Death-Defying Thoughts

The more overwhelming the thought or concept, the more likely humans are to turn to happier thoughts to distract themselves. This behavior rather than being a form of denial, is considered by some as an integral part of the coping mechanism developed by humans through the ages. It is also part of the basis of the emergent "terror management theory" that proposes that the brain uses instinctive coping skills that allow us to think about something as riveting as our own mortality but not become paralyzed by fear at the thought.

According to their paper From Terror to Joy: Automatic Tuning to Positive Affective Information After Mortality Salience, researchers Nathan DeWall of the University of Kentucky and Roy Baumeister of Florida State University stated:

In the present research, we sought to illuminate what occurs during that all-important coping period that begins when subjects think about dying. Our central hypothesis was that one response to the threatening idea of death is the commencement of a non-conscious search for emotionally pleasant, positive information. Clutching at happy thoughts may serve the function (central to terror management theory) of preventing the conscious mind from being paralyzed by the terror of death. There is ample evidence that people seek to avoid, escape, or minimize emotional distress and, indeed, that such emotional coping effects start right away.

To examine their theory DeWall and Baumeister set up a series of three experiments using subjects from undergraduate classes. Subjects were asked to imagine dying and being dead. They then completed word tests designed to give insight into the unconscious mind. The purpose of the overall study was to prove their hypothesis that mortality salience will cause a non-conscious shift toward pleasant, positive thoughts.

In their findings, Baumeister and DeWall report that the human brain’s response when forced to contemplate the possibility of our own death begins immediately and triggers an automatic search for happier thoughts. For example, when prompted with the word part "jo_" subjects tended to produce a word such as "joy" rather than "job." These results run contrary to what study subjects predicted, in that they felt they would have reactions of emotional distress.

ABSTRACT: From Terror to Joy: Automatic Tuning to Positive Affective Information Following Mortality Salience