Creative terror management: creativity as a facilitator of cultural exploration after mortality salience

Research indicates that people respond to the elicitation of death thoughts by dogmatically defending their cultural worldviews. The current research examines the potential for conditions of creativity, a construct associated with open-mindedness, to promote a more explorative reaction to the threat of death thoughts. In Studies 1 and 2, thoughts of death or a control topic were activated and then participants engaged in either a creative or a control task. In Study 3, thoughts of death or a control topic were activated and then participants were presented with information suggesting that creativity is or is not culturally valued. After these conditions, social, intellectual, and environmental exploration (Study 1) and cultural worldview exploration (Studies 2 and 3) were measured. Results indicated that both engaging in a creative task and being informed that creativity is culturally valued facilitated exploration in response to thinking about death. Conceptual and applied implications are discussed. Keywords: terror management; mortality salience; creativity; exploration