Threats like climate change, tensions between nuclear-weapon states, or pandemics potentially increase thoughts about human extinction. These thoughts imply mortality salience (MS) while threatening the cultural anxiety buffer and simultaneously limiting symbolic immortality. Thus, thoughts of human extinction might interfere with typical responses to MS like worldview defense. To investigate how thoughts of human extinction affect terror management, participants were presented with either an apocalyptic, destructive, or neutral video in combination with a manipulation of MS. Participants reported higher death-thought accessibility but lower worldview defense when watching an apocalyptic video under MS. This dissociation did not occur when a destructive video was combined with MS, suggesting that these effects are limited to thoughts about human extinction.
