Jeff Greenberg

The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory

Throughout the past few thousand years, historical accounts, philosophical treatises, and works of fiction and poetry have often depicted humans as having a need to perceive themselves as good, and their actions as moral and justified. Within the last hundred years, a number of important figures in the development of modern psychology have also embraced this notion that people need self-esteem (e.g., Adler, 1930; Allport, 1937; Homey, 1937; James, 1890; Maslow, 1970; Murphy, 1947; Rank, 1959; Rogers, 1959; Sullivan, 1953). Of these, Karen Homey most thoroughly discussed the ways people try to attain and maintain a favorable self-image. The clinical writings of Horney, and other psychotherapists as well, document the ways in which people attempt to defend and enhance self-esteem; they also suggest that difficulty maintaining self-esteem, and maladaptive efforts to do so, may be central to a variety of mental health problems. In this chapter, we will first review the research supporting the existence of a need for self-esteem. Then we will present a theory that accounts for this need and specifies the role it plays in a variety of phenomena including self-presentation.

Evidence For Terror Management Theory: I. The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Violate or Uphold Cultural Values

On the basis of terror management theory, it was hypothesized that when mortality is made salient, Ss would respond especially positively toward those who uphold cultural values and especially negatively toward those who violate cultural values. In Experiment 1, judges recommended especially harsh bonds for a prostitute when mortality was made salient. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with student Ss and demonstrated that it occurs only among Ss with relatively negative attitudes toward prostitution. Experiment 3 demonstrated that mortality salience also leads to larger reward recommendations for a hero who upheld cultural values. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that the mortality salience effect does not result from heightened self-awareness or physiological arousal. Experiment 6 replicated the punishment effect with a different mortality salience manipulation. Implications for the role of fear of death in social behavior are discussed.

Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews: Empirical Assessments and Conceptual Refinements

Publisher Summary This chapter proposes that the potential for abject terror created by the awareness of the inevitability of death in an animal instinctively programmed for self-preservation and continued experience lies at the root of a great deal of human motivation and behavior. This chapter presents the results of a substantial body of research that attests to the broad influence of the problem of death on human social behavior and illuminates the processes through which concerns about mortality exert their influence. The chapter overviews the primary assumptions and propositions of terror management theory and a description of the initial research conducted to test the theory. It presents a detailed consideration of more recent research that establishes the convergent and discriminant validity of the mortality salience treatment and the robustness of its effects through the use of alternative mortality salience treatments and comparison treatments, and replications by other researchers; it extends the range of interpersonal behaviors that are demonstrably influenced by terror management concerns. Moreover, it demonstrates the interaction of mortality salience with other theoretically relevant situational and dispositional variables, and provides an account of the cognitive processes through which mortality salience produces its effects. Finally, this chapter discusses the relation of terror management motives to other psychological motives and gives a consideration of issues requiring further investigation.

A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior: The Psychological Functions of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews

Publisher Summary This chapter deals with terror management theory that attempts to contribute to the understanding of social behavior by focusing on the essential being and circumstance of the human animal. The theory posits that all human motives are ultimately derived from a biologically based instinct for self-preservation. Relative equanimity in the face of these existential realities is possible through the creation and maintenance of culture, which serves to minimize the terror by providing a shared symbolic context that imbues the universe with order, meaning, stability, and permanence. The theory provides a theoretical link between superficially unrelated substantive areas, and focuses on one particular motive that makes it distinctly human and, unfortunately, distinctly destructive. Theories serve a variety of equally important functions, all of which are oriented towards improving the ability to think about and understand the subject matter of discipline. The chapter discusses the dual-component cultural anxiety buffer: worldview and self-esteem, the development and functioning of the cultural anxiety buffer for the individual, and a terror management analysis of social behavior in great detail.

A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts : An extension of terror management theory

Distinct defensive processes are activated by conscious and nonconscious but accessible thoughts of death. Proximal defenses, which entail suppressing death-related thoughts or pushing the problem of death into the distant future by denying ones vulnerability, are rational, threat-focused, and activated when thoughts of death are in current focal attention. Distal terror management defenses, which entail maintaining self-esteem and faith in ones cultural worldview, function to control the potential for anxiety that results from knowing that death is inevitable. These defenses are experiential, are not related to the problem of death in any semantic or logical way, and are increasingly activated as the accessibility of death-related thoughts increases, up to the point at which such thoughts enter consciousness and proximal threat-focused defenses are initiated. Experimental evidence for this analysis is presented.

Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review.

Terror management theory (TMT; J. Greenberg, T. Pyszczynski, & S. Solomon, 1986) posits that people are motivated to pursue positive self-evaluations because self-esteem provides a buffer against the omnipresent potential for anxiety engendered by the uniquely human awareness of mortality. Empirical evidence relevant to the theory is reviewed showing that high levels of self-esteem reduce anxiety and anxiety-related defensive behavior, reminders of ones mortality increase self-esteem striving and defense of self-esteem against threats in a variety of domains, high levels of self-esteem eliminate the effect of reminders of mortality on both self-esteem striving and the accessibility of death-related thoughts, and convincing people of the existence of an afterlife eliminates the effect of mortality salience on self-esteem striving. TMT is compared with other explanations for why people need self-esteem, and a critique of the most prominent of these, sociometer theory, is provided.

Self-Regulatory Perseveration and the Depressive Self-Focusing Style: A Self-Awareness Theory of Reactive Depression

In this article, we apply theory and research on self-focused attention and self-regulatory processes to the problem of depression and use this framework to integrate the roles played by a variety of psychological processes emphasized by other theories of the development and maintenance of depression. We propose that depression occurs after the loss of an important source of self-worth when an individual becomes stuck in a self-regulatory cycle in which no responses to reduce the discrepancy between actual and desired states are available. Consequently, the individual falls into a pattern of virtually constant self-focus, resulting in intensified negative affect, self-derogation, further negative outcomes, and a depressive self-focusing style in which he or she self-focuses a great deal after negative outcomes but very little after positive outcomes. Eventually, these factors lead to a negative self-image, which may take on value by providing an explanation for the individuals plight and by helping the individual avoid further disappointments. The depressive self-focusing style then maintains and exacerbates the depressive disorder. We review findings from laboratory studies of mild to moderately depressed people, correlational studies of more severely depressed people, and clinical observations with respect to consistency with the theory. Recent empirical research on depression has yielded a wide array of cognitive, social, and motivational dimensions on which depressed and nondepressed individuals differ from one another. (For reviews, see Blaney, 1977; Coyne & Gotlib, 1983; Miller, 1975.) Over the years, a variety of theoretical frameworks have evolved to attempt to account for these differences. These theories have often been viewed as antagonistic to each other, competing to offer the most comprehensive explanation of depression. In the present article, we review the central concepts used in psychological theories of depression and outline a theoretical framework that attempts to integrate a variety of processes emphasized by these theories. The theory is an attempt to specify relations among a wide range of characteristics commonly associated with unipolar reactive depression and a sequence through which they emerge. To this end, we apply contemporary theory and research on self-focused attention and self-regulation (Carver & Scheier, 1981; Duval & Wicklund,

Terror management theory and self-esteem: evidence that increased self-esteem reduces mortality salience effects.

On the basis of the terror management theory proposition that self-esteem provides protection against concerns about mortality, it was hypothesized that self-esteem would reduce the worldview defense produced by mortality salience (MS). The results of Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed this hypothesis by showing that individuals with high self-esteem (manipulated in Experiment 1; dispositional in Experiment 2) did not respond to MS with increased worldview defense, whereas individuals with moderate self-esteem did. The results of Experiment 3 suggested that the effects of the first 2 experiments may have occurred because high self-esteem facilitates the suppression of death constructs following MS.

Toward an Integration of Cognitive and Motivational Perspectives on Social Inference: A Biased Hypothesis-Testing Model

Publisher Summary The chapter proposes a model to integrate the cognitive and motivational perspectives on social inference. The model specifies (1) the conditions under which affective and motivational factors do and do not influence inferential processes and (2) the mechanisms through which affective and motivational processes influence inferential processes to produce biased conclusions. The chapter focuses on the role of a self-esteem motive in producing the self-serving attribution bias. This particular motive is chosen because a wide variety of theorists throughout the history of psychology have suggested that the need for self-esteem exerts a powerful influence on peoples cognitions and behavior. It should be pointed out; however, the model is quite general and applicable to the mechanisms through which other motives influence inferences as well. Influenced by recent developments in cognitive psychology and information processing, the theorists focus on the way people encode and organize—the retrieve information and on the knowledge structures—transformation rules and heuristics that are used to make inferences of various kinds. The chapter briefly discusses some of the major influences on various steps in the sequence when the only goal of the process is to arrive at an accurate attribution for the observed event.

Deliver us from Evil: The Effects of Mortality Salience and Reminders of 9/11 on Support for President George W. Bush

According to terror management theory, heightened concerns about mortality should intensify the appeal of charismatic leaders. To assess this idea, we investigated how thoughts about death and the 9/11 terrorist attacks influence Americans’ attitudes toward current U.S. President George W. Bush. Study 1 found that reminding people of their own mortality (mortality salience) increased support for Bush and his counterterrorism policies. Study 2 demonstrated that subliminal exposure to 9/11-related stimuli brought death-related thoughts closer to consciousness. Study 3 showed that reminders of both mortality and 9/11 increased support for Bush. In Study 4, mortality salience led participants to become more favorable toward Bush and voting for him in the upcoming election but less favorable toward Presidential candidate John Kerry and voting for him. Discussion focused on the role of terror management processes in allegiance to charismatic leaders and political decision making.