3.4 Focus on Psychological Research – Terror Management Theory
This chapter has largely examined cultural differences in body disposition, funerary practices, and beliefs about death. What is less well-developed thus far, is a consideration of how culture might influence our death-related anxiety and how reminders of our own mortality and death might influence how we might react to individuals who share similar or different worldviews than our own. Terror Management Theory (TMT) – originally proposed by psychological researchers Tom Pyszczynski, Jeff Greenberg, and Sheldon Solomon – holds that culture is a means by which we invest in something larger than ourselves which serves as (an often unconscious) buffer to anxiety related to our mortality. More specifically, they assert that humans are relatively unique by virtue of our cognitive capacity to understand complex concepts, future possibilities, and distal life trajectories – including our own death. This represents a fundamental source of anxiety that all human beings share. They argue (based on earlier writings of anthropologist Ernest Becker) that cultural worldviews and traditions serve as a buffer against death anxiety. If we belong to something larger than ourselves – something that predates our birth and will endure long after our death and that we believe to be good, noble, and virtuous – we can attain a sort of symbolic immortality. Our culture, our nation, and/or our religion provide a sense of belonging to something important and enduring which can make our finite and fleeting lives on earth seem less insignificant.
Though these ideas are interesting in a theoretical and philosophical sense, psychological science is concerned with evaluating ideas and hypothesis empirically. Pyszczynski, Greenberg, and Solomon conducted several studies over a span of decades to evaluate whether these ideas could be substantiated. To do so, they developed “mortality salience manipulations” – i.e., reminders of death and mortality that research participants might be exposed to in a study. This could be something as explicit as having participants think about and write about their own death as part of the experiment, but it could be also something as subtle as interviewing research participants by a cemetery without mentioning it explicitly. The essence of their hypotheses and studies is as follows. If you are not exposed to a reminder of your own mortality, the anxiety buffering properties of culture are not activated and you will probably interact with folks from different cultures and backgrounds comparably. If, in contrast, you are reminded of your death immediately before interacting with or contemplating culturally similar or dissimilar others, it will likely influence your reactions to those who do or don’t share your values and worldviews. Specifically, when reminded of your death, you will likely behave more favorably towards individuals from a similar cultural background and will evaluate them more positively, and you will likely behave unfavorably towards dissimilar others and will evaluate them more harshly. Numerous studies have upheld this observation. These findings have far-reaching implications – from vilification of dissimilar others and atrocities in the context of warfare (a clear and stark context of mortality salience), to different levels of philanthropy and charitable giving to disasters survivors who might be culturally similar or dissimilar to us.
To cite but one example that is timely and applicable to current events, a couple of TMT researchers (Bassett & Connolly, 2011) wanted to know whether participants’ reactions towards similar (i.e., Canadian) or dissimilar (i.e., Mexican) undocumented immigrants would differ following a mortality salience manipulation relative to perspectives of participants who were not reminded of their own deaths. In their study, participants were randomly assigned to fill out a death-related questionnaire (the mortality salience manipulation) or to a control group that instead completed a personality questionnaire with no reference to death. Each group was then further subdivided – randomly assigned to read a depiction of an undocumented immigrant from Vancouver Canada (Ben Johnson) or an identical depiction of an undocumented immigrant from Mexico City (Carlos Suarez). All participants were asked to then rate the degree to which they thought such immigrants take jobs from U.S. citizens, tax the U.S. welfare system, threaten U.S. national security, undermine U.S. culture and values, should be allowed to stay in the United States, and if the immigrant’s children were entitled to a U.S. education. Consistent with TMT predictions, ratings of more negative impacts of Mexican immigrants relative to Canadian immigrants only occurred among participants who were exposed to a mortality salience manipulation. There were no differences in ratings of Mexican and Canadian immigrants among participants who were not first asked to think about death. Accordingly, there were not pronounced baseline or general differences in perceptions of Mexicans versus Canadians. It was only participants who contemplated death that had starkly more negative views of immigrants who were more culturally dissimilar. It may be interesting to contemplate discourse around immigration during times of prevalent death reminders (e.g., pandemics, imminent wars, etc.) relative to periods with less pervasive death reminders.
