terror management theory
a theory proposing that control of death anxiety is the primary function of society and the main motivation in human behavior. Accordingly, awareness of the inevitability of death (mortality salience) motivates people to maintain faith in the absolute validity of the cultural worldviews (i.e., beliefs and values) that give their lives meaning and to believe that they are living up to those standards, thus attaining a sense of personal value or self-esteem that buffers them against the frightening recognition of their own mortality. See also ontological confrontation. [based on the work of U.S. cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker (1925–1974) and developed by U.S. psychologists Jeff Greenberg (1954– ), Sheldon Solomon (1953– ), and Tom Pyszczynski (1954– )]