PSYCO241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Flight From Death, Taco, Hot Sauce
3 Apr 2016
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Ernest becker: the birth and death of meaning (1962- revised in 1971, the denial of death (1974 pulitzer prize, escape from evil (1975) Becker points out 3 different types of thought that we have: temporal thought (think in terms of past, present and future, symbolic thought, self-reflective thought (able to focus on selves as objects of attention) These cognitive abilities have some important consequences for us: freedom from reactivity + (much more flexible in reacting to environmental stimuli, self-consciousness + (know what you"re doing when you"re doing it) Basic drive toward self-preservation + knowledge of our mortality = potential for debilitating terror and anxiety (anxiety affects thought and action) Culture: a shared symbolic conception of reality that imbues the world with a sense of meaning, order, and permanence. All cultures provide us with some form of what happens after death (afterlife: heaven/hell) Terror management theory (tmt; solomon, greenberg, & pyszczynski, 1991: belief in a cultural worldview, self-esteem:
