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Abstract Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Koole, S. L. (in press). Experimental existential psychology. In Gilbert, D. T. & Fiske, S. T. (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Why am I here? Who am I? How do I relate to other people and to nature itself? How much control do I have over my life? And what happens when life ends? These are existential questions that all people must deal with, sometimes through reasoned conscious deliberations, but often through unconscious mechanisms that keep these issues from being too bothersome. A new generation of psychologists was unwilling to accept the impossibility of scientific inquiry into existential concerns, leading to the gradual emergence of experimental existential psychology (XXP; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Koole, 2004). This chapter will provide a survey of the current state of this emerging discipline. Koole, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski (2006) noted five basic issues that are the focus of most contemporary XXP work: How do people cope with knowledge of their own mortality, the possibility that life is meaningless, the uncertain nature of self and identity, the limitations of knowing and being known by others, and constraints on and possibilities of freedom to choose? This chapter discusses recent theory and research on each of these Big Five existential concerns.
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