Human Behavior Designed to Avoid Thoughts of Death:
“Like all good social psychologists, Jamie Arndt has more than a few ideas about ways people think and behave. Specifically, he and some of his colleagues in the department of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia seek to understand why people work so hard to feel good about themselves. The answer, they believe, can be found in an overriding fear of death.

“Only humans have the fine-tuned cognitive ability to fully realize the inevitability of their own mortality,” Arndt said.

This ability to ponder the inevitability of death, however, doesn’t necessarily translate into thoughtful consideration and acceptance of it. Instead, as Arndt and his colleagues argue, people develop sophisticated behavioral systems that are designed to help them avoid thinking about dying. A subtle reminder of the inevitability of death, even for people who are otherwise psychologically healthy, can create the potential for extreme anxiety, even terror. People struggle to manage the onset or possibility of this terror.” Newswise. Wasn’t this the point Ernest Becker made in the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning Denial of Death?