The terror management theory (TMT) is a concept that focuses on the psychology of mortality. Since death is inevitable and uncontrollable, we as individuals suppress our inner thoughts surrounding mortality. The perception of death comes from an individualistic viewpoint. Societal and cultural factors influence our perceptions of death and construct what death means to us and how we view our existence. Terror Management theory defines these psychological constructs as anxiety buffers. Some examples include cultural worldview, self-esteem, faith in progress, romantic relationships, and religion. Not only do these coping mechanisms help with existential concerns they also help serve other purposes, such as providing confidence for an individual’s
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All lifeforms want the same thing and that is self-preservation. The hypothesis that increased death thoughts result in an increased search for positive information is found by evidence for positive tuning in mortality salience. For example, in one study, participants were asked to write and think about their inevitable death using a word-stem completion task. Participants that scored higher on the task thought about death as opposed to the participants in the controlled condition. This study shows that the thoughts about death prompted the search for more positive thoughts. As a support for the hypothesis, an eye-tracking mechanism was used to evaluate positive tuning (Kelley et al. 2014). Self-control is the main associate proving higher in individuals and shows a bias between positive images after the initiation of mortality salience. A current study (dental pain), proposes that self-control may also help individuals cope with mortality salience. As well as this, death thoughts among people have been found to help with patience and equality amongst ourselves (e.g., Vail et al. 2011). A second study was brought up to imitate the increase of optimism of an American sports team, evidence was found that self-control is in a lessened state of mortality salience, this supporting notion that higher optimism is used as a coping response, establishing a connection to self-control and a effective coping (e.g., Tangney et al. 2004). From the current study, it is constant with the given research on positive biases under mortality salience. In result, individuals with higher self-control cope better with death thoughts than those with lower
All lifeforms want the same thing and that is self-preservation. The hypothesis that increased death thoughts result in an increased search for positive information is found by evidence for positive tuning in mortality salience. For example, in one study, participants were asked to write and think about their inevitable death using a word-stem completion task. Participants that scored higher on the task thought about death as opposed to the participants in the controlled condition. This study shows that the thoughts about death prompted the search for more positive thoughts. As a support for the hypothesis, an eye-tracking mechanism was used to evaluate positive tuning (Kelley et al. 2014). Self-control is the main associate proving higher in individuals and shows a bias between positive images after the initiation of mortality salience. A current study (dental pain), proposes that self-control may also help individuals cope with mortality salience. As well as this, death thoughts among people have been found to help with patience and equality amongst ourselves (e.g., Vail et al. 2011). A second study was brought up to imitate the increase of optimism of an American sports team, evidence was found that self-control is in a lessened state of mortality salience, this supporting notion that higher optimism is used as a coping response, establishing a connection to self-control and a effective coping (e.g., Tangney et al. 2004). From the current study, it is constant with the given research on positive biases under mortality salience. In result, individuals with higher self-control cope better with death thoughts than those with lower