How does Terror Management Theory (TMT) research support Ernest Becker’s notion that death anxiety contributes to environmental destruction?

The relationship between humans’ mortality concerns and the destruction of our natural world is ironic. The Earth is critical to the survival of our species, so we would expect that after reminders of death, individuals would engage in pro-environmental behavior that minimizes one’s negative impact on our planet. Yet, as Becker suggested, we see that oftentimes the opposite is true and that reminders of mortality actually energize behavior that contributes to climate change.

Ultimately, when we think about climate change and how we are wreaking havoc on the planet, we are thinking about the end of the world and our own mortality. Conservationists hope that appeals to save the planet will incite pro-environmental behavior, but we see from TMT research that they can do the opposite because of how individuals respond to death concerns. TMT research proposes that individuals invest in cultural worldviews, which are cultural belief systems, to attenuate death anxiety.

Cultural worldviews protect against death concerns by granting individuals self-esteem and the sense that they are part of a death transcending culture. For example, amassing wealth, possessions and resources is an important cultural pursuit in American culture that individuals can rely on to manage their existential concerns. Becker and TMT research suggest that part of the reason death anxiety motivates ecologically damaging behavior is because people invest in consumer driven worldviews that are in direct competition with conservation behavior. For example, TMT research by Kasser & Sheldon (2000) found that study participants thinking about death depleted more natural resources on average than that did the control group in an effort to achieve material wealth. Death reminders boosted participants’ greed and increased their intentions to harvest a greater percentage of limited forestland for profit. This suggests that when people are reminded of death, they may choose to behave in ways which lead them to acquire culturally-valuable wealth that may harm the environment. 

Becker and TMT research also propose that death concerns can motivate behavior that hurts the planet because it prompts humans to dominate and separate themselves from nature. Nature reminds of us our corporeality, so, according to Becker, humans try to control nature to overcome the human-nature connection and create the illusion that death is avoidable. This notion has been supported by TMT research that shows that individuals who are reminded of their mortality actually prefer evidence of humans’ dominance over nature. For example, Koole and Van den Berg (2004) found that individuals who were reminded of their own death evaluated images of wild nature more negatively and images of cultivated nature more positively. The cultivated images of nature were more appealing to those reminded of their mortality because these images affirmed humans’ control over nature.

Viewing oneself as distinct from—and having power over—nature serves an important existential function, which can help explain why people are less inclined to engage in activities that facilitate environmental sustainability and growth. These findings have important implications for how climate change is communicated. Oftentimes, people’s goals when discussing climate change are to communicate the seriousness of the problem and motivate environmentally positive behavior. As we can see, however, because such rhetoric is existentially threatening, environmental appeals may backfire, ironically motivating behavior that hurts the environment.

Are there circumstances when reminders of mortality and environmental appeals can lead people to engage in pro-environmental behavior?

Yes, just as consumer-driven worldviews can undermine conservation, there are also people whose worldviews include strong beliefs about the importance of protecting the environment. With society’s increasing emphasis on environmental responsibility, people have begun to base their self-esteem on and derive a sense of meaning from being an environmentally conscientious person. Activists and environmentalists are articulating a new ‘immortality project’ that can be used to buffer death anxiety that can save, as opposed to destroy, the Earth. For those who derive self-esteem from being an environmentally conscientious person, death awareness can actually trigger efforts to promote the wellbeing of the planet (Vess & Arnt, 2008).

…if people perceive that environmental behavior is normative, mortality salience can actually motivate people to take care of the environment.

What about the people who don’t have environmental worldviews, and instead invest in worldviews that are antithetical to conservation? Well, one solution might be changing the norms regarding environmental behavior. A study by Fritsche, Jonas, Kayser, and Koranyi (2010) showed that when people were first exposed to pro-environmental norms, they increased their sustainable behaviors after being made aware of their own death. This means if people perceive that environmental behavior is normative, mortality salience can actually motivate people to take care of the environment. Research also indicates that it may be more beneficial to motivate environmental behavior by communicating how such behavior will benefit someone as an individual, as opposed to how it will help the planet. Self-interest is an important motivator. Introducing incentive programs, such as monetary bonuses for installing solar panels that satisfy individuals’ self-interest, may be more effective in getting people to engage in pro-environmental behavior than telling people that solar energy will benefit the planet. We can leverage people’s self-interest to motivate conservation.

Today, ideological and partisan fissures on climate change extend across every dimension of the climate debate, making it one of the most divisive issues in the U.S. From a TMT perspective, what is the relationship between existential concerns and the climate change debate?

Climate change has become exceedingly political and polarized. Americans with contrasting ideological or partisan proclivities tend to embrace contradictory beliefs about climate science and personal concern about global warming, so you can’t really talk about climate change without activating political ideologies. The debate has become deeply embedded in partisan and ideological issues, which means that climate change has become a battleground for conflicting ‘immortality projects’ that people use to defend against death anxiety. We know from Becker and TMT research that when worldviews conflict with one another, people feel existentially threatened and need to defend their worldviews by ridiculing or minimizing the ideologies of individuals whose worldviews undermine the importance of their own belief system. We can expect that this will occur when individuals are presented with information that is contrary to their perspective on climate change, which will strengthen the antagonism between climate skeptics and those who believe that climate change is human-caused. This means that it is very likely that as Americans continue to engage in discourse on climate change, the partisan divide over climate change will continue to widen.