>
> A grudge match between humanity and death -- who wins?
>
> February 28th, 2011 in Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
>
> Death can be terrifying. Recognizing that death is inescapable and
> unpredictable makes us incredibly vulnerable, and can invoke feelings of
> anxiety, hatred and fear. But new research by George Mason University
> psychology professor Todd Kashdan shows that being a mindful person not only
> makes you generally more tolerant and less defensive, but it can also
> actually neutralize fears of dying and death.
>
> "Mindfulness is being open, receptive, and attentive to whatever is unfolding
> in the present moment," says Kashdan. In his latest research, Kashdan and his
> colleagues wanted to find out if mindful people had different attitudes about
> death and dying.
>
> "Generally, when reminded of our mortality, we are extremely defensive. Like
> little kids who nearly suffocate under blanket protection to fend off the
> monster in the closet, the first thing we try to do is purge any
> death-related thoughts or feelings from our mind," says Kashdan.
>
> "On the fringes of this conscious awareness, we try another attempt to ward
> off death anxiety. We violently defend beliefs and practices that provide a
> sense of stability and meaning in our lives."
>
> Kashdan says this practice often has an ugly side—intolerance and abuse.
> "When people are reminded that death is impending, their racist tendencies
> increase," he says. In a series of experiments conducted by the University of
> Missouri-Columbia, for example, white people asked to read about a crime
> committed by another person give harsher penalties for black compared with
> white defendants after being reminded of their mortality.
>
> Kasdan wondered what might prevent these defensive, intolerant reactions from
> occurring. In a recent study published in the Journal of Personality and
> Social Psychology, he and his colleagues looked at what might happen when
> mindfulness and the terror of death collide.
>
> "A grudge match between humanity and death," says Kashdan.
>
> If mindful people are more willing to explore whatever happens in the
> present, even if it uncomfortable, will they show less defensiveness when
> their sense of self is threatened by a confrontation with their own mortality?
>
> Based on the results of 7 different experiments, the answer appears to be
> yes. When reminded about their death and asked to write about what will
> happen when their bodies decompose (in grisly detail), less mindful people
> showed an intense dislike for foreigners that mention what's wrong with the
> United States (pro-U.S. bias), greater prejudice against black managers who
> discriminated against a white employee in a promotion decision (pro-white
> bias), and harsher penalties for social transgressions such as prostitution,
> marital infidelities, and drug use by physicians that led to surgical mishaps.
>
> Across these various situations, on the contrast, mindful people showed a
> lack of defensiveness toward people that didn't share their worldview.
> Mindful people were diplomatic and tolerant regardless of whether they were
> prompted to think about their slow, systematic decline toward obliteration.
>
> "What we found was that when asked to deeply contemplate their death, mindful
> people spent more time writing (as opposed to avoiding) and used more
> death-related words when reflecting on the experience. This suggests that a
> greater openness to processing the threat of death allows compassion and
> fairness to reign. In this laboratory staged battle, mindfulness alters the
> power that death holds over us," Kashdan says.
>
> Provided by George Mason University
>
>
