TMT

Terror Managment Theory[http://people.uncw.edu/ogler/Experimental/TM%201.pdf Rosenblatt, Abram, et al. "Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values." Journal of personality and social psychology 57.4 (1989): 681.</ref>

Terror management theory (TMT), in social psychology, states that human behavior is mostly motivated by an unconscious fear of mortality. According to TMT theorists, symbols that create cultural worldviews are protected as representations of continuity. The terror management theory posits that when people are reminded of their own deaths, they more readily enforce these symbols. Experiments conducted by Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski, and Jeff Greenberg sought to lend evidence to the concept that mortality salience, or the awareness of one's own death, affects the decision making of groups and individuals.[1]

The theory purports to help explain human activity both at the individual and societal level. It is derived from anthropologist Ernest Becker's 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of nonfiction The Denial of Death, in which Becker argues most human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death. The terror of absolute annihilation creates such a profound—albeit subconscious—anxiety in people that they spend their lives attempting to make sense of it. On large scales, societies build symbols: laws, religious meaning systems, cultures, and belief systems to explain the significance of life, define what makes certain characteristics, skills, and talents extraordinary, reward others whom they find exemplify certain attributes, and punish or kill others who do not adhere to their cultural worldview. On an individual level, self-esteem provides a buffer against death-related anxiety.