Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Role of Death Denial in Culture and Consciousness

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The Role of Death Denial in Culture and Consciousness

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The Role of Death Denial in Culture
and Consciousness
SHELDON SOLOMON

Abstract
Independent lines of theoretical inquiry in evolutionary psychology and existential
psychodynamic psychology propose that the awareness of the inevitability of one’s
death would undermine the viability of consciousness as an adaptive form mental
organization in the absence of death-denying cultural and psychological affectations.
In accord with this view, empirical research derived from terror management theory
demonstrates that intimations of mortality have a pervasive effect on a wide range
of human beliefs and behaviors.

… culture and history and religion and science [are] different from anything
else we know of in the universe. That is fact. It is as if all life evolved to a certain
point, and then in ourselves turned at a right angle and simply exploded in a
different direction.
Julian Jaynes in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral
Mind.

Consciousness, argued Julian Jaynes, is responsible for the “yawning
chasm” (Jaynes, 1976) between human beings and all other forms of life.
The combination of abstract symbolic thought (including, but not confined
to, language), mental “time-travel” (to reflect on the past and ponder the
future), mental simulations (prospective imagination), self-awareness, and
theory of mind (recognizing that others have internal mental states) renders
human beings capable of imagining things that do not yet exist, and the
audacity to transform our imaginings into reality. Surely, this mental agility
has enabled humankind to proliferate and prosper in a wide range of diverse
and rapidly changing environments.

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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“MIND OVER REALITY” TRANSITION
While most scholars to date have focused on understanding the evolutionary processes that propelled humans across the “yawning chasm,” Ajit Varki
and Danny Brower, in Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the
Human Mind (2013), recently argued that it might be more productive to ask
why other creatures lack the same capacities that render us distinctly human.
Varki and Brower note that chimpanzees, orangutans, dolphins, orchas, and
magpies are all highly intelligent and social creatures with long life-spans.
Why then, are chimps not pondering the meaning of life and systematically
examining the world around them? Why then, are orangutans not hitting
golf balls on the moon? Why then, are dolphins not developing mathematical
systems? Why then, are crows not producing great works of art and music?
According to Varki and Brower, individuals of other intelligent and social
and long-lived species are quite capable of sophisticated abstract thought.
Moreover, they make decisions based on past experience and in anticipation
of future possibilities; and, they are self-aware. The critical difference seems
to be that only human beings have a sophisticated, or what Varki and Brower
describe as an extended theory of mind. While chimps, dolphins, and magpies have a rudimentary theory of mind, entailing the realization that other
individuals have mental states and perhaps imputing self-awareness to other
individuals and understanding that others may thus harbor false beliefs, only
humans have the capacity for multi-order intentionality: attributing minds
and intentions to third parties and multiple individuals, including individuals one has never met (or even fictitious individuals who do not exist), and
hierarchical levels of intentionality (e.g., “I know that he thinks that I do not
know but he does not know that I know that he thinks that I do not know”).
An extended theory of mind could be highly adaptive from an evolutionary
perspective. Individuals with an extended theory of mind would be more
adroit in understanding, predicting, and more effectively and efficiently
behaving in a complex social environment. Additionally, the cognitive
capacities required for an extended theory of mind would enable integration
of previously domain-specific social, natural, and technical knowledge and
intelligence, which—combined with symbolization, self-awareness, and
mental time-travel, perhaps via the capacity for metaphor—results in a
uniquely imaginative and creative (i.e., human) animal (see Mithen, 1996 for
an extended discussion of this possibility).
However, an individual with an extended theory of mind would, by virtue
of witnessing or subsequently observing the death of others, likely infer
from such observations that her or his own death was inevitable, even if
not immediately imminent. The explicit awareness of personal mortality
would be psychologically debilitating. Witnessing a close relative being

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disemboweled by a hungry predator or a neighbor drowned in a tidal wave
or a baby expire from hunger in a famine could result in persistent anxiety
or (and) profound despair, which could, in turn, render one fearful, timid,
and passive—disinclined to take risks and unlikely to be creative or even
instrumentally effective—thereby undermining reproductive fitness.
A fine allegorical example of the awareness of personal mortality arising
from witnessing the death of another can be found in The Epic of Gilgamesh, a
Sumerian tale written ca. 2150–1400 BCE and thought to be the oldest extant
piece of western literature. The epic is noteworthy because it contains themes
and events, such as a great flood, that are subsequently repeated in the Old
Testament, which is the original basis for all western monotheistic religions.
Gilgamesh was a strong, attractive, arrogant, and spirited young king who
was fond of fighting and seducing young women. When the beleaguered
citizens in his town appealed to the gods for relief from the young king’s
excesses, the gods created Enkidu, a wild-looking, colossally strong adversary to challenge him. Gilgamesh prevailed in heated combat, but the two
became fast friends thereafter, and set out in search of adventure and fame.
Along the way, they kill the scared Bull of Heaven, and in response, the gods
decreed that Enkidu must die. Devastated by Enkidu’s death, in part because
it made him realize that he too would die, Gilgamesh roamed the desert,
weeping bitterly and lamenting: "How can I rest, how can I be at peace?
Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am
dead … I am afraid of death.” (Sandars, 1960/1972).
The crux of Varki and Brower’s argument is that the awareness of personal
mortality posed an evolutionary barrier in that an extended theory of
mind would not be adaptive unless it was simultaneously accompanied
by other psychological adaptations to deny reality, particularly regarding
the inevitability of death and the precariousness of life. This, a feat that
only humans have “accomplished” to date, through a variety unconscious
defenses, “used to reduce anxiety by denying thoughts, feelings, or facts
that are consciously intolerable” (Varki & Brower, 2013, p. 17), such as
afterlife beliefs, optimism biases that foster risk taking, and confirmation
biases that engender resistance to currently held beliefs to minimize uncertainty. Varki and Brower propose that this “mind over reality” transition
occurred approximately 100,000 years ago, with the advent of behaviorally
modern humans and marked by the simultaneous appearance of art, body
adornments, and ritual burials including elaborate grave goods.
Interestingly, Varki and Brower’s view of the role of death anxiety in the
evolution of consciousness is quite compatible with theories derived from
an existential psychodynamic perspective in the twentieth century. Geza
Roheim, a Hungarian psychoanalyst and anthropologist, argued that all
cultures were “actuated” by fantasies of magical powers that conferred

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a sense of individual invincibility. “It is through a series of complicated
mechanisms of dealing with anxiety that our civilization has developed and
is still developing,” Roheim concluded, “But these modifications are not due
to the pressure of reality … The same environment … did not compel the
chimpanzee to modify its ego-structure.” (Roheim, 1934, p. 403, 416, 417).
Moreover, added the psychoanalyst Susan Isaacs (1948, p. 94):
In their developed forms, phantasy thinking and reality thinking are distinct
mental processes … The fact that they have a distinct character when fully
developed, however, does not necessarily imply that reality thinking operates
quite independently of unconscious phantasy. It is not merely that they ‘blend
and interweave’; their relationship is something less adventitious than this. On
our view, reality-thinking cannot operate without concurrent and supporting
unconscious phantasies.

Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker subsequently elaborated on the
role of death anxiety in the development of culture and consciousness
in The Denial of Death (Becker, 1973), positing that humans manage the
potentially debilitating existential terror engendered by the awareness of
death by embracing cultural worldviews: humanly constructed symbolic
beliefs that are assumed to be absolute representations of reality by the
average enculturated individual. Such beliefs provide individuals with a
sense that they are persons of value in a world of meaning (Becker, 1971),
and thus eligible for either literal or (and) symbolic immortality. Literal
immortality is a central feature of most religions, in the form of heavens,
afterlives, reincarnations, and souls. Symbolic immortality is obtained by the
confidence that a vestige of one’s existence will persist over time, perhaps
from having children, being part of a great and enduring tribe or nation,
amassing great fortunes, or producing great works of art or science that will
be commemorated in perpetuity.
For both Varki and Brower and Becker (and his psychodynamic influences)
then, the awareness of personal mortality would undermine the viability of
consciousness as an adaptive form mental organization in the absence of
death-denying cultural and psychological affectations. Moreover, both Varki
and Brower and Becker argue that to the extent that this is true, then death
anxiety should have a pervasive and demonstrable effect on a wide range of
human beliefs and behaviors.
TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY
Terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986;
Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2015) was originally developed, building on Becker’s work, to provide

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such evidence. One line of empirical inquiry is based on the mortality salience
(MS) hypothesis; specifically, that if culturally constructed beliefs serve to
mitigate death anxiety, then reminding people of their own mortality should
increase the need for those beliefs, and this should in turn be reflected by
cultural worldview defense: more positive evaluations of others who share
or uphold one’s beliefs, and increased hostility and disdain toward those
who oppose one’s beliefs or who embrace different beliefs. TMT researchers
make mortality salient by, for example, having people write about death,
view graphic depictions of death, be interviewed in front of a funeral parlor, or be subliminally exposed to the word "dead" or "death”; participants
in control conditions write about something neutral (e.g., watching television or eating a meal or subliminal exposure to “field”) or aversive but not
fatal (e.g., being in intense pain, failing an upcoming exam, or having a limb
amputated in a car accident). For example, Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon,
Pyszczynski, and Lyon (1989) found that municipal court judges set a higher
bond for an alleged prostitute in response to an MS induction, and in another
study that MS increased participants’ estimates of how much of a reward
a private citizen should receive for thwarting a robbery. In another study,
Greenberg et al. (1990) found that following MS, Christian participants had
more favorable reactions to fellow Christians and less favorable reactions to
Jewish targets (see Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010, for a meta-analysis of
MS studies).
Convergent support for TMT is provided by research based on the
death-thought accessibility (DTA) hypothesis: specifically, if culturally
constructed beliefs serve to mitigate death anxiety, then challenging
or threatening those beliefs should make implicit (i.e., nonconscious)
death-related thoughts come more readily to mind. DTA is typically
assessed with a word-stem completion task; for example, C O F F _ _ could
be coffin rather than coffee; G R _ V E = could be grave or grove; DTA
has also been assessed with a lexical decision task where participants are
exposed to non-words or neutral, negative, and death-related words and are
asked to decide if they have viewed a word. For example, Canadians had
higher DTA after reading an article based on rational and potent arguments
denigrating aspects of Canadian culture, such as popular foods, sports, and
socialized medicine (Schimel, Hayes, Williams, & Jahrig, 2007); moreover,
DTA increased when participants were told that they scored below average
on an intelligence test, or that their personality was such that they were
unlikely to succeed in their desired career path (Hayes, Schimel, Faucher,
& Williams, 2008; for a meta-analysis of DTA research, see Hayes, Schimel,
Arndt, & Faucher, 2010).
Additional research has delineated distinct defensive processes activated
by conscious and nonconscious but highly accessible death thoughts

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(Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). Proximal defenses entail suppressing death-related thoughts or pushing the problem of death into the
distant future by denying one’s vulnerability. They are (seemingly) rational,
threat-focused, and activated when death thoughts are in current focal
attention. Distal terror management defenses entail maintaining self-esteem
and faith in one’s cultural worldview. They function to control the potential
for anxiety engendered by the knowledge that death is inevitable. Such
defenses are experiential, are not related to the problem of death in any
semantic or logical way, and are increasingly activated as the accessibility
of death-related thoughts (DTA) increases, up to the point at which such
thoughts enter consciousness and proximal defenses are initiated. For
example, McCabe, Vail, Arndt, and Goldenberg (2014) predicted and found
that immediately after a typical death reminder, when thoughts of death are
presumably still in explicit awareness, participants were more persuaded by
an advertisement touting the health benefits of a new bottled water when
it featured a Harvard medical doctor than the same ad featuring celebrity
Jennifer Aniston, and drank more of the water when offered a sample; this
is a proximal defense in that the doctor is more likely in a position to offer
credible medical advice. However, a few minutes after the death reminder,
when death thoughts are no longer likely in explicit awareness, participants
found Jennifer Aniston more compelling than the Harvard doctor, and
drank more of the water when offered a sample; this is a distal defense in
that aligning with a celebrity boosts self-esteem and bolsters faith in one’s
cultural worldview.
Finally, TMT posits that it is the potential to experience anxiety, rather
than the actual experience of anxiety, that underlies MS effects. To test
this hypothesis, participants (in Greenberg et al., 2003) consumed a placebo
purported to either block anxiety or enhance memory before being reminded
of their mortality. Although MS intensified cultural worldview defense in
the memory-enhancer condition, this effect was completely eliminated in the
anxiety-blocker condition. The results suggest that distal MS effects serve to
avert anxiety rather than to ameliorate actually experienced anxiety.1
DEATH AND DENIAL
Research testing hypotheses derived from TMT provides compelling empirical support for Varki and Brower’s contention, which is also entirely consistent with Becker’s view, that humans deny reality by embracing afterlife
beliefs, engaging in risky behaviors, and tenaciously defending their cultural
worldviews.
1. All of the MS effects described in the remainder of this essay are distal defenses unless otherwise
noted.

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AFTERLIFE BELIEFS
Fundamentalist Christians confronted with logical inconsistencies in the
Bible (Friedman & Rholes, 2007), or after reading a few paragraphs by
Stephen Jay Gould arguing that there is overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence in support of the theory of evolution (Schimel et al., 2007),
subsequently had increased levels of DTA—suggesting that challenging
central elements of a religious worldview is sufficient to bring implicit death
thoughts to mind. Additionally, following an MS induction, religiously
affiliated participants reported being more religious, more confident that
supernatural agents exist (even Gods of different religious affiliations)
and can intervene in human affairs, and more confident in the efficacy of
prayer (Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006); and, reading an article suggesting
that near-death experiences provide tantalizing evidence for the prospect of
literal immortality eliminated defensive reactions ordinarily engendered by
an MS induction (Dechesne et al., 2003).
And even atheists find supernatural beliefs alluring in the wake of death
reminders. Specifically, in response to MS, Christian participants reported
being more confident in the existence of God (as in the study reported above),
while atheists reported being more confident that there are no Gods; however, in a second study where supernatural beliefs were assessed implicitly,
death priming increased both Christians’ and atheists’ beliefs in supernatural religious entities (Jong, Halberstadt, & Bluemke, 2012). Similarly, after
reading an article suggesting that near-death experiences are indicative of
the possibility of literal immortality, even atheists and agnostics (like believers in the study reported above) no longer responded defensively to an MS
induction (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2012).
RISKY BEHAVIORS
There is also abundant evidence that intimations of mortality amplify risky
decisions and behaviors. For example, people who base their self-esteem
on being tan opted for a less powerful sunscreen and expressed greater
interest in going to a tanning salon in response to MS (Routledge, Arndt, &
Goldenberg, 2004). In another experiment, after reading warning labels on
cigarette packages that “Smokers die earlier” and “Smoking leads to deadly
lung cancer,” people who view smoking as part of their positive self-image
expressed more favorable attitudes about smoking and claimed that they
would be more likely to smoke in the future (Hansen, Winzeler, & Topolinski, 2010). And following MS, regular smokers puffed harder and longer on
their favorite cigarettes (Arndt et al., 2013); social drinkers consumed more
alcohol (Ein-Dor et al., 2014); and, low self-esteem participants consumed
more high-calorie snacks (Mandel & Smeesters, 2008).

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Similarly, in response to a MS induction, people who garner self-worth from
their driving ability reported being more likely to pass cars illegally, run a red
light, speed, enter a one-way street from the wrong direction, and drive too
fast while inebriated with a car full of friends—and they drove faster and
more recklessly on a realistic car simulator (Ben-Ari, Florian, & Mikulincer,
1999); skin divers rated themselves more likely to dive at night without a
light when the weather was bad or when they were feeling ill and to forgo
a safety stop to decompress while ascending (Miller & Taubman-Ben-Ari,
2004); and, males were more eager to engage in unprotected sex, desired
greater numbers of sexual partners in the future, and to climb rocks, drive
fast, have casual sex, ride a motorcycle, sky-dive, drink large quantities of
alcohol, snowboard, try heroin, hang-glide, bungee-jump, and go whitewater
rafting (Hirschberger, Florian, Mikulincer, Goldenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002;
Lam, Morrison, & Smeesters, 2009). Finally, participants in Hart, Schwabach,
and Solomon (2010) reminded of their own mortality made riskier decisions,
and consequently did more poorly on the Iowa Gambling Task, which is considered a valid proxy for economic decision making as well as predictive of
gambling addiction.
WORLDVIEW DEFENSE
Death reminders increase support for those who uphold nationalist sentiments and denigration of those who criticize them. For example, Greenberg,
Pyszczynski, Solomon, Rosenblatt, Veeder, Kirkland, and Lyon (1990, Study
3) had American participants, after an MS or control induction, read essays
by a purportedly written by a distinguished political scientist who either
strongly favored or opposed the United States. The pro-U.S. professor was
rated more favorably than the anti-U.S. professor in the control condition;
however, this effect was significantly amplified in response to MS. Similarly,
Italian participants reminded of their mortality reported a greater sense that
Italians have many characteristics in common and share a common fate, rated
being Italian as a more important aspect of their identity, and viewed Italians
more favorably compared to Germans (Castano, Yzerbyt, Paladino, & Sacchi,
2002). Additionally, MS increased British participants’ willingness to make
personal sacrifices, including dying, to protect the British way of life (Routledge & Arndt, 2008), as well as conservative American participants’ support
for the pre-emptive use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons against
countries who currently pose no direct threat to the United States (Pyszczynski et al., 2006).
People also have a tendency to fervently embrace their leaders, who in
antiquity were often believed to be gods, descended from gods, or divinely
ordained to lead—in order to assuage death anxiety. Sociologist Max Weber

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proposed that followers’ attachment to, and enthusiasm for, seemingly
larger-than-life leaders is intensified in times of historical upheaval; and,
Becker (1973) argued that devotion to charismatic leaders results from a
defensive need to feel one is a part of a larger whole. In accord with this
view, after an MS or aversive control induction, Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield,
Pyszczynski, and Greenberg (2004) had participants read snippets of campaign speeches by three hypothetical gubernatorial candidates with varying
leadership styles before casting a vote for their favorite. The charismatic
candidate emphasized each individual’s importance in a great nation:
“you are not just an ordinary citizen, you are part of a special state and
a special nation and if we work together we can make a difference.” The
other candidates emphasized completing tasks effectively (task-oriented),
or the need for leaders and followers to work together and accept mutual
responsibility (relationship-oriented). While only 4% of the respondents
voted for the charismatic candidate in the control condition, 31% of the
participants chose the charismatic candidate after an MS induction.
Follow-up studies by Landau et al. (2004) replicated this finding in the
context of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when President George W.
Bush, who declared that he believed God had chosen him to rid the world of
“evil-doers” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, ran against Senator John Kerry.
Whereas American participants rated Senator Kerry more favorably than
President Bush in an aversive control condition, President Bush was rated
more favorably than Senator Kerry in response to MS; and, in late September
2004, Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (2005) found
that, while registered voters in an aversive control condition intended to
vote for Senator Kerry by a 4:1 margin, other registered voters randomly
assigned to an MS condition reported intending to vote for President Bush
by a more than 2:1 margin. Similarly, and more recently, in 2016 Donald
Trump was elected president by claiming that the United States was under
siege by terrorists, Muslims, and immigrants, and that only he could keep
U.S. citizens safe by “Making America Great Again.” Cohen, Solomon, and
Kaplin (2017) found that while American participants in a control condition
rated Hillary Clinton significantly more positively than Donald Trump,
Trump’s ratings increased significantly in response to MS (and were slightly
but nonsignificantly higher than ratings of Clinton).
Another form of cultural worldview defense is to perceive that others share
one’s beliefs, and to convince those who do not to abandon their beliefs and
adopt one’s own. This is because, for beliefs to serve as effective means to
manage existential terror, people must be absolutely certain of their veracity.
However, most of the fundamental beliefs we rely on for psychological security cannot be unambiguously proven; they are based on faith rather than

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fact. Accordingly, the more people who share our beliefs, the more certain
we can be that they are correct. To show that this tendency is magnified by
MS, Pyszczynski et al. (1996) stopped pedestrians either directly in front of
or 100 m to either side of a funeral home (which they assumed would make
mortality momentarily salient, albeit quite unconsciously), and asked them
to estimate the percentage of their fellow citizens who shared their view of
an important current social issue. Germans in front a funeral home provided
higher consensus estimates about Germans’ support for restricting immigration; U.S. citizens in front a funeral home provided higher consensus
estimates about Americans’ support for teaching Christian values in public
schools. Moreover, after MS, Christians were more intent on convincing atheists to embrace Jesus and evolutionists were more determined to convince
creationists to embrace Darwin; and, successful proselytizing eliminated
defensive reactions to an MS induction (Kosloff, Cesario, & Martens, 2012).
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
It is our knowledge that we have to die that makes us human.
Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

In The Psychological Foundations of Culture, Tooby and Cosmides (1992,
p. 69) argued that most evolutionary adaptations, including human culture,
are based on reactions to the physical environment: “organisms transact
the business of propagation in specific environments, and the persistent
characteristics of those environments … Consequently, the structure of the
environment causes corresponding adaptive organization to accumulate in
the design of the organism.” However, Tooby and Cosmides subsequently
conceded that evolution could, in principle, proceed in response to internal
organismic concerns entirely independent of external demands: “adaptations may solve endogenous adaptive problems and may improve over
evolutionary time without necessarily being driven by or connected to any
change in the external environment.”
Varki and Brower’s “mind over reality” transition theory is the first
evolutionary-based account of human consciousness based on an internal
psychological adaptation. They argue that the uniquely human capacity to
radically transform reality in accordance with our imaginary conceptions
results from the integrative and synthetic capacities associated with an
extended theory of mind, and that the reason that other highly intelligent,
social, and long-lived species lack these capacities is because of an “evolutionary barrier.” Specifically, being able to intuit that other individuals
have interior mental states and intentions results in the recognition of their
mortality, and this in turn makes individuals with an extended theory of

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mind aware of their own personal mortality. This would in turn undermine
reproductive fitness by rendering such individuals perpetually demoralized
and/or distressed. Therefore, Varki and Brower propose that an extended
theory of mind could only be adaptive if it was simultaneously accompanied by a suite of psychological defenses that are primarily oriented toward
fostering and maintaining psychological equanimity by the denial and
distortion of reality in the service of mitigating death anxiety.
There are striking parallels between this view of the origin of human consciousness and earlier psychodynamic accounts of the relationship between
culture and consciousness, starting with Geza Roheim’s claim that culture
originated as an internal response to anxiety, and Susan Isaac’s contention
that “reality” thinking is contingent on the concurrent capacity to fantasize.
Ernest Becker subsequently elaborated on these notions by identifying death
denial as the primary motivational impetus for human behavior. Specifically,
cultural worldviews provide opportunities for people to perceive themselves
as valuable to contributors to a meaningful universe and, thus, viable candidates for literal and/or symbolic immortality. Consequently, people are
highly motivated to maintain faith in their cultural worldviews and confidence in their self-worth (i.e., self-esteem).
Varki and Brower’s theory that an extended theory of mind could only
have evolved in conjunction with psychological and behavioral mechanisms
to deny death, and Becker’s claim that culture evolved (at least in part) to
solve the “endogenous” problem engendered by the burgeoning awareness
of the inevitability of death, like many evolutionary-based theories, cannot
be tested directly. However, there is no reason in principle why natural selection could not favor the adoption of denial-based proclivities through the
creation of a supernatural world, one in which death was not inevitable or
irrevocable. Presumably, the groups of early humans who fabricated the most
compelling tales could better manage existential terror. They consequently
would have been more capable of functioning effectively in their environment, and thereby most likely to perpetuate their genes into future generations.
Varki and Brower propose that the “mind over reality” transition occurred
approximately 100,000 years ago with the advent of behaviorally modern
humans. Perhaps the simultaneous appearance of art, body adornments, and
elaborate ritual burials—and sophisticated technology—is not coincidental.
The concurrent emergence of material manifestations of supernatural beliefs
and extraordinary technological advances is consistent with the proposition that the sophisticated cognitive capacities associated with human
consciousness could serve our ancestors well only when fortified by denial
mechanisms to convince them that death could be forestalled and ultimately
transcended.

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Credible evolutionary-based theories should show “hallmarks of special
design for proposed function,” be “capable of generating specific and falsifiable empirical predictions,” and “account for known data better than alternative hypotheses” (Buss, Haselton, Shackelford, Bleske, & Wakefield, 1998,
p. 546). TMT and research have generated a large body of evidence consistent with these epistemological criteria. There are distinct defensive reactions
to conscious and unconscious death thoughts that unfold in a predictable
fashion over time (hallmarks of special design); there are now more than
1000 published studies demonstrating that death reminders have a pervasive
influence on human attitudes and behavior (specific and falsifiable empirical
predictions); and, to date, there are no credible theoretical alternatives to TMT
(account for known data better than alternative hypotheses; see Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2015, for a review of this research as well as an
extended discussion of TMT vs rival theories).
Interestingly, Varki and Brower and Becker, while both noting the adaptive
advantages of the suite of cognitive capacities associated with human consciousness, are also skeptical about the future viability of humankind given
the adverse consequences of death denial. So was Nietzsche, who in The Gay
Science declared that consciousness was “that most calamitous stupidity of
which we shall perish someday.” Varki and Brower propose that denial is
responsible for humankind’s disinclination to respond to issues such global
warming, unsustainable national debt, and personal health risks associated
with poor lifestyle choices. Becker feared the devastating effects of the evil
caused, ironically, by humans righteously declaring their intent to rid the
world of evil, as well as people’s susceptibility to embrace ideological demagogues in times of historical uncertainty. He was also concerned about the
environmental devastation and psychological degradation of a mass consumer culture: people plundering the planet in an insatiable quest for dollars
and dross in a drug, alcohol, junk-food, Facebook, Netflix, Twittering stupor.
“Come to terms with death,” wrote Albert Camus in his Notebooks, “thereafter, anything is possible.” The future of our species may depend on it.
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(2013). The interactive effect of mortality reminders and tobacco craving on smoking topography. Health Psychology, 32(5), 525–532. doi:10.1037/a0029201
Becker, E. (1971). The birth and death of meaning. New York, NY: Free Press.
Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. New York, NY: Free Press.
Ben-Ari, O. T., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1999). The impact of mortality salience
on reckless driving: A test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 76(1), 35–45. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.1.35

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Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social
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Greenberg, J., Martens, A., Jonas, E., Eisenstadt, D., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S.
(2003). Psychological defense in anticipation of anxiety: Eliminating the potential for anxiety eliminates the effect of mortality salience on worldview defense.
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Hart, J., Schwabach, J. A., & Solomon, S. (2010). Going for broke: Mortality salience
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review of the death-thought accessibility concept in terror management research.
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Hayes, J., Schimel, J., Faucher, E. H., & Williams, T. J. (2008). Evidence for the DTA
hypothesis II: Threatening self-esteem increases death-thought accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 600–613. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.01.004
Heflick, N. A., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2012). No atheists in foxholes: Arguments for
(but not against) afterlife belief buffers mortality salience effects for atheists. British
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Hirschberger, G., Florian, V., Mikulincer, M., Goldenberg, J. L., & Pyszczynski, T. (2002). Gender differences in the willingness to engage in risky
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Jong, J., Halberstadt, J., & Bluemke, M. (2012). Foxhole atheism, revisited: The effects
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Lam, S. R., Morrison, K. R., & Smeesters, D. (2009). Gender, intimacy, and risky
sex: A terror management account. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(8),
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Landau, M. J., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Cohen, F., Pyszczynski, T., Arndt, J.,
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Mandel, N., & Smeesters, D. (2008). The sweet escape: Effects of mortality salience on
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Norenzayan, A., & Hansen, I. G. (2006). Belief in supernatural agents in
the face of death. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(2), 174–187.
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(2006). Mortality salience, martyrdom, and military might: The great Satan versus the axis of evil. Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(4), 525–537.
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Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2015). Thirty years of terror management theory: From genesis to revelation. In J. Olson & M. Zanna (Eds.), Advances
in experimental social psychology (Vol. 52, pp. 1–70). San Diego, CA: Academic
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Varki, A., & Brower, D. (2013). Denial: Self- deception, false beliefs, and the origins of the
human mind. New York, NY: Twelve.

SHELDON SOLOMON SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College. His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behavior have
been supported by the National Science Foundation and Ernest Becker Foundation, and were featured in the award winning documentary film Flight from
Death: The Quest for Immortality. He is coauthor of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Prof.
Solomon is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society, and a recipient
of an American Psychological Association Presidential Citation (2007), a Lifetime Career Award by the International Society for Self and Identity (2009),
and the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs Annual Faculty
Award (2011).
RELATED ESSAYS
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Terror Management Theory (Psychology), Alisabeth Ayars et al.
Culture and Cognition (Sociology), Karen A. Cerulo
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Institutional Change in American Religion (Sociology), Casey Clevenger and
Wendy Cadge
Delusions (Psychology), Max Coltheart
Lifecourse and Aging (Anthropology), Haim Hazan
Normal Negative Emotions and Mental Disorders (Psychology), Allan V.
Horwitz
Making Sense of Control: Change and Consequences (Psychology), Margie E.
Lachman et al.
Mechanisms of Fear Reduction (Psychology), Cynthia L. Lancaster and
Marie-H. Monfils
Funerary Practices, Funerary Contexts, and Death in Archaeology (Archaeology), Kirsi O. Lorentz
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Religion (Anthropology), Benjamin Grant Purzycki et al.
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O. Baker
Rumination (Psychology), Edward R. Watkins



The Role of Death Denial in Culture
and Consciousness
SHELDON SOLOMON

Abstract
Independent lines of theoretical inquiry in evolutionary psychology and existential
psychodynamic psychology propose that the awareness of the inevitability of one’s
death would undermine the viability of consciousness as an adaptive form mental
organization in the absence of death-denying cultural and psychological affectations.
In accord with this view, empirical research derived from terror management theory
demonstrates that intimations of mortality have a pervasive effect on a wide range
of human beliefs and behaviors.

… culture and history and religion and science [are] different from anything
else we know of in the universe. That is fact. It is as if all life evolved to a certain
point, and then in ourselves turned at a right angle and simply exploded in a
different direction.
Julian Jaynes in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral
Mind.

Consciousness, argued Julian Jaynes, is responsible for the “yawning
chasm” (Jaynes, 1976) between human beings and all other forms of life.
The combination of abstract symbolic thought (including, but not confined
to, language), mental “time-travel” (to reflect on the past and ponder the
future), mental simulations (prospective imagination), self-awareness, and
theory of mind (recognizing that others have internal mental states) renders
human beings capable of imagining things that do not yet exist, and the
audacity to transform our imaginings into reality. Surely, this mental agility
has enabled humankind to proliferate and prosper in a wide range of diverse
and rapidly changing environments.

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

“MIND OVER REALITY” TRANSITION
While most scholars to date have focused on understanding the evolutionary processes that propelled humans across the “yawning chasm,” Ajit Varki
and Danny Brower, in Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the
Human Mind (2013), recently argued that it might be more productive to ask
why other creatures lack the same capacities that render us distinctly human.
Varki and Brower note that chimpanzees, orangutans, dolphins, orchas, and
magpies are all highly intelligent and social creatures with long life-spans.
Why then, are chimps not pondering the meaning of life and systematically
examining the world around them? Why then, are orangutans not hitting
golf balls on the moon? Why then, are dolphins not developing mathematical
systems? Why then, are crows not producing great works of art and music?
According to Varki and Brower, individuals of other intelligent and social
and long-lived species are quite capable of sophisticated abstract thought.
Moreover, they make decisions based on past experience and in anticipation
of future possibilities; and, they are self-aware. The critical difference seems
to be that only human beings have a sophisticated, or what Varki and Brower
describe as an extended theory of mind. While chimps, dolphins, and magpies have a rudimentary theory of mind, entailing the realization that other
individuals have mental states and perhaps imputing self-awareness to other
individuals and understanding that others may thus harbor false beliefs, only
humans have the capacity for multi-order intentionality: attributing minds
and intentions to third parties and multiple individuals, including individuals one has never met (or even fictitious individuals who do not exist), and
hierarchical levels of intentionality (e.g., “I know that he thinks that I do not
know but he does not know that I know that he thinks that I do not know”).
An extended theory of mind could be highly adaptive from an evolutionary
perspective. Individuals with an extended theory of mind would be more
adroit in understanding, predicting, and more effectively and efficiently
behaving in a complex social environment. Additionally, the cognitive
capacities required for an extended theory of mind would enable integration
of previously domain-specific social, natural, and technical knowledge and
intelligence, which—combined with symbolization, self-awareness, and
mental time-travel, perhaps via the capacity for metaphor—results in a
uniquely imaginative and creative (i.e., human) animal (see Mithen, 1996 for
an extended discussion of this possibility).
However, an individual with an extended theory of mind would, by virtue
of witnessing or subsequently observing the death of others, likely infer
from such observations that her or his own death was inevitable, even if
not immediately imminent. The explicit awareness of personal mortality
would be psychologically debilitating. Witnessing a close relative being

The Role of Death Denial in Culture and Consciousness

3

disemboweled by a hungry predator or a neighbor drowned in a tidal wave
or a baby expire from hunger in a famine could result in persistent anxiety
or (and) profound despair, which could, in turn, render one fearful, timid,
and passive—disinclined to take risks and unlikely to be creative or even
instrumentally effective—thereby undermining reproductive fitness.
A fine allegorical example of the awareness of personal mortality arising
from witnessing the death of another can be found in The Epic of Gilgamesh, a
Sumerian tale written ca. 2150–1400 BCE and thought to be the oldest extant
piece of western literature. The epic is noteworthy because it contains themes
and events, such as a great flood, that are subsequently repeated in the Old
Testament, which is the original basis for all western monotheistic religions.
Gilgamesh was a strong, attractive, arrogant, and spirited young king who
was fond of fighting and seducing young women. When the beleaguered
citizens in his town appealed to the gods for relief from the young king’s
excesses, the gods created Enkidu, a wild-looking, colossally strong adversary to challenge him. Gilgamesh prevailed in heated combat, but the two
became fast friends thereafter, and set out in search of adventure and fame.
Along the way, they kill the scared Bull of Heaven, and in response, the gods
decreed that Enkidu must die. Devastated by Enkidu’s death, in part because
it made him realize that he too would die, Gilgamesh roamed the desert,
weeping bitterly and lamenting: "How can I rest, how can I be at peace?
Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am
dead … I am afraid of death.” (Sandars, 1960/1972).
The crux of Varki and Brower’s argument is that the awareness of personal
mortality posed an evolutionary barrier in that an extended theory of
mind would not be adaptive unless it was simultaneously accompanied
by other psychological adaptations to deny reality, particularly regarding
the inevitability of death and the precariousness of life. This, a feat that
only humans have “accomplished” to date, through a variety unconscious
defenses, “used to reduce anxiety by denying thoughts, feelings, or facts
that are consciously intolerable” (Varki & Brower, 2013, p. 17), such as
afterlife beliefs, optimism biases that foster risk taking, and confirmation
biases that engender resistance to currently held beliefs to minimize uncertainty. Varki and Brower propose that this “mind over reality” transition
occurred approximately 100,000 years ago, with the advent of behaviorally
modern humans and marked by the simultaneous appearance of art, body
adornments, and ritual burials including elaborate grave goods.
Interestingly, Varki and Brower’s view of the role of death anxiety in the
evolution of consciousness is quite compatible with theories derived from
an existential psychodynamic perspective in the twentieth century. Geza
Roheim, a Hungarian psychoanalyst and anthropologist, argued that all
cultures were “actuated” by fantasies of magical powers that conferred

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

a sense of individual invincibility. “It is through a series of complicated
mechanisms of dealing with anxiety that our civilization has developed and
is still developing,” Roheim concluded, “But these modifications are not due
to the pressure of reality … The same environment … did not compel the
chimpanzee to modify its ego-structure.” (Roheim, 1934, p. 403, 416, 417).
Moreover, added the psychoanalyst Susan Isaacs (1948, p. 94):
In their developed forms, phantasy thinking and reality thinking are distinct
mental processes … The fact that they have a distinct character when fully
developed, however, does not necessarily imply that reality thinking operates
quite independently of unconscious phantasy. It is not merely that they ‘blend
and interweave’; their relationship is something less adventitious than this. On
our view, reality-thinking cannot operate without concurrent and supporting
unconscious phantasies.

Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker subsequently elaborated on the
role of death anxiety in the development of culture and consciousness
in The Denial of Death (Becker, 1973), positing that humans manage the
potentially debilitating existential terror engendered by the awareness of
death by embracing cultural worldviews: humanly constructed symbolic
beliefs that are assumed to be absolute representations of reality by the
average enculturated individual. Such beliefs provide individuals with a
sense that they are persons of value in a world of meaning (Becker, 1971),
and thus eligible for either literal or (and) symbolic immortality. Literal
immortality is a central feature of most religions, in the form of heavens,
afterlives, reincarnations, and souls. Symbolic immortality is obtained by the
confidence that a vestige of one’s existence will persist over time, perhaps
from having children, being part of a great and enduring tribe or nation,
amassing great fortunes, or producing great works of art or science that will
be commemorated in perpetuity.
For both Varki and Brower and Becker (and his psychodynamic influences)
then, the awareness of personal mortality would undermine the viability of
consciousness as an adaptive form mental organization in the absence of
death-denying cultural and psychological affectations. Moreover, both Varki
and Brower and Becker argue that to the extent that this is true, then death
anxiety should have a pervasive and demonstrable effect on a wide range of
human beliefs and behaviors.
TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY
Terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986;
Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2015) was originally developed, building on Becker’s work, to provide

The Role of Death Denial in Culture and Consciousness

5

such evidence. One line of empirical inquiry is based on the mortality salience
(MS) hypothesis; specifically, that if culturally constructed beliefs serve to
mitigate death anxiety, then reminding people of their own mortality should
increase the need for those beliefs, and this should in turn be reflected by
cultural worldview defense: more positive evaluations of others who share
or uphold one’s beliefs, and increased hostility and disdain toward those
who oppose one’s beliefs or who embrace different beliefs. TMT researchers
make mortality salient by, for example, having people write about death,
view graphic depictions of death, be interviewed in front of a funeral parlor, or be subliminally exposed to the word "dead" or "death”; participants
in control conditions write about something neutral (e.g., watching television or eating a meal or subliminal exposure to “field”) or aversive but not
fatal (e.g., being in intense pain, failing an upcoming exam, or having a limb
amputated in a car accident). For example, Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon,
Pyszczynski, and Lyon (1989) found that municipal court judges set a higher
bond for an alleged prostitute in response to an MS induction, and in another
study that MS increased participants’ estimates of how much of a reward
a private citizen should receive for thwarting a robbery. In another study,
Greenberg et al. (1990) found that following MS, Christian participants had
more favorable reactions to fellow Christians and less favorable reactions to
Jewish targets (see Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010, for a meta-analysis of
MS studies).
Convergent support for TMT is provided by research based on the
death-thought accessibility (DTA) hypothesis: specifically, if culturally
constructed beliefs serve to mitigate death anxiety, then challenging
or threatening those beliefs should make implicit (i.e., nonconscious)
death-related thoughts come more readily to mind. DTA is typically
assessed with a word-stem completion task; for example, C O F F _ _ could
be coffin rather than coffee; G R _ V E = could be grave or grove; DTA
has also been assessed with a lexical decision task where participants are
exposed to non-words or neutral, negative, and death-related words and are
asked to decide if they have viewed a word. For example, Canadians had
higher DTA after reading an article based on rational and potent arguments
denigrating aspects of Canadian culture, such as popular foods, sports, and
socialized medicine (Schimel, Hayes, Williams, & Jahrig, 2007); moreover,
DTA increased when participants were told that they scored below average
on an intelligence test, or that their personality was such that they were
unlikely to succeed in their desired career path (Hayes, Schimel, Faucher,
& Williams, 2008; for a meta-analysis of DTA research, see Hayes, Schimel,
Arndt, & Faucher, 2010).
Additional research has delineated distinct defensive processes activated
by conscious and nonconscious but highly accessible death thoughts

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

(Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). Proximal defenses entail suppressing death-related thoughts or pushing the problem of death into the
distant future by denying one’s vulnerability. They are (seemingly) rational,
threat-focused, and activated when death thoughts are in current focal
attention. Distal terror management defenses entail maintaining self-esteem
and faith in one’s cultural worldview. They function to control the potential
for anxiety engendered by the knowledge that death is inevitable. Such
defenses are experiential, are not related to the problem of death in any
semantic or logical way, and are increasingly activated as the accessibility
of death-related thoughts (DTA) increases, up to the point at which such
thoughts enter consciousness and proximal defenses are initiated. For
example, McCabe, Vail, Arndt, and Goldenberg (2014) predicted and found
that immediately after a typical death reminder, when thoughts of death are
presumably still in explicit awareness, participants were more persuaded by
an advertisement touting the health benefits of a new bottled water when
it featured a Harvard medical doctor than the same ad featuring celebrity
Jennifer Aniston, and drank more of the water when offered a sample; this
is a proximal defense in that the doctor is more likely in a position to offer
credible medical advice. However, a few minutes after the death reminder,
when death thoughts are no longer likely in explicit awareness, participants
found Jennifer Aniston more compelling than the Harvard doctor, and
drank more of the water when offered a sample; this is a distal defense in
that aligning with a celebrity boosts self-esteem and bolsters faith in one’s
cultural worldview.
Finally, TMT posits that it is the potential to experience anxiety, rather
than the actual experience of anxiety, that underlies MS effects. To test
this hypothesis, participants (in Greenberg et al., 2003) consumed a placebo
purported to either block anxiety or enhance memory before being reminded
of their mortality. Although MS intensified cultural worldview defense in
the memory-enhancer condition, this effect was completely eliminated in the
anxiety-blocker condition. The results suggest that distal MS effects serve to
avert anxiety rather than to ameliorate actually experienced anxiety.1
DEATH AND DENIAL
Research testing hypotheses derived from TMT provides compelling empirical support for Varki and Brower’s contention, which is also entirely consistent with Becker’s view, that humans deny reality by embracing afterlife
beliefs, engaging in risky behaviors, and tenaciously defending their cultural
worldviews.
1. All of the MS effects described in the remainder of this essay are distal defenses unless otherwise
noted.

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AFTERLIFE BELIEFS
Fundamentalist Christians confronted with logical inconsistencies in the
Bible (Friedman & Rholes, 2007), or after reading a few paragraphs by
Stephen Jay Gould arguing that there is overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence in support of the theory of evolution (Schimel et al., 2007),
subsequently had increased levels of DTA—suggesting that challenging
central elements of a religious worldview is sufficient to bring implicit death
thoughts to mind. Additionally, following an MS induction, religiously
affiliated participants reported being more religious, more confident that
supernatural agents exist (even Gods of different religious affiliations)
and can intervene in human affairs, and more confident in the efficacy of
prayer (Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006); and, reading an article suggesting
that near-death experiences provide tantalizing evidence for the prospect of
literal immortality eliminated defensive reactions ordinarily engendered by
an MS induction (Dechesne et al., 2003).
And even atheists find supernatural beliefs alluring in the wake of death
reminders. Specifically, in response to MS, Christian participants reported
being more confident in the existence of God (as in the study reported above),
while atheists reported being more confident that there are no Gods; however, in a second study where supernatural beliefs were assessed implicitly,
death priming increased both Christians’ and atheists’ beliefs in supernatural religious entities (Jong, Halberstadt, & Bluemke, 2012). Similarly, after
reading an article suggesting that near-death experiences are indicative of
the possibility of literal immortality, even atheists and agnostics (like believers in the study reported above) no longer responded defensively to an MS
induction (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2012).
RISKY BEHAVIORS
There is also abundant evidence that intimations of mortality amplify risky
decisions and behaviors. For example, people who base their self-esteem
on being tan opted for a less powerful sunscreen and expressed greater
interest in going to a tanning salon in response to MS (Routledge, Arndt, &
Goldenberg, 2004). In another experiment, after reading warning labels on
cigarette packages that “Smokers die earlier” and “Smoking leads to deadly
lung cancer,” people who view smoking as part of their positive self-image
expressed more favorable attitudes about smoking and claimed that they
would be more likely to smoke in the future (Hansen, Winzeler, & Topolinski, 2010). And following MS, regular smokers puffed harder and longer on
their favorite cigarettes (Arndt et al., 2013); social drinkers consumed more
alcohol (Ein-Dor et al., 2014); and, low self-esteem participants consumed
more high-calorie snacks (Mandel & Smeesters, 2008).

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Similarly, in response to a MS induction, people who garner self-worth from
their driving ability reported being more likely to pass cars illegally, run a red
light, speed, enter a one-way street from the wrong direction, and drive too
fast while inebriated with a car full of friends—and they drove faster and
more recklessly on a realistic car simulator (Ben-Ari, Florian, & Mikulincer,
1999); skin divers rated themselves more likely to dive at night without a
light when the weather was bad or when they were feeling ill and to forgo
a safety stop to decompress while ascending (Miller & Taubman-Ben-Ari,
2004); and, males were more eager to engage in unprotected sex, desired
greater numbers of sexual partners in the future, and to climb rocks, drive
fast, have casual sex, ride a motorcycle, sky-dive, drink large quantities of
alcohol, snowboard, try heroin, hang-glide, bungee-jump, and go whitewater
rafting (Hirschberger, Florian, Mikulincer, Goldenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002;
Lam, Morrison, & Smeesters, 2009). Finally, participants in Hart, Schwabach,
and Solomon (2010) reminded of their own mortality made riskier decisions,
and consequently did more poorly on the Iowa Gambling Task, which is considered a valid proxy for economic decision making as well as predictive of
gambling addiction.
WORLDVIEW DEFENSE
Death reminders increase support for those who uphold nationalist sentiments and denigration of those who criticize them. For example, Greenberg,
Pyszczynski, Solomon, Rosenblatt, Veeder, Kirkland, and Lyon (1990, Study
3) had American participants, after an MS or control induction, read essays
by a purportedly written by a distinguished political scientist who either
strongly favored or opposed the United States. The pro-U.S. professor was
rated more favorably than the anti-U.S. professor in the control condition;
however, this effect was significantly amplified in response to MS. Similarly,
Italian participants reminded of their mortality reported a greater sense that
Italians have many characteristics in common and share a common fate, rated
being Italian as a more important aspect of their identity, and viewed Italians
more favorably compared to Germans (Castano, Yzerbyt, Paladino, & Sacchi,
2002). Additionally, MS increased British participants’ willingness to make
personal sacrifices, including dying, to protect the British way of life (Routledge & Arndt, 2008), as well as conservative American participants’ support
for the pre-emptive use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons against
countries who currently pose no direct threat to the United States (Pyszczynski et al., 2006).
People also have a tendency to fervently embrace their leaders, who in
antiquity were often believed to be gods, descended from gods, or divinely
ordained to lead—in order to assuage death anxiety. Sociologist Max Weber

The Role of Death Denial in Culture and Consciousness

9

proposed that followers’ attachment to, and enthusiasm for, seemingly
larger-than-life leaders is intensified in times of historical upheaval; and,
Becker (1973) argued that devotion to charismatic leaders results from a
defensive need to feel one is a part of a larger whole. In accord with this
view, after an MS or aversive control induction, Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield,
Pyszczynski, and Greenberg (2004) had participants read snippets of campaign speeches by three hypothetical gubernatorial candidates with varying
leadership styles before casting a vote for their favorite. The charismatic
candidate emphasized each individual’s importance in a great nation:
“you are not just an ordinary citizen, you are part of a special state and
a special nation and if we work together we can make a difference.” The
other candidates emphasized completing tasks effectively (task-oriented),
or the need for leaders and followers to work together and accept mutual
responsibility (relationship-oriented). While only 4% of the respondents
voted for the charismatic candidate in the control condition, 31% of the
participants chose the charismatic candidate after an MS induction.
Follow-up studies by Landau et al. (2004) replicated this finding in the
context of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when President George W.
Bush, who declared that he believed God had chosen him to rid the world of
“evil-doers” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, ran against Senator John Kerry.
Whereas American participants rated Senator Kerry more favorably than
President Bush in an aversive control condition, President Bush was rated
more favorably than Senator Kerry in response to MS; and, in late September
2004, Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (2005) found
that, while registered voters in an aversive control condition intended to
vote for Senator Kerry by a 4:1 margin, other registered voters randomly
assigned to an MS condition reported intending to vote for President Bush
by a more than 2:1 margin. Similarly, and more recently, in 2016 Donald
Trump was elected president by claiming that the United States was under
siege by terrorists, Muslims, and immigrants, and that only he could keep
U.S. citizens safe by “Making America Great Again.” Cohen, Solomon, and
Kaplin (2017) found that while American participants in a control condition
rated Hillary Clinton significantly more positively than Donald Trump,
Trump’s ratings increased significantly in response to MS (and were slightly
but nonsignificantly higher than ratings of Clinton).
Another form of cultural worldview defense is to perceive that others share
one’s beliefs, and to convince those who do not to abandon their beliefs and
adopt one’s own. This is because, for beliefs to serve as effective means to
manage existential terror, people must be absolutely certain of their veracity.
However, most of the fundamental beliefs we rely on for psychological security cannot be unambiguously proven; they are based on faith rather than

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

fact. Accordingly, the more people who share our beliefs, the more certain
we can be that they are correct. To show that this tendency is magnified by
MS, Pyszczynski et al. (1996) stopped pedestrians either directly in front of
or 100 m to either side of a funeral home (which they assumed would make
mortality momentarily salient, albeit quite unconsciously), and asked them
to estimate the percentage of their fellow citizens who shared their view of
an important current social issue. Germans in front a funeral home provided
higher consensus estimates about Germans’ support for restricting immigration; U.S. citizens in front a funeral home provided higher consensus
estimates about Americans’ support for teaching Christian values in public
schools. Moreover, after MS, Christians were more intent on convincing atheists to embrace Jesus and evolutionists were more determined to convince
creationists to embrace Darwin; and, successful proselytizing eliminated
defensive reactions to an MS induction (Kosloff, Cesario, & Martens, 2012).
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
It is our knowledge that we have to die that makes us human.
Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

In The Psychological Foundations of Culture, Tooby and Cosmides (1992,
p. 69) argued that most evolutionary adaptations, including human culture,
are based on reactions to the physical environment: “organisms transact
the business of propagation in specific environments, and the persistent
characteristics of those environments … Consequently, the structure of the
environment causes corresponding adaptive organization to accumulate in
the design of the organism.” However, Tooby and Cosmides subsequently
conceded that evolution could, in principle, proceed in response to internal
organismic concerns entirely independent of external demands: “adaptations may solve endogenous adaptive problems and may improve over
evolutionary time without necessarily being driven by or connected to any
change in the external environment.”
Varki and Brower’s “mind over reality” transition theory is the first
evolutionary-based account of human consciousness based on an internal
psychological adaptation. They argue that the uniquely human capacity to
radically transform reality in accordance with our imaginary conceptions
results from the integrative and synthetic capacities associated with an
extended theory of mind, and that the reason that other highly intelligent,
social, and long-lived species lack these capacities is because of an “evolutionary barrier.” Specifically, being able to intuit that other individuals
have interior mental states and intentions results in the recognition of their
mortality, and this in turn makes individuals with an extended theory of

The Role of Death Denial in Culture and Consciousness

11

mind aware of their own personal mortality. This would in turn undermine
reproductive fitness by rendering such individuals perpetually demoralized
and/or distressed. Therefore, Varki and Brower propose that an extended
theory of mind could only be adaptive if it was simultaneously accompanied by a suite of psychological defenses that are primarily oriented toward
fostering and maintaining psychological equanimity by the denial and
distortion of reality in the service of mitigating death anxiety.
There are striking parallels between this view of the origin of human consciousness and earlier psychodynamic accounts of the relationship between
culture and consciousness, starting with Geza Roheim’s claim that culture
originated as an internal response to anxiety, and Susan Isaac’s contention
that “reality” thinking is contingent on the concurrent capacity to fantasize.
Ernest Becker subsequently elaborated on these notions by identifying death
denial as the primary motivational impetus for human behavior. Specifically,
cultural worldviews provide opportunities for people to perceive themselves
as valuable to contributors to a meaningful universe and, thus, viable candidates for literal and/or symbolic immortality. Consequently, people are
highly motivated to maintain faith in their cultural worldviews and confidence in their self-worth (i.e., self-esteem).
Varki and Brower’s theory that an extended theory of mind could only
have evolved in conjunction with psychological and behavioral mechanisms
to deny death, and Becker’s claim that culture evolved (at least in part) to
solve the “endogenous” problem engendered by the burgeoning awareness
of the inevitability of death, like many evolutionary-based theories, cannot
be tested directly. However, there is no reason in principle why natural selection could not favor the adoption of denial-based proclivities through the
creation of a supernatural world, one in which death was not inevitable or
irrevocable. Presumably, the groups of early humans who fabricated the most
compelling tales could better manage existential terror. They consequently
would have been more capable of functioning effectively in their environment, and thereby most likely to perpetuate their genes into future generations.
Varki and Brower propose that the “mind over reality” transition occurred
approximately 100,000 years ago with the advent of behaviorally modern
humans. Perhaps the simultaneous appearance of art, body adornments, and
elaborate ritual burials—and sophisticated technology—is not coincidental.
The concurrent emergence of material manifestations of supernatural beliefs
and extraordinary technological advances is consistent with the proposition that the sophisticated cognitive capacities associated with human
consciousness could serve our ancestors well only when fortified by denial
mechanisms to convince them that death could be forestalled and ultimately
transcended.

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Credible evolutionary-based theories should show “hallmarks of special
design for proposed function,” be “capable of generating specific and falsifiable empirical predictions,” and “account for known data better than alternative hypotheses” (Buss, Haselton, Shackelford, Bleske, & Wakefield, 1998,
p. 546). TMT and research have generated a large body of evidence consistent with these epistemological criteria. There are distinct defensive reactions
to conscious and unconscious death thoughts that unfold in a predictable
fashion over time (hallmarks of special design); there are now more than
1000 published studies demonstrating that death reminders have a pervasive
influence on human attitudes and behavior (specific and falsifiable empirical
predictions); and, to date, there are no credible theoretical alternatives to TMT
(account for known data better than alternative hypotheses; see Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2015, for a review of this research as well as an
extended discussion of TMT vs rival theories).
Interestingly, Varki and Brower and Becker, while both noting the adaptive
advantages of the suite of cognitive capacities associated with human consciousness, are also skeptical about the future viability of humankind given
the adverse consequences of death denial. So was Nietzsche, who in The Gay
Science declared that consciousness was “that most calamitous stupidity of
which we shall perish someday.” Varki and Brower propose that denial is
responsible for humankind’s disinclination to respond to issues such global
warming, unsustainable national debt, and personal health risks associated
with poor lifestyle choices. Becker feared the devastating effects of the evil
caused, ironically, by humans righteously declaring their intent to rid the
world of evil, as well as people’s susceptibility to embrace ideological demagogues in times of historical uncertainty. He was also concerned about the
environmental devastation and psychological degradation of a mass consumer culture: people plundering the planet in an insatiable quest for dollars
and dross in a drug, alcohol, junk-food, Facebook, Netflix, Twittering stupor.
“Come to terms with death,” wrote Albert Camus in his Notebooks, “thereafter, anything is possible.” The future of our species may depend on it.
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Varki, A., & Brower, D. (2013). Denial: Self- deception, false beliefs, and the origins of the
human mind. New York, NY: Twelve.

SHELDON SOLOMON SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College. His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behavior have
been supported by the National Science Foundation and Ernest Becker Foundation, and were featured in the award winning documentary film Flight from
Death: The Quest for Immortality. He is coauthor of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Prof.
Solomon is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society, and a recipient
of an American Psychological Association Presidential Citation (2007), a Lifetime Career Award by the International Society for Self and Identity (2009),
and the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs Annual Faculty
Award (2011).
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