Self-affirmation reduces vigilance to mortality threat: An eye-tracking study

The literature has indicated that self-affirmation attenuates defensive responding (e.g., derogation of an offensive essay's author, accessibility of death-related cognitions) to mortality threat. The current eye-tracking study built on that literature to examine whether self-affirmation influences attentional processing of mortality threat. Participants (N = 51), after being randomly assigned to the self-affirmation or control condition, completed a free-viewing task that consisted of death-related (mortality threat) and non-death-related (control) images while their eye movements were being recorded. The results indicated that self-affirmation reduced attentional vigilance toward mortality threat both at the early stage and the whole stage of the free-viewing task. Reduced vigilance to mortality threat may be a precursor to attenuated defensive responding to it.