Fear and compassion: A terror management analysis of emotional reactions to physical disability

Objective: To examine whether death anxiety underlies emotional reactions toward people with disabilities (PWDs). Study Design: In Study 1, participants were primed with thoughts of death, read a vignette describing a PWD, and completed a compassion scale. Study 2 replicated the design of Study 1 and also examined the impact of target ethnicity. Studies 3 and 4 assessed the impact of physical disability on death-related cognitions and on fear of personal death. Results: Men reacted to death primes by emotionally withdrawing from a PWD and reporting less compassion, whereas women exhibited more compassionate responses. These differences in compassion were reflected in the death-related cognitions and fears sparked by physical disability. Conclusions: The human need to manage the terror of death shapes emotional reactions toward PWDs.