Subtle death reminders drive worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and unhealthy behavior.
Evidence
Some thirty years and more than five hundred studies later, there is now overwhelming evidence confirming Becker’s central claim that the awareness of death gives rise to potentially debilitating terror that humans manage by perceiving themselves to be significant contributors to an ongoing cultural drama. We found, as Becker posited, that self-esteem buffers anxiety in general and anxiety about death in particular. We discovered that subtle, and even subliminal, reminders of death increase devotion to one’s cultural scheme of things, support for charismatic leaders, and confidence in the existence of God and belief in the efficacy of prayer. They amplify our disdain toward people who do not share our beliefs even to the point of taking solace in their demise. They drive us to compulsively smoke, drink, eat, and shop. They make us uncomfortable with our bodies and our sexuality. They impel us to drive recklessly and fry ourselves in tanning booths to bolster our self-esteem. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 763
Categorization
- XREF: Summarizes the terror management findings developed across earlier chapters of this book. — connects to: Escaping precariousness compels one to loathe reminders of shared mortal fragility. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 225
Related
- Death-awareness drives humans to cling to cultural worldviews and self-esteem (similarity 0.88)
- Mortality reminders uniquely trigger worldview defense unlike other threats (similarity 0.86)
- People pursue self-destructive trends most avidly when death thoughts are unconscious (similarity 0.84)
- Death-terror drives art, religion, war, consumerism, and fame-seeking (similarity 0.84)
- Threatening cherished beliefs brings thoughts of death closer to awareness (similarity 0.83)
- Worldview and self-esteem defense is bidirectional with death-thought accessibility. (similarity 0.83)
- Knowing how death awareness drives defenses enables more self-determined choices (similarity 0.83)
- Death’s most powerful influence operates unseen in normal life (similarity 0.83)
- Mildly depressed people respond to death reminders with amplified nationalism (similarity 0.82)
- Adults respond to death reminders with mundane distraction and consumption (similarity 0.82)
- Mortality reminders increase desire for high-status luxury goods. (similarity 0.82)
- Death reminders uniquely trigger worldview and relationship defense, unlike other aversive threats. (similarity 0.81)
- High self-esteem and optimism enable constructive responses to death threats. (similarity 0.81)
- Psychological disorders result from failed attempts to manage death anxiety (similarity 0.80)
- Death awareness would have been lethal without simultaneous cultural adaptations to deny it (similarity 0.80)