The Meaning of Death.

Among the various species of the Earth human beings are uniquely equipped with comparatively large brains. Obviously we are afforded many benefits by having this equipment. Although not everything provided by this cognitive ability is beneficial at all times. We are enabled to imagine distant and abstract things, such as the future. We can picture many things which may never come to pass. But one thing we can fully imagine which is unavoidably certain is our own death. Indeed death confronts us every day. We see on the news a fatal car accident, a relative or an acquaintance dies from illness. All of this, and we know that we ourselves will die. What effect does this knowledge have on us individually and collectively? Even more what are the effects when we are made consciously aware of our mortality? What are the behaviors and psychological consequences handed to us with this ability to recognize our own mortality?

These questions have become somewhat of a quest for a team of experimental psychologists who were inspired by the ideas put forth by Ernest Becker in his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Denial of Death (Becker). They set out to develop methods which would test the speculations which Becker made about the psychological effects of death anxiety in human beings. Becker’s framework has fallen under the name of Terror Management Theory (TMT).             
            In its simplest form TMT states that the human capacity to be aware of death and the resulting finality creates a potential vessel for anxiety and terror. Human beings then erect structured worldviews and cultural symbols which bolster self-esteem and meaning for the individual in the face of their own death. These external cultural ideas are internalized and provide the individual with an increased sense of self-esteem as long as they live up to the standards the cultural framework provides. Human worldviews are largely based on symbolism having been constructed by people and they are many and diverse. The personal security afforded by these cultural constructs is threatened directly by the opposing views of other people and other cultures. The opposite effect holds true as well. Others who possess the same worldview bolster the shield provided by the mutual worldview. This security and protection from death anxiety is largely dependent on the perceived validity for a particular set of beliefs. This dependence on cultural ideas leads people to strive in defense of their culture from other cultures which oppose or threaten this security system. These defenses come in several forms from disparaging other views, attempting to convert others to one’s belief system or by simply killing and exterminating those who hold differing beliefs. Crucial to the security of anxiety protection systems is an absolute certainty about the ideas it contains (Pyszczynski, Greenberg and Solomon).

In the late 80’s Greenberg and colleagues realized that the TMT hypothesis needed to be verified with experiments. Thus began nearly two decades of research into the effect caused by subtle reminders of death (also known as mortality salience or MS). They have performed over 300 hundred different clinical examinations in 15 different countries and a multitude of cultural settings (Greenberg and al.). Their research has shown that death anxiety is reduced by increases in self-esteem, that reminders of death raise favorable reactions to those who support one’s belief structure while raising hostility to those who threaten it, that direct threats to an individual’s self-esteem raise the ability of death related thoughts to have psychological import and that higher confidence in one’s culture and belief structure produces a dramatic reduction in death anxiety.

The first study performed by the team involved American Municipal Court judges. In this test the judges were asked to assign bail for someone accused of prostitution. One half of the judges completed a survey which contained direct death reminders. The TMT hypothesis predicted that since prostitution is generally considered morally reprehensible in America the judges in the MS group would be more punitive. The results confirmed this prediction. The average bail assigned by the judges in the death primed group was $455, while in the control group the average was merely $50 (Solomon, Greenberg and Pyszcynski, Pride and Prejudice: Fear of Death and Social Behavior).

In another study conducted in 1998 the effects of terror management on physical aggression were tested and analyzed. The experimenters set out to answer whether MS encourages physical aggression toward others who possess a different worldview, particularly those who are threatening. After the participants performed a mortality salience or control induction survey, they read an essay written by another participant which either supported or threatened the political views held by the subjects. Then in a second seemingly unrelated study under the guise of personality and taste preference, participants were directed to choose a quantity of extremely spicy hot sauce for the writer of the essay to drink. As TMT would predict, the amount prescribed by the control group did not vary, but those in the mortality-salience group assigned a much larger quantity of hot sauce for those whose essay threatened the participant’s culture than to those who supported and agreed with their worldview (McGregor and Leiberman). 

Although these studies and the many others performed by Greenberg and his colleagues are far from conclusive they validate in many ways the speculations put forth by Becker in The Denial of Death. His speculations posited that human beings are troubled by the inevitability of death (Becker 501). Becker proposed that we cope with this potential existential crisis through the construction of culture and especially hero worship. Our natural impotence in the face of death can be combated by creating a hero system which can enable us to imagine that we transcend death through participating in something bigger than ourselves (Becker 133).    

One might be tempted at this point to reason that if confidence in and adherence to a cultural framework truly does reduce anxiety and provide security for people in the face of their death, then what’s the harm? As noted by Becker himself the problems begin when the framework provided by our culture is threatened (Becker 4615). We rise to defend our worldview from outside threats. This defense often takes the form of drastic violent action, warfare, even attempts at annihilation. Taken to its extreme this armor of defense against anxiety begins to hold the person prisoner (Becker 1762). The flip side comes when we encounter persons or cultures which bolster the protection against death anxiety. We are drawn to them and experience fondness; rather than being threatened our self-esteem is buttressed by them. They are our allies.

One real life instance where this occurred on a global scale came from the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001. Ask anyone and they will be able to recall in striking detail where they were and what they were doing on that fateful day. As a people the nations of the West and all of the resulting worldviews were threatened in dramatic fashion on that day. As TMT would have predicted in the days following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the nations who support and share the American worldview and cultural constructs rose to support and defend those idea which seemingly came under threat. While many of those who hold views in line with the attackers celebrated in the streets the falling of the great cultural symbols which threaten much of what they value.

One of the most obvious signs of this worldview defense came from a dramatic spike in American flag sales immediately after 9/11. As noted by Klee Manufacturing and Distributing owner Carol Klee Carter, of Flint, Michigan. “The demand for U.S. flags was so overwhelming that there just wasn’t any red, white and blue material left in the United States. Some people waited months to get one.” Even more telling is her own recounting of the events of 9/11 and the threat it posed, “After what happened to our country, people realized we were the best country and no one wanted to see that happen again,” Klee-Carter said. “Everybody came together and it was wonderful. They cared for one another and loved one another” (Mostafavi).

The flip side of this patriotic symbolism and a nation united came in the form of revenge seeking. And it goes without saying that the attacks themselves were perpetrated by persons who were themselves defending strongly held views from threats posed by the west.

This back and forth cultural struggle goes on both globally and locally every day. There are of course socially acceptable ways to defeat a cultural enemy as well. We can trounce them in a debate or even just talk down those who are different from us. We see this every day.

The research which has been performed on TMT has largely confirmed the speculation of Becker. It has put into perspective what is possibly the primary motivation behind all of this struggling to be right and to convince others of our positions. Our striving to find symbols and ideologies with which to ally ourselves is explained when death anxiety is added to the equation.  Death is terrifying and this terror is too much to handle for our fragile psyches so we place bandages on it with culture and hero worship. When the security afforded by these cultural constructs is placed in jeopardy we attack, defend or cling to them even harder. The work of TMT researchers aims to provide us with a window into our own tendencies and thus take one step toward equipping us to overcome these tendencies and their effects. While their work is far from conclusive it has been instructive and illuminating. And it is certainly interesting.