Researchers have recently described a new processing task in which rating words on the basis of their survival or fitness relevance leads to better recall and recognition performance than several other well known deep processing tasks. The present study was designed to determine whether this survival processing advantage could be observed when compared to self-descriptive processing, a well known deep processing task to which survival processing has not previously been compared. In two experiments, participants were asked to rate words with respect to survival processing, self-referential processing, and two other previously examined deep processing tasks using both a list of abstract nouns (Experiment 1) and a list of concrete nouns (Experiment 2). It was found that survival processing does lead to a recall advantage over self-referential processing, but only for concrete nouns. Future research should determine whether abstract nouns can be further divided into fitness relevant and non-fitness relevant groups and how this congruency or incongruency affects the survival processing phenomenon. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]