Implications of the Death-Thought-Suppression-and-Rebound Assumption: Integrating the Findings of Rife et al. (2025) and Trafimow and Hughes (2012)

Abstract

Researchers on terror-management theory (TMT) often obtain effects on dependent variables, such as worldview assertion, after a delay following mortality salience (contemplating death) but not immediately. As justification, TMT researchers invoked a post hoc assumption: Death thoughts are immediately suppressed following mortality salience but rebound after a delay. In contradiction, Trafimow and Hughes and Rife et al. found that death thoughts are more accessible immediately following mortality salience than after a delay. The contradiction is so problematic that ignoring it trends toward degenerative science. TMT research might exemplify a larger problem in psychology.