Hypothesis
Reminding people of death would increase national patriotism, as the traditional mortality-salience effect predicts, and would also shift democratic values, ingroup identification and pro-sociality.
What failed
Neither a lab experiment (N = 101, Norway) nor a larger online experiment (N = 784, US) replicated the mortality-salience effect on national patriotism. Conceptual replications on democratic values, processing speed, psychophysiological responses, ingroup identification and pro-sociality were not supported either.
Broken assumption
Death reminders reliably increase defence of one's worldview, such as national patriotism.
Why
The authors conclude only that the effect of death reminders is less robust and generalizable than assumed, noting that transparent, high-powered replications had been lacking despite several hundred original studies.
From the published paper: Sætrevik et al. Meta-Psychology, 2022. ↗CC BY