No account of human behavior is complete without the awareness of death
Evidence
In the course of this book, we will show how this fear contributes to human behavior far more than most of us realize. In fact, it drives us so much that any effort to address the question “What makes people act the way they do?” is profoundly inadequate if it doesn’t include the awareness of death as a central factor. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 29
Related
- Knowing how death awareness drives defenses enables more self-determined choices (similarity 0.89)
- People are generally oblivious to death yet it shapes their experience (similarity 0.86)
- Death awareness would have been lethal without simultaneous cultural adaptations to deny it (similarity 0.85)
- Fear of death ultimately reduces to thwarted biological survival instinct. (similarity 0.83)
- People unaware of their death fears are nonetheless governed by layered psychological defenses (similarity 0.82)
- Death’s most powerful influence operates unseen in normal life (similarity 0.82)
- Children fear death more than parents realize they do (similarity 0.82)
- Conscious death thoughts require delay to trigger worldview defenses (similarity 0.82)
- Threatening cherished beliefs brings thoughts of death closer to awareness (similarity 0.81)
- Distal defenses minimize the occasions that proximal defenses must handle (similarity 0.81)
- Death-awareness drives humans to cling to cultural worldviews and self-esteem (similarity 0.81)
- Affluence and technology allow Americans to avoid facing death (similarity 0.81)
- Without proximal defenses people would be perpetually panicking about death (similarity 0.81)
- Subtle death reminders drive worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and unhealthy behavior. (similarity 0.80)
- Death reminders make people insist humans differ from animals (similarity 0.80)