Terror Management Theory (TMT) is a widely published and researched theory in the psychology field and its impacts with regard to the human race are profound. This blog shares my thoughts regarding TMT.

Backstory:

When I was attending Williams College, I took a number of psychology courses purely due to my interest in the classes (looking back, I wish I had double majored in psychology). I took one particular course, Social Psychology with Professor Steven Fein, which was one of my favorite courses I took at Williams. One of my favorite lectures I attended within this class was when Professor Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore College came in to provide a guest lecture on his work with “Terror Management Theory“.

His lecture literally changed my life. This theory explained a lot of things I had wondered about, including my own thoughts, actions, and ideas. I eventually used a lot of journal articles written by Solomon and his colleagues as well as other scholars to write my senior seminar paper on Climate Change. More importantly, my understanding of terror management theory changed my perspective on life and how I thought about things. I hope that it has a similar and positive effect on you.

This is my definition of terror management theory in the most succinct form I could think of (a good definition would take a lot longer):

Terror Management Theory:

Self-awareness of our own mortality leads to terror or fear of that inevitable death; in order to deal with that, we mitigate that terror through reinforcing our own cultural world-view, providing us with enough self-esteem to distance ourselves from our fear associated with death.

Terror Management Theory

This theory has been posited through research by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski in multiple articles, papers, and journals. The culmination of the bulk of their research and ideas have been compiled into a book released in 2015 entitled The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.

 

This book breaks down into great detail the many ways that our fear of death is influencing us constantly. I highly recommend the book. It was highly readable and engaging, using examples that are easy to grasp and relate to concepts that are quite complicated.

How is Your Fear of Death Influencing You?

Many are probably wondering the sorts of ways that this fear of death is influencing them, because at the moment you may think that this doesn’t affect you. Do you hold a strong belief or conviction? Are you opinionated about certain issues? The combination of all your beliefs, opinions, views, etc. about the world or anything make up your cultural world-view.

This is the foundation of your self-esteem. Through your actions, you are giving yourself purpose as a valuable member of this specific cultural world-view. More importantly, this self-esteem that you derive from your role in the cultural world-view acts as a buffer to the fear of death.

In order to understand this a little better, lets use an example. If you derive your self-esteem from your health and physical fitness, then you will respond to reminders of death by exercising more, eating healthier, etc. If you derive your self-esteem from monetary wealth, reminders of death will drive you to make more money.

A study cited in multiple articles on TMT found that those who derived self-esteem from their driving skills actually drove more recklessly when reminded of death; a little counter-intuitive, but what it shows is that there are many different sources of self-esteem for people.These differences are what creates a lot of conflicts.

Imagine that you find out that all your beliefs, ideas, opinions, etc. were totally wrong!

If your cultural worldview is threatened or invalidated, your self-esteem suffers a blow, as your value as an important member of this worldview is diminished. Sheldon Solomon illustrates beautifully how this phenomenon affects humans on a grand scale:

Have you ever encountered someone who you know has fundamentally different beliefs about the world than you do? 

If so, then I’m sure you have had certain negative thoughts about them regarding their beliefs. Their belief poses a direct threat to your self-esteem system. You may have even tried to convince them of your thinking in order to validate your ideas! This goes to show how hard it is to end an argument with “let’s agree to disagree”. The need to affirm our own beliefs is extremely powerful because these beliefs provide us with a buffer to our own mortality!

Accepting our Mortality: The Benefits

• CARPE DIEM :My own realization and reminder of my eventual death is one that is very powerful in my life. It’s a reminder that our time on earth is fleeting. A reminder to take advantage of all the time I have
• Not fretting the little things: When we think about our eventual demise, we don’t care as much about small events or things that go wrong.
• More Freedom: When reminded of death, I have noticed that I feel less obligated to do the things I don’t want to do. I am more focused on the things I care about because I know I will die one day. Why waste time doing something you don’t want to do when you only have so much time!?

Final Thoughts:

Terror Management Theory provided me with a better understanding of why I believe, act, and think in a certain way.

• This understanding can help to alter how to respond to a threat to one’s own self-esteem, whether in an argument or what have you.
• TMT helps to understand the actions of others, which can help you to deal with other people.

Deep down, we all are afraid of our eventual death. Yes this is a somewhat morbid thought, but we all share it. This fact is something we can bond over. All of our beliefs, ideas, prejudices, actions, etc. revolve around distancing or suppressing the fear of death. Acknowledging this brings an understanding that we are all one, regardless of our differences.

More Reading on TMT

• If you would like to read my paper on the environmental implications of mortality salience (death thoughts, or the awareness of our own mortality), click here
• Be sure to check out the works of Ernest Becker. Much of the research that Solomon and his colleagues did involved using the theories and ideas presented in  Becker’s books The Denial of Death, and Escape from Evil.
• Also check out the article my recent podcast guest Matt Karamazov wrote on Becker’s works. It contains a much more thorough and in depth look at the ideas presented in Becker’s books and TMT.
• I highly recommend the book The Worm at the Core . I also recommend the award winning documentary called “Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality”.

Thanks for listening!