Dehşet Yönetimi Kuramı ve İş Yaşamı

Abstract

Terror Management Theory posits that individuals try to buffer the anxiety that stems from the awareness of being mortal by (1) maintaining high self-esteem that enables people to see themselves as valuable contributors in a meaningful world, and (2) defending their cultural worldviews, thus attaching meaning, permanence, order and stability to their lives. The aforementioned hypotheses of this theory have been empirically tested and investigated in different cultures, taking numerous variables into account. However, effects of mortality salience on work life and concepts related to the work life have not been adequately studied yet. People spend most of their lives at work. Therefore the organization they are working for might as well influence their social identity. So, organizational identification and commitment might be considered as important sources for buffering death anxiety, which is an existential threat. The main purposes of this article are to introduce Terror Management Theory by reviewing certain experimental research, and to evaluate the reflections of the theory on work life. With this purpose in mind, the research, in which the main hypotheses of Terror Management Theory were tested on variables related to work life such as organizational identification, will be presented.