Year: 2021
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Mortality awareness is a uniquely human phenomenon that the existentialists believed \nscience was unable to explain. However, excluding the topic from scientific enquiry \ndoesn’t make as much sense as it previously did. The recent advances in evolutionary \nbiology and neuroscience have provided new ways to access the previously inaccessible \nexistential features of people. Mortality awareness exerts various psychological effects on \npeople which motivate them to behave in different ways. In order to capture the scope of \nthese responses I have developed an integrative defensive behavioural model comprised \nof six levels coinciding with the Threat Imminence Continuum (Fanselow and Lester, \n1988), Survival Optimization System (Mobbs, 2015), A New Defensive Taxonomy \n(Ledoux and Daw, 2018) and Dennett’s Tower of Generate and Test (Dennett, 1997). I \nargue that mortality awareness can result in a multitude of defensive behaviours, \nincluding fixed reaction patterns, learned habits as well explicit deliberate actions, and \nthere may be competition between them. This range of defensive behaviours can be \nexplained by the following key factors: The intensity of the reinforcer, proximity and \nappraised emotional intensity. A rigorous evolutionary approach to mortality awareness \nhas not as yet been presented, however recently in psychology a theory has emerged \ncalled Terror Management theory (TMT) which has gained influence and support \n(Greenberg et al., 1986). The proponents of TMT argue that in order to cope with \npotentially debilitating fear of death, people engage with cultural ideas, beliefs, values, \nand concepts in an attempt to regulate this fear. People invent, absorb, and cling to \ncultural worldviews which ultimately avoid and suppress the awareness of death by \nproviding a theory of reality that provides meaning, purpose, significance and the hope of \nimmortality. Death awareness exerts motivational force on human behaviour due to the \nemotions of fear, anxiety, dread and terror that are associated with it. This is supported by \nthe current findings in both TMT and biology which show that anxiety and fear motivate \nspecific behaviours toward avoidance and continued survival. Hence the avoidance of \ndeath- related concerns seems natural. The avoidance and/or suppression of death was a \nposition the existentialists were concerned about. In contrast most existentialists favoured \nacceptance but they were sceptical whether people could truly face their mortality and accept it. However, recent research in neuroscience provides support for acceptance as a \npotential coping mechanism. An unlikely convergence presents itself between science \nand existentialism which provides scope for a cooperative approach.
Author: Stencel, Daniel Michael.
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7009705694