Mitigating death anxiety: Identifying music’s role in terror management

Abstract

Based on the ideas of social-anthropologist Ernest Becker, Terror Management Theory (TMT) explains human behavior as being motivated by conscious and unconscious mortality salience. This article examines the role of music in the denial of death and catalogues related literature in the music and social psychology fields. Categories include: TMT and art, music used as control condition in TMT research, and songs and TMT. A brief description of Becker’s theory and TMT and a discussion of the functions of music in culture precede the literature review. Analysis of the literature suggests that (a) music provides a safe window frame through which to examine death, (b) music created for community purposes may buffer death anxiety more readily than that created for individual purposes, and (c) songs prompt mortality salience and simultaneously buffer death anxiety depending on individual music preferences, cultural worldviews, and perceptions of famous others. The review further identifies limitations in TMT studies regarding music and terror management and highlights the need for additional empirical research to untangle the complexity of music’s role in mitigating death anxiety growing out of mortality salience.

Keywords

Ernest Becker death functions of music music and death anxiety music education Terror Management Theory

Of all the things that move men, one of the principal ones is the terror of death. (Becker, 1974, p. 13)

Music is more than a mirror of life; it is enriched by the metaphysical dimension of sound, which gives it the possibility to transcend physical, human limitations. In the world of sound, even death is not necessarily final. (Barenboim, 2009, p. 9)

Throughout history humans have struggled to live with the ever-present fear of death (Becker, 1971, 1973). Like James (1902/1958), who described death as the “worm at the core of the human condition” (p. 121), Becker (1973) believed that human behaviors stem largely from our unconscious desire to deny or transcend death. Becker posits that culture has evolved in response to this existential problem unique to human animals: culture allows us to separate ourselves from and elevate ourselves above other animals, thereby enabling us to derive meaning and purpose in life. “Culture is in its most intimate intent a heroic denial of creatureliness,” Becker (1973) explains. For humans, “Culture opposes nature and transcends it” (p. 159), thereby enabling the denial of death.

Though its functions and uses are varied, music is an important component of culture and “Recognizably musical activities appear to have been present in every known culture on earth, with ancient roots extending back 250,000 years or more” (Schäfer, Sedlmeier, Städtler, & Huron, 2013, p. 1). Dissanayake (2009) proposes that communicative musicality evolved “to become a universal characteristic of human nature” (p. 17) and that musicality has evolutionary origins. Specifically, the protomusical behaviors found between mother and infant suggest communications of love or “mutuality” are adaptive for reproductive success and infant survival. Ritualized group experiences evolved from those protomusical behaviors to manage the unknown. Ancestral humans used music behaviors to attempt to “cope with the problems and uncertainties of mortal existence, whether past, present or future” (p. 34) and later to manage general anxiety.

Barenboim (2009) further offers music with its element of transcendent sound as a possibility for transforming the finality of death. As such, could one of music’s many functions be to provide meaning and purpose in our lives, enabling us to rise above death, or as Barenboim suggests, interrupt the conclusiveness of its certainty? The purpose of this study is to explore music’s role in this existential concern. Other scholars have certainly touched on fragments of this thought: Greenberg and Arndt (2011), for example, note that humankind’s death anxiety has been the subject of generations of philosophers and motifs in visual art, music, and film throughout history. Other than serving as a vehicle for expressing a conscious fear of death, how might music mediate the behaviors we adopt in response to living with the knowledge that we will someday die? How do music behaviors – listening and performing and creating – aid in or impinge on our success in living with an unconscious ever-present fear of death? Investigating the purpose music serves in mitigating our fear of death may also inform music educators, performers, and scholars, as well as social and music psychologists regarding an aspect of their research or practice rarely addressed.

Two adjacent avenues of thought are under inspection here: (1) Becker’s theory of the denial of death – that most human action is motivated by the realization that life comes to an end – and (2) Terror Management Theory’s mortality salience hypothesis – that building a system of meaningful psychological constructs protects against mortality concerns. In 1973, Becker’s The Denial of Death was published, and a decade later Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon (1986) subjected Becker’s ideas to empirical study and uncovered evidence for a mortality salience hypothesis advancing the idea that reminders of death are at the core of unconscious human behaviors. The mechanisms within culture that mitigate death anxiety include developing and protecting a cultural worldview (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997), as well as acquiring and protecting self-esteem (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1998). A cultural worldview refers to a universally accepted concept of reality shared by a particular group of people, usually referred to as a culture. One achieves and maintains self-esteem by living up to perceived cultural values and regarding the self as a valuable member of society. The work of Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (2015) resulted in the genesis of Terror Management Theory (TMT), and to date over 500 cross-cultural studies examine the role of mortality salience in human behavior. While TMT researchers acknowledge that music is part of culture and is used to separate humans from animals (Goldenberg, Heflick, Vaes, Motyl, & Greenberg, 2009), signify worldviews (Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008; Janssen, Dechesne, & Van Knippenber, 1999), and aid in self-esteem development (Vail et al., 2012), the study of music itself has been neglected in TMT research (Kneer & Rieger, 2015).

Review of the literature

The purpose of this review is to examine literature that will aid in defining a role for music in mitigating mortality salience; it catalogues related literature in the fields of music and social psychology and identifies a gap in TMT research that would examine the role of music in handling death anxiety.

Method

This literature review explores the areas of music education, music psychology, and social and experimental psychology in peer-reviewed journals with national and international distribution. Certain research leads were especially interesting. For example, a Terror Management Theory website (Cox & Arndt, 2006) lists neither music nor the arts as topics in their description of their work, yet related titles were found in the site’s TMT bibliography, which includes 300-plus entries from 1986 to 2012. A survey of those titles for keywords music, art, song, aesthetics, and film revealed six TMT articles that examine visual arts (Beck, McGregor, Woodrow, Haugen, & Killion, 2010; Landau, Sullivan, & Solomon, 2010; Landau, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Martens, 2006), art therapy in palliative care (Harris, 2009), and film (Sullivan & Greenberg, 2006; Sullivan, Greenberg, & Landau, 2010).

Additional literature was located by searching arts and social science databases (i.e., EBSCO, SAGE, ProQuest, JSTOR, Taylor & Francis) from 1960 (a year prior to Becker’s first publication) to the present using the keyword “music” and one of the following keyword phrases: “Ernest Becker,” “terror management theory,” “mortality salience,” or “death anxiety.” After being cross-referenced for duplication, 51 studies were read and coded for main topic as well as strength of connection to music and TMT or Becker’s notion of death anxiety. Although they were listed on the TMT site, two publications were omitted from further review: Harris (2009), which included no discussion of TMT, and Sullivan and Greenberg (2006), which was not published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Several TMT studies include brief mention of music in discussions of art as a mechanism for acquiring self-esteem (Vail et al., 2012), worldview identification (Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008; Janssen et al., 1999), distinguishing humans from animals (Goldenberg et al., 2009), as well as providing mortality salience (Vail et al., 2012). One researcher published Becker’s journals in which the cultural anthropologist briefly discusses arts and music (Kramer, 2007). TMT research that addresses the arts directly includes studies of fiction (Maier, 2011) and movies (Bassett, 2009). Some TMT researchers employed music as a control condition within their studies (Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Samboceti, 2004; Goldenberg et al., 2006; Johnson, Ballister, & Joiner, 2005; Kasser & Sheldon, 2000) and identified music as a creative task and creation-oriented consumption (Xu, 2006; Xu & Brucks, 2011). Only four publications addressed music directly however, and these studies focused on examining songs (Kneer & Rieger, 2015) and song lyrics in particular (Bodner & Gilboa, 2009; Cheung et al., 2013; Pettijohn & Sacco, 2009).

Given that TMT is primarily concerned with the role of unconscious fear of death in human behavior, this review of literature does not include discussions of palliative care and music or music and bereavement. Grieving is a process of mourning the death of a loved one and may not necessarily be a source of personal death anxiety. Becker and TMT scholars maintain that terror management is an existential problem not limited to a special population; therefore the present examination of music’s role does not include its therapeutic use for those in hospice care.

The following themes emerged from this literature review: TMT and art, music used as control condition in TMT research, and songs and TMT. To provide context for these themes and connection to the subject of this study, a brief description of Becker’s denial of death and TMT and a discussion of the functions of music in culture precede the literature review results.

The denial of death and Terror Management Theory

Death awareness, according to Kierkegaard (1844/1957) and Becker (1973), has the potential to render an individual on a continuum of debilitating psychological states ranging from severe depression to delusion and hypomania. TMT further reveals how individuals respond when reminded of their own death. Following mortality salience, people shore up their cultural worldviews (Pyszczynski et al., 1998; Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989) and strive for self-esteem, which includes defending against any threats to their own self-regard (Greenberg, 2008; Greenberg et al., 1986; Greenberg et al., 1992; Janssen et al., 1999). When defending their belief systems, people praise the ingroup and denigrate those perceived as outsiders (Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008; Rosenblatt et al., 1989), attempt to proselytize and convert others to their worldviews (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997), and in some cases even inflict violence on those who threaten their worldviews (McGregor et al., 1998; Rosenblatt et al., 1989). Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (2004) further summarize the results of death awareness on human behavior: (a) Individuals prefer to be with others like themselves, will more readily punish those who are unlike themselves, and will punish outgroup members more severely; (b) Individuals prefer simpler solutions of heroic triumph over evil; (c) Individuals avoid positive and negative physical sensations; and (d) Mortality salience increases consumerism and materialism.

Pyszczynski et al. (1998) state that “Although self-esteem and faith in one’s cultural worldview do not bear on the inevitability of death in any logical way, these psychological structures shield the individual from the abject terror that awareness of their inevitable fate can produce” (p. 91). In addition to bolstering one’s cultural worldview and nourishing self-esteem, Mikulincer, Florian, and Hirshberger (2003) promote the idea that close relationships, or affiliation needs, are a third psychological mechanism in the denial of death.

The functions and uses of music in culture

If fear of death plays an essential role in life and helps define a culture, what role does music play in this existential crisis? Becker’s writings provide some answers. In Kramer’s (2007) transcript of Becker’s journals from 1964–1969, Becker ruminates over music and the arts in humankind’s existential struggles.

They [music and all arts] stress inevitability, and so reconcile one to the world as it is; but they also stress freedom, within the inevitability. And so they underline that man’s life is not in vain. It signifies a hopeful struggle, not predetermined. Music, then, would stress inevitability within a time stream: so that what bothers man most, namely, the anxiety of random events in an irrevocable time stream, is appeased: events become just so, exactly (clarity of note and tempo) as they are meant to happen; but with the variations of freedom. The unity is then a triumph of reconciliation. This is the least discursive handling of this problem, which may explain why musicians are the most repressed: they can only give the most intuitive handling of the problem of freedom. (Kramer, 2007, p. 464, emphasis added)

Becker’s thoughts suggest that music serves a death-denying function through the musician’s experience of controlling aspects of time when making music. Cross (2003) echoes Becker when arguing for music as a product of evolution. Music is something that “embodies, entrains, and transposably intentionalizes time in sound and action” (p. 24). By imposing sounds upon the dimension of time, we secure a sense of control during the music-making experience. In a discussion of the use of music following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Stein (2004) suggests that music transforms our perceptual and sensory experience of time and thereby serves defensive or coping functions during the process of mourning (p. 801). Barenboim (2009) also highlights this aspect of music: “When playing music it is possible to achieve a unique state of peace, partly due to the fact that one can control through sound, the relationship between life and death, a power that obviously is not bestowed upon human beings in life” (p. 9). This point of view suggests a role for music in mitigating mortality salience; however it remains in a philosophical realm.

Music scholars have examined the functions of music and provided the field with copious topics for discussion. Merriam (1964) identified 10 cross-cultural functions of music: to (a) facilitate communication, (b) provide an outlet for emotional expression, (c) enforce conformity to social norms, (d) validate social and religious institutions, (e) represent culture symbolically, (f) contribute to cultural continuity, (g) facilitate social integration, (h) provide entertainment, (i) provide aesthetic experiences, and (j) foster physical responses. Many of Merriam’s functions have implications for aiding in the denial of death, particularly those that aid in bolstering cultural worldviews and providing a framework for imbuing life with meaning.

More recently, Schäfer et al. (2013) conducted an extensive literature review of the functions of music from the past 50 years, revealing 129 distinct functions and uses for music. Using principal component analysis of participant ratings (N = 834) of each music-function statement, they found three dimensions of the functions of music listening: (1) self-awareness, (2) social relatedness, and (3) arousal and mood regulation. Although some items intimated existential functions – such as references to music representing spirituality, expressing religious faith, and embodying supernatural meaning – none of the items explicitly addressed a “denial-of-death” function. However, they do suggest that modern responses may reflect some archaic functions. For example, the self-awareness dimension satisfies human needs for anxiety avoidance and quests for meaning, and arousal and mood regulation addresses disassociation desires. Interestingly, these two dimensions were the most important dimensions of music-listening functions and were significantly more important than social relatedness. The researchers assumed that participants had “relatively accurate introspective access to their own motivations in pursuing particular musical behaviors, and that they are able to accurately recall the appropriate experiences” (Schäfer et al., 2013, p. 5). The existential threat of death is largely an unconscious fear and thus necessitates a different approach – beyond Mithen (2006) and Dissanayake’s (2009) evolutionary theoretical models – to discover evidence for this music function. Also, Schäfer et al. surveyed participants to discover functions relating to music listening specifically, and other music behaviors of creating or performing were not examined.

Blacking (1995) and Firth (1996) note that music provides a source for group and individual identities, as well as a means for individual expression. Campbell, Connell, and Beegle (2007) found that music serves as a vehicle for identity formation and provides social and emotional benefits. Nettl (2015) contends that music functions as a mediator between natural and supernatural, humans and other humans, as well as other beings, and music “support[s] the integrity of individual social groups and mediate[s] between them” (p. 267). Although scholars have illuminated death themes in music, for example in the compositions of Mahler (Starcevic, 2013), Bach (Varwig, 2010), and Ligeti (Floros, 2013), music’s role in mitigating mortality salience has received little research attention.

TMT and art

Some scholars have aimed to identify the role of artistic activities in culture (Landau et al., 2010) through a TMT lens. Other researchers examined the role of film (Bassett, 2009; Sullivan et al., 2010), visual art (Beck et al., 2010; Greenberg, Kosloff, Solomon, Cohen, & Landau, 2010; Landau et al., 2006), and the process of creating art (Routledge, Arndt, Vess, & Sheldon, 2008; Xu, 2006; Xu & Brucks, 2011) in the denial of death, which aids in illuminating the role of music as well.

Although ethnomusicologists and philosophers have examined the role of music and arts in culture, Landau et al. (2010) endeavored to provide a social psychological account for why we engage in artistic activities. Their discussion of the role of creating and responding to art and TMT intersects with Nettl’s concept of music as mediator. Landau et al. postulate that art is used to express meaning through a particular worldview or religion. Musical art forms, like the Christian mass, Lutheran hymns, Muslim calls to prayer, a whirling Dervish, as well as songs for healing and incantation, are all examples of how music is used to mediate between the natural and the supernatural. “Art [also] allows safe contemplation of multiple aversive outcomes, ranging beyond the reality of death” (2010, p. 122). Themes of death in art are prevalent throughout human history, and the researchers believe the reason for this is that “tragic art provides a culturally sanctioned, cathartic but safe encounter with the idea of death” (2010, p. 122). Art serves to transform the meaning of death and thereby provides a unique psychological benefit – a conclusion that echoes Dissanayake’s (2009) ideas as well. Furthermore, the power of art to make real the unreal through a concrete expression of a worldview bolsters one’s faith in that worldview. Music and the arts mediate between life and death by giving form to death while we live – an essential role for the arts given that the dead cannot describe their experiences for others.

Landau et al. (2010) believe that TMT offers a complementary explanation for why we create and respond to art. They note the importance of empirical attention to determine whether desires for symbolic immortality motivate the creation of art as well the discovery of how art creation and response may provide relief from death awareness. Furthermore, they contend that scholars have neglected a TMT-based view of art that would yield an important and undiscovered dimension to understanding artistic activities.

Film

Bassett (2009) interpreted the horror film Lord of the Illusions from the aspect of TMT. The power of horror film, Bassett claims, is that it “makes salient the unpalatable existential realities of corporeality and mortality” and through that process makes “viewing horror as a means of expressing repressed fears” (p. 70). He found consistencies with film plot and characters and TMT, noting in particular that the film offers insights into how we address our existential concerns.

Additionally, Sullivan et al. (2010) applied TMT to an interpretation of the films Rosemary’s Baby and Straw Dogs, which they believed provided new layers of understanding of the movies. Both films begin with mortality salience primes for the characters and movie viewers. The movies then show how death anxiety motivates the characters to deny death through seeking ways to immortality and bolstering their self-esteem. These authors’ discussions support the explanatory power of TMT of film as called for by Landau et al. (2010).

Visual art

Three studies examined the effects of mortality salience on art preferences and appraisals. Greenberg et al. (2010) included art appraisal in a study of TMT and fame. The researchers found that following mortality salience, people desire more fame, increase their admiration of famous others, and have a more positive appraisal of abstract art when it is attributed to someone famous: “From a TMT perspective, this makes sense because the exemplars of fame – those who have attained symbolic immortality – provide the hope that we too can extend our existence beyond physical death” (p. 8). Other likely explanations for viewing abstract art by famous persons more positively following mortality salience is that it reinforces a worldview that viewers perceive they share with famous persons, and it enhances viewer identification with a culturally valued individual. Greenberg et al. (2010) also conclude that mortality salience contributes to celebrity worship.

In a similar study Landau et al. (2006) examined the effect of mortality salience on discovering meaning in abstract art. The researchers hypothesized that art jeopardizes protective meaning when the content threatens one’s worldview and when the art has no recognizable forms that viewers can perceive as relevant and meaningful. They found that following mortality salience, individuals dislike modern abstract art unless it is imbued with meaning through titles or personal frames of reference. Modern art by its nature, the researchers contend, “may be disliked because of an existential concern with maintaining meaning,” and individuals must have acquired a vocabulary derived from their culturally mediated history or personal experiences to make meaning of what they view.

Beck et al. (2010) measured art preferences of undergraduates at a Christian university (N = 276) and found a preference for Christian artwork over neutral artwork when mortality salience was prompted: “That is, existential anxieties (such as the fear of death) appeared to be implicated in the aesthetic judgments of the Christian participants” (p. 301). Furthermore they note that participants – regardless of the artistic merit of the art – were inherently biased to prefer artwork that aligned with their worldview. Their findings suggest that art that supports an individual’s worldview provides some solace and comfort through symbolically bolstering that individual’s belief system.

Creating art

It appears that art may serve a death-denying function when it (a) aligns with a cultural worldview, (b) is perceived as meaningful, or (c) is attributed to someone famous. But how might creating art “keep mortality concerns at bay” (Landau et al., 2010, p. 146)? Becker (1973) indicates that creating art results in individuation that compounds rather than ameliorates the fear of death. Xu (2006) and Xu and Brucks (2011) studied creativity through the lens of TMT. In both studies, the researchers note that creating is not as powerful a mediator of mortality salience or threats to self-esteem as other TMT coping mechanisms. The studies provide some evidence for Becker’s ideas that creativity serves to separate the individual from identification with a social group:

By contrast, trying to be creative individually is to be different, to deviate. It is to stick one’s neck out, do what people do not usually do and risk being rejected by the audience. Before the audience announces acceptance (if any), the creator stays isolated and cannot connect to them through his/her creative acts. Even some validated creators have to endure a long period of obscure, isolated existence, sometimes even being chastised, before that validation finally comes. (Xu, 2006, p. 137)

This separation aspect makes creation a complicated and unique approach to achieving self-esteem. Self-efficacy driven by the expected social approval of the creative product mitigates the creative act. Those reminded of their own death are less likely to undertake creative acts unless they anticipate success in the creative endeavor. In a study of creativity in general, Routledge et al. (2008) found a similar result; creativity decreases following mortality salience when the creating act was self-directed. When creating was community-directed, mortality salience had little effect.

Music used as a control condition in TMT research

In several TMT studies, listening to music or writing about music was used as a control in the research design. Specifically, members of one group would write about their thoughts and feelings regarding their own death, and people in the other group would describe their thoughts and feelings about listening to music. This study design was used to provide evidence for mortality salience’s contributing to human greed (Cozzolino et al., 2004) and materialism and consumerism (Johnson et al., 2005; Kasser & Sheldon, 2000). Goldenberg et al. (2006) used listening to music as a control experience in a study of body ambivalence, which may illuminate a unique feature of listening to instrumental music as a terror management function.

Cozzolino et al. (2004) and Kasser and Sheldon (2000) used writing about the experience of listening to music in control groups for their studies of mortality salience effects. In two studies of an examination of mortality salience on college students’ expectations of personal wealth (N = 60) and consumption and greed (N = 73), Kasser and Sheldon (2000) found that death awareness significantly influences financial expectations as well as consumption and greed. In the third of three related studies, Cozzolino et al. (2004) examined the effects of mortality salience on the intrinsic and extrinsic behaviors of 90 college students. Results revealed that mortality salience generally leads to greed. However, intrinsic and unselfish behaviors were generated for those subjects who reflected on personal near-death experiences. In these studies music served its purpose as a neutral control condition, allowing researchers to successfully measure dependent variables. When considering the limitations of studying TMT and hypomania and materialism, Johnson et al. (2005) thought that writing about music may not be a neutral stimulus and might actually increase a positive affect because of music’s influence on mood.

Goldenberg et al. (2006) found that individuals exhibit ambivalence toward the body as a result of mortality salience. After subjects were reminded of their own death, the researchers measured how long they would engage in positive and negative physical sensations (i.e., foot massage or listening to music, and immersing an arm in ice-cold water respectively). They found that after mortality salience, individuals with high neuroticism avoid both types of physical sensations but do not avoid listening to unfamiliar and unusual improvisational music: “Although listening to the music is a sensation, it is one that is perceived more as an experience of events in the world rather than as localized in the body as with touch” (p. 1271). The researchers conclude that because our bodies remind us of our vulnerability to death, we avoid physical sensations and seek a symbolic world that divorces us from our physical existences.

The free-form jazz music heard in the experiments was purely instrumental, further suggesting to this scholar that music may aid in denying death by providing a sensation without bodily reminders. This disassociation may be an example of the arousal and mood dimension of music-listening functions described by Schäfer et al. (2013). While this conclusion remains speculative, it highlights an area of unexamined phenomena – the role of instrumental music in mitigating mortality salience. How then would songs that include lyrics about death or the body interact with this existential threat?

Songs and TMT

Four research publications address songs and terror management. TMT provided a theoretical underpinning for a series of four related studies in which Cheung et al. (2013) studied nostalgia invoked through listening to songs and reading song lyrics. After establishing that nostalgia increases positive affect in the first study, they examined the effect of nostalgia on optimism. In the second study, subjects (N = 664) listened to a nostalgic or control song and then rated how nostalgic the assigned song was for them, how positive the level of affect was for them, and to what extent listening to their assigned song induced self-esteem. The third study was purposefully similar and further supported previous findings. In their fourth study, subjects (N = 127) read the lyrics to self-identified nostalgic songs or lyrics of songs not identified as nostalgic. Then positive affect and self-esteem measures were completed. Researchers conclude that social connectedness derived from nostalgia lifts self-esteem and heightens optimism. Their findings support the hypothesis that nostalgia strengthens social connectedness and self-esteem – important defense mechanisms in terror management.

Bodner and Gilboa (2009) examined the particular song genre of crisis songs (CS). Sometimes referred to as memorial songs, crisis songs are a particular style of Israeli music with melancholic themes of death and the bereaved as a result of war. Bodner and Gilboa surveyed Israeli undergraduate students (N = 191) in two conflicting groups – religious and secular Jews –about their attitudes toward their outgroups after they had listened to crisis songs, love songs, or no songs for a five-minute period. Those listening to crisis songs had less stereotyping and prejudice toward their outgroups. The researchers reexamined and confirmed their findings of reduced intergroup bias in a second study in which religious and secular subjects (N = 224) recalled from memory either crisis songs or love songs and then evaluated a social representative of their ingroups and of their outgroups. To discover how crisis songs generate a common ingroup identity between contradictory groups, they surveyed secular and religious undergraduate students (N = 93) who identified nationality, sorrow and grief, and unity as crisis song themes. In this third experiment, subjects completed a free-form association when listening to crisis songs. Analysis revealed “the associative line of thought” (p. 105) with nationality, sorrow and grief, and unity as identified themes.

Because crisis song themes of death and bereavement would make mortality salient, the researchers presumed that listening and recalling crisis songs would result in individuals derogating their outgroups as TMT suggests. They note that death awareness seems to prompt a need for affiliation with others instead: “It is possible that in the current study, crisis songs activated people’s need for affiliation, rather than their need to derogate others’ worldviews” (Bodner & Gilboa, 2009, p. 106). The researchers further suggest that crisis songs could be used to improve social relationships between Israeli religious groups.

Unlike Bodner and Gilboa (2009) and Cheung et al. (2013), Pettijohn and Sacco’s (2009) study did not include listening to music and focused on song lyrics exclusively. They examined the lyrical content of Billboard number one songs from 1955 to 2003 and then compared the content to the General Hard Times Measure (GHTM), a standardized global measurement for social and economic threats. Analysis revealed that during difficult social and economic times, popular songs have more words and more references to the future, which suggests that during hard times, people prefer more meaningful songs. During challenging times, lyrics also include more personal pronouns, discuss more social processes, and have more sports references. The researchers believe these results to be evidence of people seeking to affiliate and bond with others during difficult times.

Using TMT in analyzing their results, Pettijohn and Sacco (2009) also determined that “when times are more threatening, identifying with popular song lyrics that represent our worldviews may help ease threats to the self” (p. 305). When social and economic times are more threatening, song lyrics also have less focus on the body states and symptoms and fewer exclamation points. This finding is interesting in the context of seeking alignments with TMT and the role of music in denying death. Songs about sports involving our bodies seem to address our need for affiliation, yet songs about our bodily states and symptoms are avoided. Although Pettijohn and Sacco did not make this connection in their analysis, it raises the possibility that when mortality is salient we avoid songs that are reminders of our bodies—our creatureliness.

So far, the research suggests that songs and song lyrics aid in invoking nostalgia and social connectedness, which implies a tangential role for music in strengthening mechanisms for terror management. Kneer and Rieger (2015) examined music more closely in an effort to discover music’s role in buffering mortality salience. In the first study of heavy metal fans (N = 30), they measured activation of cultural worldviews following mortality salience. Subjects wrote essays describing their feelings regarding their own death, and then either listened to heavy metal songs (experimental condition) or an audio book with no music (control condition). Cultural worldview was measured pre- and post-condition. They found that metal fans in the control condition needed to activate their cultural worldview, but those in the experimental condition did not. They examined self-esteem in a second study of heavy metal fans (n = 20) and nonfans (n = 20). They measured subjects’ self-esteem pre- and post-condition, once again using heavy metal listening (experimental) or audio book (control) following a mortality salience essay. They found that fans in the control condition and all nonfans (regardless of experimental or control condition) demonstrated a need to increase their self-esteem.

Kneer and Rieger (2015) conclude that heavy metal music for fans – those who identify themselves with that music genre as their subculture – buffers against mortality salience. They further suggest that anyone’s favorite music could serve as a buffer to mortality salience. They note that when a music genre serves as part of an individual’s identity and provides a cultural worldview, it makes determining what genre serves an existential function individually determined. Kneer and Rieger state that “Other music genres might serve as an MS [mortality salience] buffer as well, but only if they form a part of a music-related social identity” (p. 11). The researchers also note that nostalgia prompted by the music and lyrical content could have influenced their results.

These researchers primarily examined song lyrics, and even when listening to songs was a part of the study, they avoided a context of rhythm, melody, dynamics, or other musical elements that aid in communicating the text. This approach dilutes claims that music is the mitigating factor for affecting individuals’ attitudes toward outgroups, invoking nostalgia and contributing to self-esteem, and promoting group connectedness. Music it seems is the mediator of the message.

Conclusions

Becker’s ideas and TMT agree that the existential threat of death underlies human behavior and that we ameliorate mortality salience primarily through culture, as well as self-esteem and affiliation mechanisms. “The fact that people in every known culture have invested considerable time, effort, and emotion in artistic activity suggests that it is not an occasional or incidental occupation; rather, it is central to the lives of individuals and societies” (Landau et al., 2010, p. 115). The centrality of music in culture (Mithen, 2006) prompted this review of literature to catalogue what we know empirically about music’s role in terror management. This review sought to answer the questions: What role does music play in this existential struggle? How does understanding music’s role in mitigating death anxiety inform the research and practice of those in the music and social psychology fields?

Greenberg and Arndt (2011) note that humankind’s urgent desire to deny or transcend death has been the subject of well-known philosophers and expressed throughout history in visual art, music, and film. TMT provides a unique lens to critique such expressions. The use of TMT in film analysis revealed that films with death themes could provide a safe window through which to examine death, making the confrontation palpable and palatable (Bassett, 2009). It also shows how mortality salience prompts individuals to engage in immortality projects and bolster self-esteem (Davis & Crane, 2015). Applying a similar lens to music may be fruitful in discovering how music, like film, may help humans construct a relationship with death. Historical research of composers and/or performers of death-related music works (e.g., requiem, tragic opera, wailing songs, funeral processionals) through the lens of Becker’s ideas and TMT may add another dimension to our understanding.

Research in the domains of creativity and meaning in art highlights the importance of music making and music education. Landau et al.’s (2006) findings indicate that arts education may serve as more than “appreciation” for students and may in fact give them the vocabulary and experiences necessary to imbue “meaningless” art with meaning. Perhaps music appreciation courses, concert lectures, and program notes equip individuals with the necessary mechanisms for making music meaningful by reducing the force of mortality salience induced by perceived meaningless music.

The research of art preferences implies that music preferences may be biased toward music created and performed by someone famous (Greenberg et al., 2010; Landau et al., 2006) or for music that represents a cultural worldview (Beck et al., 2010). The finding that attributing art to someone famous resulted in more favorable opinions of that art suggests the importance of identifying a composer or an arranger’s fame in his or her historical time period. Highlighting famous others as they relate to hearing or studying music that is new to the listener may enhance the experience. Furthermore, music with words, titles, or program and/or liner notes may aid listeners in finding meaning in music that might otherwise be perceived as meaningless.

To escape death, we engage in immortality projects that promise symbolic immortality. Composing music that will be played long after our death or achieving fame through our performances of other works are examples of music-related immortality projects. Participating in the immortality projects of long-dead individuals may also serve a death-denial function for the audience and performers. Although we may be excited to celebrate new music and music composed by living artists, this type of music may also threaten us in its newness and lead us to hoping for its future inclusion in a canon of works that will assuage that threat. These issues add to the conversation for those who lament the programming and teaching of the same major musical works year after year.

Becker and others noted the problem of creativity as an act of individuation that results in seeking approval from others to mitigate the existential threat. The desire for fame (Routledge et al., 2008) and creative immortality projects (Xu, 2006; Xu & Brucks, 2011) serve as death anxiety buffers. Music psychologists should replicate such studies with a focus on creating music to discover the role of self-esteem through the lens of TMT in music composing and improvisation. Further study may confirm the importance of music teachers working to ensure sufficient group approval of the final creative music product and provide for community-directed music projects versus individually-directed projects.

From the research of songs, the role of music in terror management further emerges. Although songs provide mortality salience (Bodner & Gilboa, 2009; Kneer & Rieger, 2015), they also provide the mechanism to mitigate death anxiety including invoking nostalgia (Bodner & Gilboa, 2009; Cheung et al., 2013), promoting social connectedness (Bodner & Gilboa, 2009; Cheung et al., 2013; Kneer & Rieger, 2015), and providing a means to express one’s personal identity and cultural worldview (Kneer & Rieger, 2015). Research suggests that educators and performers should be cautious about teaching and performing music with strong identity connections for their students or audience. When music is integral to an individual’s cultural worldview, listening to it buffers death anxiety, even if the music makes mortality salient. Kneer and Rieger’s (2015) study emphasizes that music-related worldviews are individualized, further highlighting a problem for educators and performers when selecting music that may prompt or buffer mortality salience. Music that has reminders of death, like heavy metal and Israeli crisis songs, may not prompt the negative effects of death anxiety, such as denigrating the outgroup or inflicting violence. Programming and studying music with death themes may be desirable because it may provide an emotionally healthy way to explore existential fears. Furthermore, exploring music when it aligns with a cultural worldview or provides one with an expression of identity may aid rather than impede terror management.

No research examining how instrumental music or songs without words contribute to the denial of death was found in this review of literature. Goldenberg et al.’s (2006) study showed that following mortality salience, individuals avoided a pleasurable foot massage but did not avoid listening to instrumental jazz music. They conclude that providing sensations that are pleasurable and allow us to live in the symbolic world may contribute to an individual’s wellbeing. Even though the study’s music connection is an inadvertent one, it begs the question of whether affording individuals opportunities to listen to instrumental music aids in mitigating the negative responses of mortality salience.

Given two decades of empirical support for Becker’s ideas, it is worthwhile to consider that mortality salience, like music, is ubiquitous in the present world. We experience frequent media reports of tragic events of terrorism, mass shootings, and hate crimes (Davis & Crane, 2015). These reminders of death, as well as threats to developing positive self-esteem and finding personal meaning in this world, suggest the relevance of examining the role of music in aiding or impinging on a seemingly universal existential threat. “From a TMT standpoint,” Landau et al. (2010) explain, “art functions in large part to buffer mortality concerns by bolstering faith in the socially shared systems of meaning and personal value that imbue life with death-transcending significance” (p. 118). To date, however, these claims remain mostly unsubstantiated. Other than Kneer and Reiger (2015) few empirical studies exist that examine this problem directly as it relates to music.

These conclusions suggest future research projects to address questions such as: Does instrumental music buffer the effects of mortality salience more readily than songs do? Does creating music for community benefits mitigate mortality concerns? How does the denial of death inform those who aim to improve music education or audience reception to new music? Barenboim (2009) and Cross (2003) echo Becker’s (Kramer, 2007) description of musicians as the “most repressed.” Dissanayake (2009) theorizes an existential function of music, and Schäfer et al. (2013) intimate some support for this idea embedded in their dimensions of music-listening functions. Empirical examination of the position that music aids in the denial of death would benefit music education and psychology fields. Such study would likely require that researchers address the music processes of creating (i.e., composing and improvising) and performing, as well as listening. Interdisciplinary investigations using varied methodology are necessary to determine the explanatory power of TMT and the role of death in life through music.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

Barenboim

(2009). Music quickens time. New York, NY: Verso.

Bassett

J. F.

(2009). Death and magic in Clive Barker’s “Lord of Illusions”: A Terror Management perspective. Studies in Popular Culture, 32(1), 67–78.

Beck

McGregor

Woodrow

Haugen

Killion

(2010). Death, art, and The Fall: A terror management view of Christian aesthetic judgments. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 29, 301–307.

Becker

(1971). The birth and death of meaning: An interdisciplinary perspective on the problem of man (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Free Press.

Becker

(1973). The denial of death. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Blacking

(1995). Music, culture, & experience: Selected papers of John Blacking. London, UK: University of Chicago Press.

Bodner

Gilboa

(2009). On the power of music to affect intergroup relations. Musicae Scientiae, 23(1), 85–115.

Campbell

P. S.

Connell

Beegle

(2007). Adolescents’ expressed meanings of music in and out of school. Journal of Research in Music Education, 55(3), 220–236.

Cheung

Wildschut

Sedikides

Hepper

E. G.

Arndt

Vingerhoets

J. J. M.

(2013). Back to the future: Nostalgia increases optimism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(1), 1484–1496.

10.

Cox

Arndt

(2006). The theory. On University of Missouri-Columbia Terror Management Theory [Website]. Retrieved from http://www.tmt.missouri.edu

11.

Cozzolino

P. J.

Staples

A. D.

Meyers

L. S.

Samboceti

(2004). Greed, death, and values: From terror management to transcendence management theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(3), 278–292.

12.

Cross

(2003). Music and biocultural evolution. In Middleton

(Ed.), The cultural study of music (pp. 21–30). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group.

13.

Davis

C. S.

Crane

J. L.

(2015). A dialogue with (un)death: Horror films as a discursive attempt to construct a relationship with the dead. Journal of Loss and Trauma: International Perspectives on Stress & Coping, 20(5), 417–429.

14.

Dissanayake

(2009). Root, leaf, blossom, or bole: Concerning the origin and adaptive function of music. In Malloch

Trevarthen

(Eds.), Communiciative musicality (pp. 17–30). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

15.

Firth

(1996). Music and identity. In Hall

du Gay

(Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 108–127). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

16.

Floros

(2013). Ligetis Le Grand Macabre. Musik Und Asthetik, 17(68), 24–31.

17.

Goldenberg

J. L.

Hart

Pyszczynski

Warnica

G. M.

Landau

Thomas

(2006). Ambivalence toward the body: Death, neuroticism, and the flight form physical sensation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1264–1277.

18.

Goldenberg

Heflick

Vaes

Motyl

Greenberg

(2009). Of mice and men, and objectified women: A terror management account of infra-humanization. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 12, 763–776.

19.

Greenberg

(2008). Understanding the vital human quest for self-esteem. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), 48–55.

20.

Greenberg

Arndt

(2011). Terror management theory. In Van Lange

Kruglanski

A. W.

Higgins

T. T.

(Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology: Volume 1 (pp. 399–414). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

21.

Greenberg

Kosloff

(2008). Terror management theory: Implications for understanding prejudice, stereotyping, intergroup conflict, and political attitudes. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(5), 1881–1894.

22.

Greenberg

Kosloff

Solomon

Cohen

Landau

(2010). Toward understanding the fame game: The effect of mortality salience on appeal to fame, self and identity. Self and Identity, 9(1), 1–18.

23.

Greenberg

Pyszczynski

Solomon

(1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In Baumeister

R. F.

(Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.

24.

Greenberg

Solomon

Pyszczynski

Rosenblatt

Burling

Lyon

… Pinel

(1992). Why do people need self-esteem? Converging evidence that self-esteem serves an anxiety-buffering function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(6), 913–922.

25.

Harris

D. A.

(2009). The paradox of expressing speechless terror: Ritual liminality in the creative arts therapies’ treatment of posttraumatic distress. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 36, 94–104.

26.

James

(1958). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. New York, NY: Mentor. (Original work published 1902)

27.

Janssen

Dechesne

Van Knippenberg

(1999). The psychological importance of youth culture: A terror management approach. Youth and Society, 31(2), 152–167.

28.

Johnson

S. L.

Ballister

Joiner

T. E.

Jr. (2005). Hypomanic vulnerability, terror management, and materialism. Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 287–296.

29.

Kasser

Sheldon

K. M.

(2000). Of wealth and death: Materialism, mortality salience, and consumption behavior. Psychological Science, 11(4), 348–351.

30.

Kneer

Rieger

(2015). The memory remains: How heavy metal fans buffer against the fear of death. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Advance online publication. doi: https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1037/ppm0000072

31.

Kierkegaard

(1957). The concept of dread ( Lawrie

, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: University Press. (Original work published 1844)

32.

Kramer

(2007). The journals of Ernest Becker, 1964–1969. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 47, 430–473.

33.

Landau

M. J.

Greenberg

Solomon

Pyszczynski

Martens

(2006). Windows into nothingness: Terror management, meaninglessness, and negative reactions to modern art. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 879–892.

34.

Landau

M. J.

Sullivan

Solomon

(2010). On graven images: A terror management analysis of the psychological functions of art. European Review of Social Psychology, 21(1), 114–154.

35.

Maier

(2011). Coping with fiction: Aesthetic experiences with stories as a form of terror management (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. (AAT 894436943)

36.

McGregor

Lieberman

J. D.

Solomon

Greenberg

Arndt

Simon

Pyszczynski

(1998). Terror management and aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview threatening others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 590–605.

37.

Merriam

A. P.

(1964). The anthropology of music. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

38.

Mithen

(2006). The singing Neanderthals: The origins of music, language, mind, and body. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

39.

Mikulincer

Florian

Hirschberger

(2003). The existential function of close relationships: Introducing death into the science of love. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7(1), 20–40.

40.

Nettl

(2015). The study of ethnomusicology: Thirty-three discussions (3rd ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

41.

Pettijohn

T. F.

Sacco

D. F.

(2009). The language of lyrics: An analysis of popular Billboard songs across conditions of social and economic threat. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 28, 297–311.

42.

Pyszczynski

Greenberg

Solomon

(1997). Why do we need what we need? A terror management perspective on the roots of human social motivation. Psychological Inquiry, 8, 1–21.

43.

Pyszczynski

Greenberg

Solomon

(1998). A terror management perspective on the psychology of control: Controlling the uncontrollable. In Kofta

Weary

Sedek

(Eds.), Personal control in action: Cognitive and motivational mechanisms (pp. 85–108). New York, NY: Plenum.

44.

Rosenblatt

Greenberg

Solomon

Pyszczynski

Lyon

(1989). The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(4), 681–690.

45.

Routledge

Arndt

Vess

Sheldon

K. M.

(2008). The life and death of creativity: The effects of mortality salience on self versus social-directed creative expression. Motivation and Emotion, 32(4), 331–338.

46.

Schäfer

Sedlmeier

Städtler

Huron

(2013). The psychological functions of music listening. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 511, 1–33. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00511

47.

Solomon

Greenberg

Pysczcynski

(2004). The cultural animal: Twenty years of terror management theory and research. In Greenberg

Koole

S. L.

Pysczcynski

(Eds.), The handbook of experimental existential psychology (pp. 13–34). New York, NY: Guilford.

48.

Solomon

Greenberg

Pyszczynski

(2015). On the role of death in life: The worm at the core. New York, NY: Random House.

49.

Starcevic

(2013). Gustav Mahler as Freud’s patient: A note on possible obstacles to communication and understanding. Australasian Psychiatry, 21(3), 271–275.

50.

Stein

(2004). Music, mourning, and consolation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 52(3), 783–811.

51.

Sullivan

Greenberg

(2006). Becker (and Bogie) at the movies, 4: Sacrifice as immortality vehicle in classic Hollywood films. Ernest Becker Foundation Newsletter, 13(4), 2–4.

52.

Sullivan

Greenberg

Landau

M. J.

(2010). Toward a new understanding of two films from the dark side: Terror management theory applied to Rosemary’s Baby and Straw Dogs. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 37, 42–51.

53.

Varwig

(2010). Death and Life in J. S. Bach’s Cantata Ich habe genung (BWV 82). Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 135(2), 315–356. doi:10.1080/02690403.2010.506271

54.

Vail

K. E.

Juhl

Arndt

Vess

Routledge

Rutjens

B. T.

(2012). When death is good for life: Considering the positive trajectories of terror management. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(4), 303–329.

55.

(2006). I won’t live on, so I create: Mortality salience and afterlife belief strength’s impact on intention to engage in creation-oriented consumption (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. (AAT 3221410)

56.

Brucks

M. L.

(2011). Are neurotics really more creative? Neuroticism’s interaction with mortality salience in determining creative interest. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 33, 88–99.