Considerations of death anxiety, meaning in life, self-esteem, self-compassion and loneliness vis-a-vis terror management theory

Abstract

Studies on Terror Management Theory have mostly focused on assessing certain parameters that presumably contribute to buffer the anxiety that is formed when mortality becomes cognitively salient. Considering death anxiety as an enduring construct that impacts human psyche throughout life, such parameters may carry on the role of “anxiety-buffer” regardless of salience of death-thoughts. To support this prediction, quantitative relationships between death anxiety and five variables that are associated with defenses against death awareness (self-esteem, self-compassion, presence of meaning in life, search for meaning in life and loneliness) were examined. Data were collected from 315 Turkish participants, consisting dominantly of university students, via online self-report scales. It was predicted that self-esteem, self-compassion and presence of meaning in life would have a significant negative association with death anxiety, whereas loneliness and search for meaning in life would have a positive one. Correlation analyses supported these predictions for all variables except loneliness. Regression analyses indicated that self-compassion had significantly higher predictive power on death anxiety compared to other variables, whereas loneliness and self-esteem had negligible predictive power on death anxiety. Moderation analyses showed that loneliness moderated the relation between self compassion and death-anxiety, as self-compassion lost its predictive power on death anxiety at very high levels of loneliness. Implications of the results are discussed in the light of Terror Management Theory.