Implicit aggression following exposure to people with physical disabilities: The costs of inhibiting self-protective processes

Previous studies indicate that death reminders elicit prosocial behavior, but also an urge to distance from physical disabilities. Here, we examine whether mortality salience will increase implicit aggression when one is explicitly requested to help a person with physical disability. This implicit negative response may address the need for self-protection when no other means are available. Participants were randomly assigned to a mortality salience or pain condition, were exposed to a veteran with a physical or emotional disability, and were requested or not to help him. Then, they performed a lexical decision task tapping accessibility of aggression-related cognitions. Mortality-salience participants who were exposed to a veteran with physical disability and were compelled to help showed higher accessibility of aggression-related thoughts than participants in other conditions. Findings support the Self-Protective Altruism hypothesis (Hirschberger in Soc Pers Psychol Compass 7:128–140, 2013), implying that sometimes prosocial behavior can involve implicit antisocial thoughts.