Are we afraid or anxious about death? Clarifying the meaning of 'terror' in Terror Management Theory

According to terror management theory (TMT), human beings rely on self-esteem and cultural worldviews as a shield against the otherwise terrifying knowledge that they are going to die. The cognitive dynamics of this model have been abundantly investigated over the past 20 years but there is surprisingly little research devoted to the nature of this "terror" in terms of experience. In other words, are we afraid or anxious about death?;There are different ways to distinguish between the two emotions, one being the pain sensitivity paradigm, which posits that fearful individuals exhibit hypoalgesia (a decreased sensitivity to pain), while anxious individuals exhibit hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity). The present study, using a radiant heat device, has found that participants subliminally exposed to the word "death" while performing a word association task displayed increased pain sensitivity to the tip of their finger - as measured by their finger withdrawal latencies as well as self-reported pain - compared to participants in the control condition. This finding suggests an anxiety-driven rather than a fear-driven response to the death prime. This supports our view that existential anxiety and fear of death itself are two different constructs and that the "terror" evoked in TMT research is of the former nature. Also, using the IAT and the Rosenberg self-esteem scale respectively, we measured implicit and explicit levels of participants' self-esteem. Consistent with previous findings, the stability rather than the level of (explicit) self-esteem is important in managing the terror of death and those most susceptible to existential anxiety are the individuals with a high explicit and a low implicit level of self-esteem, a discrepancy associated with narcissistic personality traits. Implications and limitations are discussed.