Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes psychological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat, which in extreme cases of fear can be a freeze response. The fear response is also implicated in a number of mental disorders, particularly anxiety disorders.
Ernest Becker was an American cultural anthropologist and author of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death.
Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequently overlaps with the related subgenre of psychological thriller, and often uses mystery elements and characters with unstable, unreliable, or disturbed psychological states to enhance the suspense, horror, drama, tension, and paranoia of the setting and plot and to provide an overall creepy, unpleasant, unsettling, or distressing atmosphere.
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of psychohistory.
Culture of fear is the concept which describes the pervasive feeling of fear in a given group, often due to actions taken by leaders. The term was popularized by Frank Furedi and has been more recently popularized by the American sociologist Barry Glassner.
The Denial of Death is a 1973 book by American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker which discusses the psychological and philosophical implications of how people and cultures have reacted to the concept of death. The author argues most human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death.
Terror management theory (TMT) is both a social and evolutionary psychology theory originally proposed by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski and codified in their book The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (2015). It proposes that a basic psychological conflict results from having a self-preservation instinct while realizing that death is inevitable and to some extent unpredictable. This conflict produces terror, which is managed through a combination of escapism and cultural beliefs that act to counter biological reality with more significant and enduring forms of meaning and value—basically countering the personal insignificance represented by death with the significance provided by symbolic culture.
Emre Sahin is a Turkish film and television director in Los Angeles, California and Istanbul, Turkey. Sahin is an experienced director, cinematographer and editor whose award-winning short film Canta won Best Cinematography at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, Audience Choice Award at the West Chester Film Festival, Best Foreign Short at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and was named the Best Film of 2005 by Turkuaz magazine. Palm Springs Festival of Shorts and Rhode Island International Film Festival chose Canta as part of their Best of the Festival, a touring showcase of the festivals top films from each category. In addition, Canta is the official selection of over 30 additional film festivals around the world, from India to Ireland to Italy.
David Robert Loy is an American scholar and author, and teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage of Japanese Zen Buddhism.
Mississippi Cold Case is a 2007 feature documentary produced by David Ridgen of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about the Ku Klux Klan murders of two 19-year-old black men, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, in Southwest Mississippi in May 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Summer. It also explores the 21st-century quest for justice by the brother of Moore. The documentary won numerous awards as a documentary and for its investigative journalism.
Patrick Shen is a Chinese writer, director, and producer. Shen is the founder of Transcendental Media.
Jeff Greenberg is a social psychology professor at the University of Arizona. He is notable for coining the concept of Terror Management Theory, with two of his colleagues, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski.
Tom Pyszczynski is an American social psychologist. He is notable, together with Jeff Greenberg and Sheldon Solomon, for founding the field of Terror Management Theory (TMT). TMT is a theory that is based on the writings of Ernest Becker, along with other existential thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Otto Rank, and Heidegger. At the heart of TMT is the notion that human beings have a unique capacity for self-awareness, which makes them realize that death is inevitable. This realization, which conflicts with people's instinctive need for self-preservation, gives rise to a potential for existential anxiety, or terror, that is greater than that in other animals. To manage this potential for terror, people have constructed cultural worldviews, which assure people of either a literal form of afterlife or a symbolic form of death transcendence. When people live up to the standards implied by their cultural worldviews, they attain a sense of positive self-esteem. Thus, TMT suggests that one major psychological function of self-esteem lies in protecting people against existential anxiety. TMT was explicitly formulated to be open to empirical testing. Indeed, since TMT was first conceived in the 1980s, the theory has inspired hundreds of experiments that were designed to test core ideas of TMT. For instance, in support of TMT, many experiments have shown that reminding people of their own mortality leads people to defend their cultural worldviews more vigorously. For instance, people who are briefly reminded of death are more dismissive of someone who criticizes their culture.
Mortality salience is the awareness that one's death is inevitable.
Death anxiety is anxiety caused by thoughts of one's own death, and is also known as thanatophobia. Individuals affected by this kind of anxiety experience challenges and adversities in many aspects of their lives. Death anxiety is different from necrophobia, which refers to an irrational or disproportionate fear of dead bodies or of anything associated with death. Death anxiety has been found to affect people of differing demographic groups as well, such as men versus women, young versus old, etc. Different cultures can manifest aspects of death anxiety in differing degrees.
The Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Providence, Rhode Island, which features a wide variety of horror, sci-fi, and thriller films, as well as documentaries, from the United States and around the world. Founded in 2000, as one of several "festival sidebars" of the Rhode Island International Film Festival, it is the largest and longest-running horror film festival in New England.
Death and adjustment hypotheses (DAH) is a theory about death and dying that focuses on death anxiety and adjustment to death. It was presented by Mohammad Samir Hossain as an answer to the overwhelming anxiety and grief about death. In an attempt to find the resolution to death anxiety, predominantly the existential one, DAH postulates two key themes. Its first part postulates that death should not be considered the end of existence and the second part emphasizes that the belief in immortal pattern of human existence can only be adopted in a morally rich life with the attitude towards morality and materialism balanced mutually.
Anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT) is an application of terror management theory to explain an individual's reaction to a traumatic event, which leads to post traumatic stress disorder. Terror management theory posits that humans, unlike any other organism, are uniquely aware that death is the inevitable outcome of life. When thoughts of death are made salient, such as when a terrorist attack carries those thoughts into the level of consciousness, humans are subject to debilitating anxiety unless it can be "buffered." Humans respond to the anxiety and dread mortality salience produces by clinging to their cultural worldview, through self-esteem and also close personal relationships. Cultural worldviews, with their cultural norms, religious beliefs and moral values infuse life with meaning. They give life a feeling of normalcy and also a feeling of control. There is no way to definitely prove one's cultural worldview, there they are fragile human constructs and must be maintained. Clinging to a cultural worldview and self-esteem buffer the anxiety connected to thoughts of mortality. When thoughts of death are salient, humans are drawn to their cultural world view which "stipulates appropriate social requirements, and standards for valued conduct, while instilling one's life with meaning, order and permanence."
Psychological drama, or psychodrama, is a subgenre of drama and psychological fiction literatures that generally focuses upon the emotional, mental, and psychological development of the protagonists and other characters within the narrative, which is highlighted by the drama. It is widely known as one of the main subgenres of psychological fiction; the subgenre is commonly used for films and television series.
The Scrooge effect is a psychological phenomenon that describes a noticeable behavioural change in individuals towards increased generosity and altruism following encounters with mortality or existential dread. It emphasizes that the realization of mortality motivates individuals to embrace cultural values and engage in activities that provide significance and transcendence beyond the concept of death. Corresponding to the terror management theory, the Scrooge effect proposes that existential apprehension can stimulate positive shifts in behavior. Individuals may prioritize acts of kindness and philanthropy as coping mechanisms to grapple with mortality and reaffirm their sense of purpose. Empirical studies suggest that personal adversities such as severe illness, financial adversity, or the bereavement of a loved one can instigate pro-social conduct, fostering sentiments of generosity and empathy. The Scrooge effect offers a conceptual framework within psychology to examine the determinants influencing altruistic behaviors and the underlying mechanisms driving transformative experiences.
