Death Be Not Profane: Mortality Salience and Euphemism Use

Terror management theorists have documented the impact of mortality salience on socioemotional outcomes but not communication behavior. The reported research explored the influence of mortality salience on language used to describe bodily processes. Consistent with findings that humans cope with death anxiety through psychological distancing from their vulnerable bodies, participants for whom mortality was made salient were more likely than control participants to describe bodily processes using euphemisms. Rate of euphemism use for eliminatory functions exceeded that for copulation overall, suggesting stronger creaturely associations with elimination. Our findings indicate that psychological distancing evoked by mortality salience is manifested in communication behavior.