Terror management theory proposes that human behavior and culture are strongly influenced by an innate psychological fear of death. The theory suggests that culture and self-esteem serve to help people deny or manage the terror of realizing their own mortality. When reminded of death, people tend to more strongly defend their own cultural beliefs and worldviews and reject those who are different. The theory is supported by research showing that mortality salience increases in-group favoritism and out-group aggression. However, some criticisms argue that the theory's claims are not well supported by evidence and its assumptions do not necessarily increase survival.

1. TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY
By Bilal

2. BACKGROUND
Based on the ideas presented in “The Denial of
Death” by Ernst Becker
Why does human society develop the way it
does?
Why is the nature of human society so violent?
Why is there intolerance among social groups?

3. THE EXPLANATORY PRINCIPLE
• What is the explanatory principle
for understanding human behavior
and culture?
• Fear of Death
• The most basic drive in individual
behavior: The Denial of Death
• The role of culture in the denial of
death: Immortality Systems

4. CONSEQUENCES OF CULTURAL
STRUCTURES
• Culture gives us a sense of certainty about our
reality being invulnerable
• Development of an unreal sense of self
• Immortality systems:
• Manichean morality; Defense of one immortality
system against exposure to another
• Fear of Life: stems from freedom to define one’s
existence

5. EMERGENCE OF TERROR
MANAGEMENT THEORY
• Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom
Pyszczynski (mid-1980s)
• Tested Becker’s ideas and developed a scientific
theory
• Testable Hypothesis based on Becker’s ideas
• Self-esteem and Cultural Worldviews

6. CULTURAL WORLDVIEW
• Man: the Cultural Animal
• Helps in developing institutions, norms, and
customs
• As a result, becomes prevalent in a group of
similar people
• Essential aspect: Promise of immortality
• TMT: Defensive psychological system to deal
with death terror

7. SELF- ESTEEM
Self-esteem as a Cultural Anxiety-Buffer
• Why is self-esteem required?
• Humans want to be seen as worthwhile and
valuable
• Early life self-esteem needs met by caregivers
• Later, the task is shifted to cultural symbols and
authorities
• Any threat to self-esteem is a source of anxiety

8. COMPONENTS OF SELF-ESTEEM
Two Components
1. Belief in the meaningfulness, and
importance of culture
2. Belief in the significance of one’s own role in
the culture

9. CONTINUED
Minimization of threats
• General maintenance (reaffirmation of values,
socialization, cultural symbols). Sustains Faith
• Defensive strategies (against threats to cultural
worldview)
• Committed outgroup makes us question our
conception of reality
• Interpersonal level: dislike and reject individuals
with dissimilar attitude

10. THREE CRITICAL HYPOTHESES
• The Mortality Salience (MS) Hypothesis
• The Death-Thought Accessibility (DTA) Hypothesis
• The Anxiety-Buffer Hypothesis

11. MORTALITY SALIENCE
• Mortality Salience is the awareness by individuals that their
death is inevitable.
• Reminding individuals of their mortality causes them to exhibit
higher levels of worldview defense and to pursue activities that
have the potential to increase their self-esteem
• If cultural worldviews and self-esteem function to reduce
concerns about death, then reminding people of death should
increase their need for these protective psychological structures.

12. CONTINUED
Mortality Salience
• Increases Defense of the Cultural Worldview (Rosenblatt et al.,
1989)
• Motivates Prejudice and Aggression (against out-group)
(Greenberg et al.,1990, 2001)
• Can Inspire Socially Constructive Behaviors (towards ingroup
and outgroup) (Greenberg et al., 1992; Jonas et al., 2008)
• Increases Striving for Self-Esteem (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000; Peters
et al., 2005)

13. DEATH THOUGHT ACCESSIBILITY
• Threatening or weakening cultural worldviews and self-
esteem should increase the accessibility of death-thoughts.
• Measured using a word-fragment completion task in which
some words are designed to be completed as a death-
related word or a nondeath-related word
• For example, the fragment, “S K _ L L” could be completed as
“SKULL” or “SKILL.” The more death words people complete,
the more it can be inferred that death-thoughts are close to
consciousness.

14. CONTINUED
DTA is temporarily increased following threats to
• the cultural worldview, (Schimel et al., 2007)
• people’s bases for self-esteem, (Ogilvie et al., 2008)
• significant relationships, (Hart et al., 2005; Mikulincer et al., 2003)
• the human-animal boundary (Goldenberg et al., 2000)
• structured meaning (Landau et al., 2004; Roylance et al., 2014)

15. THE ANXIETY-BUFFER HYPOTHESIS
• Provides explanation for how the need for self-esteem developed
and what psychological function it ultimately serves.
• According to TMT people need self-esteem because it shields
them from anxiety.
• Self-esteem buffers anxiety because it is a symbolic extension of
the more basic attachment mechanism.
• It functions to buffer individuals from
(1) the general experience of anxiety
(2) thoughts and concerns about death

16. CONTINUED
Individuals with high self-esteem
• Show lower levels of anxiety in response to threats
(Greenberg, et al., 1992)
• Are less likely to exhibit worldview defense in response to
death reminders (Harmon-Jones et al. , 1997, Study 1)
• Have lower DTA in response to MS and self-esteem threats
(Harmon-Jones et al., 1997; Hayes et al., 2008)

17. IMPLICATIONS
• Inability to maintain self in a culture might result
in mental health issues
• Mortality Salience and Prejudice/Stereotyping
• Focus on death is counter-intuitive
• Understanding of inter-group conflict and
strategies for resolution

18. TERROR MANAGEMENT HEALTH MODEL
• Integrates TMT with Health Psychology
• In the context of health decisions, death salience
results in health-oriented responses
• If mortality activated outside conscious
awareness, health decisions are expected to be
self-oriented

19. TANNING
Thompson et al., 2016
• Failing to take protective measures (Sunblock)
• Participants chose sunblock when concerns about
death were conscious
• Delay-task after death-reminder resulted in less
interest in buying sunblock
• Follow-up study: Tanning and Cultural beauty
standard

20. TM AND TERRORISM:
HOW TERRORISM CHANGES US
• Why do terrorists take the lives of innocent
people?
• Do terrorists actually achieve their goal? Most
of us are living our lives relatively normally,
• Why?
• Our Cultural Defense mechanisms assert
themselves

21. THE DARK SIDE
Death reminder causes people tend to cling to
their own beliefs and cultures and to denigrate
individuals with different beliefs and cultures.
• Greater political and societal divisions
• Prejudice
• Suspicion between people of different
cultures.
All of this unconsciously

22. CRITICISM
• Leary et al., 1997
• Logical difficulties. How does terror management
processes increase organism's chances of survival
• It can’t be concluded that perceived severity of
threats will result in efforts to minimize threats
• TM would reduce organism’s chance of survival
as anxiety has survival value

23. CONTINUED
• Questions over support for buffering role of
self-esteem
• Foundational studies on which TMT is based
have failed to replicate
• Overall, stimulated cross-discipline research