TMT

Question 1

What is terror management theory?

Answer 1

It proposes that a basic psychological conflict results from having a self-preservation instinct while realizing that death is inevitable and to some extent unpredictable. This conflict produces terror, which is managed through a combination of escapism and cultural beliefs that act to counter biological reality with more significant and enduring forms of meaning and value.

Question 2

What are the three TMT hypotheses?

Answer 2

There are three main hypotheses that together provide converging evidence for the idea that death is at the core.

1. Mortality Salience Hypothesis
2. Anxiety Buffer Hypothesis
3. Death Thought Accessibility Hypothesis

Question 3

What is the mortality salience hypothesis?

Answer 3

This is the most commonly used paradigm.
* If a psychological structure manages death-related concerns, then reminders of death should heighten the need for that structure
This is the idea that if our world views serve as a death anxiety buffering function, then if an individual is reminded of their mortality, they should need one of those psychological structures more so than if they weren’t thinking of death.

Question 4

What happens in a typical MS experiment?

Answer 4

There is usually some sort of deception cover story e.g., tell ppts that they are going to do two studies that are unrelated.

Ppts are asked two open ended questions… control students are instead asked to jot down their emotions on a neutral event or even something more aversive and negative (but not fatal).

Then the dependent measure of interest is taken.

Question 5

What is the relationship between worldview defence and TMT?

Answer 5

If worldviews buffer from death concerns, then mere presence of alternative worldviews poses a psychological problem

Reactions to others:
o Support our worldview: increased liking, preference, more positive attitudes etc.
o Subscribe to alternative worldview: decreased liking, preference, less positive attitudes etc.

Question 6

What is an example of MS and Wordview Defence?

Answer 6

Rosenblatt et al. (1989)
MS & Judges – Bail bond for Prostitute
* $50 vs $450

The recommended bail bond was $50, under control conditions, that is exactly what the judges gave for a common crime at the time (the solicitation of prostitution. However, when judges were reminded of their death, they gave a bail bond that was 9 times higher.
This gives evidential support about why people struggle to get along with each other. When the judges were exposed to an individual that had transgressed their world view were more punitive towards them when they had been reminded of their death.

Question 7

Is there behavioural evidence for MS and worldview defence?

Answer 7

McGregor et al. (1998)
* Liberal and Conservative Participants
* Randomly assigned to read an essay that supported vs threatened worldview (ostensibly written by another participant)
* Given MS induction (vs. control)
* Subsequently took part in “food tasting” experiment – allocate hot sauce to other participant (who wrote the essay)

They found that under mortality salient conditions, when the worldview was threatened, they were more willing to allocate increasing amounts of hot sauce to the world-view violator in comparison to the control. The opposite was also true, meaning they were less likely to assign increasing amounts of hot sauce to the person who aligned with their world views. They were told the other person doesn’t like it, so it’s a behavioural measure of aggression.

Question 8

Why is there often a delay in these experiments?

Answer 8

There is often a delay in these experiments, between ppts being reminded of their mortality and taking the dependent measure. After a few failed experiments, they found that the delay seems to be fairly important in these effects. The dual process model outlines and gives us an understanding as to why this is the case.

Question 9

What is the dual process model?

Answer 9

(Pyszczynski et al., 1999)
Death Stimuli (explicit reminder of death e.g., MS, terrorism) –> Proximal defence (conscious, immediate and rational or suppression based responses) –> Distal defence (non-conscious, delayed and worldview/self-esteem responses)

The dual process model suggests that when we’re reminded of death e.g., during the pandemic, firstly people engage in proximal defences (these are conscious defences that we immediately engage in that serve to either rationalise or suppress thoughts of death) – we try to move these thoughts outside our conscious awareness. E.g., ‘not me, not now’ I’m going to die when I’m over 80. Or if you’re a smoker you are aware it causes lung cancer but think they can reverse the outcome by quitting in the future as they are currently still young and healthy. Alternatively, they can try to suppress the thoughts by thinking of something that is more palatable.

However, most of the thoughts come creeping back to us whether we are aware or not. This is when we engage in non-conscious distal defences. This includes the worldview bolstering, the derogation of people who hold different worldviews to us, striving for self-esteem.

The fact we need a delay in these experiments supports the idea that we need to push these thoughts outside of conscious awareness to produce these effects.

Question 9

What is the dual process model?

Answer 9

(Pyszczynski et al., 1999)
Death Stimuli (explicit reminder of death e.g., MS, terrorism) –> Proximal defence (conscious, immediate and rational or suppression based responses) –> Distal defence (non-conscious, delayed and worldview/self-esteem responses)

The dual process model suggests that when we’re reminded of death e.g., during the pandemic, firstly people engage in proximal defences (these are conscious defences that we immediately engage in that serve to either rationalise or suppress thoughts of death) – we try to move these thoughts outside our conscious awareness. E.g., ‘not me, not now’ I’m going to die when I’m over 80. Or if you’re a smoker you are aware it causes lung cancer but think they can reverse the outcome by quitting in the future as they are currently still young and healthy. Alternatively, they can try to suppress the thoughts by thinking of something that is more palatable.

However, most of the thoughts come creeping back to us whether we are aware or not. This is when we engage in non-conscious distal defences. This includes the worldview bolstering, the derogation of people who hold different worldviews to us, striving for self-esteem.

The fact we need a delay in these experiments supports the idea that we need to push these thoughts outside of conscious awareness to produce these effects.

Question 10

Can distal defences occur immediately?

Answer 10

There is evidence for these distal defences because when subliminal primes are used e.g., flashing the word ‘dead’ on the screen so fast you cannot see it. Even though you aren’t consciously processing it, there is still a remarkable change in attitudes.

People that have been subliminally shown the word ‘dead’ show exactly the same effects as people that have been given more explicit death primes, the only difference is that now it’s occurring immediately because the proximal defence isn’t necessary as there is no need to rationalise thoughts that are outside of conscious awareness.

Question 11

What is the anxiety buffer hypothesis?

Answer 11

The idea is, if we are reminded of death, it should make us cling onto the psychological structures that manage those death concerns. This hypothesis is similar but suggests if your worldviews and self-esteem serve as a death anxiety buffering function, then if these structures are bolstered e.g., being shown evidence of an afterlife, should have an anxiety buffering effect that should reduce the need for further defences.

Question 12

Give some examples of self-esteem serving an anxiety buffering function?

Answer 12

Greenberg et al. (1992)

• Bogus feedback on personality test – they were either told neutral or positive things about their personality to bolster their sense of self-worth
• Subsequent watch death-related video (vs control)

Finding:
o Ps who watched death video had higher levels of self-report and physiological anxiety, unless self-esteem bolstered first

Harmon-Jones et al (1997)
* Bogus feedback on personality test – that either bolstered their self-esteem or not
* MS Manipulation (vs control)
* Evaluated authors of two essays about America (pro and anti)

Finding:
o MS increased preference for pro-US author when self-esteem was not bolstered
o No effect of MS when self-esteem was bolstered

This supports the idea that once anxiety buffers are increased, this should reduce the need for other terror management defences e.g., the need to defend your wellbeing.

Question 13

What is the link between anxiety buffering and immortality?

Answer 13

According to TMT, the central goal is to transcend death (literally or symbolically). Affirming immortality should show an anxiety buffering effect

o Evidence of an afterlife (Dechesne et al., 2003) – participants were given scientific evidence that suggested that researchers have found support for an afterlife or evidence that there was no afterlife. After mortality salient manipulation, people presented with evidence of no afterlife engaged in the derogation of other people. When people were given the prospect of an afterlife, these effects did not occur.
o Feelings of symbolic immortality (Florian & Mikulincer, 1998) – people that were given opportunity to reflect on their symbolic immortality, e.g., their legacy and how people might remember them after they died showed similar effects. They didn’t derogate, dismiss and belittle other people when they were reminded of their mortality.
o Evidence of indefinite medical life extension (Vail et al., 2019) – atheists can be presented with medical research looking at coming up with a way to overcome death.

Question 14

What is the death thought accessibility hypothesis?

Answer 14

Death thought accessibility hypothesis – this is the inverse of the mortality salient hypothesis
If psychological structures manage death-related concerns, then threatening these psychological structures (presented with evidence that our belief system is wrong) should temporarily heighten the accessibility of death-related thoughts

Question 15

How is DTA often measured?

Answer 15

• Typically assessed using a word-stem completion task

Question 16

Give an example of a DTA experiment?

Answer 16

Schimel et al. (2007)
National worldview threat (Canadian Participants)
* Increased Death Thought Accessibility on a word stem task
* DTA increase immediate, fades with delay – the opposite trajectory to what is seen in mortality salient experiments
o There is no need for a delay because there are no proximal defences. It’s an unconscious effect after being exposed to threatening information.
* Increase not the result of anger (e.g., thoughts of wanting to kill the author
o People argued it may just be a result of increased anger, however while people did report an increased level of anger, it still didn’t explain the increase in death thought accessibility

Question 17

What is the ironic rebound effect (white bear effect)?

Answer 17

• Wegner (1994) ironic rebound effects (white bear effect)
  o Suppressing thoughts leads to ironic rebound effects whereby the target thought becomes hyper-accessible when suppression ends

Question 18

How does TMT support the suppression rebound hypothesis?

Answer 18

• Greenberg et al. (1994)
• MS Manipulation (vs. control)
• Delay (yes vs. no)
• Finding
  o MS increased DTA after a delay
  o MS did not increase DTA immediately  suggesting that people are first trying to suppress death related thoughts after thinking about them, but after a delay, they show an increase in death thoughts (ironic suppression rebound)

Question 19

What is the relationship between DTA in MS effects?

Answer 19

Death thought accessibility is a measurement of one’s death anxiety.
If psychological structures act as distal defences to the awareness of death, then these should reduce DTA after MS

Question 20

Give an example study of DTA in MS effects?

Answer 20

Arndt et al., 1997; Harmon-Jones et al., 1997

In this study, after a mortality salience manipulation, participants were given an opportunity to defend their worldview, or they had no opportunity.

People that were not given the opportunity showed an increase in death thoughts after a delay. However, when participants were given that opportunity to defend their worldview, that lowered their death thought availability back to baseline levels.

We can begin to combine these hypotheses together and further triangulate the idea that death may be troubling human beings and driving the effects and behaviours in everyday life.

Question 21

What else might have an anxiety-buffering function?

Answer 21

Interpersonal relationships serve a death anxiety buffering function (Florian et al., 2002; Plusnin et al., 2020)
o Close relationships increase chance for reproduction – MS & desire for children (e.g., Qi, 2022) – this is an avenue for symbolic reproduction.
o Provide a sense of belonging – a sense of belongingness can increase your sense of self-esteem.
o Constitute an important source of self-esteem
o “Felt security” – comfort, support, sense world is “safe” – our relationships provide us with a sense of security and we feel comforted when we’re able to rely on others around us.

Question 22

What is the terror management health model (TMHM)?

Answer 22

Arndt & Goldenberg (2017)

Health and death are closely intertwined – whenever we think about health, death is not far around the corner. E.g., lots of people died in the pandemic

• Health threats should increase DTA e.g., health insurance or performing breast cancer observations and thinking of smoking risks.
• These health threats should lead to an immediate engagement of proximal defences that either lead to…
  engaging in health positive behaviours (e.g., exercise)
  or leads to avoiding/denying vulnerability to the threat (e.g., increased optimism regarding risks)
• After a delay the health threats should lead to the engagement of distal defences based on self-worth concerns that either…
  promote positive health behaviours when self-worth is derived from them (e.g., fitness)
  or promote negative health behaviours when self-worth is derived from them (e.g., smoking, binge drinking).

Question 23

Give an example of TMHM?

Answer 23

Breast self-examination (BSE) intention (Arndt et al., 2006)
* Health optimism measure (high vs low)
* MS manipulation (vs. control)
BSE measured immediately

The dental pain control condition (common control condition) his has no real effect going on. However, in the mortality salient condition, people with high health optimism showed an increased intention to do a BSE because they believed it wouldn’t reveal any lumps. On the contrary, people with low health optimism were more concerned that if they did a BSE it would show up positive – they did the threat avoidance and decreased their intention to do a BSE and distracted themselves from their vulnerability to the threat

Question 24

Give an example study about TMHM and intentions towards smoking.

Answer 24

Hansen et al., (2010)

• Exposure to smoking warnings (death vs. non-death): ‘smoking kills’ and ‘smoking is highly addictive, don’t start’
• Smoking self-esteem (high vs. low)  whether they see smoking as part of their self-image
• Intentions to smoke measured after a delay

For people with low smoking self-esteem, after being reminded that smoking might kill you they had low intention to smoke, but people who saw smoking as beneficial to their self-esteem, did the opposite and had increased intention to smoke.

This is important because quite often people think that you can scare people into thinking they will die if they carry on doing something and think it’ll discourage them when in actuality terror management theory tells us that this is very counterintuitive.

Question 25

What are the implications of TMHM on health?

Answer 25

• TMHM may provide insight into why people struggle to adhere to health- oriented behaviours (e.g., dieting, exercise regimes, intentions to quit)  because proximal defences are often short-lived. People’s intentions to engage in these behaviours are the result of their anxiety aroused to conscious attention. But once those anxieties are successfully supressed out of conscious awareness, so it no longer matters. They are going to engage in distal defences instead which may produce different outcomes.
• TMHM implies that fear appeals (e.g., risk of death) may be limited, and in some cases, counter-intuitive – they are effective up to a point, but it might badly backfire and increase smoking behaviours
• TMHM proposes that self-worth, rather than health, concerns may lead to more sustained engagement with health-oriented behaviours – e.g., instead of tackling the pandemic by telling people how to keep themselves safe, we should make it about something greater than their mortal selves – by engaging in certain actions, they can really contribute something valuable to society.

Question 26

What is the existential escape hypothesis (Wisman 2006)

Answer 26

• ‘Escape from the self’ (i.e., reduction in self- awareness) may be another way to manage existential concerns
• Such responses should be most likely from those who lack strong existential anxiety buffers e.g., certain people don’t have strong buffers (believing life is meaningful or a strong sense of significance) are very vulnerable and in the awareness of death they are more likely to engage in this kind of behaviour.

Question 27

Give an example of self-esteem & drinking behaviour in support of the existential escape hypothesis?

Answer 27

Wisman et al., (2015)

Students night out at SU

Before:
o Self-esteem measure
o MS Manipulation

Returned to lab after night out:
o Breathalyser
For people with high self-esteem, there was no difference in how much alcohol was consumed. However people with low self-esteem drink more alcohol on a night out (supporting the existential escape hypothesis)

Question 28

What is the role of symbolic immortality?

Answer 28

Lifshin et al., (2021)
TMT tells us that ultimately the key goal is to transcend death, whether in a literal or symbolic sense
* The extent to which self-esteem confers a sense of symbolic immortality should confer advantages for one’s mental health

The idea that it’s not just low self-esteem that is driving depression, but also the lack of symbolic immortality

The study found that symbolic immortality mediated the relationship between self-esteem and depression – ergo people’s sense of self-esteem predicted their symbolic immortality and in turn this predicted their levels of depression. E.g., the higher level of self-esteem you had, the more you felt like you would leave a lasting impression on this world and this lowered levels of depression. It may not be the only mediating factor, but it may just be one factor.

Question 29

What is the link between anxiety based disorders and TMT?

Answer 29

Strachan et al., (2007)
* Some psychopathology (i.e., anxiety) may be the result of when people rely on inefficient modes of managing existential anxiety
* People avoid existential fears, transferring these concerns onto something more controllable (Yalom, 1980) – the idea that we can never control our own mortality and to mitigate this and reduce the existential concern we can project it onto something that’s more within our control
o MS Manipulation
 Study 1: Spider phobics & avoidance of spiders – after being reminded of their mortality, people with high spider phobia showed an increased inclination to avoid staring at those pictures which suggests they’re mobilising their existential resources onto something that is more within their control
 Study 2: Obsessive compulsives & time spent handwashing – after being reminded of their death, people with high OCD symptoms spent more time washing their hands
 Study 3: Social Anxiety & avoidance of social situations – the previous two situations could arguably be related to death e.g., poisonous spiders and germs however the effect also extends something completely unrelated. After a MS manipulation, people with high social anxiety avoided group discussion for a longer period of time.

Question 30

According to Terror Management Theory, why do people struggle to get along with
people who are ‘different’?

Answer 30

Terror Management Theory (TMT) posits that humans have a natural fear of death and the awareness of their own mortality. As a result, they strive to find ways to mitigate this fear by seeking a sense of meaning and purpose in life. One way people do this is by identifying with and adhering to cultural worldviews, which provide a sense of security and predictability in an otherwise uncertain and unpredictable world.

When people encounter individuals who are different from them, their cultural worldview is challenged, and this can lead to feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. This, in turn, can trigger a defense mechanism known as worldview defense, which is an attempt to restore a sense of order and predictability by rejecting the perceived threat to one’s cultural worldview.

As a result, people may struggle to get along with those who are different because their differences challenge their own cultural worldview and provoke feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. This can lead to a tendency to stereotype and discriminate against people who are perceived as different, as a way of protecting one’s own worldview and maintaining a sense of order and predictability.

Question 31

How can interpersonal relationships manage the awareness of death?

Answer 31

According to Terror Management Theory, interpersonal relationships can provide a sense of meaning and purpose in life, which can help individuals manage their awareness of death. By forming close relationships with others, individuals can find comfort and support, as well as a sense of belonging and connection.

Through these relationships, individuals can also share cultural worldviews, values, and beliefs, which can reinforce a sense of meaning and purpose. This shared sense of meaning can help individuals feel more secure and less anxious about their own mortality, as it provides a sense of continuity beyond their own lives.

In addition, close relationships can offer opportunities for social validation and self-esteem, which can help individuals feel valued and important. This, in turn, can enhance their sense of self-worth and reduce their fear of death.

Overall, interpersonal relationships can play a significant role in managing the awareness of death, by providing individuals with a sense of meaning, purpose, and social support that can help mitigate the anxiety and uncertainty that comes with the awareness of mortality.

Question 32

What is the anxiety-buffer disruption theory and how can it explain the onset of post-
traumatic stress?

Answer 32

Anxiety-buffer disruption theory (ABDT; Pyszczynski & Kesebir, 2011)
* Certain events are traumatic enough to overwhelm the anxiety-buffering mechanisms that protect against existential anxiety – when these buffers we normally rely on stop operating, people experience post-traumatic stress instead
* Shattered assumptions
* Visceral confrontations with death

ABDT (Pyszczynski & Kesebir, 2011)
* Peritraumatic dissociation strongest predictor of developing PTSD (Ozer et al., 2003)
o Unusual perceptions of time, space, and self during/immediately after traumatic event
o Psychologically ‘flee’ the body when physical escape is impossible
o ABDT: dissociation marks the moment where the anxiety buffers ‘break’ – individuals will no longer be able to find comfort in cultural worldviews

Evidence examining those low vs. high PTSD symptomology
* Worldview threat (vs. worldview support)
* DTA measure
After experiencing a threat to their worldview, people with low post-traumatic stress showed increasing levels of death thought accessibility. This was not true for people with high post-traumatic stress, suggesting that their terror management defences were no longer operating in the same way.
Vail et al., (2019)

Question 33

What is the problem of human corporeality?

Answer 33

Human beings have the capacity to be self-aware and have amazing intellect – we can think of about things that do not yet exist and then make them yet one day we will decay and die like everything else, which is ultimately the existential contradiction.

Humans have remarkable capacity for intellect, abstract thoughts and symbolic reasoning, yet ultimately we are no more significant than any other living thing, we breathe for a brief period of time and then no longer exist.

TMT suggests we go to great lengths to obscure the fact that we are basically just animals (Goldenberg et al., 2000)

Question 34

What are some examples of fleeing the body and the problem of human corporeality?

Answer 34

• Deny animal status – react quite negatively to being called an animal, try to act separate from them
• Imbue physical behaviours with symbolic meaning  often pretend that a lot of our behaviour is separate from animals even if we both do it e.g., eat, defaecate and have sex but we often have rituals around how we do these things e.g., eat with knife and forks, defecating in places hidden from society, sex is often wrapped up in more symbolic aspects such as romance
• Disgust to bodily functions
• Objectification of bodies
• Obscure the aging process  through makeup, anti-wrinkle products, plastic surgery, dying grey hair

Often, we engage in in lots of processes that ultimately try and distance ourselves from our animal nature and transform our bodies into something not physical but symbolic  cover up with clothing with logos and symbolic imagery or get piercings and tattoos

Question 35

Give an example study of human corporeality?

Answer 35

Goldenberg et al., (2001)
They had participants read an essay about how animals and humans are very different from each other or an essay about animals and humans being very different from one another

They found that under mortality salient conditions, people decreased their evaluations of the author that wrote about humans and animals are similar to each other and they prefer the author that said human and animals are different from one another

Question 36

How is the female body related to human corporeality?

Answer 36

Women’s reproductive functions underscore the corporeality of human existence – women become pregnant, breastfeed and menstruate, these are reminders that we are biologically here to reproduce just like other animals
* MS heightened negative reactions to a woman breastfeeding (vs. bottle feeding) (Cox et al., 2007)
The participant was told they had to wait on the other participant in the other room, she was just breastfeeding. Others were told she was bottle-feeding. Later on, the participants had to fill in a personality profile on each other. They rated the personality profile as less competent, less likeable
* Creatureliness prime increased negative ratings of pregnant (vs. unpregnant) Demi Moore (Goldenberg et al., 2007)  when people were reminded at how similar animals and humans are, they showed more negative reactions to the Demi Moore picture. But no reaction when looking at her when she wasn’t pregnant.

Question 37

What is one theory of why the female body is objectified?

Answer 37

Perhaps the reason why women are often objectified is because it reduces the existential anxieties about the female body.
* Threat associated with female body minimised by transforming physical into a cultural symbol and object (i.e., objectification)
o Males: MS perceived women as more attractive when merged with object (vs. standing next to object) (Morris & Goldenberg, 2015)
o Females: After MS women denied themselves human-like traits (i.e., self- objectification) after viewing a pregnant (vs. non- pregnant) woman (Morris et al., 2014)  presumed to manage the existential anxieties associated with the female body.

Question 38

Explain how the human relationship with nature is related to corporeality?

Answer 38

• Nature is a reminder of our corporeality  nature reminds us that ultimately everything will decay and die
• Nature associated with death – uncontrollable, unpredictable
• Triggers feelings of awe, and thoughts of meaning (Frederickson & Anderson, 1999)
• Humans have a tendency to distance themselves from nature
  o Live in cities
  o Control, cultivate landscape and nature
  o Domesticate/enslave animals

Question 39

Explain attitudes towards nature in terms of TMT?

Answer 39

Attitudes towards nature
* MS increases preference of cultivated human made landscapes rather than the wild landscapes (Koole & Van den Berg, 2005)
* MS increases people’s dislike for animals (Bassett & Sonntag, 2010)
o Subliminal death prime increases support for killing animals (Lifshin et al., 2017)
 Killing animals associated with sense of power and invulnerability

Environmental implications
Forest Management Game (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000)
* Your company vs. three other companies harvesting timber
* Forest has 2000 acres of trees
* Need to cut down as many trees as you can so your company will thrive
* Each year companies decide how many hectares it will cut down (0-100 acres each)
* The forest regenerates at 10% per year
o Over logging will mean the forest gets wiped out
o Under logging means your business will fail and get wiped out

Forest Management Game (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000)
* MS (vs. control)
* Decision on forest management game
* Measured reasons for decision: (i) desire to make more profit (greed) and (ii) expectation of others (fear)
o MS increased resource exploitation  to a level that would be unsustainable
o MS increased desire for greed, but not fear of what other people would do

Question 40

What are the critiques of TMT?

Answer 40

Not consistent with evolutionary theory (e.g., Kirkpatrick & Navarrette, 2006)
* Fear is a useful adaptation; evolution would not produce adaptations that undermine this function

Question 41

In rebuttal to the argument that TMT is not consistent with evolutionary theory what did Pyszczynski et al., (2015) say?

Answer 41

• Fear is adaptive, but not all behaviours that emanate from fear are adaptive
• Worldviews manage the ever-present knowledge that death is inevitable, rather than immediate threats to survival
• Fear in response to immediate threats is adaptive, fear in response to the inevitable is not  fear of death is something that never goes away and certainly is not adaptive which is why you need to suppress the existential anxieties.

Question 42

What is another critique of TMT?

Answer 42

• Theory is not falsifiable  any reaction from participants can support the theory e.g., when people react negatively towards each other they are acting defensively pr if they are supportive, they have worldviews that they should be tolerant. Overall, any study can be considered support for the theory, and you cannot falsify it.
• No evidence for underlying terror  inferring that their actions are based on underlying terror
• Alternative explanations ignored

Question 43

What are the rebuttals to the theory not being falsifiable?

Answer 43

(Pyszczynski et al., 2015)
1. TMT is not falsifiable. Any outcome could be considered “support” for the theory
* Hypotheses are derived from TM theorising a-priori, and have examined moderators since the beginning
* When anomalous results occur – seek to understand them rather than discard theory

Question 44

What are the rebuttals to there being no evidence for underlying terror?

Answer 44

• Theory implies that ‘terror’ is unconscious, and effectively managed by cultural worldviews
• Under specific circumstances, MS can increase death anxiety (Routledge & Juhl, 2010; Abeyta et al., 2014)

Question 45

What are the rebuttals to alternative explanations being ignored?

Answer 45

• Not true, much research over 30 years has been dedicated to alternative accounts

Question 46

What are the alternative explanations to MS?

Answer 46

The idea that uncertainty is the core to all the effects seen, they’re manipulating uncertainty rather than death…
When people reflect on death its an uncertain topic e.g., when, where, how they are going to die and what happens after death
* Effects are not because of fear of death, but because death is an uncertain event (e.g., Uncertainty Management Model; Van den Bos, 2009)
* MS is an ‘indirect’ manipulation of US

Question 47

Tell me a study about MS vs Uncertainty

Answer 47

• MS vs Uncertainty Salience (US) vs Control
• Worldview Defence
  o US and MS increased worldview defence
  o US participants did not write about ‘death’, but MS participants often wrote about ‘uncertainty’
  Van Den Bos et al., (2005)  overall he’s arguing that the experiments are just reminding people of uncertainty which is driving the effect.

Question 48

What is the response to the argument that certainty explains the range of TMT effects?

Answer 48

• Many studies use uncertainty as control (>20 studies) and show they do not produce the same effect
• Measurement of explicit vs implicit death thoughts  TMT studies don’t find it useful to measure the explicit death anxieties that people have, instead it’s much more implicit e.g., DTA. The fact that people spoke about uncertainty in those studies is irrelevant because TMT is more interested in measuring implicit death anxiety
• Do we always prefer certainty over uncertainty? Not everyone wants to know when or how they want to die.

Can certainty explain the wide range of TMT effects? (e.g., Dechesne et al., 2003)
* MS (vs. control)
* Afterlife scientific evidence (no afterlife vs. afterlife)
* Worldview defence
* MS increased defensiveness when afterlife was not affirmed
Both scientific explanations provided a sense of certainty, but only death transcendence buffered MS
When people are given the opportunity of death transcendence, they no longer need to defend their worldviews.

From a certainty perspective, both options (telling people there is proof of an afterlife or proof of no afterlife) both offer a sense of certainty. But people are not comforted by certainty, they are comforted by death transcendence.

Question 48

What is the response to the argument that certainty explains the range of TMT effects?

Answer 48

• Many studies use uncertainty as control (>20 studies) and show they do not produce the same effect
• Measurement of explicit vs implicit death thoughts  TMT studies don’t find it useful to measure the explicit death anxieties that people have, instead it’s much more implicit e.g., DTA. The fact that people spoke about uncertainty in those studies is irrelevant because TMT is more interested in measuring implicit death anxiety
• Do we always prefer certainty over uncertainty? Not everyone wants to know when or how they want to die.

Can certainty explain the wide range of TMT effects? (e.g., Dechesne et al., 2003)
* MS (vs. control)
* Afterlife scientific evidence (no afterlife vs. afterlife)
* Worldview defence
* MS increased defensiveness when afterlife was not affirmed
Both scientific explanations provided a sense of certainty, but only death transcendence buffered MS
When people are given the opportunity of death transcendence, they no longer need to defend their worldviews.

From a certainty perspective, both options (telling people there is proof of an afterlife or proof of no afterlife) both offer a sense of certainty. But people are not comforted by certainty, they are comforted by death transcendence.

Question 49

Other than uncertainty what could be an alternative explanation to TMT?

Answer 49

The argument that its not fear of death itself but a threat to a sense of meaning that is driving the effects
* Effects are not because of fear of death, but because death threatens a sense of meaning (e.g., Meaning Maintenance Model; Heine et al., 2006)
* MS is a type of meaning threat

Study 1
In this study, while some of the participants were doing the experiment, the experimenter changed which could have been really confusing  this is the meaning threat
* MS vs Meaning threat (experimenter change) vs. control (Experimenter did not change)
* Hypothetical bail bond for prostitute
o MS and meaning threat increased bail bond

Study 2:
* Meaning threat (vs. control)
* DTA
o Meaning threat did not increase DTA  so it’s unrelated to death
Heine & Proulx (2008)

Question 50

Is uncertainty an oversimplification?

Answer 50

• Alternative accounts of a “core” motive, dramatically simplify the problem of death  claiming that the reason we fear death is simply because of its uncertainty is over-simplification, there are many reasons why people fear death
  o Uncontrollable/threat to agency
  o Uncertain
  o Insignificance
  o Interpersonal relationships/belonging
• Despite these issues, death is frightening because it entails the permanent annihilation of the self