On psychological theories of death
When you read or watch on the news some great accident, attack or general calamity that leave several people dead, do you imagine how you could’ve ended in the same way as the deceased? Or when you pass by a cemetery do you get a bit spooked and get away from it quickly? These situations, among many others are examples of our behaviour when faced with death in some way. Death makes people react in many ways — often with anxiety and avoidance, but sometimes with equanimity, acceptance, hope, etc. As psychologists are interested in the behaviour of humans, death has spawned a lot of psychological investigations and theories on its effect on humans.
TMT
One of the most dominant theories in the psychology of death is the ever-famous terror management theory (TMT) from Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski; the theory states thanks to their ability to reason and awareness of the future, humans know that they’ll die eventually. This latter fact causes great terror — existential death anxiety — as humans are genetically programmed to live, and so people create and maintain beliefs in: literal immortality (the afterlife); symbolic immortality through a representation of the self, like cultural worldviews, children, one’s nation, etc; and empirical attempts at immortality (mind uploading, indefinite life extension, etc). People also develop self-esteem, which serves as a measure of how well one is living up or serving their symbolic representations and so is deserving of its immortality. Conscious mortality salience (MS), the abstract awareness of one’s future demise ignited in death-related entities (like looking at a picture of a gravestone, thinking about death as an abstraction, etc), can lead to proximal defences: people will think death is far away from them or they’ll pledge to exercise more to delay their demise, in order to get MS out of consciousness. However, MS still lingers in the unconscious so distal defences, like affirming one’s ingroup and worldview more fervently and more strongly opposing outgroups and attacks to one’s worldview, so that avenues to literal and symbolic immortality are secured to eliminate existential death anxiety.
MMT AND SDT
Moving away from TMT’s emphasis on existential defence, there are more growth-oriented psychological theories on reacting to death. One of them is meaning management theory (MMT) from Paul T.P. Wong: it states humans have a desire to survive, and to find and make meaning, a purpose and/or significance of their survival — a growth orientation — as well as ensuring that they keep on surviving — a defensive orientation that TMT describes; though both orientations are needed to help people live life, primarily focusing on finding meaning and self-actualising, or even self-transcending, is superior to TMT’s defensive processes in dealing with existential death anxiety, according to MMT.
Although not necessarily related to death, self-determination theory (SDT) offers descriptions on growth-leaning responses. SDT, from Ryan and Deci, states ‘… when individuals satisfy their fundamental needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence, they experience greater levels of well-being and motivation, and they are better able to integrate imposing extrinsic forces with more meaningful aspects of the self.’(Cozzolino 2006). This theory is integrated in Philip J. Cozzolino’s dual existential systems theory, which investigates defensive, inauthentic reactions (TMT) and growth-based, authentic reactions (SDT, MMT implied) to death. The dual existential systems theory’s described in the next paragraph.
DUAL EXISTENTIAL SYSTEMS
Cozzolino’s theory states people are aware of their own eventual death, but people unconsciously perceive their death in 2 different existential psychological systems, which affects their reaction to it. One of the systems is the ‘abstract existential system’, where one’s death is seen as abstract, somewhat quasi-imaginary. This abstraction-leaning system, when aware of death, relies on abstract ideas — cultural worldviews — from sources external to the self, like cultures, family members, etc to defend oneself from existential death anxiety. These responses are predicted and described by TMT as defensive, as they seek to protect one from death and death awareness.
The other existential system, the ‘specific existential system’, is the polar opposite of the abstract existential system; the former leans towards direct, individuating experiences and perceptions of one’s death, like near-death, after-death experiences and imagined concrete situations of death (eg: imagining oneself dying in an apartment fire due to lack of oxygen), and so deals with death anxiety by focusing on intrinsic, individuating goals and ideas. These responses are self-actualising and thus growth-oriented. Some studies investigate posttraumatic growth found in some people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), where they were faced with real concrete instances of immediate death; through their PTSD and constant thinking on their near-fatal experiences, they are more likely to let go of goals dictated by external sources (culture, etc) and focus on doing more intrinsically-derived goals, being more independent and forming closer relationships with significant others (friends, romantics, community members, etc), leading to greater wellbeing — which SDT, self-determination theory, describes (people have intrinsic desires of autonomy, relatedness and meaning which when fulfilled leads to higher levels of mental health). The specific existential system doesn’t narrow down on just internal drives — after all, people deep in that system form deeper relationships with others, externals — but it integrates external drives with intrinsic ones.
CONCLUSION
There is much more information and investigations on these psychological theories of death mentioned above and more, but this article was made to only give a brief look at them. Hopefully you the reader have overcome a bit of death anxiety to gain the curiosity to read a little more on the psychology of death to not only understand how others react to their death, but how you do too as well.
SOURCES
TMT — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory
MMT — http://www.drpaulwong.com/meaning-management-theory-and-death-acceptance/
Dual existential systems (and a bit of SDT) — https://www.academia.edu/567404/Death_Contemplation_Growth_and_Defense_Converging_Evidence_of_Dual_Existential_Systems
