Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology

by Jeff Greenberg (Editor), Sander L. Koole (Editor), Tom Pyszczynski (Editor)

Social and personality psychologists traditionally have focused their attention on the most basic building blocks of human thought and behavior, while existential psychologists pursued broader, more abstract questions regarding the nature of existence and the meaning of life. This volume bridges this longstanding divide by demonstrating how rigorous experimental methods can be applied to understanding key existential concerns, including death, uncertainty, identity, meaning, morality, isolation, determinism, and freedom. Bringing together leading scholars and investigators, the Handbook presents the influential theories and research findings that collectively are helping to define the emerging field of experimental existential psychology.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

528 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Jeff Greenberg, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology and a College of Science Fellow at the University of Arizona. As a small child growing up in the Bronx, he was very curious about the human propensities for vanity and prejudice. Jeff majored in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, but it wasn’t until he took social psychology in his final semester that he found a field where people where asking the questions he thought should be asked. Soon after starting a master’s program in social psychology at Southern Methodist University, he knew this was what he wanted to spend his life studying and teaching. After receiving his M.A., Jeff completed his Ph.D. at University of Kansas in 1982 under the mentorship of Jack Brehm. He has since received numerous research and teaching awards. His research has contributed to understanding self-serving biases, how motivation affects cognition, the effects of ethnic slurs, the role of self-awareness in depression, cognitive dissonance, and how concerns about death contribute to prejudice, self-esteem striving, and many other aspects of social behavior. Jeff has also coauthored or coedited six prior books, including the Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology and In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror.

Reviews

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fascinating

[S.M.Y Kayseri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have the conviction that many of the psychosomatic neuroses (the so-called “true”, full-blown neuroses) are perhaps originated from noogenic neurosis in its incubation period. Noogenic neuroses described a state of severe mental anxiety and angst that originated from the lack of meaning from their daily lives. This kind of neuroses, its origin are primordial, which means it is derived from people apprehension against cosmic terror; of their own destruction, death. But since the inception of modern mankind, our species were more-or-less protected from this fear of the Ginunggagap by its religious outlook. Of course, traces of religious lives can be traced even in the Lascaux paintings, and even in the ramblings of Voltaire or the fevered incantation of a Nietszche. From the primordial Mother Earth, to the logical positivism or closet agnosticism of today people. People do not cast away gods, they merely changed them.

The origin of these cosmic terror, the death anxiety can be traced at the moment of birth of a person, or even before its very birth. Fetuses do understand anxiety and stress, evidenced by them shedding meconium intrauterine in respond to maternal factors. During their descent in the birth canal, they faced an extremely traumatic situation; that of seperation from the eternal nourishing Mother and the physically constricting cavern. And when they were born, the babe were completely helpless and dependent to the mother, different from the rest of the animals, whose child can at least ambulate.

Jung noted on how a human infant behaves in a certain way, and their behavior are uniquely human. Surely they did not learn from their primitive senses; experiments shown babies inherently understand some notions of physics and ethics (try to take a doll your child does not like and pretend the doll to kiss you, and you kissed the doll too and try to give it to your baby). Here lies the objectivity of psychology; a hammer to counter the skepticism that psychiatry is a subjective non-scientific field. The child is born with inherent knowledge, perhaps expressed from their genetic database, to display certain cognitive readiness to match the external world with their plastic inner framework. And their plastic inner framework can be symbolized through symbols or images; infants project the symbolism of a nurturer to an external agent that provides them so. And among the manifold symbols, the infant learnt that the opposite of their nurturer is the destruction of their helpless self; the darkness, the cosmic terror, death. And here lies the seed of death anxiety underlies human behavior.

Why do we strive for something beyond us? Why we never suffice with just basic needs of food, water and shelter? Even among the incels of America, they soothed themselves with something extraneous aside from themselves, in the form of computer games, or Jordan Peterson. Why do we moved by bittersweet pangs of the need for companionship? Even in our failures, we still made the “if we reached 30 years old and not married…” pact with our platonic friends. For what reason?

This striving for Otherness, is none other to protect ourselves from the glaring death anxiety. If I do not propagate, if I do not seek, then the only Other would be the inevitable Death. I wanted a relationship, so its ambrosia sublimates me from the daily hustle. I wanted to contribute something academically, dreamt of a Nobel, so I can make a bet for immortality. To believe that I am immortal, to experience the transcended life; this is my best bet to stifle the chasing Reaper.

This is the basis for existential psychoanalysis, that attributed neuroses or even psychoses to maladaptive adjustments against the death anxiety. Our incessant quest for the immortal Grail might converted us to workaholicsm or narcissism (a process called as emergence), or our overwhelming terror against the inevitably might conribute to borderline, or dependent personality organization (in a process called as fusion). The psychogenesis of these two process can be traced back to the infantile years, when the child can be observed to believe in his own personal indestructibility (“only old people can die”) and the presence of their nurturers (“boys will always be mommy’s boys”).

In this handbook, provided were numerous studies that empirically supported the theory behind existential psychoanalysis, under the umbrella of terror management system. Terror management system also included an important dimension in existential psychoanalysis, that of meaning. It is shown that exposure to death cues exacerbates a subconscious defence of cultural bodies and values (as shown by increase in hostility against Islam in studies amongst American respondents, after being exposed with subliminal death cues). Thus meaning in a way is conceived by how far we conform to these cultural bodies that guarantees our self-esteem by their value-judgments in certain things (wealth, physical attraction et cetera). We can observe that neurotic/psychotic patients mostly not really congruent to their cultural ideals (as most of them were economically, physically underprivileged amongst many others).

In clinical practice, however, this framework really helped us clinicians in honing into the deep recesses of the patient’s neuroses. I can immediately immerse myself into the uncharted territory, as I have at least possessed a piece of the map. But unfortunately, in this handbook, there’s paucity in clinical applications of the framework, which I can try to apply in my clinical practice.

I have a deep interest in psychoanalysis, especially in Jungian and existentia framework, but I confessed it is a labor-intensive work, with hit-and-miss outcome. When it hits, it really cathartic to the patient, some even showed complete lysis of their neuroses and destructive behaviors. But more than often, I am greeted by the puzzled expressions from my patients. Of course, it’s an art, and I cannot expect for it to work as miraculously as benzodiazepines, for an instance.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric highly recommends. This book is great for research. Eric highly recommends reading this for data and analytics students. Excellent for research. Eric highly recommends to guide model building.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall some chapters better than others but an interesting discussion of existential philosophy and theory and how it is proved in multiple ways with experiments. The experiments and theoretical underpinnings are as diverse as existential philosophy itself.