Terror Management Theory

This study examines both the generalizability of Terror Management Theory (TMT) and the mechanisms by which individual difference variables work in the TMT model. A plethora of research exists to support TMT, a theory that explains much of human behavior as attempts to buffer the potential for anxiety provoked by being aware of one‟s own inevitable mortality (Pyszczynski et al., 2003). This dissertation investigated the generalizability of Terror Management Theory (TMT) and the mechanisms by which individual difference variables work in the TMT process. In order to do so, an operationalization of the variable “overall worldview” was provided. Participants consisted of 367 college students from the Psychology Department Experimental Subject Pool of a mid-sized Midwestern university. Subjects were quasi-randomly assigned to a 2 (mortality salience vs. control) x 2 (death-thought word stems vs. neutral word stems) between subjects design. Results suggested that humanists defended humanism more in the mortality salience condition than in the dental pain condition.