fear is similar,
results cannot be confidently attributed to the nature of
threatening consequences in the advertisement. Means for
level of fear are as follows: death, M = 3.95 (SD = 1.42); seri-
ous injury, M = 3.62 (SD = 1.77); and arrest, M = 3.27 (SD =
1.41). An ANOVA comparing the participants' self-rated
level of fear across the three fear appeals was not significant,
F(2, 133) = 2.14. Planned contrasts confirmed that there was
no significant difference in participants' self-rated level of

fear between either the fear-of-death and fear-of-arrest
conditions, t(86) = 1.18, ns, or the fear-of-death and
fear-of-serious-injury conditions, t(84) < 1, ns. Thus, level of
fear can be ruled out as a potential confound. It must be noted
that another ANOVA and a post hoc Scheffk test across all
four conditions, including the control condition, showed that
the mean level of fear in the control condition was signifi-
cantly different from the levels of fear in the three experimen-
tal conditions, F(3, 171) = 19.06, p < .001 (control: M = 1.72,
SD = 0.7 1). This significant difference is to be expected be-
cause the control advertisement is not a fear-arousing adver-
tisement. This further confirms that, unlike a neutral adver-
tisement, all fear appeals indeed aroused fear among
participants.
Test of hypothesis. We predicted that message accep-
tance or rejection would be influenced by an interaction be-
tween type of threat and precommitment. We conducted an
ANOVA with type of threat and precommitment as the two
between-subjects factors and message acceptance or rejec-
tion as the dependent variable. The omnibus F test was sig-
nificant, F(7, 178) = 6.43, p < .001. The means are presented
in Figure 1.
The predicted interaction between type of threat and
precommitment was statistically significant, F(3, 178) =
7 . 4 3 , ~< .001. One can observe in Figure 1 that when mortal-
ity was salient, participants who had high precommitment re-
jected the message, whereas participants who had low
precommitment accepted the message. Planned contrasts in-
dicated that the difference between the two groups was statis-
tically significant (Ms = 4.01 vs. 5.23), t(42) = 5 . 0 2 , <
~ .001.
Planned contrasts also indicated that high precommitment
Arrest Death Injury Control
Type of Threat
El Low Pre-Commitment H High Pre-Commitment
FIGURE 1 Message acceptance or rejection as a function of type
of threat and precommitment to drinking alcohol.
TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY AND FEAR APPEALS 281
alone did not influence responses because participants with
high precommitment were not different from participants
with low precommitment in message acceptance or rejection
in either the serious injury condition (Ms = 5.00 vs. 5.16),
t(44) < 1, ns, or the arrest condition (Ms = 5.19 vs. 5.13),
t(46) < 1, ns. As predicted, message rejection occurred only
when fear of death was the threatening consequence and a
worldview was challenged, but not when a qualitatively dif-
ferent threat, the threat of arrest or serious injury, was used. It
is worth noting that a planned contrast indicated that in the
control condition there was a significant difference in mes-
sage acceptance between high- and low-precommitment par-
ticipants (Ms = 4.79 vs. 5.22), t(38) = 1.94, p = ,054. How-
ever, compared with the mean for message acceptance for
high-precommitment participants in the arrest (M = 5.19) and
serious injury (M = 5.00) conditions, the difference was not
significant, t(168) < 1. This supports the finding that adher-
ence to a worldview occurred only when mortality was made
salient for participants with a high precommitment to that
worldview. These results provide support for H 1.
Perceived susceptibility and message acceptance or
rejection. To study the role of perceived susceptibility to a
threatening consequence, we substituted precommitment to
drinking with perceived susceptibility as an independent
variable and conducted another ANOVA with type of threat
as the other independent variable and message acceptance or
rejection as the dependent variable. This analysis can help
determine whether precommitment provides a vantage point
that is different than one offered by perceived susceptibility.
The omnibus F test was not significant, F(7, 178) = 1.13. The
main effect of susceptibility on message acceptance or rejec-
tion also was not significant, F(1, 177) < 1. Finally, the inter-
action between perceived susceptibility and type of fear also
did not achieve statistical significance, F(3, 177) < 1. Over-
all, perceived susceptibility did not affect persuasion. This
suggests that when studying responses to fear appeals, pre-
commitment to an undesirable behavior manifests itself dif-
ferently than perceived susceptibility to a threat. From a
TMT perspective, precommitment to a behavior is a gauge of
self-esteem that accrues when one engages in that behavior
under the duress of an imminent threat of death. In contrast,
susceptibility to a threat neither offers death transcendence
nor protects one from the lingering anxiety of annihilation.
Hence, it is important to distinguish between the role of sus-
ceptibility and precommitment and to recognize the signifi-
cance of precommitment when extending TMT into the
fear-appeal domain.
Discussion
We proposed that the qualitative nature of the threatening
consequence of a fear-appeal message influences the elicited
response to that message. We used TMT to explain message
rejection and predicted that message rejection would be ob-
served if the threat consisted of death as a consequence but
not if the threat consisted of a qualitatively different type of
consequence, such as physical harm or social embarrass-
ment. Finally, we proposed that it is possible to predict mes-
sage rejection by using the target audience's level of
precommitment to a specific worldview as a segmentation
variable. We predicted that death-related fear appeals would
be persuasive only when precommitment to consuming alco-
hol is low, whereas non-death-related fear appeals would be
equally persuasive when precommitment is low or high. Our
data support this hypothesis.
In the control condition, high-precommitment partici-
pants exhibited significantly lower message acceptance than
did low-precommitment participants. This suggests that in
the absence of any threat, people with a greater affinity for an
undesirable behavior are predisposed to weaker intentions of
giving up that behavior. This finding is consistent with results
of past research (Keller, 1999). However, in our study we
found that even when individuals are highly precommitted to
behaviors that are socially undesirable, compliance with an
advocated message can occur if the threatening conse-
quences are nonfatal. It is this finding that differentiates our
research from past research on fear appeals. We discuss this
finding in detail next, and we explain when message rejection
may occur by showing that threat of fatality will elicit stron-
ger adherence to undesirable behaviors among audience
members who derive self-esteem from the focal behavior.
Nature of fear versus level of fear. According to TMT,
reminders of mortality elicit different responses than remind-
ers of equally noxious but non-death-related consequences.
It may be argued that death is the ultimate consequence and is
inherently more fear arousing than any other threat. How-
ever, getting arrested and being put in jail for drinking and
driving poses a significant threat because of potentially em-
barrassing and troublesome consequences. In fact, fear of ar-
rest may be a more realistic threat to young adults than fear of
death because young adults consider themselves invulnera-
ble to potential physical harm (Arnett, 2000; Pechmann &
Shih, 1999). The fact that we did not find any differences in
level of fear across the three types of threat supports this no-
tion and suggests that young adults felt equally threatened by
all three consequences. However, the nature of the threat was
different because participants completed more death-related
words in the mortality-salience condition than in all other
conditions.
Mortality salience and message rejection. We pre-
dicted and found that participants rejected the persuasive
message when death was the threatening consequence but
not when arrest or physical harm constituted the threat. This
finding has implications for classification of fear appeals
based on the purpose of the communication. Specifically, the
nature of the threatening consequence is critical to consider
depending on whether the intent of the message is behavior
prevention (i.e., target recipients are not a priori committed to
the focal behavior) or behavior cessation (i.e., target recipi-
ents are already committed to the focal behavior). It should
be noted that a classification of individuals based on our no-
tion of precommitment to a self-esteem-enhancing behavior
is essentially different than a classification based on behav-
ioral labels such as unconverted and adherents as defined by
Keller (1999). According to Keller, the unconverted are those
who partake in the undesirable behavior. The unconverted are
persuaded by low-fear-arousing messages because they tend
not to discount such messages, whereas they suppress
high-fear-arousing messages (Keller, 1999; Liberman &
Chaiken, 1992). We found that if initial suppression is ac-
counted for by a delay, then unconverted individuals indeed
accept fear-arousing messages. However, the converted-un-
converted dichotomy does not explain why after a delay only
mortality salience results in message rejection. This result is
consistent with the TMT explanation that precommitment to
a worldview does not lead to worldview defense unless mor-
tality is made salient.
Study 1 was designed to test the central hypothesis that the
qualitative nature of the fear appeals influences the responses
they evoke among audiences with low and high precom-
mitment to an undesirable behavior. In Study 2 we addressed
the notion that responses measured with a delay are different
than responses measured without a delay. Testing audience
response both with and without a delay can provide converg-
ing evidence for the results of Study 1 and test the premise
that the psychodynamics of coping with the fear of death are
different than those of coping with non-death-related fears.
In Study 1, we used the word completion task as a manip-
ulation check for mortality salience. It is probable that while
working on this task, participants in the experimental condi-
tions, including the mortality-salient condition, may fill out
death-related words by chance alone and in doing so evoke
mortality salience. To rule out this potential confound, par-
ticipants' responses must also be recorded without the
death-related word completion task. The design of Study 2
addressed this concern.
STUDY 2
Experimental Design
The second study involved 240 undergraduate students en-
rolled in business courses in a U.S. university. Similar to the
method adopted in Study 1, precommitment to consuming al-
cohol as a source of self-esteem was measured l month be-
fore the main study. Because of attrition, 236 participants re-
mained in the main study. The measures and stimuli were
identical to the ones used in Study 1, with the exception of
two notable changes. First, to address the issue of immediate
suppression following a threat, the Study 1 design was sup-
plemented with a third factor, called delay between stimulus
and response (delay), with two levels: (a) delay and (b) no
delay. Thus, the study had a 4 x 2 x 2 between-subjects de-
sign with four types of advertisements, including three types
of threat and a Jell-0 advertisement as control, two levels of
precommitment, and two levels of delay. To manipulate the
delay factor, the neutral word search task requiring a televi-
sion-related word search was retained in the delay condition
but removed from the no-delay condition.
Analysis and Results
Confound check. We conducted an ANOVA to test
whether there were any significant differences in the level of
fear perceived across the four types of advertisements and the
delay conditions. A Nature of Threat x Delay interaction,
with level of fear as the dependent variable, was not signifi-
cant, F(3,236) = 1.52. The main effect of delay was not sig-
nificant either, F(1, 236) < 1. Therefore, the main effect of
type of fear was analyzed next. Results of an ANOVA indi-
cated that there was a significant difference in the level of
fear experienced across the conditions, F(3,236) = 92.40, p <
,001. A post hoc test with Bonferroni correction indicated
that the level of fear experienced in the control condition was
significantly lower than that experienced across the other
conditions. Because a fear appeal was not used in the control
condition, this result is expected. The paired comparisons for
the level of fear between the control condition and each of the
three fear-appeal conditions were statistically significant O,<
.001). More important, paired comparisons indicated no sig-
nificant difference in the self-reported level of experienced
fear among participants exposed to the death, serious injury,
and arrest advertisements. Means for level of fear are as fol-
lows: death, M = 3.99 (SD = 1.34); serious injury, M = 4.19
(SD = 1.36); arrest, M = 4.21 (SD = 1.29); and control, M =
1.19 (SD = 0.28). Thus, level of fear can be ruled out as a po-
tential confound.
Test of hypotheses. We conducted an ANOVA with
type of threat, precommitment, and delay as the three be-
tween-subjects factors and message acceptance or rejection
as the dependent variable. The omnibus F test was signifi-
cant, F(15, 237) = 6.08, p < ,001. The three-way interaction
among the factors was statistically significant, F(3, 237) =
2.66, p < .05. A two-way interaction between nature of fear
and delay also was statistically significant, F(3, 237) = 3.12,
p < .05. We predicted in H2 that if an audience's responses to
fear appeals are measured without a delay, then participants
with a high precommitment to an undesirable behavior are
likely to exhibit lower levels of persuasion than those with a
low precommitment to an undesirable behavior. A planned
contrast in the no-delay condition indicated that there was a
marginally significant difference in message acceptance or
rejection between the low- and high-precommitment condi-
tions across the three fear appeals, F(1,221) = 2 . 8 7 , =
~ .092.
To pinpoint the source of this effect, we carried out specific
pairwise comparisons. Painvise comparisons indicated that
in the no-delay condition there was a significant difference in
persuasion between high- and low-precommitment partici-
pants in the control, arrest, and serious injury conditions but
not in the death condition; high-precommitment participants
had significantly lower message acceptance than low-pre-
commitment participants in the control condition, t(28) =
3.46,~ < .05 (Ms = 5.78 for low precommitment and 4.85 for
high precommitment); the fear-of-arrest condition, t(28) =
2.00, p = .054 (Ms = 5.57 for low precommitment and 4.96
for high precomrnitment); and the serious-injury condition,
t(34) = 2.75, p = .006 (Ms = 5.20 for low precommitment and
4.57 for high precommitment). For the threat of death, how-
ever, when measured in the no-delay condition, there was no
significant difference in message acceptance or rejection be-
tween participants with high and low precommitment to con-
suming alcohol, t(22) < 1, ns (Ms = 5.23 for low pre-
commitment and 4.93 for high precommitment). This is
counter to the expectation that respondents with high pre-
commitment will show less persuasion compared with the re-
spondents with low precommitment. However, a post hoc
contrast showed that when means of message acceptance
were compared only among the high-precommitment partici-
pants, the mean in the mortality-salience condition was not
significantly different than the means in the other three con-
ditions, t(l68) < 1, ns. Thus, if suppression occurred immedi-
ately after a delay, all respondents with high precommitment
toward drinking alcohol expressed it at a statistically similar
level across the three types of fear appeals. Overall, as ex-
pected, in the no-delay condition the means for persuasion in
the high precommitment conditions were lower than the
means for persuasion in the low precommitment conditions,
indicating that participants with high precommitment were
more likely to suppress the message than were those with low
precommitment. The means are presented in Figure 2.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that when responses are measured
with a delay a distal response will be evoked and the message
will be rejected by participants with high precommitment,
but only when mortality is made salient. In contrast, when the
threat is not death related and responses are measured with a
delay, a danger-control mechanism will be engaged and the
message will be accepted even if the respondents have high
precommitment to the undesirable behavior. To test H3, we
compared the means for message acceptance or rejection for
respondents with high precommitment to drinking alcohol
between the delay and no-delay conditions across the three
fear appeals. Planned contrasts indicated that for
high-precommitment participants in the arrest condition
there was no significant difference in message acceptance
between the delay and no-delay condition, t(30) < 1. How-
ever, the means for message acceptance or rejection were in a
direction consistent with the prediction in H3. When mes-
sage acceptance or rejection was measured with a delay, the
mean was higher than in the no-delay condition (arrest: Ms =
5.22 in the delay condition vs. 4.96 in the no-delay condi-
284 SHEHRYAR AND HUNT
Arrest Death Injury Control
Type of Threat
Low Pre-Commitment W High Pre-Commitment
FIGURE 2 Message acceptance or rejection as a function of type
of threat and precommitment to drinking alcohol in the no-delay
condition.
tion). A similar planned contrast for the serious-injury condi-
tion revealed that message acceptance for high-precom-
mitment respondents was significantly higher in the delay
condition than the no-delay condition, t(35) = 3.42, p < .001.
The mean for message acceptance was higher when mea-
sured with a delay, indicating that danger-control processes
led to message acceptance after initial suppression was ac-
counted for (serious injury: Ms = 5.33 in the delay condition
vs. 4.57 in the no-delay condition). Finally, a planned con-
trast within the death condition revealed a significant differ-
ence in persuasion between high-precommitment partici-
pants in the delay and no-delay conditions, t(22)= -2.79, p =
.005. Contrary to the arrest condition and the serious-injury
condition, the direction of the mean difference indicated that
the message was rejected in the delay condition, because the
mean was significantly lower than the mean in the no-delay
condition (death: Ms = 4.19 in the delay condition vs. 4.93 in
the no-delay condition). This finding underscores the differ-
ence in cognitive responses to qualitatively different threats.
Taken together, results from the tests of H2 and H3 indicate
that, following fear appeals, the message's recommendation
is suppressed across all types of fears. However, after a delay,
non-death-related fear appeals result in compliance with the
message even for participants with high precommitment. On
the other hand, a fear appeal that makes mortality salient re-
sults in the activation of a distal defense that leads to message
rejection and continued maladaptive behavior. The means for
message acceptance for high-precommitment participants
across the four types of advertisements and the two levels of
delay are presented in Figure 3.
Arrest Death Injury Control
Type of Threat
Delay W No Delay
FIGURE 3 Message acceptance or rejection for high-precom-
~nitmentrespondents as a function of type of threat and delay.
Discussion
We conducted Study 2 to provide converging evidence that,
unlike non-death-related threats, the threat of death evokes
unique responses after accounting for initial suppression. In
the no-delay condition, suppression of the message did
indeed occur. This finding validates the usefulness of the de-
lay task used in Study 1 to contain initial suppression. As
expected, when responses were measured after a delay, par-
ticipants with high precommitment rejected the message fol-
lowing a mortality-salient fear appeal. This finding is charac-
teristic of the "distal defense" mechanism espoused by TMT.
Moreover, message acceptance following a threat of nonfatal
consequences also provides evidence that a danger-control
mechanism yields a different response than distal defense
and that the nature of the threatening consequence is respon-
sible for this difference. The addition of the delay condition
in Study 2 allowed for a comparison between delay and
no-delay conditions, thereby providing converging evidence
for the presence of unique responses to qualitatively different
threats. Finally, in Study 2 we successfully replicated the re-
sults of Study 1 without any potential confounding effects of
the manipulation check involving the death-related word
completion task, which was excluded.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
We found that messages accompanying fear appeals com-
posed of threats that make mortality salient elicit unique
responses among individuals who derive self-esteem from

participating in the targeted behavior. Specifically, when
threatened with death as a consequence, individuals who re-
ported deriving self-esteem from drinking alcohol espoused
more maladaptive responses than individuals who did not re-
port deriving self-esteem from drinking alcohol. Our results
suggest that differentiating fear appeals that use the threat of
death as a consequence from those that do not is important
for understanding the efficacy of fear-appeal communication
and predicting when fear appeals do not work. The extant re-
search on the efficacy of fear appeals has explored the per-
suasiveness of fear-appeal communications in response to
manipulations of the level of fear evoked by a message. Al-
though recent evidence suggests that high-fear appeals are
more effective than low-fear appeals at persuading audiences
(Witte & Allen, 2000), research has not shown with certainty
what constitutes a high-fear appeal and what differentiates a
high-fear appeal from a moderate-fear appeal (Keller, 1999).
This has led researchers to suggest that levels of fear aroused
in the laboratory may not mimic levels of fear experienced in
real life (Keller, 1999). Moreover, LaTour and Rotfeld (1997)
lamented that level of fear is a loosely defined concept, and
they called it "intuitive" and "ad hoc" (p. 46). We found dif-
ferences in fear appeal persuasiveness by holding constant
the level of fear and manipulating the mortality salience
evoked by an advertisement. Thus, we provide an alternative
approach that avoids relying solely on level of fear as a deter-
minant of the persuasiveness of fear appeals.
Although our research was designed primarily to supple-
ment extant fear appeal research, we also make a contribution
to TMT. In a TMT domain, Taubman Ben-Ari, Florian, and
Mikulincer (1999) demonstrated that mortality salience led
to increased reckless driving among participants who indi-
cated that driving was highly relevant to their self-esteem but
not among participants who reported that driving was less
relevant to their self-esteem. Because Taubman Ben-Ari et al.
studied risky behaviors exclusively in a TMT context, they
did not compare salience of death-related consequences to
non-death-related consequences. In our research, we extend
their work into the fear-appeal domain and explicitly com-
pared qualitatively different types of threatening conse-
quences used in fear appeals. In so doing, we examine a spe-
cific worldview heretofore unstudied in the TMT domain and
offer validation for the significance of relatively distorted be-
liefs in the constitution of cultural worldviews. The issue of
distorted worldviews is especially relevant to youth. For
youth, the fear aroused by an advertisement's threatening
consequences may be less threatening than the fear of follow-
ing the message's recommendations. Tf their worldview is
distorted, the consequence of following the advertisement's
recommendation may include being cast out of a network of
peers that offers support and lends meaning to their exis-
tence. As we found in our study, defense of worldviews oc-
curs even if worldviews are distorted.
Past research explains why high fear is suppressed in reac-
tion to fear appeals. For instance, Keller and Block (1996)
TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY AND FEAR APPEALS 285
found that when high-fear messages are ineffective it is be-
cause too much elaboration on the harmful consequences
interferes with processing of the recommended change in be-
havior. Similarly, Keller (1999) found that people who did
not already follow a message's advocated recommendation
were more likely to discount the message when the level of
fear was high than when the level of fear was low. These stud-
ies provide important insights into the reason why different
levels of fear result in differing degrees of persuasion. How-
ever, they do not explain why fear-appeal communications
sometimes elicit maladaptive responses. Based on the unique
psychodynamics evoked by the fear of death, the TMT per-
spective adopted in this study fills this gap by offering an a
priori explanation for when fear-appeal messages may pro-
duce message rejection. Thus, it is likely that individuals who
reject messages may accept them after an initial delay. How-
ever, if the message makes mortality salient, then a delay may
not render the message effective.
Previous studies have demonstrated that a recipient's per-
ceived susceptibility to a threatening consequence influences
the persuasiveness of the message. In our research, we ac-
count for susceptibility to threat. Our results indicate that
susceptibility is conceptually different from commitment to a
worldview. The results provide empirical support for a
TMT-based view suggesting that the differences observed in
level of persuasion can be attributed to cognitive mechanisms
activated by defense of one's worldview in the wake of mor-
tality salience. Current theoretical approaches suggest exam-
ining fear-appeal efficacy along dimensions of level of fear
and converted versus unconverted recipients. Our results sug-
gest that researchers should add to that list the dimension of
nature of the threatening consequence and distinguish be-
tween advertisements that evoke mortality salience and those
that do not.
LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Like all scientific research, our study has limitations. Be-
cause of the sensitive nature of drinking and driving, partici-
pants who expressed low precommitment may be prone to
expressing inflated estimates of persuasion. By temporally
separating the measurement of precommitment from the
measurement of the study's main variables, we attempted to
reduce the influence of this potential bias. Nevertheless, our
results should be interpreted with this in mind.
Alcohol consumption, for some individuals, is an addic-
tive behavior. Our study did not account for the influence of
alcohol addiction. The relation of precommitment to an ad-
dictive behavior is less clear. For instance, an alcoholic per-
son likely does not derive self-esteem from her or his addic-
tion. In fact, shame inflicted by family and friends may erode
the self-esteem of an addict. Given the common use of fear
appeals to curb addictive behaviors, it would be interesting to
explore which worldview would be used by addicts as an
anxiety buffer to assuage the fear of death aroused by adver-
tisements. It seems that unless the advocated message prom-
ises replacing the delinquent worldview with one that safe-
guards addicts equally well, converting addicts will be more
challenging than converting those with high precommitment
alone. We concur with Maheswaran and Agrawal's (2004)
reasoning that the interaction of worldview defense and striv-
ing for self-esteem may invoke conflicting motivations in
certain situations. Future research can integrate dual-process
models of persuasion with TMT to better understand phe-
nomena in which conflicting motivations underlie behavioral
outcomes.
Consumer research should also study mortality-salience
issues outside of a fear-appeal domain. Many advertisements
that do not follow the traditional fear-appeal format of pre-
senting harmful consequences and offering a solution use
themes of death in their messages. Often, themes of death are
combined with humor. A TMT perspective may offer better
insight into the attitudinal influence of evoking mortality sa-
lience in advertisements that incorporate themes other than
fear. Moreover, everyday reminders of death are virtually un-
avoidable in news and entertainment media. Our study offers
a perspective through which to explore how consumers are
influenced by such incidental reminders of their mortality.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Jamie Arndt for his help with instrument develop-
ment and for his valuable comments on an earlier version of
this article. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers and
the associate editor for their constructive comments and
guidance. Both authors contributed equally to the study.
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Received: July 1 I , 2004
Accepted: April 17,2005