Death Studies

ISSN: 0748-1187 (Print) 1091-7683 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/udst20

Self-compassion as a buffer against concrete but

not abstract threat

Zach Gerber & David Anaki

To cite this article: Zach Gerber & David Anaki (2018): Self-compassion as a buffer against
concrete but not abstract threat, Death Studies, DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2018.1511195

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Published online: 28 Sep 2018.

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DEATH STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2018.1511195

Self-compassion as a buffer against concrete but not abstract threat

Zach Gerbera and David Anakia,b
a
Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel; bThe Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain
Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

ABSTRACT
Terror management theory posits that validation of self-esteem is a major defense mechan-
ism in keeping mortal concerns at bay. Yet, self-esteem often leads to devaluation of others.
Self-compassion (SC) is an alternative, more inclusive construct than self-esteem. We
explored among 125 university students whether SC serves as a defense mechanism from
abstract and concrete threats responses, utilizing a dot-probe task and mortality salience pri-
ming. Although SC was not associated with avoidance of abstract threats, it was associated
with avoidance of concrete threats. These findings underscore the potential role of SC in
coping with trauma and in shielding from developing post-traumatic symptoms.

Terror management theory (TMT) describes
human management of death awareness (Greenberg,
Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997; Pyszczynski, Solomon,
& Greenberg, 2015). According to TMT human beings
live in a unique cognitive predicament. They share
with other living creatures the instinct of survival, yet,
they alone have a capacity for self-awareness of the
inevitability of death. Realizing the ultimate futility of
striving for survival has the potential to create para-
lyzing anxiety, thereby motivating people to develop
defense mechanisms to push the thoughts of death
out of conscious awareness.
TMT suggests three basic defense-mechanisms that
aid people to manage their terror of death: cultural
views validating the society that the individual is part
of, self-esteem enhancement, and establishing close
relationships (Greenberg et al., 1997; Mikulincer,
Florian, & Hirschberger, 2003). Validating human cul-
ture engenders a feeling of being part of society and
allows people to regard their lives as meaningful and
lasting beyond their physical and temporary existence.
Moreover, people who fulfill the prescribed values,
norms, and beliefs of their culture enjoy the sense of
being valuable people in a meaningful world, which,
from a terror management perspective, is the basis of
self-esteem. Indeed, compared to those with low self-
esteem, individuals with high self-esteem enjoy
greater protection from death-related concerns
(Harmon-Jones et al., 1997), and use fewer worldview
defense mechanisms (Schmeichel et al., 2009).
However, there has been some debate regarding the
efficiency of self-esteem in coping with and adjusting
to the psychological implications of death
(Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003). For
example, following induction of death thoughts, par-
ticipants high in explicit self-esteem responded with
increased ideological and personal project zeal
(McGregor, Gailliot, Vasquez, & Nash, 2007; see
Schmeichel et al., 2009 for additional examples). In
addition, high explicit self-esteem is associated with
self-enhancement biases, leading people to believe that
their own group is superior to others (Sedikides &
Gregg, 2008). At times, pursuing high self-esteem
leads individuals to judge themselves as superior in
comparison to their own in-group peers (i.e. the bet-
ter-than-average effect; Alicke & Govorun, 2005). The
shortcomings of self-esteem as a protective insulation
against thoughts of human transience raises the ques-
tion whether other facets of the self could function as
more adaptive defenses against death anxiety. Self-
compassion may be a healthier self-approach because
it enables people to foster positive self-regard without
inducing, as in self-esteem, self-image inflation, and
derogation of others (Neff, 2011).
Self-compassion (SC) is comprised of three
overlapping and mutually interacting components:

CONTACT David Anaki david.anaki@biu.ac.il The Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University,
Bldg. 901, Room 202, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/udst.
ß 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 Z. GERBER AND D. ANAKI
Self-kindness (with its self-judgment counterpart),
feelings of common humanity (versus isolation), and
mindfulness (in contrast to over-identification; Neff,
2003; for other approaches to self-compassion, see
Gilbert, 2009). Self-kindness reflects the tendency to
be caring and understanding of oneself rather than
harshly judgmental. When experiencing difficulty,
self-compassionate people embrace themselves, pro-
viding self-soothing and comfort. Common humanity
entails recognizing that all people fail, make mistakes,
and experience pain, framing difficulty and failure in
light of a shared human experience so that one feels
proximity to others when encountering difficulty.
Mindfulness reflects an awareness of the present
moment’s experience in a clear and balanced manner
that neither ignores nor ruminates on dissatisfying
aspects of oneself or one’s environment (Brown &
Ryan, 2003). Moreover, mindfulness involves taking a
meta-perspective on one’s own experience, consider-
ing it within a greater view, and preventing getting
carried away by the subjective narrative of one’s own
pain (Neff, 2011).
Higher levels of SC have been associated with
greater life satisfaction, social connectedness and mas-
tering of goals, coupled with less self-criticism, depres-
sion, anxiety, rumination, perfectionism, and eating
disorders (for a review see Neff, 2009). Recent
research has associated SC with less avoidant coping
patterns, reduced PTSD and greater well-being follow-
ing exposure to traumatic events (Seligowski, Miron,
& Orcutt, 2015). Since SC has been suggested as an
alternative, more effective self-construct to self-esteem,
we explored whether SC also acts as a protective tool
in death awareness management.
The most common paradigm used in TMT
research is mortality salience (MS), in which partici-
pants are primed with death-related thoughts that are
hypothesized to activate the above-mentioned defense
mechanisms. TMT theory assumes that cultural
worldviews, self-esteem, and interpersonal relation-
ships do not operate when death concerns are con-
scious (proximal defenses). Rather, these mechanisms
come into play when thoughts about death are uncon-
scious, in order to ensure that these thoughts will not
resurface (distal defenses). Thus, in the present study,
we utilized a subliminal non-conscious MS manipula-
tion to study the association of SC with participants’
attentional responses to two types of visual death-
related stimuli; an abstract death-reminder image (e.g.
images of people with physical injury) and a concrete
threatening image (e.g. images of hostile expressions).
Past research has indicated that following MS
manipulation participants (a) avoid encounters with
individuals who have physical disabilities and injuries,
in order to keep their sense of personal fragility at bay
(Hirschberger, Ein-Dor, Caspi, Arzouan, & Zivotofsky,
2010), and (b) increase vigilance and attention to con-
crete threatening stimuli, in order to preserve one’s
immediate safety.
How will SC moderate the effects that MS has on
attentional orienting to abstract and concrete death-
related stimuli? Our hypotheses are that because SC
entails an aspect of common humanity, which empha-
sizes imperfection and suffering as a shared human
condition, high SC individuals will attenuate defensive
responses to abstract threats relative to low SC indi-
viduals. Moreover, the mindfulness aspect of SC,
which accentuates the ability to experience the present
moment in broad, vivid, and balanced manner, will
also allow high SC individuals to face concrete mortal
reality with openness and acceptance. Therefore, we
predict that following subliminal MS manipulation
participants high in SC will display less avoidance of
both abstract and concrete threats, compared to low
SC participants. The predicted enhanced attentiveness
of high SC individuals will reflect their reduced defen-
siveness and enhanced equanimity, stemming from
the common humanity and mindfulness components
of SC.
Method
Participants
Participants were 125 Bar-Ilan University undergradu-
ates (82 women, M age ¼23 years, SD ¼ 7), who either
received course credit for their participation or mon-
etary payment. The experiment was approved by the
University Institutional Review Board.
Stimuli
The dot-probe task is commonly used in studies of
attention bias to threat-related stimuli (Bar-Haim,
Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Van
IJzendoorn, 2007). In the task, participants see two
pictures simultaneously in each trial, one threat-
inducing and one neutral (Figure 1). Participants
briefly view the pictures and then see an arrow point-
ing left or right in the location just vacated by one of
the pictures (half of the arrows pointed left in random
order). Participants respond by identifying the direc-
tion of the arrow. Attention bias towards (or away
from) the threat stimulus is a faster (or slower)
response to the arrow when it appears in the location
 DEATH STUDIES 3

vacated by the threat stimulus (congruent condition)
than the neutral stimulus (incongruent condition). We
used two types of threat stimuli: (1) abstract threat,
consisting of 20 pairs of faces with a lesion before
(threat) and after reparation (control), selected from a
website of plastic surgery clinics, and (2) concrete
threat, which was 20 pairs of faces with a hostile
(threat) or neutral expression (control), taken from
the NimStim Face Stimulus Set (Tottenham et al.,
2009). Among 10 independent judges, the valence and
arousal ratings of the two types of pictures did not
differ significantly.
We presented each of the 40 image pairs 4 times:
once with the threat image on top of the screen, once
with the neutral image on top, once with the arrow
congruent, and once with the arrow incongruent.
Altogether, the task consisted of 160 trials.
The Self-compassion scale (SCS; Neff, 2003) consists
of 26 items that assess six different aspects of self-
compassion (with negative aspects reverse-coded):
self-kindness, self-judgment, common humanity, isola-
tion, mindfulness, and over-identification. This meas-
ure has been analyzed according to an overall score of
SC as well as a six-factor correlated structure (Neff,
Whittaker, & Karl, 2017). Responses are on a 5-point
scale (1 ¼ almost never to 5 ¼ almost always). Among
391 university undergraduates) the SCS was internally
reliable (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.92) and demonstrated
predictive, convergent, and discriminant validity. In
the current sample, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.91. We
used the mean score of 3 to classify participants as
high and low in SC. The difference between the mean
SC of the low and high SC groups was significant
(2.61 vs. 3.49, t(123) ¼ 15.90, p < .0001). Participants
completed the Hebrew version of the SCS.
Death thought accessibility (DTA; Greenberg,
Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994) is a
word completion task that consists of 20 word-frag-
ments that participants completed by filling-in one
missing letter. Half of the 20 fragments can make
death-related words (e.g. sk_ll). The DTA served as a
manipulation check of the mortality salience manipu-
lation. We used the Hebrew form of the DTA, devised
by Mikulincer and Florian (2000) on an Israeli sam-
ple. For example, the Hebrew fragment _vel could be
completed with the Hebrew word hvel (“cord”) or
with the death-related word evel (“mourning”).
The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI;
Spielberger, 1983) is a 40-item scale that measures
state and trait anxiety. In the present study, the
Hebrew version of the STAI was administered. The
items are on a 4-point scale (1 ¼ almost never to
4 ¼ almost always). In the current sample, Cronbach’s
alphas were 0.91 and 0.90, for the state and trait sub-
scales, respectively.
Procedure
Participants first completed the SCS. Next, we ran-
domly assigned them to one of the two groups: a sub-
liminal death prime (MS group), or a subliminal
failure prime (failure group; see Table 1 for the num-
ber of participants and SCS mean score in each of the
four groups). At the start of each trial, we presented a
fixation point (i.e. þ) in the center of the screen for
500 milliseconds (ms; see Figure 1). Then, the four-
letter Hebrew word for “death” (for the MS group) or
the four-letter Hebrew word for “fail” (for the failure
group) appeared for 30 ms. Then, there were 6 Xs for
500 ms in order to mask the prime. Then, a vertically
aligned pair of images appeared for 1000 ms. One
image was directly above the fixation point location,
the other was directly below. Image size was 90 mm
70 mm. Then, they saw an arrow that pointed either
left or right, either at the top or the bottom of the
screen. We told participants to indicate the direction

Table 1. Self-compassion (SC) scores, dot-probe response

times and accuracy of the four study groups.
Prime Type SC group SCS RT (ms) Accuracy N
Mortality Low 2.65 (0.37) 498 (55) 0.96 (0.005) 31
High 3.50 (0.27) 518 (51) 0.97 (0.004) 32
Overall 3.08 (0.53) 508 (54) 0.97 (0.003) 63
Failure Low 2.58 (0.33) 508 (55) 0.97 (0.004) 31
High 3.48 (0.25) 514 (56) 0.97 (0.005) 31
Figure 1. Display of a typical trial in the study’s dot-probe Overall 3.03 (0.54) 510 (55) 0.97 (0.004) 62
task. A mortality or failure salience masked Hebrew word Overall Low 2.61 (0.35) 503 (55) 0.96 (0.004) 62
appears, followed by a pair of neutral and emotional images. High 3.49 (0.26) 516 (56) 0.97 (0.003) 63
Then an arrow could appear in the location of the top or bot- Overall 3.05 (0.54) 509 (56) 0.96 (0.002) 125
tom image. SCS: Self-compassion scale (Neff, 2003).
4 Z. GERBER AND D. ANAKI

of the arrow by pressing the corresponding mouse
keys as quickly as possible without compromising
accuracy. The participant’s response cleared the screen
and the next trial began 500 ms later. All pairs
occurred in random order. Following the task, partici-
pants completed the DTA and STAI.
Results
On the DTA manipulation check, there was a signifi-
cant difference between groups, t(121) ¼ 4.39,
p < .001, d ¼ 0.79. Participants in the death group
completed more death-related words (M ¼ 1.51,
SD ¼ 0.90) than participants in the failure group
(M ¼ 0.83, SD ¼ 0.81). On the STAI, there was no sig-
nificant difference between the death- and failure-
groups in trait and state anxiety. These findings indicate
the effectiveness of the MS prime, as participants in the
death group displayed higher death-related cognitions
than the failure group, while not reporting increased
forms of anxiety.
A 2 (Prime Type: mortality, failure)  2 (SC: low,
high)  2 (Threat Type: abstract, concrete)  2 (Arrow
Congruency: congruent, incongruent) repeated-meas-
ures ANOVA was conducted with prime type and SC
as between-subject factors, and Threat Type and
Arrow Congruency as within-subject factors. The
dependent variable was correct response times (RT).
The RT analysis revealed a 2-way interaction
between Threat Type and Arrow Congruency,
F(1,121) ¼ 24.70, p < .0001, g2 ¼ 0.16. We performed
paired-samples t-tests to compare the congruency
condition was slower than in the incongruent condi-
tion, indicating attentional avoidance. However, we
did not find any interaction of Prime Type with SC
and the Arrow Congruency. Thus, our first hypothesis
that avoidance of the abstract threat would be quali-
fied by Prime Type and SC was not confirmed.
Regarding the concrete threat, we found a signifi-
cant 3-way interaction (Prime Type  SC  Arrow
Congruency; F(1,121) ¼ 5.21, p < .05, g2 ¼ 0.04). To
examine the source of this interaction, we conducted
for each Prime Type group (mortality, failure) a 2-way
ANOVA with SC and Arrow Congruency as factors. In
the failure group, the interaction and main effects were
not significant. However, in the death group, we found
a significant 2-way interaction between SC and Arrow
Congruency (F(1,61) ¼ 4.01, p ¼ .05, g2 ¼ 0.06). We
then conducted paired-samples t-tests to compare the
congruency effects in the low and high SC participants.
We found a significant congruency effect amongst low
SC participants: RT in the congruent condition was
slower (M ¼ 489 ms, SD ¼ 44 ms) than in the incongru-
ent condition (M ¼ 484 ms, SD ¼ 45 ms), indicating
attentional avoidance (t(27) ¼ 2.07, p < .05, d ¼ 0.39).
In contrast, participants high in SC were attracted to
hostile images, as RTs in congruent condition were
faster (M ¼ 504 ms, SD ¼ 64 ms) than in the incongru-
ent condition (M ¼ 508 ms, SD ¼ 64 ms). This trend
was not significant, (t(34) ¼ 1.08, p ¼ .29), yet it
appears that high SC attenuated avoidance of immedi-
ate threat.
(A)
550

effects in the abstract and concrete threats. We found 530

a significant congruency effect for the abstract threat:
510
RT (ms)

RTs in the congruent condition were slower incongruent

(M ¼ 518 ms, SD ¼ 6 ms) than in the incongruent con- 490
congruent

dition (M ¼ 502 ms, SD ¼ 6 ms, t(124) ¼ 6.74 p < .01, 470

d ¼ 0.60), indicating attentional avoidance. The con- 450

sc-low sc-high sc-low sc-high
gruency effect for the concrete threat was not signifi- Failure Mortality
cant (t(124) ¼ 0.81, p ¼ .42).
The analysis did not reveal any additional main or (B)
550 incongruent
interaction effects involving the Prime Type or SC congruent
530
independent variables. However, as can be seen in
510
RT (ms)

Figure 2, we observed distinct attentional patterns in

the different threat types. We, therefore, conducted 490

separate repeated-measures 3-way ANOVAs for each 470

of the threat types (abstract, concrete). The ANOVAs 450

sc-low sc-high sc-low sc-high
included Prime Type, SC, and Arrow Congruency as Failure Mortality
independent variables and participant’s RTs as the
Figure 2. Reaction times (RT) to abstract (A) and concrete (B)
dependent variable. threats across the different prime type (failure-salience, mortal-
Regarding the abstract threat, converging with the ity-salience), self-compassion (SC; high, low), and congruency
initial analysis, we found that RTs in the congruent (incongruent/congruent).
 DEATH STUDIES 5

Table 2. Pearson correlations between self-compassion sub-scales and the congruency effect (congruent-incongruent) of concrete
threat in the MS condition.
Common Humanity Self-Kindness Self-Judgment Isolation Over-Identification Congruency Effect
Mindfulness 0.56 0.60 0.38 0.32 0.54 0.04
Common humanity 0.49 0.20 0.26 0.31 0.06
Self-kindness 0.50 0.21 0.33 0.06
Self-judgment 0.42 0.57 0.03
Isolation 0.59 0.00
Over-identification 0.06
p < .05. p < .01. The scores of self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification have been reversed.

Table 3. Regression analysis of the self-compassion scale sub-scales as predicting the congruency effect
of concrete threat in the MS condition.
Unstandardized coefficients Standardized coefficients
Model B Std. Error Beta T Sig.
(Constant) 31.03 12.36 2.51 0.01
Mindfulness 1.66 4.68 0.06 0.35 0.72
Common humanity 8.08 3.72 0.31 2.17 0.03
Self-kindness 3.78 4.06 0.15 0.93 0.36

In order to examine which sub-scales of the SCS
accounted for the congruency effects in the MS condi-
tion of the concrete threat, we fitted a stepwise regres-
sion analysis, with the concrete image congruency
effect serving as the dependent variable and the 6 SCS
sub-scales as predictors. We entered the positive sub-
scales first and the negative sub-scales second. The
resulting equation, consisting of the 3 positive sub-
scales, was significant (F(1,62) ¼ 2.89, p < .05) and
explained 13% of the congruency effect variance. We
found that the common humanity sub-scale was a sig-
nificant predictor of the congruency difference score:
As common humanity’s sub-scale score lowers, the
congruency effect increases, indicating an attentional
avoidance of concrete threat (see Tables 2 and 3).
Discussion
The present study examined the role of SC as a
potential buffering mechanism in situations that
evoke death-related anxieties. Using the dot-probe
paradigm, we presented to participants two visual
types of threats; an abstract threat (i.e. a lesioned
facial image) and a concrete threat (i.e. a hostile
facial expression). The mortality salience group was
presented with a subliminal death prime while the
failure group was presented with a subliminal failure
prime.
The study revealed three main findings: first, all
participants, regardless of their SC levels and the pri-
ming type, avoided the abstract threat. This avoidance
was expressed by longer response times to arrows
appearing in the location of the threatening stimuli
compared to the neutral stimuli. Second, with regard
to concrete threat, the results revealed that in the
mortality salience group, participants low in SC dis-
played avoidance of the concrete threat. This avoid-
ance was not seen in participants high in SC, who
displayed a trend towards attraction to the threat. In
the failure group, the latencies to arrows replacing
threatening and non-threatening stimuli were similar,
indicating a lack of attention bias. This absence of
attention bias was apparent for both low and high SC
participants. Finally, the regression analysis demon-
strated that the congruency effect obtained for the
concrete threat in the mortality salience group was
driven primarily by the common humanity sub-scale
but not by the mindfulness sub-scale of the SC scale.
In the following, we discuss the theoretical interpreta-
tions and implications of the study’s three
main findings.
The attentional bias found for abstract threat was
not modulated by SC, and both low and high SC par-
ticipants avoided it. This finding is in contrast with
our original hypothesis that the common humanity
and mindfulness aspects of SC will make high SC
individuals more tolerant to human physical injuries
and will result in reduced defensive responses. These
results are also purportedly at odds with TMT theory,
which claims that the defense mechanism of cultural
worldviews commends prosocial behavior, such as
kindness and compassion (for a review, see
Hirschberger, 2015). Indeed, several studies demon-
strate that MS promotes prosocial intents and actual
acts (Hirschberger, Ein-Dor, & Almakias, 2008; Jonas,
Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002)
A possible solution to this discrepancy is provided
by the self-protective altruism model (Hirschberger,
6 Z. GERBER AND D. ANAKI
2013, 2015). According to this model, people are
indeed motivated by existential threat to behave pro-
socially and live up to cultural ideals, in order to
relieve their sense of threat. Yet, when the object of
the pro-social engagement is also an elicitor of exist-
ential threat (e.g. a person with a disability caught
under earthquake rubble), one will avoid engagement
in pro-social behavior. This interpretation could be
expanded to account for the current findings as well:
SC may, in principle, include genuine concern and
responsiveness to others’ well-being. However, when
the other is a source of existential or abstract threat,
the self-protective strategies of the self-compassionate
individual will override and limit her ability to
respond to others in need.
In addition, the comprehensive avoidance of
abstract threat, in both the mortality salience and fail-
ure groups, may indicate that the threat magnitude of
the images obliterated the differences usually found
between the two types of primes in the MS paradigm.
This is, despite the evidence, provided by the manipu-
lation check, that the death prime was effective; par-
ticipants in the death group reported higher death
thought accessibility rates than the control group.
Interestingly, the findings in the concrete threat con-
dition also show different responses in the two
research groups, attesting to the efficacy of the MS
manipulation. We suggest that the particular nature of
the abstract threat images, which express the fragility
of one’s corporal self, shadowed the MS manipulation
impact on the processing of the abstract threat.
The study’s second main finding, namely the
inclination to avoid concrete threat in low SC partici-
pants but not in high SC participants (where an insig-
nificant trend indicated attentional orienting towards
the aversive threat) is compatible with our original
premise. We hypothesized that participants with low
SC will attempt to avoid concrete mortal reality while
high SC participants will face it with openness and
acceptance. The present findings highlight the exist-
ence of disruption of terror management processes
among individuals with low SC and the relevance of
SC to increased vigilance in face of concrete threat
among individuals with high SC.
This finding converges with the anxiety-buffer dis-
ruption theory (ABDT; Pyszczynski & Kesebir, 2011).
ABDT focuses on situations where defense mecha-
nisms, aimed to augment impregnability against
death-related anxiety and distress, collapse. As an
immediate means of managing distress, one will psy-
chologically “flee” the distressing stimuli and avoid it,
regardless of the self-conservation needs at hand.
Although dissociation allows one to deflect the imme-
diate impact of the traumatic experience, it is consid-
ered a futile strategy of coping with stress and has
been associated with the emergence of trauma and
PTSD (Abdollahi, Pyszczynski, Maxfield, &
Luszczynska, 2011). Combining this understanding
with the present study’s findings indicates that SC
may possess a valuable terror management property,
namely, a capacity to modulate attentional allocation
according to the needs at hand (Greenberg et al.,
1997; Hirschberger et al., 2010). This approach is not
only beneficial in coping effectively with life-threaten-
ing events but also in preventing the development of
traumatic symptoms.
Interestingly, we found that the basis of the rela-
tionship between SC and attentional bias to concrete
threat is the common humanity aspect of SC. A large
body of research, drawing on attachment theory, has
suggested that fulfillment of one’s needs for interper-
sonal connectedness sustains stronger foundations for
keeping one’s existential concerns at bay (e.g.
Mikulincer et al., 2003). It is, therefore, possible that
reduced SC, and especially, the common humanity
component of SC, fractures the capacity to efficiently
regulate threatening stimuli that occur in one’s
environment.
Several limitations exist in the present study. First,
the failure of SC to modulate attention bias of abstract
threats in the mortality salience group requires add-
itional examination. Although these results resonate
with the self-protective altruism model, future
research should study further the exact role of SC as a
defense mechanism in the context of abstract threats.
Second, the present study focused on SC as a distal
defense mechanism in protecting death-related anxi-
eties. This line of research follows the TMT literature,
which predominantly examines self-esteem as a distal,
and not as a proximal, defense (but see Abeyta, Juhl,
& Routledge, 2014). Yet, future investigations of SC’s
role in moderating death-anxiety should explore
whether SC could function as a proximal defense as
well. This investigation may prove fruitful in light of
recent studies showing that mindfulness can attenuate
MS effects when acting as a proximal defense
(Niemiec et al., 2010).
Although our findings are preliminary, they reveal
a potential risk factor for the development of trauma-
related symptoms and disorders, as well as an avenue
for clinical intervention in the wake of distressing
ordeals. The current findings may be relevant not
only to people who are directly impacted by existen-
tial threat in their personal lives but also to those who

comprise the medical, psycho-therapeutical and
rehabilitative envelope, which enfolds those individu-
als suffering from trauma-related symptoms and dis-
orders. Psychological burnout among workers in the
health professions is a pressing issue (Westphal et al.,
2015). Thus, the contribution of SC to the well-being,
quality of life, and mental health of these workers
is necessary.
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