“Over time, reminders of death lead people to grasp more tightly to their cultural worldview and work harder to try to be significant contributors to the meaningful reality conveyed by that worldview.”

Terror Management Theory (TMT) proposes that the human awareness of the inevitability of death creates an ever-present potential for experiencing terror over the prospect of no longer existing, but cultural worldviews help us manage this potential for terror by imbuing subjective reality with meaning and the possibility of enduring significance, thereby convincing us we are more than mere material beings fated only to annihilation upon death.

  Terror management appears to deal with considerably more than just behavior with regard to catastrophic events. Do people’s behaviors differ with regard to the type of life-threatening scenario they are faced with?

The theory is more about long-term reactions to reminders of our mortality than it is about immediate reactions to disasters. Over time, reminders of death lead people to grasp more tightly to their cultural worldview and work harder to try to be significant contributors to the meaningful reality conveyed by that worldview. 

  It was interesting to read about how you tested for terror management in the lab. When 9/11 happened, did you see much of the same reactions in the world as you did in the lab?

Yes, it was remarkable. Reminding people of death over the last 20 years in our labs has led them to become more patriotic, more helpful and positive toward those who validate the prevailing worldview, and more punitive toward those who seem to be potential threats to the culture.

  Have the tenets of terror management theory helped to develop practical applications for dealing with disastrous situations like the aftermath of Katrina?

Not really. The psychological constructs that help people in such situations generally need to be in place for people prior to these disasters. Our work does suggest that helping victims of these disasters retain their dignity, and feel helpful and hopeful, is useful. But those are pretty obvious measures. People who seem to react most constructively to reminders of death are those who have a very secure sense of self-worth and secure social relationships, and those who have accepted a worldview in which tolerance is highly valued. We refer to two types of worldviews, the Rock and the Hard Place. The Rock is a very certain, rigid worldview, in which absolutes are stressed and people are encouraged to believe they are part of a heroic triumph over evil. The Rock seems to have great appeal when people are under high threat. The Hard Place is a more uncertain worldview in which there are gray areas between good and bad, and open-mindedness is stressed. This type of worldview doesn’t quell anxieties as well but leads to less destructive responses to reminders of death.

  Where do you see this research going in 5 years? 10 years?

Who knows? We go which ever way the data take us. TMT is now being researched all around the globe so it is hard to predict which ways people take it will be most fruitful. Our own work has been moving toward understanding the appeal of terrorism and fundamentalism and trying to understand what aspects of worldviews are most protective under threat and which aspects are most central to providing people with a sense that their lives are meaningful and significant. Toward this goal, two recent studies have shown that thoughts of death increase the appeal of terrorism in Iranian college students and the appeal of extreme violent measures to combat terrorism in politically conservative American college students. We have also begun exploring the roles death fears and our efforts to cope with them play in psychological problems such as PTSD, phobias, and compulsions. Other people have been examining the role of death concerns in legal decision-making, physical health behaviors, and romantic and parent-child relationships.