BECKER,ERNEST AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WORLDVIEWS

Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski offer experimenta l confirmation for Ernest Becker's claim that the fear of death is a p owerful unconscious motive producing polarized worldviews and scapegoa ting. Their suggestion that their findings also prove Sigmund Freud's theory of repression, with worldviews as its irrational products, is q uestionable, although Becker's own statements about worldviews as ''il lusions'' seem to invite such interpretation. Their basic theory does not depend on this, however, and abandoning it would enable them to ta ke better advantage of their finding that worldviews incorporating the values of rationality and tolerance tend to counteract polarization e ffects.