Meaning in terror management theory

Abstract

This chapter includes a discussion of the concept of meaning and meaning-finding processes in Terror Management Theory (TMT). Although TMT theorists (e.g., Pyszczynski et al. 2004a, b) recognize the importance of growth processes, meaning striving is treated in TMT as a defensive mechanism, anchored in self-esteem striving, and intimately connected to the social-cultural context that is the provider of meaning. Thus, the experience of meaning is perceived as a means to enhance a sense of self-worth and, by doing so, helps to protect us against the existential terror of death. Beliefs in symbolic immortality, symbolic or even literal, are treated from the same defensive posture. In a typical TMT study increasing the salience of death (the mortality salience manipulation) has the effect of making the persons subjected to the manipulation less tolerant vis-à-vis a hypothetical other who challenged their value system. There is, however, empirical evidence that suggests a different approach, one based on growth motivation. For example, it was shown that focusing on the concept of an ideal (meaningful) death may eliminate mortality salience manipulation effects (Rogers 2011). Similarly, Florian, Mikulicer, and Herschnberger (Florian et al. 2002) have shown that focusing on relationships that provide meaning cancels the effects of mortality salience manipulations. In this chapter, in addition to providing such evidence, we argue that a modified view based on growth motivation is consistent with Becker’s description of “twin ontological motives” in the Denial of Death (Becker 1973), as well as with other critiques of the TMT (e.g., Deci and Ryan 2000; Wong 2008; Wong and Tomer 2011) and with the finding of an increased death acceptance in older adults. Such a view is based on the idea that meaning construction may affect the way life and death are viewed and that, as a consequence, the need for existential defenses may be diminished, if not completely eliminated. Moreover, a conclusion from this discussion concerns the necessity to construct an integrated theory that considers, in addition to anxiety, other death attitudes such as avoidance and different types of acceptance.