Abstract
Physical death is an inevitable part of life. From the perspective of terror management theory (TMT), people’s efforts to manage the awareness of death can sometimes have harmful social consequences. However, those negative consequences are merely one side of the existential coin. In considering the other side of the coin, the present article highlights the more beneficial trajectories of the terror management process. For example, the awareness of mortality can motivate people to prioritize their physical health; uphold prosocial values; build loving relationships and peaceful, charitable communities; and foster open-mindedness. Further, the article explores the possible balance between defense and growth motivations, including the motivations toward integrative self-expansion, creativity, and well-being. And finally, we tentatively consider the potential positive impacts of direct confrontations with mortality on terror management processes. In sum, the present analysis suggests that although death awareness can sometimes produce some harmful outcomes, at least under certain conditions it can also motivate attitudes and behaviors that have positive personal and social consequences.
Highlights
From seeing news headlines to biking past roadkill to discussing politics, people routinely encounter reminders of the fact that they are mortal creatures
A fully appreciative review of all of the positive and negative terror management processes documented in the literature would be too broad for the present purposes, and recent theoretical work has covered the positive side of terror management processes in some depth [3]
When death awareness becomes more distal—when it is non-conscious but cognitively accessible—people are no longer able to directly and logically address the problem of mortality
Summary
From seeing news headlines to biking past roadkill to discussing politics, people routinely encounter reminders of the fact that they are mortal creatures. If that is not grim enough, terror management theory (TMT) [1,2] explicates that this awareness of mortality motivates a range of unsettling behaviors and attitudes, including risky behavior, prejudicial attitudes and aggression, and intergroup conflict (e.g., support for war and terrorism). Death awareness does not inevitably lead to personally and socially harmful consequences. The awareness of death is a two-sided coin, capable of producing helpful, uplifting, and even at times growth-oriented consequences. We flip the existential coin and shine some light on the brighter side of the awareness of mortality. The present work provides a brief overview of how death-related motivation can, for example, foster physical health, engender charitable and prosocial behaviors, and cultivate creativity and personal growth. We begin by introducing the central tenets of terror management theory, briefly discuss the recent history and trends of terror management research, and highlight some of the oft-overlooked findings that illustrate the positive terror management trajectories
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