ABSTRACT
Our species’ highly evolved sense of self is immensely useful in coping with an uncertain world, but it also gives rise to the potentially terrifying awareness of the inevitability of death. According to terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008), and its intellectual forbearer Ernest Becker (1971, 1973), people manage existential anxieties stemming from the awareness of mortality by investing in a meaningful cultural worldview that offers literal or symbolic continuance beyond death to those who meet prescribed standards of value. However, because the meaning- and value-conferring aspects of death-denying worldviews are fragile social constructions, and confidence in their absolute validity is continually susceptible to threats, people are rendered existentially uncertain: unsure whether their lives have ultimate meaning and significance or whether they are instead fated only to absolute annihilation upon death. We begin this chapter by summarizing TMT and the far-reaching consequences of people’s struggle to secure certain knowledge of the ultimate meaning and significance of their lives. We will then review research supporting these insights and contrast TMT with uncertainty management theory. Finally, we consider implications of TMT for understanding how to manage existential uncertainty with fewer negative repercussions for individual and collective well-being.
