ABSTRACT Terror management theory attempts to explain the psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. According to the theory, the individual is protected from anxiety by a dual component cultural anxiety buffer, consisting of (a) a cultural worldview, which includes one's conception of reality, standards of value, and hope of immortality, and (b) self-esteem, or the belief that one is living up to the standards of value prescribed by the cultural worldview. From this perspective, one's beliefs about oneself and the world in which one lives serve the essential defensive function of protecting one from anxiety. The equanimity-providing concepts are consensually validated when others share our beliefs and threatened when others disagree with our beliefs. Because the cultural anxiety- buffer requires continual consensual validation for effective protection from anxiety, much social behavior is directed toward the validation of its two components. Research has shown that: (a) reminding people of their mortality increases the positivity of their reactions to people and ideas that support their worldviews and the negativity of their reactions to people and ideas that threaten their worldviews, (b) high levels of self-esteem decrease both anxiety in response to threatening stimuli and defensive distortions that presumably function to reduce one's anxiety, and (c) threats to the cultural worldview increase susceptibility to anxiety in response to subtle reminders of one's mortality. The goals of this research are threefold: (1) to investigate the centrality of death concerns to the processes posited by the theory, (2) to add to the evidentiary base for the theory by further assessing both the effects of mortality salience on behavior focused on bolstering self-esteem and the worldview and the roles of self- esteem and the worldview in allaying death concerns, and (3) to assess the role of affective responses to and awareness of threatening material in the production of the effects posited by the theory. This research will increase our understanding of why self-esteem is so important and so beneficial for the individual.
