Book Analysis: The Denial Of Death

Choosing to Hide from Reality

In the book The Denial of Death Ernest Becker writes “the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is the mainspring of human activity – activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man” (Becker XVII). One thing that every human being on this earth has in common is that death is imminent. This fear of death produces terror and is explained through terror management theory. Terror management theory addresses the conflict of both the desire of living and also the inevitable fear of death. After analysis of the terror management theory the unconscious fear of death leads humans to mask their terror

In the Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology Jeff Greenberg and Jamie Arndt specifies that terror management theory was conceived from three of Ernest Becker’s books: The Birth and Death of Meaning, The Denial of Death, and Escape from Evil. This theory was introduced in the 1980’s and was met with much skepticism at the time. The basic understanding of terror management theory is the role of the unconscious fear of death in just about everything we humans do. In the beginning it was broken down into two basic parts. First, we as humans are animals and as animals we have the instinct to stay alive. Second, because we are humans we also have cognitive abilities to understand that death is inevitable and we do not know when or where but it could come at any time for any number of reasons. Over time these two basic ideas have driven the terror management theory to what it is today by different psychologists who have been researching the topic. (Arndt and

This need is driven by an underlying fear of death. The studies of terror management theory have brought light onto the study of death in social psychology. It helps us understand our unconscious fear of death that contributes to our different attitudes in life and every day decision-making. More so overall, terror management theory has helped us broaden the comprehension of the idea of death in humans and our unconscious motivations and our behaviors due to those exact motivations in our minds. (Arndt and