Persistence past a hostile rejection turned terror management theory toward empiricism

Evidence

Feedback arrived a few months later. “I have no doubt that this paper would be of no interest to any psychologist, living or dead,” read one rather pithy singleline review. But we kept at the editor, repeatedly asking him to explain why our ideas were unworthy. Our queries outlasted the original editor’s tenure, and finally a second, more sympathetic (or perhaps more beleaguered) editor gave us something we could work with: “Although your ideas may have some validity,” he told us, “they won’t be taken seriously unless you can provide evidence for them.” — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 25

Categorization

• CANDY: The one-line rejection ‘of no interest to any psychologist, living or dead’ is a great quote.
• SEED: How a dismissive review forced the theory to become empirical is a nice case study in scientific method.
• XREF: connects to: the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: Ours, True, and the Identity That Defends Both”