The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life – review

This readable study by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski attempts to measure the influence of mortal terror on human affairs

Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death (1973) made the striking claim that human activity is driven largely by unconscious efforts to deny and transcend mortality. “We build character and culture in order to shield ourselves from the devastating awareness of underlying helplessness and terror of our inevitable death,” observed Becker. The authors of The Worm at the Core extended Becker’s work with a presentation in 1984 at a meeting of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. They called it “Terror Management Theory”. The reception was lukewarm. As the authors recount, “renowned psychologists were storming for the exits”.

Undeterred, they approached the journal of the American Psychological Association with a paper on the theory of terror management. The editor insisted their ideas wouldn’t be taken seriously unless some hard evidence could be provided (Becker’s work was built largely around psychoanalytic theory rather than empirical research).

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