Existential Moral Psychology

Question 1

What is existential psychoplogy?

Answer 1

A branch of psychology that concerns itself with the study of how humans deal with their experienced existence which entails a confrontation with meaninglessness, mortality, isolation, and freedom and responsibility

Question 2

Who was Ernest Becker?

Answer 2

American cultural anthropologist (technically)

Served in WWII

Started graduate studies in his early 30s 1924 – 1974

Controversial:
• Fired from Syracuse University (1963)
• UC Berkeley - pushed out by administration (1966)
• Thousands of students petitioned to keep him at the
school and offered to pay his salary
• San Francisco State – he resigned in protest
against the administrations policy against student
demonstrations (1969)
• Spent remaining years at Simon Fraser University
Died at 49

Question 3

How are we the same?

Answer 3

The will to live

Question 4

How are we different?
(From animals & other things)

4 points

Answer 4

1. Temporal thought (autonoetic consciousness)
2. Symbolic thought (language, art & symbols)
3. Self-reflective thought (self-awareness)
   - advanced ToM
4. Extreme infantilization (we require a lot of care, for a long time in order to survive)

Question 5

What is the downside of big brains?

Answer 5

The human brain is the most complex known structure in the universe (billions of interconnected cells).

***Self-awareness = death awareness !!!!!!!

Question 6

What is self-esteem?

Why is this a universal human desire?

Answer 6

The feeling that we are a valuable contributing member
in a system of meaning
——————————————————————————-
Serves as a shield that buffers the dread of existence

Immortality credits in the cultural arcade

Question 7

What is terror management theory?

Answer 7

Existential approach to social psychology

Based on the writings of Ernest Becker

Death is a significant source of anxiety → terror

By adhering to and feeling like we are contributing to a cultural worldview (CWV; e.g., Canada, Christianity)
= we earn an enduring sense of personal significance (i.e., S-E, immortality)
= can fend off death anxiety

→ management

Question 8

What are cultural worldviews?

Answer 8

Gives us standards and values by which to live

Provides a sense of meaning to our lives

Offers comfort against the awareness or our inevitable
death by promising some form of immortality

Question 9

What are the 3 different types of immorality?

Answer 9

Amortality (Survival)
- not dying

Literal immortality
- die & come back as something else

Symbolic Immortality
- try to be remembered
- ex) mummy

***egyptions good at all 3

Question 10

What is the problem of the existence of other worldviews?

Answer 10

The Existence of other worldviews implies that our own might be
wrong

Increased hostility toward members who adhere to worldviews other than our own…
• Disliking
• Aggression
• Desire for them to die
• Comfort in their deaths

Increased preference for members of one’s own group and defense of one’s own worldview (especially when death is salient)

Question 11

Judges who had just been reminded of their own mortality (vs. control) assigned the defendant a much “______” bond

Answer 11

Higher

➢ Means = $455 and $50, respectively

***death salience

Question 12

What is the fetishization of evil?

Answer 12

The fetishization of evil occurswhen we take all of our existential
fears, and confine it to a person, group of people, or an ideology
and label that entity or group as evil

We think that if only it wasn’t for them, life would be good.

We then seek to destroy that entity

It is the process of channeling the overwhelming dread of death into smaller terrors and then seeking to eliminate them

Becker, 1973

Has been shown in both religious & political domains

Question 13

What is free will?

Answer 13

“A belief that there is a component to biological behavior that is something more than the unavoidable consequences of the genetic and environmental history of the individual and the
possible stochastic laws of nature.”

Question 14

What are the 3 points against free will?

Answer 14

1) Physical matter follows the deterministic laws of physics → cause & effect
+
2) Humans and our brains are made of physical matter
+
3) We are not exempt from the laws of physics (vitalism & dualism are dead)

= no free will

Question 15

What did Darwin think of determinism?

Answer 15

“Darwin… saw that determinism, by eroding blame, threatens society’s moral fiber.”

Question 16

Are there prosocial benefits of feeling free?

Answer 16

Study 1: Induced disbelief in free will reduced reported willingness to help others.

Study 2: Chronic disbelief in free will was associated with reduced helping behavior

Question 17

Brain “________” decrease punishment via perceptions of free will

Answer 17

Tumors

Learning that the perpetrator of a violent crime had a brain tumor led to decreased punishment

Effect was weaker for conservatives and religious individuals

This decrease was mediated (caused) by a decrease in the perception that the criminal had freewill

Question 18

People with “_____” free will beliefs endorsed “______” retributive attitudes regarding punishment of criminals

Answer 18

Less; less

Studies 2-4 “showed that learning about the neural bases of human behavior, through either lab-based
manipulations or attendance at an undergraduate neuroscience course, reduced people’s support for
retributive punishment”