A Consideration of Three Critical Hypotheses

The crowning achievement of terror management theory (TMT) was that it formalized the broad theorizing of Ernest Becker into specific hypotheses that could be tested through experimentation. To date, evidence consistent with three broad hypotheses has provided strong support for TMT’s core postulates. In this chapter we provide a sweeping overview of those three hypotheses and discuss the evidence to support them. First, we discuss the mortality salience hypothesis, which states that activating thoughts of death should elicit responses aimed at amplifying the strength of psychological structures (e.g., self-esteem) that protect people from death anxiety. Second, we discuss the death-thought accessibility hypothesis, which states that threatening/weakening structures that protect people from death anxiety (e.g., self-esteem) should directly increase the mental accessibility of death-related concerns. Third, we discuss the anxiety-buffer hypothesis, which states that amplifying structures that protect people from death anxiety (e.g., self-esteem) should mitigate negative reactions to reminders of mortality. Finally, we present a series of additional hypotheses concerning the role of immortality in people’s need to manage thoughts and concerns about death. In presenting these immortality postulates, we demonstrate how TMT’s three critical hypotheses continue to generate new and interesting research directions.