“Man is simply split into two; he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.
Ernest Becker: The Denial of Death
At the crack of this duality, between uniqueness and impermanence, lie the existential fires that fuel our purpose of living and our need to find meaning. We as humans spend our lives trying to make sense of this dilemma, trying to find “answers”, when in reality there may be none. Absurd right? Absurdism, an existential philosophical concept closely associated with Albert Camus, is the unresolvable conflict between human beings and the universe, in which rational beings try to find meaning in the irrational, meaningless world. With certainty, we know our common fate of death; yet we strive for meaning in a universe that might not have any. To manage the immense terror that arises when we are reminded of our impermanence, we seek to make meaning that protects our illusion of permanence from cracking, thus helping us deal with existential crises or death anxiety.
Becoming aware of the most fundamental and inevitable aspect of our existence – death, is called Mortality Salience (MS), This awareness often fuels our existential anxieties. Hence, mortality salience manipulations have been the most commonly used method to study the effects of death awareness. It involves priming people with the idea of death and comparing responses to those elicited by it to a control topic like dental pain. Research has shown that individuals who lack meaning in life and do not have psychological buffers, such as self-worth experience death anxiety. When exposed to mortality salience primes, one experiences death anxiety and finds ways to combat it, consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, one way is striving to find meaning and purpose in the face of mortality.
The next question is, how does one find meaning to cope with mortality awareness? The antidote to the fundamental fact of mortality is a sense of immortality. Human beings not only want to find meaning in their existence to escape death anxiety, but also to transcend death, defy their “creaturliness”, matter beyond the grave, and be larger than death itself. To deal with this dilemma of life, a person engages in a Causa sui project (“cause of itself"), or what Becker described as “immortality project”. The Causa sui project is a transcendent belief system in which we create or become a part of something that will outlast our time on earth.
Terror Management Theory and Mortality Salience
Following the works of Ernest Becker (e.g., Becker 1971, 1973), Terror Management Theory (TMT) was formulated. According to the TMT, humans are prone to minimising the effect of potentially anxiety-provoking situations that bring the awareness of mortality. TMT suggests that fear of death is the driver of most human activities, due to which individuals use various defenses (proximal or distal), to buffer against death anxiety. This is also called the Mortality Salience Hypothesis. A Meta-analysis found consistent evidence of how mortality salience strengthens identification with cultural worldviews and boosts self-esteem defenses. Certain key variables could also moderate the MS effect, such as sample demographics (e.g. college-going American students) and attitudes(e.g. towards people or country). An interesting finding of this study was that control topics (positive, neutral and even negative) produced similar effects, which brings forth the uniqueness of the death-related thoughts being more than just negative or threatening. Further research grounded in TMT shows people psychologically cope with mortality awareness through mechanisms like being intrinsically religious, finding positive emotions, belief in the afterlife and reconstructing positive interpersonal memories to feel closer to others. Cultural differences, too, influence the response to mortality salience. While Western cultures are focused on self-protective actions, Eastern cultures focus on affirming others, taking care of the community, believing in fatalism and karma, enjoying life, and holistic thinking to cope with death awareness.
Symbolic Immortality
Soon after TMT, Lifton and Olson (1974) described symbolic immortality: a universal human quest to achieve a sense of continuity in the face of the inevitability of death. Lifton and Olson expanded on categories of immortality– from literal (spiritual belief in afterlife) and non-literal (symbolic - group affiliation, religion, country) to creative (work of art, painting, brand, science) as well as experiential transcendence (timeless connection to past and future via one's work). Later, Lifton proposed five modes through which we express symbolic immortality: biological, creative, theological, natural and experiential transcendence. Research suggests that different modes of symbolic immortality may be expressed differently across cultures or amongst people within the same culture.
Now, within decades of TMT research, the concept of legacy remains understudied. A study explored legacy desires and types as a means of acquiring symbolic immortality. The study stated legacy and symbolic immortality as overlapping concepts. It mentioned how performative work in Lifton’s creative immortality, and the focus on individual identity in “individualistic” symbolic immortality closely align with the need to leave a legacy. From this overlap, creativity legacy or performative work seems like an important variable in the pursuit of symbolic immortality.
Creativity and Mortality Salience
Creativity manifests in different ways under Mortality salience. Research has established that MS does not increase creativity when the act is individualistic (directed towards/benefits the self) but not when the act is collectivistic (directed towards/benefits the community). Surprisingly the possibility of leaving a legacy makes people more creative post MS, but only when creativity was socially valued, and if the person is individualistic. Creativity can also increase Death- related thoughts under MS, possibly because death became less threatening in relation to legacy or because feelings of guilt related to individuality arise post creativity. In contrast, high levels of creative goals have also been shown to reduce death thought accessibility under mortality salience –especially for individuals who consider creativity a central part of their worldview. A study confirmed that when creativity is perceived as being culturally valued, people think about death with a greater openness to experience.
Thus, creativity acts as an existential anxiety buffer and is moderated by cultural acceptance. Cultures that value creativity and connectedness can reduce guilt under mortality salience. Creating a legacy gives us a sense of immortality. And when this sense of immortality does not threaten our feelings of social connectedness and also makes sure that our sense of uniqueness is maintained, we can better manage our death anxiety.
T. Roy and Mrinmayee Wadke
