Terror Management Theory: How Awareness of Death May Shape Behavior

Humans are the only animals we know of that understand they will die. Terror management theory (TMT) asks what that knowledge does to us. It is one of the most famous ideas in the psychology of death, and one of the most argued about.

What is terror management theory?

It is a theory that says awareness of death creates deep anxiety, and that people manage it by holding on to their culture’s beliefs and by feeling that their life has value. According to a chapter by co-founder Jeff Greenberg, culture offers a sense of order and meaning, and a way to feel part of something that outlasts us. In other words, religion, patriotism, and the wish to leave a legacy may all partly work as shields against the fear of dying.

Where did the idea come from?

From an award-winning book by the anthropologist Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, published in 1973. Three psychologists, Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski, were students at the University of Kansas from 1978 to 1981, and they set out to test Becker’s ideas with experiments. They published the theory in 1986 and later wrote a popular book, The Worm at the Core.

What did the experiments claim to show?

The main test was called “mortality salience.” Researchers briefly reminded people of their own death, for example by asking them to write about it, and then watched how they behaved. The central claim was that these reminders made people defend their own cultural worldview more strongly and favor people who share it. A large 2010 analysis of more than 250 experiments concluded that the effect was real and substantial, with an average effect size of 0.82, which is large by the standards of psychology.

Why is the theory now disputed?

Because some of the biggest tests did not find the effect. The Black Goat, a podcast by psychologists, describes Many Labs 4, a large effort by 21 labs and 2,220 participants to repeat the mortality salience experiment, and reports that the effect could not be replicated. A separate repeat of one well-known experiment, with 128 volunteers, also found no effect. Researchers who re-examined the 2010 analysis found a smaller effect than first reported, about 37 percent smaller, after accounting for the way studies get published. A 2022 report in the journal Meta-Psychology likewise found that mortality salience effects failed to replicate.

Defenders of the theory point to the large number of earlier studies. At least one of the theory’s original authors reanalyzed the Many Labs 4 data and argued for a different reading of it. So the dispute is real, and it is not settled.

What should we take from it?

That the central claim, that thinking about death makes us cling to our beliefs, is plausible but unproven. The broader idea that fear of death influences culture is much older than the experiments, and does not depend on them. It is also one reason people have studied why humans are afraid of death. It is wise to treat claims such as “reminders of death make people favor their own group” with caution, since the strongest version has not held up well.

Does thinking about death help or hurt?

It depends on how we think about it. Philosophers and many faith traditions argue that facing death honestly can make life richer, a theme in Memento Mori: Why Remembering Death Can Make Life Better. For the different philosophical views on whether death is bad, see What Do Philosophers Say About Death?.