Abstract

This study, based on terror management theory from social psychology, examines how the thought of death affects journalism students' views toward relativism, idealism, and unethical journalistic behavior. College journalism students participated in an experiment where half were primed to think about death and the other half, the control group, thought about dental pain. Then, all of them completed a questionnaire measuring their attitudes toward ethics. Results showed that although those in the death group were no more fearful, they were less relativistic and more strongly opposed to socially undesirable behavior by journalists, such as lying, publishing the names of rape victims, and reporting a public official's sexual affair. Implications for ethics research and journalists are discussed.