Without proximal defenses people would be perpetually panicking about death
Evidence
As long as you can tell yourself “Not me, not now,” reminders of death are like so much white noise. In the absence of such defenses, you could be panicking about death all the time. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 637
Related
- Distal defenses minimize the occasions that proximal defenses must handle (similarity 0.91)
- People unaware of their death fears are nonetheless governed by layered psychological defenses (similarity 0.88)
- Knowing how death awareness drives defenses enables more self-determined choices (similarity 0.85)
- Death’s most powerful influence operates unseen in normal life (similarity 0.83)
- Conscious and unconscious death thoughts trigger different defense systems (similarity 0.82)
- Mortality reminders uniquely trigger worldview defense unlike other threats (similarity 0.82)
- No account of human behavior is complete without the awareness of death (similarity 0.81)
- Long-term worldview security makes everyday death-distraction strategies workable (similarity 0.80)
- Conscious death thoughts require delay to trigger worldview defenses (similarity 0.80)
- People are generally oblivious to death yet it shapes their experience (similarity 0.80)
- Children fear death more than parents realize they do (similarity 0.80)
- Affluence and technology allow Americans to avoid facing death (similarity 0.79)
- Schizophrenic delusions function as shields against death terror (similarity 0.79)
- Worldview and self-esteem defense is bidirectional with death-thought accessibility. (similarity 0.78)