Terror Management Theory in Practice

Terror Management Theory in Practice
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Terror Management Theory in Practice
Human thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors are partially shaped by the uncomfortable feeling and knowledge that life is finite. The underlying desire for symbolic or literal immortality is responsible for the mortality salience. Distinct forms of mortality salience are usually associated with specific cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions. For example, one of the symbolic human immortalities is having children since it indicates people's awareness of their death, which is the function of a person's mortality salience. As such, individuals' awareness of death makes them appropriately respond since they know that death is inevitable. The paper analyzes the terrorist attack in Manhattan, New York, and New Jersey on September 17, 2016 using the terror management theory (TMT).
Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, and Jeff Greenberg introduced TMT in 1986 based on Ernest Becker's ideas. They argued that TMT has its foundation in the evolutionary theory that depicts how humans are biologically inclined toward continued survival. Becker was a cultural anthropologist who believed that individuals have a unique quality of self-consciousness and can think abstractly, resulting in the existential anxiety and fear that are absent in other animals. Humans are similar to other creatures in that they have the instinctual drive for self-preservation. However, one thing that makes people unique is that they know that their lives are finite (Conrad, 2009). Becker made it clear that although humans experience death anxiety and know that their lives have an end, they try to avoid mortal dangers to facilitate their continued survival. People avoid the potentially paralyzing death anxiety through a psychological mechanism that enables them to manage the fear of dying. Humans alleviate death anxiety by seeing themselves as a critical part of shared human experiences, which give their lives significance and meaning. The ultimate goal of individuals' existence is not prolonging their lives but transcending death to achieve symbolic or literal immortality (Conrad, 2009). Symbolic immortality means leaving a legacy or lasting influence on society, while literal immortality is the promise of life after death through spirituality or religion.
TMT portrays that death anxiety drives individuals to adopt various worldviews that safeguard their sustainability, self-esteem, and worthiness to enable them to believe that they play significant roles in the meaningful world. Whenever a person watches news headlines, numerous occurrences, such as terrorist attacks and other life-threatening situations, remind individuals that death is inevitable. TMT explicates that human awareness of their mortality can lead to unsettling attitudes and behaviors, such as aggression, intergroup conflict, and prejudicial attitudes (Vail & Juhl, 2015). Nevertheless, the awareness of death does not only cause socially and personally harmful consequences. In some cases, it leads to uplifting and growth-oriented helpful implications. For instance, death-related motivation might foster physical health, cultivate personal growth and creativity, and engender prosocial and charitable behaviors. Based on Becker's work, two basic assumptions of TMT can be derived. First, humans are similar to other animals since they have evolutionarily predisposed adaptations, which enable them to survive for an extended period and reproduce. Second, people are distinct from other creatures in that they have sophisticated cognitive abilities, such that they can engage in temporal, symbolic, and self-reflective thinking processes (Vail & Juhl, 2015). As a result, humans can do anything to survive for a long period and reproduce so that they can be remembered even after their death.
Bombing is a terrorist attack that can cause deaths and severe injuries to people, particularly when it happens unknowingly. On September 17, 2016, a bomb exploded in Manhattan, New York, injuring 29 individuals (Perez et al., 2016). Fortunately, no one died from this act of extremism. Nevertheless, law enforcers managed to locate other bombs in New Jersey after proper investigations and detonated them, avoiding further injuries and destruction of properties. A 28-year-old, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was later arrested on September 20, 2016, as the main suspect of the terrorist plot that targeted various areas in New York and New Jersey. Video surveillance showed Rahami dragging a duffel bag near the explosion site forty minutes before the bomb blast (Shallwani & Barrett, 2016). The same man was seen on West 27th Manhattan Street, enabling law enforcers to know the attacker's route while setting the bombs.
TMT can be applied to improve the understanding of survivors' coping and recovery following the bombings in Manhattan. The most significant thing was that no person died despite twenty-nine being injured. Victims of the bomb blast might have undergone psychological stress after figuring out how close they were to dying. Based on the TMT, humans know that their lives are finite. However, death anxiety increases when terrorist attacks occur (Vail & Juhl, 2015). In that light, TMT can be used to help survivors know that they have a long period to live and that they should engage in actions that improve national security. For example, people can be convinced to report any suspicious things happening around them. For instance, if someone called police officers and notified them about Rahami when he was dragging the duffel bag, no explosion would have occurred. On that note, no person would have been injured, which reduces death anxiety. Moreover, individuals should be encouraged to engage in meaningful things in their lives and those that would enable them to be remembered even when they are gone.
Survivors' cognitive, social, cultural, and intellectual conditions are among the factors that might skew perceptions of death and survival. Individuals have cognitive prowess that can help them to imagine a broad range of possibilities in the future (Vail & Juhl, 2015). For instance, people might perceive the 2016 Manhattan bombing as a reminder that they should be responsible for what is happening around them. Cognitive abilities might as well lead to fear of duffel bags, particularly those disposed of in dumpsites. In that light, individuals develop techniques of being careful when handling anything enclosed dumped on the street. Survivors' social factors, such as fear, aggression, and prosocial intergroup and interpersonal relationships, might influence people's perceptions of death and survival. For example, victims of the Manhattan bombing might hate the community with which the attacker is associated due to death anxiety. They can stereotype these individuals and perceive them as enemies of national security due to the shock related to the terror incident....