A Study On Defense Mechanisms In Death-prominent Situations: The Moderating Role Of Self-esteem And Pathological Narcissis

Mortality salience(MS)is a research paradigm that highlights the threat of death and induces potential death terror by reminding individuals of death-related information.Previous research has suggested that after MS,individuals use psychological resources to defend against the threat of death,which is manifested as two defense mechanisms:worldview defense and self-esteem striving.However,previous studies on defense mechanisms under MS have focused on Western samples and their cultural backgrounds,with a lack of relevant research and discussion in China.Additionally,previous research has suggested that self-esteem has a broad regulating effect on psychological defense after MS,but there is little discussion about the impact of pathological narcissism on individual defense responses.In fact,the concept of pathological narcissism or narcissism is closely associated with the concept of selfesteem.More importantly,pathological narcissism not only reflects a maladaptive coping strategy commonly used by individuals in the face of threat,but is also often believed to be associated with death anxiety/fear in psychotherapy.Therefore,this study examines worldview defense and self-esteem striving after MS among Chinese samples and their cultural background,and examines the moderating effects of self-esteem and pathological narcissism on these two defense mechanisms.This study fills the research gap in the current research of MS and its defense mechanisms by examining the impact of pathological narcissism.Meanwhile,this study has reference value for future research and theoretical development in academia,by exploring these defense mechanisms in the context of Chinese culture.This study focuses on Chinese university students as research subjects.Firstly,Study 1(n=103)revised the Chinese version of The Transgress Evaluation Scale(Florian&Mikulincer,1997),which measures worldview defense.Secondly,Study 2(n=156)and Study 3(n=129)adopted an inter-subject design and used the mortality salience research paradigm to respectively investigate the worldview defense and selfesteem striving of participants under MS,and to test the moderating effects of selfesteem and pathological narcissism on these two defense mechanisms.Worldview defense in this study is measured using the revised Chinese version of The Transgress Evaluation Scale from Study 1,and self-esteem striving is measured by the degree of identification of an individual with a positive personality description(Dechesne et al.,2003).Self-esteem is measured using the Self-Esteem Scale(Wang Xiangdong et al.,1999),and pathological narcissism is measured using the Pathological Narcissism Inventory(You et al.,2013).This study hypothesizes that participants will exhibit enhanced worldview defense and self-esteem striving under MS,and that their selfesteem levels have a negative moderating effect on both defense mechanisms,while their pathological narcissism levels have a positive moderating effect.The results of this study indicate that:(1)individuals display both worldview defense and self-esteem seeking when facing death threat;(2)self-esteem does not have an impact on individual defensive responses to death threat;(3)the narcissistic vulnerability aspect of pathological narcissism affects individuals response to death threat,with individuals who have high levels of narcissistic vulnerability showing stable high defensive responses;(4)MS has affect-effects,meaning that it can elicit subsequent emotional reaction changes,and narcissistic vulnerability sometimes plays a moderating effect in this process.