On defeating death: Group reification and social identification as immortality strategies

By Emanuele Castano, Mark Dechesne. 2005

107 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This chapter investigates the role of social identification in the management of human beings' existential concerns. We begin by presenting an overview of Terror Management Theory (TMT). This theory addresses the mechanisms that individuals have developed to prevent, or at least lessen, the anxiety deriving from the uniquely human ability to foresee one's death. We then present two perspectives concerning the role of social identities as anxiety-buffer mechanisms. A first one, which falls more squarely within TMT, suggests that social identities are functional in obtaining self-esteem (one of the two anxiety-buffer mechanisms proposed by TMT). A second perspective grants a more independent role to social identities. In this perspective, individuals seek transcendence by becoming a part of reified entities that are larger and longer lasting than the individual self. Findings emerging from these two lines of research are presented, along with an analysis of the relationship between identity, death anxiety, and immortality, from a historical and cross-cultural perspective.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/275c4fd0a064ee0854987da38a66e2ade9cad9d6

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Citations in the corpus

Threat and defense: From anxiety to approach (2014, background): “As the basic finding, experimentally inducing mortality awareness (Castano & Dechesne, 2005; Greenberg et al., 1997), personal uncertainty (Hogg et al., 2007; McGregor et al., 2001; Van den Bos, 2009), a lack of personal control (Fritsche, Jonas, Ablasser, et al., 2013; Fritsche et al., 2008), or…”
Investigating wellness tourists’ motivation, engagement, and loyalty: in search of the missing link (2017, background): “In the field of tourism, motivation and engagement are considered essential components that determine tourists’ destination choices (Li & Cai, 2012; So, King et al., 2014) since tourism can be considered a sociopsychological experience (Castano & Dechesne, 2005; Ross & Iso-Ahola, 1991).”
Psychological factors in terrorism and counterterrorism: Individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis. (2009, background): “Other work has shown that exposing Italians to death reminders leads to increases in pro-Italian biases as well as to the perception that Italians are cohesive and united (Castano & Dechesne, 2005).”
Death Goes to the Polls: A Meta-Analysis of Mortality Salience Effects on Political Attitudes* (2013, background): “…structuring of the social world, at least among individuals predisposed to prefer structured knowledge (Landau et al., 2004b), and a wide range of studies shows that MS increases striving for self-esteem as well as nationalistic and other in-group biases (see review by Castano & Dechesne, 2005).”
Perceived collective continuity and ingroup identification as defence against death awareness (2009, background): “For instance, as argued by Castano and Dechesne (2005), since ingroups are generally evaluated positively, group membership may be invoked after death reminders in order to restore self-esteem, which is known to lower when mortality is made salient.”
Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers' Motivation and the Quest for Personal Significance (2009, background): “Castano and Dechesne (2005) recently concluded from this research that: “Becoming part of collective entities [allows] individuals to extend their selves in space and time [and hence] to overcome the inherent limitations of their individual identity inextricably linked to a perishable body” (p.…”