Illuminating the Role
of Death in Life

Death Anxiety and Social Change: A Communications Guide for Advocates

September 2023

The EBF Mortality Awareness Preparedness (MAP) project seeks to familiarize individuals and groups with the way death anxiety can operate in human lives. This work is predominantly informed by Terror Management Theory (TMT), the branch of social psychology that grew out of Becker’s writings.

With this guide we hope to help advocates for social change utilize a lens of death anxiety to better inform persuasive communication, especially on topics that inherently remind people of their mortality. 

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Featured
Becker 101
Becker 101

Learn about Ernest Becker's ideas and theories.

Becker’s Life
Becker’s Life

The life and times of Becker.

About the EBF
About the EBF

Find out more about the EBF.

The Living Legacy

After 30 years of advancing the understanding of death anxiety and denial, the EBF closed its doors in 2023.

However, the the International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology (ISSEP.org) continues to honor the legacy of Ernest Becker and the EBF.

Since 2023, ISSEP maintains this website, publishes original Becker-related content, and offers the Ernest Becker Honors:

Visit ISSEP to learn more.

 

This Mortal Life

This Mortal Life
Death Denial and Consumerism: Reverend Billy, Savitri D., and the Church of Stop Shopping
Death Denial and Consumerism: Reverend Billy, Savitri D., and the Church of Stop Shopping

Dedication to a shared vision is exactly what The Church of Stop Shopping is about. For this December issue of the EBF newsletter, we wanted to focus on the connection between overconsumption and death-denial. To do so, we are featuring this special group from New York City.

Happy Anniversary Ernest Becker and EBF
Happy Anniversary Ernest Becker and EBF

Hello EBF friends and Becker fans. This year we celebrate a double anniversary: 50 years since Becker’s The Denial of Death, and 30 years of the Ernest Becker Foundation! This newsletter is dedicated to highlighting what has been accomplished in that time, and what’s in store for the future.

Becker's Intellectual Influences
Becker's Intellectual Influences

Over the past year we applied the lens of Becker’s work and insights to look at a variety of current events. Suffice it to say, 2022 was a year ripe for death anxiety. We witnessed the start of a war in Europe, major school shootings, the ongoing death rate from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, to name just a few examples. Our webinar series mirrored these topics as we examined death anxiety’s role in these dynamics.

Death Anxiety and Gun Violence
Death Anxiety and Gun Violence

In response to gun violence, Americans differ drastically. Some are quick to blame guns, while others rush towards other explanations, fearing that the right to bear arms will one day be taken away entirely. Like most things in life, neither the issue nor its solution is simple or one-dimensional.

Death Acceptance
Death Acceptance

What does it mean to be “Death Positive”? This term may feel counterintuitive to many. Death Positivity is about accepting that we will die and making the most of our lives. As Western society has become more secular, many rituals surrounding death and dying have gone away, leading to a cultural “denial of death” as Becker discusses, or what others have called a death taboo.

'Tis the Season: Religion and Death Anxiety
'Tis the Season: Religion and Death Anxiety

Ernest Becker talked about religion being a type of “immortality project,” in the sense that life continues on after death. Some people interpret this as a criticism of religion, and while Becker was certainly critical of the abuse of religion, he was far from disparaging of religion itself.

Art and Artists
Art and Artists

Much of Ernest Becker’s synthesis has made its way to the scientific community, but his insights are equally important in the arts and humanities. Feeling that we can create something of value and meaning can help us accept our own mortality, and one of the ways we do that is through artistic expression.

Climate Talk
Climate Talk

We have dedicated this issue of the newsletter to conversation about climate. It’s a social issue to which many people have applied Becker’s synthesis. While many conversations about science do not elicit death anxiety, climate conversations have come to occupy a unique crossover between science, politics, and personal belief.

Discrimination and Racial Justice
Discrimination and Racial Justice

What does death anxiety have to do with discrimination? As it turns out, a lot. Becker said, “As we have learned, only scapegoats can relieve one of his own stark death fear: ‘I am threatened with death—let us kill plentifully’” (The Denial of Death).

Political Manipulation
Political Manipulation

Over 30 years of psychological research in the field of Terror Management Theory (TMT) have provided empirical evidence for the ways in which death anxiety influences our behavior, and how it can be used to manipulate us in political contexts.

Indigenous Culture
Indigenous Culture

In this feature, we interview three Native Americans who discuss the way death is viewed in their own culture, and how this relates to the way they approach their relationship to their own mortality.

COVID-19
COVID-19

What are the effects of constant conscious awareness of our mortality? In this issue we talk to researchers who study how mortality influences human behavior, to see what they had to say about the effects of heightened mortality awareness that we are experiencing thanks to COVID-19. We also examine examples from the news.

Death Denial at the Movies
Death Denial at the Movies

Film captures elements of the human experience with complexities ripe for Beckerian analysis. With gratitude to film buff and Terror Management Theory co-founder Jeff Greenberg (and his colleagues), this edition of our newsletter is dedicated to Beckerian film reviews.

Mental Health
Mental Health

As Becker noted, mental health is often not a question of delusions, but of too close a confrontation with the reality of existence. This is why Becker talks about mental health as a universal issue and intrinsic aspect of the human condition. Experts in the field of mental health discuss the challenge of confronting mortality head-on.

Doctors
Doctors

As Becker illustrated, death-denial often shapes our behavior in highly subtle and unconscious ways. Yet, when it comes to its most literal application—facing death in real time—we have ample evidence of the difficulties created by death denial. Nowhere is the manifestation of death denial more blatant than in the world of medical treatment.

The Next Generation
The Next Generation

In the following feature, you will read about some of Becker’s younger fans, from a teenager who faced her own mortality, to students who became passionate about Becker and Terror Management Theory. You will see the ways in which Becker’s ideas resonate for each individual help shape their understanding of the world.

Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice

As with most fears, “fear of the other” has fear of death at its base. Not only does the creation of stigmatized others create injustice and power imbalances, it is a way for humans to deny their own vulnerability. Experts discuss the relevance of fear of death and the process of othering in context of criminal justice.

Climate Change
Climate Change

Death anxiety and climate change sit uncomfortably side-by-side. We have marred the Earth, and as Becker cautioned, our fear of death has played a role in this. In this newsletter, the EBF will seek to address the relationship between climate change and death denial, and how this can inform our understanding of humanity’s contributions to environmental destruction.

Feminism
Feminism

Our fraught relationship with mortality can help us explain why we don’t like to talk about periods or see women breastfeed in public, why women internalize the male gaze, why society objectifies women, and more. Despite Becker’s problematic language, his extraordinary insight on human social behavior is a powerful tool we can use to inform modern liberation struggles.

Voter Manipulation
Voter Manipulation

During this 2016 campaign season, the Ernest Becker Foundation invites you to join us in examining the underlying messages in the images, words, and sounds of political advertising, specifically those messages that provoke our subconscious fear of death.

Religion
Religion

Experts within the Ernest Becker Foundation community who come from different religious perspectives have shared their thoughts with us on how Becker helps people understand their religion, and how their religion helps us understand Becker. Namely, how is their religion compatible with Becker’s synthesis and how does it provide its adherents “victorious, yet non-destructive” paths through life?

Webinars

EBF Data Blitz - New Research in Terror Management Theory

April 7, 2023

Join us for an Ernest Becker Foundation "data-blitz": researchers will present short 5-minute presentations demonstrating the diversity and creativity of current research in Terror Management Theory (TMT), the field of research derived from Ernest Becker's work.

Ernest Becker, Otto Rank, and Psychotherapy

Feb 10, 2023

Join the Ernest Becker Foundation for a discussion with the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis on the overlap of Ernest Becker, Otto Rank, and psychotherapy.

Ernest Becker and Education

November 16, 2022

Join us as we talk to three teachers who have used Becker's ideas in the classroom. They discuss how students react to the material, what impact it has had, and why they believe these ideas are important and helpful in a teaching context. Panel discussion followed by Q&A.

 

Follow the legacy of Ernest Becker and the Ernest Becker Foundation!

Subscribe to ISSEP for information about Ernest Becker Grants & Awards, Becker-related Features & Spotlights articles, and other relevant news in the science of existential psychology!

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO ISSEP!

 
 

Interviews

Featured
An interview with Matthieu Dandoy
An interview with Matthieu Dandoy

To think people can be risking their life for the sake of an idea, what does that take? What is the recipe, what kind of personalities allow people to be willing to die?

An interview with Shelley F. Diamond
An interview with Shelley F. Diamond

Shelley F. Diamond, Ph.D., has been a private practice full-time psychotherapist since 2006 up until the end of 2021, when she had to suddenly close her practice after a diagnosis with pancreatic cancer and a prognosis of less than 6 months to live.

Becker-Inspired Visual Artist, Ashkan Honarvar
Becker-Inspired Visual Artist, Ashkan Honarvar

Ashkan Honarvar’s artistic projects originate from a question: Why do we do the things we do?

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?

Caitlin Doughty discusses her new bestseller about death.

 

Book & Film Reviews

Featured
I Am Become Barbie: The Social Psychology of Barbenheimer
I Am Become Barbie: The Social Psychology of Barbenheimer

Emily Courtney | August 4, 2023


On July 21st, 2023, the world witnessed Barbenheimer: an internet meme built on dualistic release of seemingly opposite films: Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World by Kirk J. Schneider
Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World by Kirk J. Schneider

Daniel Liechty | April 13, 2023

Schneider’s own take on human psychology is an emphasis on ‘awe’ as a fundamental pathway toward building a sound, sane mind and a strong sense of spiritual connection to that which transcends the individual.

The Banshees of Inisherin
The Banshees of Inisherin

Marcus Holmes | January 26, 2023

Even those who have abandoned religion still deny death—which is to say they deny the brutal conditions and pointlessness that all biology is heir to—by finding refuge in some other mode of denial, what Becker called a “hero project”.

Death on the Small Screen: The Psychology of Viewing Violent Television by Jonathan F. Bassett
Death on the Small Screen: The Psychology of Viewing Violent Television by Jonathan F. Bassett

Daniel Liechty | January 26, 2023

With this book Bassett has made a very valuable contribution to both media studies and to Becker/TMT literature. For any of us with Becker/TMT interests, this book is a ‘good read’ and one to keep handy on the shelf.

 The Denial File

The Denial File
The Missing Solution in Dr. Becker's Masterpiece
The Missing Solution in Dr. Becker's Masterpiece

Michael Tymn | June 13, 2023

In his 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death, anthropologist Ernest Becker states that “religion solves the problem of death, which no living individuals can solve, no matter how they would support us….it gives hope…

Musicking and the Denial of Death
Musicking and the Denial of Death

Audrey Cardany | May 30, 2023

The human construction of culture is central to mitigating death anxiety by providing pathways to immortality and creating criteria for determining meaning in life as well as validating personal worth in society. The Arts are essential elements of culture…

Not “To Be” E-Prime and Mortality Salience
Not “To Be” E-Prime and Mortality Salience

Kevin Holbeche | April 27, 2023

English Prime. It conjugates the English language without the verb “to be” – for example, without the words “is”, “am”, “are”, “was”, and “were”. Some believe that these words possess certain dogmatic and infallible aspects, where only uncertainty and the unknowable should truly hold sway.

On Cosmic Heroism
On Cosmic Heroism

Geertje Else Wiersma and Rev. Charles C. Navle | January 13, 2023

Our minds, our dreaming nature, can put us anywhere, even journeys to the stars themselves and to times past and times to come. That we …

Minecraft: A Safe Place to Avoid Death?
Minecraft: A Safe Place to Avoid Death?

Phoebe Agnew-Bass | June 18, 2022

Terror management theory (TMT; Pyszczynski et al., 2015), inspired by the works of Ernest Becker, proposes that humans’ ever-present awareness that death is inevitable has …

Death: Why the Awareness of It May Lead Us to Reject Veganism
Death: Why the Awareness of It May Lead Us to Reject Veganism

Gabrielle Nieuwoudt | May 11, 2022

Terror Management Theory (TMT), inspired by the works of Ernest Becker, asserts that humans, unlike other animals, have the ability to recognize that one day …

Denying Death by Playing Your Cards Right
Denying Death by Playing Your Cards Right

Sara Savar | May 11, 2022

The basic incentive behind gambling is to win money (Binde, 2013). This appeal of monetary gain might lead to the development of a gambling addiction. …

What Can Becker Teach Us About Addiction?
What Can Becker Teach Us About Addiction?

Harshi Dhingra | November 19, 2021

Ernest Becker’s teachings have been adapted into a number of different courses. Becker spent a lot of his life trying to answer one very simple …

Using TMT to Uncover the Motivations of Violent Nihilists
Using TMT to Uncover the Motivations of Violent Nihilists

Jackson Foran | August 14, 2021

The notion of violent nihilism has become increasingly relevant in the past few decades due to the prevalence of seemingly senseless violence. For instance, many …

Pilgrimages to the Edge
Pilgrimages to the Edge

Michael Coffey | July 24, 2021

“Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages” -Geoffrey Chaucer Pilgrimages attract people who have something to work out. The walk is a ritual that offers …

Living with Intention: Recognition of the Transcendent Life
Living with Intention: Recognition of the Transcendent Life

Janice Tufte | July 23, 2021

Practicing Islam and other religions today can prove to be challenging for a number of reasons. One is the growing number of divisive socio-political climates, …

Putting the ‘Fun’ in Funeral: Death in Entertainment Media
Putting the ‘Fun’ in Funeral: Death in Entertainment Media

Tau Nell | March 12, 2021

Terror Management Theory (TMT), inspired by the works of Ernest Becker, posits that human beings, due to their unique awareness of their own mortality, make …

Life in Death’s Waiting Room: An Existential Analysis of Death Row Prisoners
Life in Death’s Waiting Room: An Existential Analysis of Death Row Prisoners

Alanah Maskell | March 11, 2021

The death penalty is legal in thirty states in America and activists have long called for its abolishment. These people are given the worst punishment …

Do Not Muzzle My Masculinity: Men and Face Masks During COVID-19
Do Not Muzzle My Masculinity: Men and Face Masks During COVID-19

Nikita Rattu | March 11, 2021

Globally, there have been over 100 million reported cases and over 2 million deaths attributed to COVID-19,1 classifying the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic.2 One …

Commentary on The Denial of Death
Commentary on The Denial of Death

Kirill Khrestinin | March 11, 2021

Death is unavoidable. Sooner or later people we know will drop out of existence, finding their so often premature demise. Everything around you will be …

Achieving Immortality at Any Cost
Achieving Immortality at Any Cost

Amanda Ferrer Knight | January 22, 2021

What drives someone to kill, and specifically become a serial killer, has fascinated society. Serial killers are often presented in the media as “insane.” However, …

The Role of The Classroom in our Society
The Role of The Classroom in our Society

Peter A. Pompa | October 27, 2020

I’ve been applying the insights and ideas from Ernest Becker’s work since I first came across The Denial of Death sometime in my early 20s …

Reviving Becker’s Intellectual Tradition
Reviving Becker’s Intellectual Tradition

Bruce Sheiman | April 29, 2020

In this essay I want to make a broader case for Ernest Becker’s thinking than has hitherto been presented, going beyond the narrow focus on …

Separating the Artist from the Art: On the Legacy of Worldview Violators
Separating the Artist from the Art: On the Legacy of Worldview Violators

Sam Fairlamb | April 28, 2020

How should we treat the legacies of those who achieve greatness but then go on to commit acts such as murder, sexual assault, or other types of …

The Populist God: Reflections From a Former Right-Wing Populist
The Populist God: Reflections From a Former Right-Wing Populist

Gábor Vona | October 26, 2019

At 20, I began my political career and was positioned to the right of Viktor Orbán, then prime minister of my country, Hungary. By 40, …

Gold Rush
Gold Rush

Sean Hall | October 26, 2019

An aurous glimmer pulled a pilgrim west For to purloin a peck of buried Ra He’ll build a lucent palace for the blessed And be acquitted of the …

The People of Israel Live
The People of Israel Live

Dr. Brian Robinson | August 19, 2019

We’ve had a problem these last almost four years, politically, in Britain. For a multiplicity of reasons, a diverse group of people have united in …

For We Are One
For We Are One

Talibah Chiku | July 16, 2019

Many years have passed since I was exposed to and read Becker’s Denial of Death. Unfortunately in this now, I fail to recall those moments …

I, Too, Will Die
I, Too, Will Die

Kevin Quiles | July 16, 2019

Tell anyone that the average life expectancy in the US is around 29,200 days and you’ll get a reaction. The reason is simple: the number, …

Existentialism and Death Denial in the Marvel Comics and Cinematic Universe
Existentialism and Death Denial in the Marvel Comics and Cinematic Universe

Beth Schultz | April 18, 2019

“The real world is simply too terrible to admit. It tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will someday decay and die. …

Loving Sympathy and Good Advice: Helping a Bereaved Loved One
Loving Sympathy and Good Advice: Helping a Bereaved Loved One

Carolina James | February 11, 2019

This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life …

“I Am Not an Animal!”
“I Am Not an Animal!”

Michael Mountain & Lori Marino | December 6, 2016

Mortality is connected to the natural, animal side of [human] existence; and so man reaches beyond and away from that side. So much so that he tries to deny it completely.

Beck and Becker
Beck and Becker

Tom Cathcart | October 29, 2016

Richard Beck is a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University, a school affiliated with the Christian Churches.

The Power of Social Connections
The Power of Social Connections

Bo Bestvina | October 12, 2016

Terror Management Theory (TMT) states humans have an unconscious existential anxiety arising from awareness of morality. In an attempt to buffer ourselves from this anxiety …

Tourist Psychology
Tourist Psychology

Kirby Farrell | June 28, 2016

With time to spare before a flight out of Pisa, I recently looked in on the Piazza dei Miracoli, where the famous tower of Pisa …