Awareness of mortality drives people to defend cultural worldviews that give life meaning.

Evidence

Terror Management Theory takes a different perspective, focusing on less tangible resources and outcomes (Greenberg et al., 1997). The theory proposes that awareness of death causes people to experience the terror of their own meaninglessness. To counteract this terror, it is argued, people create cultural worldviews that give meaning and significance to their lives. These worldviews provide the possibility of symbolic or actual immortality to those who meet the group’s standards of value. Because of their often absolute nature, however, they are not impervious to threat and competition from other group’s worldviews. Group conflict and competition arise, then, because those with different worldviews are seen as suggesting that our worldview is incorrect, threatening the very basic premises on which the meaning and significance of our lives are based. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1488

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the identity-threat mechanisms in Allport’s original framework this volume is building on, and connects to the ‘sense of belonging’ through worldview management in subsequent social psychology. — connects to: Bicultural individuals shift worldviews contextually under death threat — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 82; Ways of life are threatened because they are devalued, an issue of recognition — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 309; Humans construct cultural identities to deny mortality. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 5 (+3 more)