Death

Introduction to Terror Management Theory (TMT)

• Proposed by authors such as Becker (1973), Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski.
• TMT seeks to understand how humans manage conflict arising from the awareness of mortality.

Context of Death

• Mortality salience: awareness of one's own death can influence emotions, attitudes, and behavior significantly.
• Recent studies explore how awareness of death shapes various psychological outcomes and social behaviors.

Main Tenets of TMT

• Ultimate human motive: to manage the terror caused by the awareness of death.
• Human behavior largely directed at coping with death anxiety.
• Two primary anxiety buffers identified:
• Cultural Worldviews: Systems that offer structure, order, permanence, and the promise of an afterlife.
• Self-Esteem: Derived from living up to cultural expectations and promises, thereby serving to manage death anxiety.

Psychodynamics of TMT

• Cognitive processes during TMT experiments.
• Participants often unaware of their defense mechanisms against mortality salience.
• Proximal defenses include suppression of thoughts about death, while distal defenses involve bolstering worldviews and self-esteem.

Mortality Salience Hypothesis

• When reminded of death, individuals may display heightened adherence to cultural norms and increased aggression toward worldview threats.

TMT Studies

• Overview of methodology:
• Personality measures and self-esteem assessments followed by mortality salience manipulations.
• Participants respond to questions prompting death-related thoughts to measure emotional responses and worldview defense.

Effects of Mortality Salience

• Increased religiousness, group identification, and humanization post-mortality salience.
• Heightened aggression toward worldview challengers and increased self-enhancement phenomena.

Research Findings from TMT

• Evidence shows variations in response among different personality traits.
• Increased support for violence opposing challenges to one's worldview.
• Personal well-being can decline when one reflects on mortality without satisfactory self-esteem affirmations.

The Duplex Mind

• Identifies two cognitive systems involved in processing death-related thoughts:
• Automatic system: Fast, outside of conscious control (e.g., intuitive reactions).
• Conscious system: Slow, deliberate, and capable of complex reasoning.

Worldview Defense Mechanisms

• How individuals defend their cultural worldviews post-mortality thinking:
• Through aggression and bolstering self-image or dismissing others' worldviews.

Anxiety Buffer Hypothesis

• Discusses how affirmation of self-esteem through cultural standards protects against effects of mortality salience.

Existential Escape Hypothesis

• Explains how low self-esteem individuals may engage in escape behaviors (e.g., substance abuse) when reminded of death.

Positive Effects of TMT

• Awareness of death can motivate growth and enhance personal health.
• Encourages forming deeper social connections and pursuing meaningful life goals.

Cultural Implications of TMT

• Society's handling of death awareness shapes various cultural practices and taboos (e.g., attitudes towards body, sexuality, and mortality).

Critiques on TMT

• Discussions about evolutionary perspectives, the uniqueness of death perceptions, and how cultural narratives craft responses to mortality.

Real-world Applications

• TMT provides insights applicable in understanding human behaviors influenced by social and cultural contexts, particularly in crises (e.g., pandemics).

Conclusion

• Ongoing debates about the applicability and limitations of TMT highlight its significance in the psychology field.
• Continuous research and practical implementations of TMT remain essential to further explore the psychology behind death awareness.