Terror Management Theory

Question 1

What are the three types of thought that we have according to Becker?

Answer 1

Temporal, symbolic, and self-reflective.

Question 2

What is temporal thought?

Answer 2

Being able to think about the past, present, and future.

Question 3

What is symbolic thought? What is an example?

Answer 3

The ability to confer meaning and think using arbitrary symbols. E.g., using pieces of plastic as money.

Question 4

What is self-reflective thought?

Answer 4

The ability to treat the self as an object of attention. To know that we exist.

Question 5

What are the consequences of these three types of thoughts (Becker)?

Answer 5

Freedom from reactivity, self-consciousness, awareness of our mortality.

Question 6

What is freedom from reactivity?

Answer 6

We don’t just respond blindly to situations, we can take time to think about how we want to respond.

Question 7

What is self-consciousness?

Answer 7

Knowing that we exist, and being able to think about it.

Question 8

What is one of the downstream consequences of self-consciousness?

Answer 8

Awe experiences. The ability to recognize that you’re having fun, or having a wonderful experience. You can also plan events in the future and anticipate those events.

Question 9

What is self-regulation?

Answer 9

As a result of self-consciousness, we have the ability to discipline ourselves and resist temptations.

Question 10

What is awareness of our mortality and what problem comes along with that?

Answer 10

Knowing that we are alive comes with the issue of dealing with the fact that we one day won’t be alive.

Question 11

What are two ways that we’re aware of our mortality?

Answer 11

Tragedy/accidentality: We know that we could be killed at any time by powers outside our control.
We are animals: We know that animals are flesh and blood, and that they are vulnerable. We see this in ourselves.

Question 12

What is the existential dilemma?

Answer 12

Knowing that we are alive allows us to experience awe, but this also makes it possible for us to understand and comprehend death.

Question 13

What does our drive for self-preservation and the knowledge of death often lead to?

Answer 13

There is potential for debilitating terror and anxiety.

Question 14

How do we deal with this terror and anxiety about death?

Answer 14

Culture.

Question 15

What is culture?

Answer 15

A shared symbolic conception of reality that imbues the world with a sense of meaning, order, and permanence.

Question 16

How does culture give us a sense of meaning?

Answer 16

By answering questions such as how we got here, what we should do while we are here, and what happens to us after we die.

Question 17

What do cultures provide for what to do while we’re here?

Answer 17

All cultures have value prescriptions - ideas about what constitutes right and wrong, and what people must do in order to be a valued member of society.

Question 18

What does terror management theory posit?

Answer 18

People have a double anxiety buffer that consists of belief in a cultural worldview and self-esteem.

Question 19

What is self-esteem?

Answer 19

Belief that one is a significant contributor to an ongoing, meaningful cultural drama.

Question 20

What role does attachment theory play in how the anxiety buffer develops?

Answer 20

• As children grow up, they rely on parents for survival and exploration needs.
• Attachment to the parents is what keeps the child’s survival and exploration in balance.
• After a certain amount of time away from the parents, the child gets anxiety and will seek out the parents.
• This balances their need to explore with their need to survive.
• As children grow up, the affection/security that their parents provide comes at a price of meeting their standards.
• This is socialization.
• As children develop, they begin to feel security by living up to cultural standards.

Question 21

How are cultures “fictional hero systems”?

Answer 21

Fictional because each culture is different, and they can’t all be true. It’s a hero system because they give us the ideas about what we need to do in order to be “heroic.”

Question 22

What problem is inevitable with such fragile, differing cultures?

Answer 22

Eventually we will run into people with different world views. Since we use our social and cultural ideas to deal with anxiety of deal, then meeting those whose ideas oppose ours make us nervous.

Question 23

What are the four reactions we can have when we encounter threatening world views?

Answer 23

Derogation, assimilation, accommodation, annihilation.

Question 24

What is derogation?

Answer 24

Dismissing other beliefs as ignorant, primitive, old fashioned, or just plain silly.

Question 25

What is assimilation?

Answer 25

Actively trying to convert someone to your way of thinking.

Question 26

What is accommodation?

Answer 26

Changing certain aspects of your own belief and taking on other, more acceptable, aspects of others.

Question 27

What is annihilation?

Answer 27

Going out and killing as many people who belong to the other culture, thereby asserting your superiority.

Question 28

What is the anxiety buffer hypothesis?

Answer 28

If self-esteem serves as an anxiety buffer, then people who have naturally high self-esteem, or people who have their self-esteem increased should respond with less anxiety to threats.

Question 29

What did Greenberg et al., discover about their anxiety buffer hypothesis?

Answer 29

When people watched a non-threatening video, their anxiety was low. But when people watched a threatening video, their self-esteem was negatively correlated with their anxiety.

Question 30

What variation of the anxiety buffer hypothesis experiment did Greenberg et al., conduct?

Answer 30

They used the anxiety of being given electric shocks.

Question 31

What is the mortality salience hypothesis?

Answer 31

If belief in cultural worldview protects people from concerns about death, then reminding people of their own death should increase their need for faith in the cultural worldview.

Question 32

How was the mortality salience hypothesis tested?

Answer 32

• Half the participants - whom were all Christian - were reminded of their mortality, while the other half was not.
• They were then asked to rate certain traits about other people, one of whom was Jewish, the other Christian.
• Those who were confronted with mortality rated the Christian higher than the Jew, while those were not rated them equal.

Question 33

What variation of the mortality salience hypothesis has been tested?

Answer 33

• Americans were confronted with death and then asked to rate how much they liked two people based on their essays about their immigration experience to the USA.
• The essay which criticized America was rated lower for those who were confronted with death.

Question 34

What is the death-thought accessibility hypothesis?

Answer 34

If belief in cultural world views and self esteem protect people from concerns about death, then threatening or weakening these protective beliefs should increase the accessibility of death-related thoughts.

Question 35

What experiment tested the death-thought accessibility hypothesiswhen it comes to cultural world views.

Answer 35

• Canadian who identified strongly as Canadian were asked to read either an anti-Canada or anti-Australia webpage.
• Then they were asked to perform a word-completion test.
• They were more likely to fill in the words as death related if they read the anti-Canada webpage.

Question 36

What can be done to make death-thoughts less accessible in the cultural world view experiment?

Answer 36

If the participants were told that the author of the web page had apologized for the webpage and taken it down, then death thoughts were less accessible.

Question 37

What experiment tested the death-thought accessibility hypothesis when it comes to self-esteem?

Answer 37

• Participants were told they either did well or badly on a test.
• They were then given a lexical decision task (to decide if flashes of letters were words).
• Those who had low self-esteem recognized death words faster than any other (negative or neutral).

Question 38

What was discovered when judges were confronted with their mortality and asked to recommend a bond for a case?

Answer 38

The judges were more punitive towards criminals when reminded of their own mortality, they fell back on their strong set of morals.

Question 39

What was discovered when people were reminded of death and asked to defile a cultural icon? (e.g., cross, flag)

Answer 39

They were reluctant, even refusing to use their cultural icons even if it was the only tool suitable for their task.

Question 40

What did the hot sauce study conclude about people who were reminded of death and given the chance to pour hot sauce for those who either aligned or misaligned with their views?

Answer 40

They poured twice as much hot sauce for those who misaligned with their beliefs if they were reminded of death.