TMT: an Overview
Terror Management Theory (TMT), is an explanatory theoretical framework that was expanded to empirical psychology from an initial anthropological analysis developed by Becker (1962, 1963). TMT, in essence, concerns itself with the unique position that the human species constructs for itself in relation to the rest of the animal kingdom. According to the theory, our species is faced with a severe existential dilemma: while we are, at the most basic level, animals with a powerful biological motivation to survive, our advanced cognitive capacities render us intensely aware of our inevitable deaths. (Greenberg, Solomon & Pyszczynski, 1997). TMT posits that this awareness of death can potentially cause a debilitating form of terror
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As pointed out by Haidt et al. (1997), disgust responses play a role in guiding the construction and maintenance of culture-specific socio-moral guidelines and standards. As mentioned before, according to the second hypothesis of TMT, if socio-cultural psychological structure protects people from death-related anxiety, then confronting people with mortality salience should motivate them to strengthen and defend these psychological structures. Disgust, as follows from the TMT explanation of the emotion, is more easily elicited by behaviours and entities that threaten the death-anxiety buffer provided by one’s cultural structure. The emotion is often closely tied to social dictations that surround noticeable animal-human commonalities. (e.g.: sex practices, eating habits, hygiene standards, defecation norms). Consequently, disgust, due to its close ties to the maintenance of the animal-human psychological boundary and the notion of human uniqueness (which can also be connected back to the terror management functions served by one’s cultural worldview) easily lends itself to the facilitation of animalistic
In the year 1625, Francis Bacon, a famous essayist and poet wrote about the influences of fear on everyday life. He stated, “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other” (Essays Dedication of Death). Clearly, external surroundings affect perceptions of fear as well as human nature in general. Although C.S. Lewis published the novel, Out of the Silent Planet, over three centuries after Bacon wrote his theory on fear, Lewis similarly portrayed external surrounding to manipulate perceptions of fear. From the first chapter of the novel, Lewis revealed fear to be a weakness that leads to ignorance. It was this ignorance that apparently fueled the cycle of corruption and immorality on “The Silent Planet.” Using the character Ransom to reveal the effect of memory and morality on fear, C.S. Lewis demonstrates that fear is a quality of the “bent” race (humans), and only by eliminating fear in our lives can the human race become hnau.
Both Di Muzio (2006) and King (2007) make contradicting arguments towards the horror genre. Di Muzio (2006) provides a thought provoking piece regarding morality in horror films and provides his critique on the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Whereas, King (2007) focuses his attention on the positives of the horror genre and ways it allows one to liberate from their sadistic thoughts, calling it as food “to keep the gators fed” in our psyche. (King, 2007, p. 458)
Have you ever experienced that feeling when your heart beat goes into hyper drive, your palms start to perspire, and your muscles tense up? Fear is an emotion that everyone has succumbed to at least once in their lifetime. Our fears are like our shadows, for they follow us around to wherever we may go. They are lingering in the back of our minds from the moment we wake up in the morning until our heads hit the pillow at night. Fears are so powerful, however, that they can even crawl into our dreams and manifest into other beings. We, as humans, like to put names or concepts to either faces or objects; we like to possess the ability to visualize what something or someone looks like. As a result, our fears are personified into monsters. Prolific essayist, Chuck Klosterman, points out how “Frankenstein’s monster illustrated our trepidation about untethered science” and “Godzilla was spawned from the fear of the atomic age.” In Klosterman’s article, “My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead,” he tackles the
The world state controls its people from creation, to cremation. With multiple emotion inducing elements in society to balance the distaste that had originally been tied to religion, society has no conflict. “There isn't any need for a civilized man to bear anything that's seriously unpleasant. And as for doing things–Ford forbid that he should get
"Taboos and Social Stigma - Rituals, Body, Life, History, Time, Person, Human, Traditional Views of Death Give Way to New Perceptions." Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. .
In Module one, I learned that terrorism is a result of physical harm or deadly acts of force with the intent of a political outcome by the use of terror for coercion. There are various types of terrorism such as international terrorism and domestic terrorism. International terrorism occurs outside of the United States with a purpose to influence the policy of a government by intimidation. International and Domestic terrorism both involve violent acts dangerous to human life that violate federal and state laws. Domestic terrorism occurs within the United States with the intention of coercion or intimidation by way of mass destruction, etc. Some forms of terrorism include Improvised explosive devices (IED), kidnappings, suicide bombings and
Disgust is something that all humans go through. It starts at the beginning when a child is born and continues to form as the child grows up. Disgust can, if not be, one of the most dangerous reactions or behaviors that humans have. Disgust is an interesting emotion in the sense that a good bit of the time, humans do not even realize they are invoking their disgust response. In Richard Beck’s book “Unclean” he quotes Paul Rozin who groups disgust into three segments. The first being core disgust which is generally disgust towards food. This is generally towards foods we do not like or have never had before. The next grouping is sociomoral disgust, this is against other groups of people that are different than us. Lastly, is the grouping of
A second line of support for the terror management function of self-esteem comes from tests of the mortality salience hypothesis which is another hypothesis derived from TMT. Similar to the anxiety-buffer hypothesis, it states that temporarily increasing the accessibility of death-related thought self-esteem provides protection from mortality concerns, and hence individuals will then intensify their efforts to bolster and defend self-esteem. In sum, convergent evidence supports the claim that self-esteem functions as a buffer against mortality concerns (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, & Maxfield, 2006).
Lieberman J, Arndt J, Personius J, Cook A. “Vicarious Annihilation: The Effect of Mortality Salience on Perceptions of Hate Crimes”. Law & Human Behavior (Springer Science & Business Media B.V.). December 2001;25(6):547. Available from: Business Source Alumni Edition, Ipswich, MA. Accessed April 1, 2014.
Thanatology is derived from the Greek word Thanatos, which means death; Death of the physical self and death of the internal self. As Sigmund Freud institutes in his work Beyond the Pleasure Principle there are two drives in the brain that both coincide and conflict within the individual and one of these drives is death itself. Eros is the drive of life, love, creativity, sexuality, self-satisfaction, and species preservation. Thanatos consists of aggression, sadism, destruction, violence and the unknown thoughts of death (Freud, 1953). These self-destructive characteristics are present in all human beings, but they are in the unconscious part of the mind that can be accessed but can also be repressed in order to survive (Freud, 1953). The purpose of this essay is to examine the history of Thanatology, what it is, and the correlations of Sigmund’s Freud’s understanding of the unconscious death instinct that has infiltrated into today 's society.
Following the above line of research, Mikulincer and Florian (2000) demonstrated that attachment style influences the way people react to death reminders. For instance, secure persons reacted to mortality salience with a higher desire for intimacy in romantic relationships, while individuals who scored high on the anxiety or avoidance component reacted with harsher punishment for social transgressors. These findings imply that secure persons react to death reminders by relying on their attachment relationships. In contrast, persons scoring high on either avoidance or anxiety dimension tend to rely on other defense mechanisms.
Death anxiety is the apprehension generated by death awareness (Lehto & Stein, 2009). It is a multi-faced and encompasses concerns related to the denial of death, the dear of death for oneself and for others, avoidance of death, and the reluctance to interact with person who are dying (Quinn-Lee, Olson-McBride & Unterberger, 2014). According to Lehto and Stein (2009), death anxiety is an evolving concept that involves six attributes which are emotion, cognitive, experiential, development, sociocultural shaping, and source of motivation. Although death anxiety is a normal human experience, it can engender paralyzing fear (Iverach et al., 2014). It is also considered as a basic fear underlying the development and maintenance of numerous psychological conditions (Iverach, Menzies & Menzies, 2014).
Confrontation of death and the anxiety created by its inevitability can be considered as notable dilemma for humans (Letho, 200...
According to Ernest Becker, “The main thesis of this book is that it explains: the idea of death, the fear of death that haunts humans like nothing else; the mainspring of human activity designed to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man” (“Becker” ix). The author of this book describes and quotes many other psychological thinkers views on the different kinds of fear and what contributes to the fear of death in man. The author explores several topics like self-worth, heroism, fear, anxiety, depression and many other issues throughout this book.
In the face of the universal fact of death, attitudes to the corpse are various and changeable. These attitudes are formed through the practices of treatment of the dead and are embodied in various ways (Parker Pearson 1999, p. 45).