ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the commonalities and differences in the ways that cultures address the problem of death. Self-esteem and cultural worldviews attain the capacity to protect people from anxiety through the socialization process, in which the protection from distress provided by attachment to parents or other primary caretakers is transferred to these two psychological entities as a shield against the anxiety that arises from awareness of the inevitability of death. Terror management theory (TMT) posits that death is a universal human problem that people cope with by deploying their cultural worldviews, self-esteem, and close attachments. Cultural psychologists argue that the cognitive, emotional, and motivational elements of the self-system are cultural constructions and that the nature of the self varies greatly depending on one's culture. The research reviewed in the chapter supports the TMT claim that death is a universal human problem that leads people from all cultures to seek meaning in life, value in them, and close interpersonal relationships.
