Terror Management Theory
(TMT)
TMT is based on the idea that as humans, we are uniquely
aware of the inevitability of death
TMT Foundations
• TMT is based on the notion that unlike other animals, humans’
advanced cognitive abilities to think abstractly and symbolically make
us aware of the fragility of our existence and the inevitability of our
own death
• Our instinctual desire for self-preservation makes the thought of death
particularly frightening
• To protect ourselves from the terror of death, we create a system of meaning
(culture and religion), which gives our lives and deaths significance
• These institutions allow us to carry on with everyday life mostly undisturbed
by the knowledge that one day, we will die
Culture and TMT
• So why is culture protective against death anxiety?
• Gives a sense of order and predictability: calendars and clocks help to organize
us and enhance our belief in predictability
• Provides meaning for our lives: often cultures provide answers to questions such
as how did the world begin? What is the purpose of life?
• Cultures usually contain explicit beliefs about what happens after we die – thus
symbolically extending our lives indefinitely
• If we belong to a group, even if individuals die, the group lives on, so there is a
sense of permanence
Culture and TMT
• When we live up to the values of our particular culture,
we can achieve:
• Literal immortality: when we believe in an afterlife, by living up
to the standards of our culture, we can essentially avoid death
entirely
• For example, Catholics believe that by confessing their sins regularly (i.e., living up to their cultural values), they
will go to heaven (i.e., achieving immortality)
• Symbolic immortality: by identifying ourselves with larger
groups, even though we may die, the group will not – thus
providing us with a symbolic type of immortality
• For example, if I am a patriotic American, even if I know I may die, I might be comforted by helping to make the
country stronger for future generations (a type of symbolic immortality)
Self-esteem and TMT
• Self-esteem can be defined as “the perception that one is a valuable
member of a meaningful universe” (J. Greenberg et al., 1997, p. 66)
• Although everyone has self-esteem, how we derive our self-esteem depends
on what is valued by our particular culture
• For example, for people in individualistic cultures such as America, self-esteem is
derived mostly from individual achievements. However, for people in collectivistic
cultures such as Japan, self-esteem is derived more from group achievements.
• Thus, we evaluate ourselves based on how much we are living up to
culturally valued expectations
Self-esteem and TMT
• Self-esteem is protective against death anxiety and can come from belonging to a
culture or group
• When we adopt culturally valued social roles in our group, our self-esteem is boosted, and
we feel that we have a purpose in life
• For example, as a psychologist, I gain in self-esteem by feeling that I provide an important service to
others in my country
• We can also enhance our self-esteem by displaying attributes that are valued by our
culture, behaving in ways that fit in with our culture, obtaining culturally valued
achievements, and defending our culture when threatened
• For example, by wearing the football jersey of our favorite team to a game, we are showing our
allegiance as well as following a group norm, and our self-esteem can be enhanced as a result
Prejudice and Intolerance
• So, our identification with a culture and the self-esteem that results
buffer us from death anxiety, according to TMT
• But this works only when we have faith in our cultural worldview
• When others question our worldview or advocate a different worldview, that
might shake our own faith in our worldview
• This is why, according to TMT, we respond so strongly to others who do not share
our worldview
• Often, we derogate the alternative worldview or the people who hold that view
• Or we may try to convince them to adopt our perspective
Terror Management Summary
• To summarize:
• People have a powerful self-preservation instinct and are, due to their
intelligence, aware of their own impending death
• In order to avoid the potential terror of death, people try to increase their selfesteem (i.e., the belief that they are a valuable contributor to a meaningful
universe) by acting in accordance with their cultural values
• In order to prevent overwhelming death anxiety, people must feel secure that:
• Their cultural worldview is accurate
• They are meeting the standards prescribed by their worldview (and thus have high selfesteem)
Now that you understand TMT…
• In the previous slides, I have outlined Terror Management Theory
(TMT)
• In the next segment of the lecture, I will describe various studies that
were designed to demonstrate that TMT is accurate
• Thus, I will go over a range of hypotheses derived from TMT and then
briefly describe the research that was found to support those
hypotheses
Self-Esteem as an Anxiety Buffer?
• The anxiety-buffer hypothesis: if a psychological structure provides protection
against anxiety, then building up that structure should reduce anxiety in
response to threats
• So, we predict that strengthening someone’s self-esteem or faith in their cultural
worldview should protect them from anxiety when they are in a threatening situation
• Experiment: Greenberg et al. (1992) either increased or decreased participants’ selfesteem by providing them with positive or negative feedback on measures of intelligence
or personality. When participants’ self-esteem was increased, they reported less anxiety
after watching a death-related video and were less scared at the threat of a painful electric
shock than when their self-esteem was decreased.
Prejudice and Fear of Death
• Much research has demonstrated that people tend to dislike those who
are different from themselves even when the different others pose no real
threat
• Our cultural worldviews are sustained only through social consensus, and they are
fragile – so those with differing worldviews can easily threaten our own
• For example, I am a staunch Democrat, and talking to people who are Republicans really raises
my blood pressure quickly, even though they pose no immediate threat to me!
• Interestingly, research has also shown that when people think about death, this
tendency is heightened
Mortality Salience
• Mortality salience = making people aware of the
possibility of their own death
• This can be done in numerous ways such as:
• Have people view a supposedly unrelated video with images
of death and dying
• Have people do a word-finding task where a lot of the words
have to do with death (such as funeral, casket, graveyard)
• Even just having people stand outside of a funeral parlor while
answering questions has been shown to increase their
unconscious thoughts about death!
Prejudice and Fear of Death
• Mortality salience experiments:
• Greenberg and colleagues (1990) found that when subjects’ mortality was made salient,
Christian participants rated other Christians more positively and Jews more negatively than
when they were not reminded of death
• This experiment has been repeated with many groups such as Americans (when they are reminded of
death, they rate other Americans more positively and non-Americans more negatively)
• So, when we are reminded of death, we tend to value those in our own culture more
highly than others
• Presumably, this is an attempt to strengthen our own worldview to protect us from death anxiety
Prejudice and Fear of Death
• Mortality salience has not only been shown to increase our liking of our own
group and disliking of other groups, but it has even been shown to engender
more obviously prejudiced views
• For example, when some Christian subjects were reminded of death, they were more likely
to agree that the Holocaust was “God’s punishment for the Jews,” an anti-Semitic point of
view (Greenberg et al., 1990)
• Mortality salience has also been shown to affect our behaviors: Ochsmann and Mathy
(1994) found that when students were reminded of death, they sat closer to those from
the same country than those from other countries
Prejudice and Fear of Death
• However, mortality salience leads only to prejudice against groups that threaten
our worldviews
• So, even though there is prejudice among white Americans against African-Americans,
mortality salience does not necessarily increase this prejudice because African-Americans
do not generally hold a different belief system from Caucasians
• However, a black person who conforms to the white stereotypes of blacks may actually
validate the white worldview, whereas black people who go against the stereotypes may
be seen as more threatening
• It was found that when white participants were reminded of their own mortality, they liked the more
stereotypical African-American (such as a basketball player) better than an African-American who went
against stereotypes (like Barack Obama)
Mortality and Aggression
• Being reminded of death can also cause participants in studies to behave
more aggressively to one another:
• McGregor and colleagues (1996) reminded half of conservative and liberal
participants of death, then let them choose how much hot sauce to give to
another participant who was from the opposite viewpoint and claimed not to
like spicy foods. Those who had been reminded of death allocated much more
hot sauce to the other person than those who were not reminded of death.
• This suggests that when we are reminded of death, we will more strongly defend our own
worldviews, even if this means acting aggressively toward others with differing views
Mortality and Prosocial Behavior
• However, being reminded of your mortality can also cause people to act in more
prosocial ways to members of their groups – this is generally in accordance with
cultural values and enhances one’s self-esteem
• Rosenblatt and colleagues (1989) found that when people were reminded of death, they
increased the amount of a reward offered to a hero who acted in accordance with cultural
values
• Pyszcynski and colleagues (1996) interviewed subjects about the value of various charities
on the street – when they were interviewed in front of a funeral home, they valued the
charities more
• This shows that even subtle reminders of death can have a big impact
Mortality and Consensus
• Part of the reason that we do not like others with differing worldviews is
that we want to think that most people agree with our worldview
(remember, social consensus makes us confident in our views)
• Experiment: when people were stopped on the street in front of a funeral parlor,
they tended to predict that more people shared their view on a controversial
political issue than when they were asked in another part of the street
(Pyszczynski et al., 2009)
• Subtle reminders of death make us more confident that our views are the popular ones – a
buffer against death anxiety
Desire to Meet Cultural Standards and
Mortality Salience
• Because self-esteem is acquired by living up to standards that are valued
by your culture, research has examined whether people try harder to
meet cultural standards when mortality is made salient
• Experiment: Paulhus and Levitt (1987) asked subjects to rate whether various
adjectives applied to them while other distractor words were presented (some
of the words were about death, so mortality was salient). When words about
death were presented, subjects would rate themselves higher on traits that are
more culturally valued than when there were no words about death presented
• This supports the idea that when mortality is salient, we try harder to live up to cultural
values
Desire to Meet Cultural Standards and
Mortality Salience
• People also become increasingly uncomfortable going against cultural
values when mortality is made salient
• Experiment: Greenberg and colleagues (1995) asked Christian American subjects
to solve two problems that required creative solutions. The best solutions
required them to sift black dye through an American flag (ruining the flag) and to
hammer a nail into the wall using a crucifix. They found that when the person
had first been made to think about death, they took longer to solve the
problems, were more tense when solving them, and reported that the tasks
were more difficult afterward.
Mortality and Self-Focus
• TMT also predicts that it is because we are self-aware that makes us
aware of our own deaths
• Thus, it was hypothesized that if we are made to think about death, it will be less
pleasant to be aware of ourselves
• Pyszcynski and colleagues (1990) conducted a study where participants had to
write an essay about death or an exam in cubicles that did or did not contain
mirrors (mirrors make us more self-aware). When participants were asked to
write about death with the mirror present, they spent significantly less time on
the task than when asked to write about the exam or when in a cubicle without
the mirror.
• This indicates that when we are made aware of death, we have much less willingness to be
made self-aware
Does TMT Affect People Differently?
• Not all people respond in the same way to reminders of death
• Authoritarian personality: people with a high regard for authority, who are very
rigid and inflexible, and who are conventional in their beliefs
• People with these traits tend to defend their worldviews the most vigorously when death
is salient
• People with these traits also tend to be more politically conservative
• In fact, studies have shown that those who are very liberal become less prejudiced than conservatives
when mortality is made salient
• However, when all types of people are reminded of tolerance (a cultural value), they also tend not to
become as prejudiced after being reminded of death
Personality Traits and Mortality
• We have talked about how situationally manipulating people’s self-esteem can
cause people to behave differently when reminded of death, but what about
personality differences in self-esteem?
• Not surprisingly, people who tend to be generally higher in self-esteem are less defensive
when presented with other worldviews, even when mortality is made salient
• People who are depressed are thought to be struggling to sustain their cultural
worldviews
• Thus, when mortality is made salient, they defend their worldviews with particular vigor –
like the drowning person clinging as much as possible to a life boat
Death Versus Negative Feelings
• But wait—is it only being reminded of death that makes us defend our
worldviews, or do we do this whenever we are reminded of anything
sad?
• Greenberg and colleagues (1995) tested this hypothesis by having college
students either think about their concerns about life after college (general
negative mood) or think about death. Only the students who thought about
death were more punitive towards someone who went against their cultural
values (a prostitute)
• This indicates that it is actually thinking of death, not just anything that makes us worry, that
causes mortality salience effects
So what exactly happens when we think
about death???
• In the first moments that we are consciously reminded of death, we
first deal with these thoughts consciously by:
• Minimizing the threat (e.g., cancer is no big deal; not everyone gets it)
• Redefining the situation to be less severe than it is (e.g., even if I do get
cancer, many people fight it off)
• Denying one’s own vulnerability to a dangerous situation (e.g., I do not
smoke, so I will not get cancer)
• Thinking about how far off the threat is (e.g., I am still young; I will not get
cancer for many years)
So what exactly happens when we think about
death?
• The thoughts presented in the preceding slide allow us consciously to
put thoughts of death out of our minds
• It is only AFTER we consciously put thoughts of death out of our minds that the
mortality salience effects of defending our worldview take place – these happen
at an unconscious level
• In fact, studies have shown that while people are consciously thinking about
death, they do not vigorously defend their worldviews; this effect is more
pronounced after a delay or if the idea of death is presented in a subtle way (i.e.,
when the fear of death is unconscious)
So what exactly happens when we think
about death?
• When we are reminded of death more subtly so that it does not reach
consciousness, the conscious suppression of death-related thoughts
through rationalization does not take place
• For example, when someone is standing outside a funeral parlor answering
questions, they likely are not fully aware that they are being reminded of death,
so no rationalization takes place
• In this case, mortality salience effects take place immediately, as you are aware
of death only at an unconscious level
So what exactly happens when we think
about death?
• Interestingly, studies have shown that thinking of death does not upset
people particularly –
• There is no physiological arousal
• However, they do find that the more people deny feeling upset by thinking about
death, the more vigorously they defend their worldviews
• Thus, it seems that defending one’s worldview and denying death anxiety are
actually effective unconscious strategies that reduce emotional discomfort when
we are reminded of death
• Being afraid of death is largely unconscious, and we tend to work to deny this
fear without realizing we are doing so
So what exactly happens when we think
about death?
• To review, when reminded of death:
• Initially, we deal with thoughts about death by rationally (and consciously)
trying to talk ourselves out of getting scared (but only if the death reminder
occurs at a conscious level)
• This helps us to suppress (i.e., forget about) our fear of death
• But unconsciously, we are still worried about it – we will vigorously defend
our worldviews at this stage
• To add the next step to the story: over time we relax our defenses, and these
thoughts of death become more accessible to our conscious minds once
again
• However, when self-esteem is buffered, even after we relax, we do not think more about
death
How do we know this happens?
• A number of ingenious experiments have been conducted that support
the rationale presented in the last few slides. I will review just one piece
of research, but there is much more in the article I assigned if you would
like to look more into it
• When people are reminded of death, they actively try to suppress these
thoughts (i.e., they try not to think about them). This requires cognitive energy.
So if people are given a task that keeps them cognitively busy (like reading
numbers aloud), they are not able also to suppress their thoughts about death,
and so these thoughts remain conscious for longer, and mortality salience effects
such as defending one’s worldview do not take place immediately (Greenberg et
al., 1994)
The end