Emphatically impacted by Ernest Becker’s work, Terror Management Theory is the investigation of how people adapt not to the unavoidable danger of annihilation but rather with the mindfulness that such dangers are universal and will, in the long run, succeed. It concerns the effect that the consciousness of the certainty of death has on how we experience our lives. An indispensable part of the culture and the organizations that help the way of life is to shield us from this mindfulness and help us develop convictions about the idea of reality that relieve the repulsiveness and fear of what definitely will stand up to us.
All social perspectives serve a critical uneasiness, decreasing capacity by giving shared importance and reason and a method for accomplishing representative or strict eternality. “Mentally, at that point, the capacity of culture isn’t to light up reality but instead to darken the frightening probability that demise involves the changeless demolition of the self,” composed Becker (Pyszczynski, Greenberg & Solomon, 2012). This encourages us to comprehend why any aggravation in the way of life – including the authoritative culture – stimulates uneasiness that isn’t really similar to the change that is being required. Social reality – authoritatively and socially – is a delicate development that can be effectively exasperated.
We are more than once being stood up to by the truth of our own mortality – called “mortality remarkable quality” in the examination writing. Present-day correspondence with twenty-four-hour daily news, moment correspondence around the globe, and a downpour of data all around barrages us with updates that ghastly things happen to individuals who are pretty much like us. What’s more, social thoughts and qualities are continually being aggravated by the apparently contradictory thoughts and qualities emerging from individuals speaking to various societies, especially in the blend that is the United States. Accordingly, the uneasiness cushion that culture speaks to can be effectively undermined by the decent variety of thoughts, conclusions, perspectives, and ways of life spoken to in a multicultural society.
Fear Management Theory speculates that human consciousness of the certainty and conceivable conclusiveness of death creates the potential for existential dread, which is controlled to a great extent in two ways: (1) confidence in a disguised social perspective and (2) confidence, which is achieved by satisfying the measures of significant worth recommended by one’s perspective. Research has, in reality, shown that when the dread of death or mortality striking nature is activated, even outside of cognizant mindfulness – individuals have a tendency to wind up more frightful, bigoted of distinction, more partial, all the more socially preservationist, more strong of pioneers who bolster their perspective, more fundamentalist, and more correctional towards the individuals who are upsetting or who debilitated Community Works disturb their perspective (Pyszczynski, Greenberg & Solomon, 2012). To date, more than 300 trials, directed in 15 unique nations, have offered help for Terror Management Theory theories (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon & Maxfield, 2006).
I took the recent incident of a van crash with propane tanks at the Air Force base of North California on 22 March 2018. In this crash, the driver of the van died, and it was considered a terrorist attack on the air base because the van entered the air base area while hitting the gate unauthorized. It was investigated that the driver was an immigrant and he exploded his self which supported the evidence that it was a terror incident (“Witnesses describe ‘explosive’ crash at Travis Air Force Base”, 2018).
Some of the witnesses of the incident reported that the car just blew off and nothing more had happened. According to the terror management theory, people who do not think or conceptualize their death react the way some witnesses have reported about the incident. But the scene was not common, so the witnesses were shocked, too.
Others reported that it was a dangerous and unexpected scene as the smoke appeared and the sound of explosion-like boom boom boom. It kept exploding, which was so horrifying. The witness was sitting with his family in the restaurant, one mile away from the place of the incident. Another person reported that the sound was so loud that he had not heard it before. According to him, the sound was so loud. Another witness reported that he saw the dead body of the driver, which was slumped over the seat of the passenger. That scene was so dreadful.
The witnesses reported that witnessing that incident made them think and conceptualize their deaths at the same time. They thanked God for being safe as they wanted to live. According to the terror management theory, people want to live and remain mortal for as long as they can. Due to this, they feel fear of being dead. The people experiencing the fear of death become more fearful due to certain conditions. In this case of terrorism, the people could think that they could die as they were very near to the place of the incident, or It could be like people may think that if the propane tanks were more in number than present, they explode with more sound and deaths could be caused.
And while thinking about that scenario, one can think that in those deaths, I could be the one. This condition or conceptualization of fear of death can cause a fearful condition and lead to post-traumatic stress disorder or even a heart attack or brain hemorrhage. To make such incidents forgetful, people form relationships and spend time with them. People try to make themselves too busy in their lives and relationships to forget the fear of death because it makes them realize the loneliness after death.
The expression of the witness that he had never heard such a loud exploding sound showed that he was in a fearful condition, and this was due to the fear of death. Exposure to loud sounds like boom boom makes people think of something wrong, and witnessing death in front is really a fearful condition.
People who were residents of the air base would be in more fearful conditions than those who were witnessed because they live in the air base area, and it is an open threat for them. At this time, it was good luck that the van with propane tanks did not enter the air base and reach the people living there. But it can be done next time, which could be harmful to the people living on the air base. People may develop the conditioning with the sound, which may affect their levels of stress and sleep disorders. They feel insecure, and fear of death arouses in them, making them panic every time in the situation or while listening to such news or watching them on the television.
The health model of terror management investigates the part that passing plays in one’s well-being and conduct. Goldenberg and Arndt (2008) express that the health model of terror management proposes the possibility that demise, in spite of its undermining nature, is certainly instrumental and intentional in the molding of one’s conduct towards the course of a more drawn-out life.
As per Goldenberg and Arndt (2008), certain well-being practices, such as bosom self-exams (BSEs), can intentionally enact and encourage individuals to consider demise, particularly their own particular death. While passing can be instrumental for people, now and again, when bosom self-exams actuate individuals’ demise contemplations, a hindrance can introduce itself regarding well-being advancement on account of the experience of dread and threat. The pressure caused by expanded familiarity with mortality while praising one’s birthday may clarify the birthday impact, where death rates appear to spike around these days.
According to health model of terror management, individuals’ wellbeing choices, when demise contemplations are not cognizant, ought to be founded on their inspirations to act fittingly, regarding the self and identity. Cooper et al. (2011) found that when mortality and passing contemplations were prepared, ladies revealed more strengthening emotions than the individuals who were not incited before playing out a BSE.
Also, the health model of terror management recommends that mortality mindfulness and confidence are essential factors in people’s basic leadership and practices identifying with their well-being. The health model of terror management investigates how individuals will take part in practices, regardless of whether positive or negative, even with the uplifted consciousness of mortality, in the endeavor to adjust to society’s desires and enhance their self-esteem (Cox et al., 2009). The health model of terror management is valuable in understanding what spurs people in regard to their well-being choices and practices.
In conclusion, the terror management theory is implemented on the incident of terrorism held on 22, March 2018 on the air force base of North California. It is a dreadful event and a threat to the American Air Force. A proper scan of the people with post-traumatic stress disorder should be made, and a team of Psychologists should be formed to help those people to make them come out of the stressful outcomes of this dreadful incident.
References
Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (2012). In the wake of 9/11. Brantford, Ont.: W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services.
Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Maxfield, M. (2006). On the Unique Psychological Import of the Human Awareness of Mortality: Theme and Variations. Psychological Inquiry, 17(4), 328-356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10478400701369542
Witnesses describe ‘explosive’ crash at Travis Air Force Base. (2018). ABC7 San Francisco. Retrieved 19 April 2018, from http://abc7news.com/witnesses-describe-explosive-crash-at-travis-air-force-base/3249163/
Cox, C., Cooper, D., Vess, M., Arndt, J., Goldenberg, J., & Routledge, C. (2009). Bronze is beautiful but pale can be pretty: The effects of appearance standards and mortality salience on sun-tanning outcomes. Health Psychology, 28(6), 746-752. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016388
Cooper, D., Goldenberg, J., & Arndt, J. (2011). Empowering the self: Using the terror management health model to promote breast self-examination. Self And Identity, 10(3), 315-325. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2010.527495
Goldenberg, J., & Arndt, J. (2008). The implications of death for health: A terror management health model for behavioral health promotion. Psychological Review, 115(4), 1032-1053. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0013326
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