Of trophies and pillars: Exploring the terror management functions of short-term and long-term relationship partners

Prior terror management research shows that mortality salience (ms) motivates both self-esteem striving and worldview bolstering. the present research examined these processes in the context of dating preferences. it was hypothesized that in short-term romantic contexts,ms-induced self-esteem striving motivates interest in dating a physically attractive other,whereas in long-term romantic contexts,ms-induced motives for worldview validation heighten interest in dating a same-religion other. study 1 showed that in a short-term dating context,ms increased preference for an attractive but religiously dissimilar person,whereas in a long-term dating context,ms increased preference for a religiously similar,less attractive person. study 2 clarified that ms motivates preference for attractive short-term partners for their self-enhancing properties rather than their potential sexual availability. study 3 supported the theorized processes,showing that under ms,self-esteem-relevant constructs became spontaneously accessible in short-term dating contexts,whereas worldview-relevant constructs became spontaneously accessible in long-term dating contexts. © 2010 society for personality and social psychology,inc.