Jeff Greenberg – Terror Management Theory

Episode 30: Jeff Greenberg is a Social Psychologist and a Regents Professor at the University of Arizona. He is one of the three developers of Terror Management Theory (TMT) alongside Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski. In 2015, they authored The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Based on the works of Ernest Becker, TMT aims to explain why we feel death anxiety and how we manage this fear by creating meaning in our day-to-day lives. How do we attempt to deny death? In this episode, we do a deep dive into TMT and how it has shaped the world around us. Why does history have so much conflict? Why do we defend our worldviews so strongly? How has technology impacted how we cope with death? How honest are we with ourselves about our own motivations? All this and more with Jeff Greenberg.