Death and beauty: mortality salience and creatureliness increase self-objectification not only in females but also in males.

Background: Self-objectification, the tendency to perceive oneself as an object subject to external evaluation, negatively impacts wellbeing, contributing to issues such as anxiety and eating disorders. While objectification theory outlines its societal underpinnings, it provides limited insight into the psychological mechanisms that sustain its prevalence. Terror Management Theory (TMT) posits that self-objectification functions as a defense against death anxiety, operating through two pathways: cultural worldview compliance (adherence to objectifying societal norms) and suppressing the awareness of creatureliness (avoiding awareness of humans' biological vulnerability and animalistic nature).