The literature has indicated that self-affirmation attenuates defensive responding (e.g., derogation of an offensive essay’s author, accessibility of death-related cognitions) to mortality threat. The current eye-tracking study built on that literature to examine whether self-affirmation influences attentional processing of mortality threat. Participants (N = 51), after being randomly assigned to the self-affirmation or control condition, completed a free-viewing task that consisted of death-related (mortality threat) and non-death-related (control) images while their eye movements were being recorded. The results indicated that self-affirmation reduced attentional vigilance toward mortality threat both at the early stage and the whole stage of the free-viewing task. Reduced vigilance to mortality threat may be a precursor to attenuated defensive responding to it.

中文翻译：

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自我肯定降低了对死亡威胁的警惕性：一项眼球追踪研究

文献表明，自我肯定会减弱对死亡威胁的防御性反应（例如，贬低攻击性文章的作者，与死亡相关的认知的可及性）。目前的眼动追踪研究建立在该文献的基础上，以检查自我肯定是否影响死亡威胁的注意力处理。参与者（N = 51），在被随机分配到自我肯定或控制条件后，完成了一项免费观看任务，其中包括死亡相关（死亡威胁）和非死亡相关（控制）图像，同时记录他们的眼球运动. 结果表明，在自由观看任务的早期和整个阶段，自我肯定降低了对死亡威胁的注意力警惕性。对死亡威胁的警惕性降低可能是对死亡威胁的防御性反应减弱的先兆。