Przypomnienie o śmierci i fizyczne oczyszczenie się a poparcie idei lustracji
The effects of mortality salience and physical cleansing on support for vetting (or lustration)

Summary/Abstract: The article presents results of two studies supporting the claim that the need to clean and avoid contamination of own group [associated with communal sharing or communion schema (see Fiske, 1992; Rai & Fiske, 2011)] is the true motive underlying vetting (referred to as ‘lustration’ in Poland) because only belonging to a clean community can protect us from existential anxiety. In the first experiment mortality salience enhanced support for the idea of decommunization and ‘lustration’ whereas the self-affirmation manipulation, consisting in writing about one’s own values, failed to reduce it (result inconsistent with the prediction derived from popular terror management theory). In the second experiment mortality salience enhanced the support for vetting whereas physical cleansing (i.e. washing hands) reduced the support among low-anxiety participants.

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