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Mother's Milk: An Existential Perspective on Negative Reactions to Breast-Feeding

Cathy R. Cox

University of Missouri–Columbia

Jamie L. Goldenberg

University of South Florida

Jamie Arndt

University of Missouri–Columbia

Tom Pyszczynski

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Drawing from an existential perspective rooted in terror management theory, four studies examined the hypothesis that breast-feeding women serve as reminders of the physical, animal nature of humanity and that such recognition is threatening in the face of one's unalterable mortality. Study 1 demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) led to more negative reactions toward a scenario depicting a woman breast-feeding her infant in public, and in Study 2, MS decreased liking and increased physical avoidance of a potential task partner described as breast-feeding in another room. Further supporting the hypothesis that such reactions are rooted in threats associated with human creatureliness, MS in conjunction with a breast-feeding prime led to an increase in the accessibility of creaturely related cognitions (Study 3) and priming human/animal similarities (i.e., creatureliness) led to increased negativity toward a magazine cover depicting a woman breast-feeding her child (Study 4). Implications of this research are discussed.

Key Words: terror management theory • death anxiety • breast-feeding • evaluation of women • evaluation of the body

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 33, No. 1, 110-122 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167206294202
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