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Making the Most of Life by Facing Mortality
123 Plays4 years ago
Fara and Grant discuss Terror Management Theory, which helps us understand how we cope individually and collectively when fears of death are heightened, and ways people can cope with mortality and help others around them do so as well.
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Transcript
Introduction to Doorknob Comments Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
if people own mortality, we would do better in general. Hi, thanks for listening to Doorknob Comments. I'm Farah White. And I'm Grant Brenner. We are psychiatrists on a mission to educate and advocate for mental health and overall wellbeing. In addition to the obvious, we focus on the subtle, often unspoken dimensions of human experience, the so-called Doorknob Comments people often make just as they are leaving their therapist's office.
00:00:33
Speaker
We seek to dispel misconceptions while offering useful perspectives through open and honest conversation. We hope you enjoy our podcast. Please feel free to reach out to us with questions, comments, and requests. Hi, thanks for tuning in today.
What is Terror Management Theory?
00:00:48
Speaker
I'm just me and Grant, no guests, and we are going to talk about something called terror management theory, which is something that I've only recently been learning about. And Grant, I don't know,
00:00:59
Speaker
that you would say more of an expertise in it. You do seem to have a lot of interest in this. And I'm not sure if you feel comfortable talking about how you came across the topic, what you believe it means for today.
00:01:13
Speaker
Sure. Well, terror management theory is based on the work of Ernest Becker, who wrote a very influential book that was published in 1973 called Denial of Death. And his basic premise is that our knowledge of mortality, the limited nature of our existences, is a key factor in how we live our lives.
00:01:39
Speaker
You know, I don't remember the names of them offhand, actually, but three psychologists were very taken by his work and operationalized it as terror management theory. The idea there is that anxiety about death and particularly how strong the awareness of death is, what they call mortality, salience.
Mortality and Cultural Beliefs
00:01:59
Speaker
like how much mortality is on your mind, is a factor which fairly strongly determines people's responses to various things. For example, if you increase someone's mortality salience, for example, by having them watch a video about death or read an essay or write about dying, they're more likely to lean on cultural beliefs about how to make life meaningful or what happens after we die.
00:02:28
Speaker
So they're more likely to evoke, you know, if they're religious themes about the afterlife, if they're about leaving a legacy behind what they're doing to accomplish that. Yeah.
Children's Awareness of Death
00:02:39
Speaker
And what's sort of a thought about why that might be in the papers that you said?
00:02:47
Speaker
they offered up like a couple different explanations, right, that people want to have a link to the past, you know, or feel grounded, I guess by or some sort of comfort.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's an existential idea that's been around a long time. I think one of the core ideas is that unlike, as far as we know, other animals, we are aware of our own mortality. And we can be very, very clearly aware of it because we can put it into words. And so this is essentially a challenge to something like self-esteem.
00:03:24
Speaker
not being immortal, but having the ability to imagine immortality is like a blow to the ego. Yeah. I don't know if this is too tangential, but when I was just learning about this, I thought about what it might mean at different developmental stages. What does it mean for kids around a certain age who get really preoccupied with loss or death? What does it mean for a teenager?
00:03:55
Speaker
who feels kind of like invincible and how our views on our own mortality shift over time. Well, how have you seen it come up? Because, you know, younger kids, it's normal for them to realize that death happens. And then how do parents sort of deal with that? Well, I think that that's the really big challenge is how do we make kids aware that our existence is finite, right? And kids often are curious about death
00:04:24
Speaker
for themselves, but more often, I think for a parent or a grandparent, and particularly, I mean, I haven't seen any studies.
00:04:33
Speaker
with COVID, but I think I would imagine that that's even more heightened right now. With younger kids and society in general, right? There's not a day that goes by that you're not reading the news about how many people are dying or some people are worried about their own wellbeing or the wellbeing of family members. For kids, I think it also depends on what happens in their families. So if someone were a pet or someone close to them dies, that's very different than sort of if they see it in a TV show. Absolutely.
00:05:03
Speaker
Absolutely. But I think how we handle those questions as parents or whatever a trusted adult in a kid's life can really impact their, their view of it and their level of anxiety around it. What do you think a good way to address questions about mortality are? Has that come up for you? Yeah, it's come up in a couple of different ways. And
00:05:31
Speaker
I think that the challenge is trying to, I guess, explain things in a way that's like developmentally appropriate, not give too much information, not give too little, not say things like, oh, well, it's death is going to sleep and never waking up because then kids are scared. We've been more scared of bedtime. That can backfire. Backfire. But, you know, even stuff, you know, like water safety.
00:06:02
Speaker
where a kid really might not understand the dangers around swimming and why do we have to be really careful and this is a safety issue and what could happen, right? But kids kind of always want to know the details.
00:06:16
Speaker
Well, I think with kids, one of the questions I have is what is effective, right? What is effective for safety given the cognitive development of that particular kid at their age? I think sometimes parents are scared and they use very scary language. And maybe that's effective, like the kid never goes swimming. It's whatever parent wants.
00:06:39
Speaker
You know, on the other hand, there's also safety measures, right, like fences around pools and making sure things are supervised properly. But I think one of the issues is just that parents don't want to freak their kids out all the time. And especially if a parent has their own issues around death, they may be inclined to handle it inflexibly, like be too scary about it or too grim.
00:07:06
Speaker
or two sort of shooting from the hip or being developmentally sort of too advanced, saying something inappropriate for their child's age or glossing over it and not being sort of clear and honest in a calm and soothing developmentally appropriate way. But our society is just full of death imagery. It's not only full of death because of COVID or because of wars,
Mortality Salience Over Time
00:07:33
Speaker
or fears about terrorism or natural disasters or climate change, the mortality salience is very high right now in the world. And probably the last 20 or 30 years, it was on the lower side. It was probably higher during the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war.
00:07:50
Speaker
Maybe Vietnam era, and then I think in general society went through a period where mortality salience was kind of lower, but now it's kind of it's spiking. Yeah, so that causes sort of changes on a cultural level, maybe. Right, for sure. I think there has been a time and maybe we can see like in the 90s and.
00:08:14
Speaker
early aughts when, um, what is now what you call it? That's what they say. Yeah. Yeah. 2000, 2001, 2002. You know, people were enjoying like a definitely a different, it was like, well, I don't know when the Kardashians and people like that came around and maybe social media is also to blame, but it just felt like a very carefree time. A sense of safety. Yeah. And a sense that like we could.
00:08:44
Speaker
enjoy the frivolities of life. Well, they're not contradictory, right?
Coping with Mortality
00:08:51
Speaker
Though I read sort of an article, I think it was reported in BBC that they did a survey of younger people, early young adults, I think, and I think half of them said they expected there to be some kind of apocalyptic climate event in their lifetime.
00:09:06
Speaker
But the thing is what happens is when people are faced with mortality, when mortality salience is higher, the point of terror management theory is that there's a bunch of different ways of coping with that. For some people, it's to be much more carefree. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die. If you're pursuing pleasure in life and fulfillment, then you're going to feel like you'd better get on with it if you feel like time is shorter.
00:09:35
Speaker
In trauma theory, that's called a foreshortened sense of future. If you feel like time isn't, you don't have that much time and you want to do something with your time, then you push harder. Right. But that seems, I don't want to say totally on the opposite side, but that seems like it's a departure from this idea that we live according to our values or we want to make an impression or leave the world a better place than we found it.
00:10:04
Speaker
Well, I actually think it's consistent with that idea because the person would strive harder to work typically within their values. Now they might question their values and they might decide to try to change their values. But one thing the terror management theory consistently shows is that at least in the near term when people's mortality salience goes up, they double down on their values.
00:10:27
Speaker
Right, but don't don't you think that there's something different about the pursuit of, you know, like a hedonistic pleasure versus doubling down and well not necessarily because what you're describing as heat is hedonism. I guess you're presuming that there's like that's coming from a sense of meaninglessness.
00:10:48
Speaker
Like, I'm just going to go for empty pleasure because, you know, things don't matter. Or maybe you're grounding it in something like existential nihilism. Nothing is important. No, more the former. They sound related to me. I'm thinking of something that I think Aristotle called like eudaimonic, meaning eudaimonia, which is like fulfillment and the value of living like a good life.
00:11:13
Speaker
which can include pleasurable activities. But I think with hedonism, I'm curious how you understand it, that it's better to burn out than to fade away, that there's a self-destructive element and that the pursuit of pleasure may also come at the expense of one's health. For sure, or one's long-term health. I think that you see that in a lot of teenagers where they do have that
00:11:42
Speaker
for short and sense of future and they just want to have a good time, or they have a sense of immortality or it's hard for them to imagine that anything bad could really happen to them, or that mistakes that they're making now could, you know,
00:11:58
Speaker
I guess, come back around
Adolescents and Risk Perception
00:12:00
Speaker
in five or 10 years, you know? Well, I think some of that is thought to be related to development, right? The adolescent brain tends to be lower on executive function and higher on impulsivity. And some of it may come from evolutionary factors. For example, you know, among what is it, men between the ages of 18 and 25 have the highest rate of homicide.
00:12:24
Speaker
And that's also the age range where people typically are in the military and are willing to make altruistic sacrifices. And the stereotype is that people at that age think nothing bad can happen to them, that they imagine that they are immortal. And so things like mortality, salience,
00:12:43
Speaker
People will stereotypically respond to the sense that death is more of an immediate reality by trying to have a sense of immortality. If you're a religious believer, that sense of immortality, they say in terror management theory, may be a literal sense of immortality, like I'm going to go to heaven.
00:13:05
Speaker
And then the justification for values is like, well, I'm going to live according to those values. And so you may double down on your value system in order to secure a place in the afterlife. But the other thing for people who don't believe in a literal afterlife, they call symbolic immortality.
00:13:22
Speaker
And that's the idea that you're going to do something again that kind of leaves a lasting that has some enduring value for the next generation, et cetera. Even if you know, OK, the sun will go, you know, will turn into a red giant in five million years, or if you're a physicist, a physics buff, you know, someday the universe will reach what they call what they call heat death.
00:13:44
Speaker
And, you know, nothing can live past that horizon anyway. But even the other day, like my one of my kids was saying to me, would you rather live 20 years less or would you rather live forever? And that was supposed to be a very difficult choice. Well, what was it for you?
00:14:02
Speaker
Well, I was just curious, you know, of course, and where the question was coming from. But I think the idea of living forever is supposed to sound on the surface appealing. But in reality, that could be very difficult, right? Everyone you know dies or what happens when the universe like, you know, reaches its heat death, you're just floating in the void forever. You know, that could be terrible. Yeah, I agree. On the other hand, cutting it short.
00:14:31
Speaker
Also, I think it's not a BI. Yeah, no, I mean, that's why it's presented as a dilemma. Yeah, and where was that question coming from? I think it was coming from the internet.
00:14:44
Speaker
But it's also the zeitgeist. Like we were saying, the times that we're in, you can't turn around as a young person without being confronted with something pretty terrifying. It's sort of maybe not a bad thing, in a certain sense, like Becker's book, Denial of Death. I think his point was that if we're in denial about death, it ends up hurting us. Possibly. But I also think that a lot of people who suffer from
00:15:13
Speaker
You know, intractable anxiety that death is maybe one of the big parts of that. And I guess you mean you mean annihilation anxiety can be part of anxiety. Right. And can sometimes be at the root of, you know, someone's entire anxiety.
00:15:32
Speaker
Right. But what is your recommendation for how to address that type of anxiety? Well, is it to double down on denial or is it to develop a mindful awareness of death, which is more functional and adaptive? Right. I think ideally you want people to develop mindfulness around it and some sort of acceptance and comfort level. And in the meantime,
00:16:02
Speaker
try to live the best life that they can live to prevent future regrets, like the impending loss of loved ones or even of someone's own health anxiety, I think can really interfere with the ability to live a full, be in a eudaimonic state.
00:16:24
Speaker
I think one of the cases that people make is that in order to be sort of fulfilled and enlightened and all that stuff, happy, you have to come to terms with death in some way. And if it's an unresolved issue in the back of your head or if it's causing panic, you're waking up in the middle of the night thinking about being alone in a faceless universe, the usual stuff.
00:16:47
Speaker
There is something called existential therapy, which deals with these big issues, very often annihilation anxiety because it is it is the elephant in
Attitudes Toward Death Acceptance
00:16:57
Speaker
the room. A lot of the times I'm looking at one of the things we we reviewed in preparation for today, how Buddhism and Hindu philosophy approach.
00:17:08
Speaker
approach death. And one of the things that the author talks about is different types of acceptance. So the author talked about three types of acceptance of death, or rather references the work of Paul Wong. There are three attitudes of death acceptance.
00:17:26
Speaker
Neutral acceptance, approach acceptance, and escape acceptance. Approach acceptance is an attitude that focuses on the afterlife rather than the reality. And escape acceptance is a way of avoiding death in order to escape the painful reality.
00:17:42
Speaker
Neutral acceptance is a neutral acceptance of death as part of life. Neutral acceptance refers to the right attitude toward death, which perceives death as equivalent to birth, rather than as a means of avoiding life. And mindfulness can help with neutral acceptance. The other two have some sort of defensive qualities, qualities like approach and escape. For sure. And I can see that I can imagine that people who are, let's say, super high achieving,
00:18:10
Speaker
running marathons left and right obsessed with their own health and you know that that might be like also sort of fall into the category of that escape acceptance right. Could maybe yeah yeah like trying to um outrun extend life yeah I don't think we're saying that it it's it's a bad idea to be healthful
00:18:33
Speaker
what you're suggesting is that when people do it to an extreme, it may represent a defensive avoidance and a sort of non-acceptance of death. Right. And sometimes it backfires. Right. People exercise so much that they can't be happy later in life. Right. I mean, that is probably pretty rare. But I think that there I guess I'm thinking of like the extreme wellness model where people have unnecessary tests.
00:19:04
Speaker
unnecessary medical tests or maybe they're taking supplements that aren't based in evidence, or maybe they're exercising so much that it becomes a compulsion that prevents them from enjoying other things in life. Yeah, or maybe it takes a toll on their bodies, and rather than kind of like slow and steady wins the race.
00:19:24
Speaker
I've certainly seen people who are so dependent on exercise to manage how they're feeling, especially when they're working in traumatic environments that they're brittle, meaning if they're not able to get that particular kind of exercise, often something very intense like running a lot.
00:19:43
Speaker
then they don't know what they would do. The avoidance, I think, is more common and also can be self-destructive, and I think especially when there's so much anxiety around the idea of death that it's almost impossible to think about it, then you see the escapism more.
00:20:02
Speaker
And then that's also not great for your health because you may not be thinking about the future you who doesn't want to have drank so much alcohol or smoked so much cigarettes later on. Yeah. The neutral acceptance. What do you think of that idea of viewing death as in some ways equivalent to birth? Sort of just another sort of moment in time.
00:20:32
Speaker
Well, I think that's obviously ideal. Is it obviously ideal? Well, it seems like it would be very comforting to be able to view it that way. In what ways do you imagine? I would imagine that it frees people up to make rational decisions about the life that they want, knowing that, you know, death is an inevitability, but not being gripped by fear.
00:21:01
Speaker
I don't know. Like, not, not there, clearly. You're not there? No. Well, people are afraid of being terrified. Like a lot of people will say, I'm not afraid of death, like I'm afraid of dying. And I don't want to die in pain. I don't want to die in fear. Well, I don't want to die alone. I don't want to die alone. Those are the big ones, I think. And sometimes there's so much uncertainty about it. And people
00:21:30
Speaker
generally don't feel like a good sense of control around what kind of death they're gonna have because it's unpredictable. That's one of the issues, yeah. Right, so. Sort of could happen at any time, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but. Right, but that's so frightening. What if you have things that you wanted to do and I mean, I think that's. Like not die all of a sudden.
00:21:56
Speaker
Oh, like places that you would have wanted to travel or relations. The fear of missing out, like the life not lived. Well, do you have a bucket list? Yeah, but I haven't really checked off that many things from it. Where's that term come from, kicking the bucket? Yeah, I think so.
00:22:14
Speaker
I know, but I mean, I wonder what the origin, the etymology of kick the bucket is. I'm going to look it up on the internet. Did you have any early experiences that you want to share with death? Do you remember? You know, in the book Siddharth by Hermann Hesse, which is one of the sort of westernized versions of the Buddha, one of the ideas is that in order to be enlightened, the main character, Siddharth,
00:22:39
Speaker
was shielded by his family from these four terrible things in life like poverty, sickness, death, and poor internet access. I forget what the fourth one was. And that that allowed him to kind of develop in the absence of knowing about all these the suffering in life so that he could have kind of a core
00:23:00
Speaker
And then later on he experiences like all of the different things, the hedonism, the gluttony, the asceticism, the self-denial. And then eventually he goes through all of these different challenges to arrive at a place of sort of peace and enlightenment. But my sense is that you had a similar type of upbringing as the Buddha. I don't know about that, but probably maybe more similar than some other peoples for which I'm
00:23:28
Speaker
I'm really grateful, but I think those types of protections really only last for so long. And some people can put them in themselves, right? Some people rely on parents to keep them safe and happy and carefree so that they can develop, I guess, that core sense of self. But once we get out into the world,
00:23:53
Speaker
I think that's the difference for some people are a little bit more withdrawn and self protected versus other people are just out there. Uh, whatever, whatever it might mean. Some people are just out there. Out there in terms of, you know, what kind of job they do or what kind of media they consume or how much they allow themselves to be influenced.
00:24:16
Speaker
by the suffering around them. Well, so much media depicts terrible suffering, death, and so much of the media we look at is about life and death, from the Marvel Avengers Thanos killing off half the people, or all these very, very gruesome and gory movies, and even a holiday like Halloween, which is coming up soon, which allows people to process the grotesque and terrifying. What do you make about the role of
00:24:45
Speaker
how much the media more and more deals with graphically terrifying violent situations. I think it's meant to evoke
00:24:57
Speaker
fear or rage or bring people in. And what do you mean by bring people in? Oh, you mean sell like some movie tickets or keep someone reading. But how do you think it works psychologically, though, with this fear of death? And, you know, like on the surface, you might think, oh, no one's ever going to go see like a frightening movie because it'll make them scared of death. But you're saying quite the opposite. It's a draw. Right. It's the fascination.
00:25:24
Speaker
Honestly, it's not fascinating to me. I try to avoid that in entertainment purposes when I, you know, want to watch something in my off time. I don't want sad or scary stories, but I think for other people, maybe there's some morbid excitement around it or curiosity. I'm not sure.
00:25:46
Speaker
I would wonder if it alleviated anxiety, if it alleviated that terror about death, maybe by making it in a controlled setting, right, or something entertaining that you can laugh at, or just get pleasure from.
Media's Role in Death Anxiety
00:26:02
Speaker
But I wonder if it is a way to manage the anxiety around death.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, even though it's it's you know, it's raising mortality, salience, presumably, though I don't know, you know, it's something it's something you could think about. It would depend on what you watch. But things like vampire shows and we are society's fascination with the undead suggests some sort of flirtation with immortality to me. Vampires live forever or a way to be invulnerable. But then there is just the draw of the thriller, right?
00:26:35
Speaker
whether it's literary or video. Well, just because it's exciting. Yeah. I thought of Michael Jackson's video thriller. Yeah. And I was thinking of trying to do a little bit of thriller, but I was thinking it wouldn't it wouldn't really translate well. I kind of want you to go ahead now. Well, I mean, I don't know if you remember that from the 80s, but it was it was a big smash, but basically he plays a werewolf.
00:27:03
Speaker
You know, but people like to be scared, but you know, you're not really going to get hurt by a scary movie. But there's all this whole new genre, right? You're supposed to supply the name of the show, the squid game that everyone is watching. And it's of this genre of stereotypically Asian movies that have to do with people being forced to participate in battles or games that result in gory deaths.
00:27:33
Speaker
And ultimately, the show is about sort of the meaningfulness or lack thereof of life. And maybe it circulates around some themes about suicide, right? Whether life is worth living or not. I don't know. See, I don't. You're not ready to go there. Yeah, I don't consume stuff like that because it's hard for me to know.
00:27:55
Speaker
Well, I mean, that probably is a good thing in a lot of ways. Maybe other people get a relief by having it fictionalized or narrativeized in a containable way. Like you can watch it at home on your TV or your laptop or your phone. Yeah.
00:28:11
Speaker
and sort of be thrilled by it. For me, I was exposed to death at a very young age, sickness and death. And I think I had to deal with it, right? I didn't have a choice. You can look up my blog if you want to read about it. And so I didn't have the option of being able to be in denial of death. And that's one of the reasons why it's always interested me.
Early Exposure to Death: Resilience vs. Anxiety
00:28:32
Speaker
And to some extent, I think I've come to terms with it. I'm not sure if I'm quite at the idealized neutral acceptance. But I kind of feel like that. Yeah, I think you probably feel like that more than most people, given your early experience. Given my young age. And how you've processed.
00:28:53
Speaker
Well, I think people with that type of early tragedy, they tend to either do quite well or really struggle. You know, often after a period of struggle, sort of figure it out. I certainly feel more comfortable talking about difficult issues like that. And maybe to some extent, I have a tolerance.
00:29:10
Speaker
But a lot of people with early tragedy, early trauma or loss will often feel a sense of time pressure because they're aware of the fragility of life from a young age. Yeah. And then that's something that we have to deal with. And other people may not have that experience until they're much older. They may not lose a parent until they're, you know, full grown adults. Yeah. It's never easy. Usually never easy.
00:29:35
Speaker
But I think also when you're a full grown adult and you have at least some sort of an understanding that this is all transient and we have a limited amount of time with the people we love or the people that we have complicated relationships with, it puts us in a position where we're more able to work it out and get to a place of less conflict or ambivalence hopefully before we lose.
00:30:04
Speaker
that person. That comes up in clinical work when adults, patients have parents who are getting older and are likely to pass away in the relatively near future. There's an awareness that if you want to have certain conversations with them,
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, you better get to it. And what will happen if you don't? Right. And usually I would explore sort of different possibilities with people rather than try to pressure people to, you know, make a decision one way or the other. Right.
Conversations with Aging Parents
00:30:38
Speaker
Right. Exactly. But if there's something really at stake and something that can be irrevocably lost, lost, I'm likely to be a little more emphatic to emphasize a bit more why it may be important not to miss the chance.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah, and then that is something that I think can make the bereavement process just a tiny bit easier, right? Because we can tap into what that person would have wanted for us because we, you know, were able to have those adult conversations.
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you and I would add and say, not just the bereavement process but also the, the personal growth in the longer term to have have those experiences that you only get one shot at, and that it not only can help with bereavement
00:31:25
Speaker
but also for many, many years afterward, there's a big difference between having had that conversation and holding that person's memory with you and addressing some of those issues, even if sometimes they're difficult, or even if those unresolved issues with a parent, they never get resolved, but at least you got it out in the open. It's very different 10, 20 years later to have gone through that and to look back and say, gee, I wish that I had, but I can't anymore.
00:31:55
Speaker
Right. That's a little bit like the, you know, I wish I'd been healthier when I was younger. It's hard to live with those regrets. But I'm really thinking kind of long term, like, who do I want to be as I get older and older so that I have, you know, the fullest experience. Yeah, really have good mortality, salience there.
00:32:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's so much more to say about this subject, I would just end up by by saying, I think one of the reasons why I was hoping we could talk about it on the podcast is because I think if people own mortality, we would do better in general.
00:32:33
Speaker
I think if we could do that collectively, we would do better as a species. I think we could tackle problems differently. Probably we'd decide war was not as appealing as humanitarian work, and we could redirect a lot of our potential to making things better for people rather than creating more and more threat. You're doing your part to get the word out.
00:32:59
Speaker
Well, you know, I do think it is something that our species has just been grappling with since we became sort of self-reflective. And I don't think our species has any kind of acceptance around death. And I do think it drives a lot of problems.
Exploring Terror Management Theory Further
00:33:14
Speaker
And the research on terror management theory is really compelling. I'd encourage people to go look it up. OK. Because it does explain a lot of that.
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah, maybe we can link to some of it. Good. How about you? Anything else that you didn't want to say about the subject? Nothing else. Are you feeling sleepy? I wanted to say or not say, I just needed that. Yeah. OK. OK, good. All right. Thanks, everybody. Feel free to reach out to us. All right, thanks.
00:33:47
Speaker
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