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Toward a comprehensive understanding of existential threat: Insights from paul tillich

Publication ,  Journal Article
Sullivan, D; Landau, MJ; Kay, AC
Published in: Social Cognition
December 1, 2012

Experimental existential psychology (XXP) empirically investigates how people's motives for meaning and personal value influence their lives, and how symbolic self-awareness undergirds these motives and experienced threats to their fulfillment. The authors attempt to synthesize the insights that have already accumulated from XXP, and simultaneously point to a new direction for this field. Researchers have debated whether there is a "core threat" in human experience, but the authors propose that a more fruitful direction for research is to examine the simultaneous independence and interdependence of different existential threats. Paul Tillich's (1952) theory of existential threat is put forward as one model for understanding how a core threat to non-being (mortality) can nevertheless be experienced in proximally different forms, in terms of anxieties about meaninglessness or condemnation of the self. In addition to presenting Tillich's theory, the authors make several concrete suggestions for how future research in XXP should proceed. © 2012 Guilford Publications, Inc.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Social Cognition

DOI

ISSN

0278-016X

Publication Date

December 1, 2012

Volume

30

Issue

6

Start / End Page

734 / 757

Related Subject Headings

  • Social Psychology
  • Political Science & Public Administration
  • 5205 Social and personality psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 4408 Political science
  • 2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
  • 1606 Political Science
 

Citation

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Sullivan, D., Landau, M. J., & Kay, A. C. (2012). Toward a comprehensive understanding of existential threat: Insights from paul tillich. Social Cognition, 30(6), 734–757. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2012.30.6.734
Sullivan, D., M. J. Landau, and A. C. Kay. “Toward a comprehensive understanding of existential threat: Insights from paul tillich.” Social Cognition 30, no. 6 (December 1, 2012): 734–57. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2012.30.6.734.
Sullivan D, Landau MJ, Kay AC. Toward a comprehensive understanding of existential threat: Insights from paul tillich. Social Cognition. 2012 Dec 1;30(6):734–57.
Sullivan, D., et al. “Toward a comprehensive understanding of existential threat: Insights from paul tillich.” Social Cognition, vol. 30, no. 6, Dec. 2012, pp. 734–57. Scopus, doi:10.1521/soco.2012.30.6.734.
Sullivan D, Landau MJ, Kay AC. Toward a comprehensive understanding of existential threat: Insights from paul tillich. Social Cognition. 2012 Dec 1;30(6):734–757.
Journal cover image

Published In

Social Cognition

DOI

ISSN

0278-016X

Publication Date

December 1, 2012

Volume

30

Issue

6

Start / End Page

734 / 757

Related Subject Headings

  • Social Psychology
  • Political Science & Public Administration
  • 5205 Social and personality psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 4408 Political science
  • 2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
  • 1606 Political Science