Self-objectification and TMT

Terror Management is all about how humans fear or do not fear death and the anxiety that comes along with dying.  Observing all of the research done in this lab, a lot of the studies involve death in different ways.  From people’s perceptions about their health to existential isolation, and to studying how suicidal people view death.  My minor is Women Gender and Sexuality studies and one of the courses I am in at the moment is the psychology of women and gender.  As I was reading the textbook for that class I was pleasantly surprised to see Terror Management Theory mentioned in the psychology of women and gender textbook.  The way they had applied the theory was really interesting to me, and something that I had never thought of.

It was mentioning why the objectification of women occurs.  Objectification is when a person (usually a woman)  is viewed not as a human being but as an object that is there for others to observe; this can be very degrading.  This intertwines with objectification theory which is when women who live in a society that constantly views them as objects, are subject to harm.  Which can lead to self-objectification which is when a person begins to objectify themselves. To see if they are obeying society’s norms of beauty standards.   But how does this all involve Terror Management Theory?

The textbook states that people may strive for these unrealistic beauty standards and self-objectify to reduce death anxiety. For example, the ideal woman in western society is someone who is young, wrinkled, hairless, and beautiful.  This person is more of a statue than a real person, but being a woman is a very real experience.  Women breastfeed, menstruate, and eventually go through menopause, and they age, and they wrinkle even though society believes a woman should look young fever.  All of these very natural processes though, may lead to death anxiety and remind women that  they are beings that will die. So, this cultural practice of holding on to youth, and self-objectifying oneself, really may just be a way to protect against the anxiety that comes along with dying. 

When I read this, I thought it was a sort of bizarre way to explain why women self-objectify.  I would have possibly identified reasons such as, we live in a patriarchy where the media places impossible standards on women, and there is constant pressure to live up to these standards to reap the benefits of society.  But I suppose if women view themselves as objects it would help manage death anxiety, because after all, objects are immortal. 

 Liss, M., Richmond, K., & Erchull, M. J. (2019). Psychology of women and gender. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

The Bucket List

As the only communication major in the lab, TMT was a new theory I did not know existed until I signed up to take the lab course and run the lab social media. This has provided me with the opportunity to post other lab members’ blog posts, and has given me the pleasure to learn more about TMT in the process and how it has impacted them in some way. So, based on what I have learned, it is now my turn! 

When I think of how TMT applies to my life, I find myself thinking about my last year of college. When the pandemic hit around this time last year, I thought about all that had been taken away from me and from my college experience. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to friends I wouldn’t see again until fall semester, didn’t get to go to my sorority formal, and didn’t get to enjoy a beautiful day out on the quad one last time before going back home for the summer. Because of this, I have spent the last year or so creating a “Graduation Bucket List” of all of the things I wished to accomplish before graduating this May. On the surface, this bucket list was created simply to make the most of my last year and leave JMU after graduating without any regrets or feeling like I missed out on any college experiences. But, it is much more than that. Relating it to TMT, the theory tells us that to cope with our inevitable death, we do things to comfort ourselves, whether that be relying on religion and/or a belief in an afterlife, making connections and being part of something bigger than ourselves, living life to the fullest, or all of the above. 

TMT explains the true reason why I made this bucket list; in an extreme example, if tomorrow I were to be diagnosed with terminal cancer and told I only have three months left to live, I would want to spend that time making the most out of my life. I would want to check off everything on my bucket list so that on my deathbed, I could reflect and say that there’s not a thing I missed out on and that I can look back with no regrets. While I am not terminally ill, nor on my deathbed, after I graduate JMU, I want to be able to reflect on my college years as being full of fun memories and some of the best years of my life. 

Ultimately, the thought of not living life to the fullest is perhaps what scares me most about dying, and faith helps me cope with the rest. Whether or not I check everything off of my senior year bucket list will not matter in the grand scheme of things, but it helps me cope with the moment and the uncertainty of the future, so why not enjoy everything while I’m still here? 

Katherine Weiss

Public Relations

Class of 2021

Death vs. Dying

Do we fear death or do we fear dying? For me, these are two very distinct things that I have learned through experience have different answers. Some may think the process of dying is the same as the experience of death and they may barely differentiate the two. But to me at least, the biggest difference is that our own death does not affect us, it affects those around us. Dying, however, although it also affects those around you, in the end… that’s all you.

Let’s take a step back for a minute and look around, really evaluate our lives. From the second we are born, we are forming human connections, attachments and identities. We immediately have things to lose, things to gain and accomplish, responsibilities and expectations. Until we are a bit older, we have no control over becoming who we are. At what point do we notice that not everyone that has lived is still alive? At what point do we understand our own mortal saliency? For most of us, we are desensitized early to death through movies and tv shows even before we understand what death really is. Then, for a lot of us, we’ll learn more about death through our religion (if not religion, then those closest to us), but more importantly, we’ll learn how to live. How to act correctly, where to place our value and our energy, how to treat others, and how to wake up every day and value living. We learn very quickly that death is normal but nothing bad, it’s just something that happens. It’s not until we experience the loss of someone close to us or the near loss of ourselves, that we understand that it’s real. 

For the majority of my life, I had a clear identity and purpose that I knew I would spend my life pursuing. I was a musician who played flute competitively for 10 years and was very successful in music. I spent all of high school using my weekends to perform or compete. My senior year was filled with college audition after college audition and I got in everywhere. I was happy, fulfilled, had great friends and family, a great passion for music, and a clear, bright future. Everyone knew me as a flutist because that’s who I was and who I loved being! 

On July 22nd, 2017, a month after my high school graduation, all of that was ripped away. I got sick, very sick, more sick than I had ever felt in my entire life. Constant dizziness, panic attacks, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, cognitive deficits that left me unable to read or remember anything, and worst of all… the inability to breathe. I had to give up flute very quickly because I was no longer strong enough to hold it up or sacrifice enough air to keep playing. After months of trying to find help and diagnosis, I finally got diagnosed with chronic Lyme Disease along with three other tick borne illnesses. Then began a long journey of treatment, one that left me having to delay college for a year, one that left me crippled and stripped of who I once was. 

From Lyme Disease, I lost everything that once defined me. I lost friends, music, energy, my personality, even the ability to think clearly. I had completely lost my identity and there was not a clear end in sight to my illness. I was clinging to every day and praying I would make it through. In my experience, I often believed I would die. Is this realistic? Maybe not, maybe lyme disease never had any chance of killing me but that’s not the point. The point is I whole-heartedly believed I would die. And while I was surrounded by caring family and support, I was the only one without any relief or escape. When you’re trapped inside a body that used to thrive and support you and it no longer does, it’s like living with a stranger. Your mind says one thing, your body does another, and they never really agree or get used to one another because everyday is different. 

So, what went through my mind when I felt like I was dying? Well, many things, mostly fear, but also…what did my life mean? I found myself aligning more with the religious identity I was raised in, comforting myself with the idea of Heaven. I leaned greatly on my parents for support, relying on close relationships to comfort me. I thought of what I could be in the future, the things I could accomplish, the purpose I could find. All of these things helped me cope with my death anxiety and made dying feel a little less scary. 

When you feel like you’re dying (or if you are dying), I think it is scarier than death because you watch your identity slowly disappear. Whether or not I was ever near real death, I learned more about living than I did dying. I no longer place my value in what society defines as valuable but rather in how I act, how I respond to life’s events that we will all inevitably go through in one way or another. I will always be grateful that I had to build myself up from nothing because I don’t think many of us get as much of a second chance as I did. I no longer play flute, but I do so many other things that I would never have tried if I had stayed focused only on flute. I think I experience life much more fully, much more vividly and gratefully, not taking anything too seriously. Because as the old cliche goes, none of us are getting out of this alive. 

Alice Klein

Research Assistant

Class of 2022

Mortal Saliency in Lebanon

Lebanon is one of the smallest countries in the middle east with 6.8 million people currently living in it. That means it is the same size as Tennessee and smaller than the size of Virginia. In the last 2 years, the country has already faced incredible hardship through low grade infrastructure, dysfunctional electricity, water supply shortages, and inadequate waste removal leaving thousands of trash piles all over the streets.  On August 4th, 2020 a bomb was set off in the Beirut port and left 178 people dead, 6,500 injured and 300,000 people homeless. 

Being far away from a country that I was born in and still call my home has raised several questions about how individuals can cope with such deep levels of tragedy. Having been so far away from my family who was still in Lebanon on the day of the explosion I just remember an immediate need to be as close to them as possible. Suddenly friends I hadn’t talked to in months were in my every thought as I wondered about whether they or their family members were okay. More than that I wondered how they would survive this tragedy.

I wondered how my cousin would survive this tragedy after a year facing major depression in reaction to the hopelessness of the  crumbling country. Looking back on that day I realized that my own thoughts about our fragility and mortality were what was driving my fear. I was acting out upon the theory of mortal saliency in which I suddenly needed to identify with the lebanese people, with my lebanese cousins in a way I had never felt before. I felt angry at myself for being in America or for having to be kept away from where I felt I truly belonged. 

Terror management theory states that our mortal saliency forces us to search for more self-esteem. I found that I needed to be protected in some way or told that I wasn’t completely lost and drowning in the mess of that day as I watched the bomb go off again and again on the news. I needed my mom to tell me it would be alright and somehow my family could leave Lebanon for a better future than the dead end they faced by staying there. I didn’t feel the American side of my identity on that day and even felt resentment towards everyone outside of Lebanon. I felt resentment for the rest of the world who chose to turn a blind eye because of our wealthy neighbors’ military power. I felt anger for anyone who thought they understood the complexities of middle eastern politics and everyday life. In that moment, every cultural value I had was aligned with my Lebanese identity. I was my way of controlling my absolute inability to my family from the unpredictability of war. The most ironic part of it all was that I found myself culturally aligning with a country that in effect ruined itself. My mortal saliency made me blind to the corruption of the Lebanese government and the probability that they had killed their own people because of their own greed. At that moment I didn’t care if I wasn’t raised in Lebanon, lived through electricity or water outages nor had to smell the decaying trash on the streets in my daily life. It has been six months since the August explosion in Lebanon. My relatives still carry the trauma every day with them and while I will never know what that feels like. I know on that day we were all connected to our singular existence as Lebanese people.

Aya Sophie Nassif

Research Assistant

Class of 2022

Death Salience and the Partisan Divide

America is a politically polarized nation. There likely aren’t many people out there who would disagree with that statement. Political incivility is everywhere; from bumper stickers to Thanksgiving dinners, from my Twitter feed to the floor of Congress, it’s hard to find a place where American conservatives and liberals get along. Since the 1980’s, the ideological gap between the Right and Left has widened significantly, with political moderates becoming fewer and fewer. Several research studies and surveys from Pew Research Center demonstrate this, among others. Conservatives have become more conservative, liberals have become more liberal, and if these trends continue, moderates and nonpartisans may soon become an endangered species. 

 But this partisan divide is not only ideological. It’s also intensely social and emotional, with high amounts of conflict and hostility between those of differing political orientations. Hate speech gets thrown around on social media every day, with the liberals and conservatives of the Internet at each other’s throats. Pew Research Center has quantified some of this hostility by surveying thousands of Americans and finding that feelings of disgust and animosity toward the opposite political party have surged since the ‘80’s, and more people than ever before claim that the opposite party is a threat to the country. 

Yet the true threat to this country may in fact be this extreme level of partisanship in itself. Scholars and writers such as Jonathan Haidt of New York University, author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion think so. The consequences of political polarization – and hatred towards anyone on the opposite side of the political spectrum – extend beyond just making family get-togethers uncomfortable. Politically-motivated hate crime has been on the rise (Kalmoe & Mason, 2018). Americans are segregating themselves into different residential communities based on political affiliation (Florida, 2016). Congressional gridlock has stalled the passage of badly-needed legislation (Jilani & Smith, 2019). And much, much more.

This issue of American hyperpartisanship is what I decided to dig into for my senior thesis here at JMU, through the Terror Management Lab. One of the core tenets of Terror Management Theory is that death anxiety makes us identify more strongly with our social groups and our preexisting belief systems. What I wanted to investigate was whether death anxiety could be contributing to extreme political polarization, and if so, whether this contribution is primarily emotional or ideological. 

We ended up sending an online survey-based experiment to hundreds of JMU students to test my hypothesis that death anxiety, triggered by a mortality salience (MS) induction, would increase expressions of hostility towards political opponents. By random assignment, about half the participants were put in the MS condition, in which they answered a few questions about their feelings toward death, and the other half were put in the control condition, answering the same questions, but about physical pain rather than death. After that, they were all tested on their political ideologies and their feelings towards Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives. We collected all of this data in the couple of months leading up to the 2020 presidential election, which was already a time of high political tension. Based on all the previous TMT literature I had reviewed, I was expecting to see more negative feelings being expressed toward political opposites when participants were in the MS condition.

But this is not what we found. Instead, something very curious happened. The participants in the MS condition ended up expressing more positive feelings towards political opponents than participants in the control condition. Liberals expressed slightly more liking of conservatives and Republicans when in the MS condition, and conservatives expressed slightly more liking of liberals and Democrats when in the MS condition. In short, mortality salience made conservatives and liberals like each other more. 

Why?

In my eyes, this went against everything I had come to learn about Terror Management Theory, so I started to search for alternative explanations. One of those is called the “Scrooge effect,” which describes a phenomenon in which death anxiety makes people more altruistic. Just like how Ebenezer Scrooge became a kinder man after being transported into the future to visit his own grave, everyday people can be made more altruistic by reminders of death. Perhaps the kinder ratings of conservatives by liberals, and of liberals by conservatives, was a form of altruism. Similarly, it’s also possible that these kinder partisan evaluations are a form of virtue signaling, in which people make an effort to express opinions that they think will be well-received by others. Perhaps mortality salience gave participants the desire to prove themselves by demonstrating less prejudice towards opposing partisans. In essence, this is a lot like the Scrooge effect, except the virtue signaling stems more from a desire to be seen as a good person rather than from genuine, selfless altruism.

If the virtue signaling hypothesis has merit here, then it would require us to assume that participants saw it as virtuous to be kinder to those on the opposite end of the political spectrum. This makes me wonder what would happen if this same study were conducted on a more representative sample of American people rather than just college students at JMU. It’s possible that college students represent a more open-minded and tolerant population than the average American. These values of open-mindedness and tolerance may be heightened while on campus or while participating in the JMU curriculum, and mortality salience may have actually succeeded in strengthening participants’ reliance on their own belief systems, if those belief systems include such values. 

Indeed, I can’t help but feel an intention of unity while here at JMU, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though efforts are being made to keep people physically apart and safely distanced while on campus, there is still the powerful sense that as members of the JMU community, we are all working together, united against a common threat. Perhaps other students are feeling this kind of unity as well, and maybe that’s why the death reminders in this study caused students to express more liking toward those who are different from them. Whatever the reason, the MS induction in this experiment served to soften a little bit of the animosity between partisans, at least among these students. I hope that future research continues to investigate how we can reduce this animosity and bridge the gap between the Right and Left even more. The health and well-being of our country depends on it. 

Madi Sarlo – Biology & Psychology double-major, TMT lab member since Fall 2019

For further reading

Florida, R. (2016, Oct 25). America’s “Big Sort” is only getting bigger. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/how-the-big-sort-is-driving-political-polarization.

Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York, NY: Random House, Inc.

Jilani, Z., & Smith, J.A. (2019). What is the true cost of polarization in America? Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved from: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_is_the_true_cost_of_polarization_in_america.

Kalmoe, N.P., & Mason, L. (2018). Lethal mass partisanship: prevalence, correlates, and electoral contingencies. Presented at 2018 American Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.

Pew Research Center. (2014). Political polarization in the American public: How increasing ideological uniformity and partisan antipathy affect politics, compromise and everyday life. Retrieved from https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/.

Pew Research Center. (2016). Partisanship and political animosity in 2016. Retrieved from https://www.people-press.org/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/.

Pew Research Center (2019). In a politically polarized era, sharp divides in both partisan coalitions. Retrieved from https://www.people-press.org/2019/12/17/in-a-politically-polarized-era-sharp-divides-in-both-partisan-coalitions/.

Am I a Walking Coping Mechanism?

I’m not exactly sure if it was the Christian up-bringing, or the mother who was terminally ill (until she passed away when I was 6), but the question of how I felt about death has always been a “dinner table-esque” conversation. My mother’s fate was never a secret or something to be afraid of. It was just facts- she was sick, she was going to die, and she was going to go to Heaven. Unlike many people my age, I am not afraid of death. I don’t ever remember being afraid to die, and when I come across people who are I am often astounded. Why fear the inevitable? Why spend your entire life running from something you have almost no control over? Conceptually, this makes no sense to me; but as I aged, I understood that for most people death is oblivion. Death is the greatest change, the greatest unknown they would ever face, and as we all know, humans hate the uncontrollable and inconceivable. My friends used the analogy of being afraid of the dark- once you turn off the lights, anything (or nothing) could possibly happen to you, and that is something to fear

Ironically, the Terror Management Theory has called me out. The more I do my own personal research, the more I understand my “lack” of fear of death. I am not afraid to die because I have convinced myself there is nothing to be afraid of, because I have pushed myself into a world-view that will not allow me to be for my own sanity.

Again, whether you attribute that to my Christian up-bringing or dead mother, my life has not allowed me to fear death. Imagine if my mind allowed myself to fear death, how much more of an unknown my entire life would be. If I questioned death, I’d inevitably be questioning what happened to my mom once she died. She’d be floating in darkness or some hopeless, desolate unknown. That would wreck me- to think of my mom that way. If I allowed my brain to doubt my Christian view of Heaven, I’d doubt my religion and my faith- something that I consider to make up 99% of my personality and life-style. As the Terror Management Theory states, people often throw themselves into these ideas of what happens after we die, to protect their mental state while they are alive. To put it simply, I am a walking coping mechanism. I have pondered death so much that I have subconsciously convinced myself there is nothing to fear, because if there was… my entire life would be flipped. And I for one, would rather that not happen. So, although I am aware my lack of fear of death is truthfully a coping mechanism for how much I could possibly fear it, I will go about my life choosing to be ignorant. If I decided to analyze this anymore, I’d probably be a little more traumatized than I already am, and no one wants to deal with that. This has lead me to ponder what other children of dead parents feel? Is this common? Does it make us all a little less afraid of death because we’ve had to deal with it, or does it make others even more afraid of it?

• Kara Ferrell (lab newbie)

Psychedelic Existentialism

I have always been interested in helping other people. When I was in high school, I found out about a career path that would allow me to help people every day: psychology. After spending 2 years pursuing a clinically-focused undergraduate degree, I joined a couple of research labs that inspired me to dive deeper into the ever-changing field of experimental psychology. While conducting research for the Terror Management Theory lab, I took it upon myself to learn more about what might cause someone to be afraid or accept death. In my research, I found that psychedelics profoundly affected the human mind, usually for the better. After reading testimonials, I saw how these people’s minds changed over just one administration of psychedelics. They become more open to new experiences, feel a deeper connection with the Earth and those around them, have a greater appreciation for life and are less afraid of dying. I was indeed in awe of how powerful and beneficial these substances could be for everyone. The only issue: they are illegal in almost every state.
Aside from Oregon, almost every other state has declared that all psychoactive substances are too dangerous and should be illegal. When I was younger, I would have agreed with that statement, but as I have learned more about these substances’ potential benefits, I was perplexed about how they could be viewed as dangerous. Alcohol and cigarettes, two addictive and legal substances, produce more physical and psychological harm than most psychoactive substances do. The fact that the government decided that two naturally occurring psychoactive substances, cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms, should be illegal continues to baffle me to this day. I to investigate the government’s decision to make these substances illegal since I just wanted to better understand. Maybe they had a good reason. Well, what I found wasn’t exactly back by logic.
Behind the madness was a man named Harry J. Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who heard that mainly minority communities, such as blacks and Mexicans, were smoking marijuana. To justify his ban on marijuana, he claimed that it made these individuals behave violently and go insane, even though research had proved the opposite. To quote the man himself, “reefer makes darkies think they are as good as white men” and that if white women were to smoke marijuana, they would be more likely to sleep with black men. His ban was replaced with the Controlled Substances Act, which was similarly problematic, but I digress.
The overall point I am trying to make here is that psychoactive drugs are capable of saving lives. They aid in the recovery from mental illness, and they promote a sense of peace in life and acceptance of death. These substances promote living in the present moment, not thinking about tomorrow, next week, or next year. I think these substances should be available to everyone who wishes to fully live in the present moment.

Brianna Coffindaffer

TMT Lab Member since 2019

Batman and Existentialism: From his Origins to his Partners

When I was growing up, there was one thing I could never get enough of: Batman and his many sidekicks. My dad was a comic book fan, and my brother and I were quickly infected with the superhero bug. My uncle dressed up in a tacky 1960s-esque purple Batman suit for my brother’s 4th birthday. We owned a miniature model of every Batmobile. I loved reading about Robin, and watching his exploits through cartoons. It was not until I was older that I realized that death and existentialism permeated the stories of the heroes I admired, and that every member of the so-called “Batfamily” was closely acquainted with mortality. 

Most obviously, Batman’s origin story begins with the murder of 8 year old Bruce Wayne’s mother and father, with the boy witnessing them being shot and killed. From there, Bruce found his purpose in life through fighting crime, to give hope to the people of Gotham and give terror to criminals. The death of his parents was his main motivation, where his purpose stemmed from. He decided that he would never kill, because he refused to become a monster like many of his enemies. Although there have been countless different takes on Batman throughout the 80 years he has existed, this origin, and the story of good versus evil, has been consistent. 

While Bruce had found the meaning of his life within being Batman, he had noticeably low self-esteem. Although many other heroes within the DC Universe saw him as a good man throughout the popular and unproblematic stories about him, he could not. To some degree, I would argue that Bruce Wayne experienced some measure of existential isolation, that is, he felt that he was alone in a subjective experience that no one could even try to understand. After all, one of Batman’s most famous lines is “I work alone”. 

The popular narrative of Batman isolating himself and working alone starts to fall apart when Robin comes in the picture. The first Robin, Dick Grayson, has a similar experience to Batman. As a child, he witnesses his family fall to their death while performing on a trapeze, only to find out later that the line was cut. Bruce Wayne took him in and started caring for him because he didn’t want Dick to end up like him. Dick Grayson then became Robin, and gained some measure of requite for his family’s death. One thing I find interesting about the relationship between Bruce and Dick is that Dick Grayson made peace with his parents death, but throughout different narratives, Bruce did not. Their deaths are what kept him motivated, his reason to fight in the first place. 

Batman has countless other partners and sidekicks besides Dick Grayson – Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake, Duke Thomas, Cassandra Cain, Damian Wayne, just to name a few. But the one I really want to focus on is Jason Todd. Jason was not a fan favorite character at first, and his death was decided through a democratic vote of comic book fans, which I might add, is a very morbid way to kill off a 16 year old character. The validity of the telephone poll they utilized is unclear. However, Jason Todd was literally resurrected, in a comic book series where he crawled out of his own grave. Jason then went on to turn away from Batman’s values, and decided killed people who he perceived as unreachable criminals who would never be productive to society. He became an anti-hero known as the Red Hood. Number one on his hit list was the Joker, who killed him. Jason was upset that Batman allowed the Joker to live after he killed him, and refused to reconcile with Batman because of it. In this, perhaps Jason was experiencing existential isolation. He didn’t think Bruce could understand or even cared about his death and his experience afterwards, even though the man who considered him a son mourned him for years. I don’t know why I find his story so compelling – I don’t agree with Jason’s values and methods, but I suppose all humans find some interest in the macabre. 

Now, reflecting on a media and a man I admired as a child, I wonder: why was I drawn to Batman in the first place? Perhaps it was the compelling stories, the beautiful pictures, the narrative of how anyone could be a hero. Perhaps Batman reminded my subconscious about my own mortality, so I turned to something that I found meaning within: his values and beliefs. Maybe that is one of the appeals of Batman, how he has become popular: his backstory provides some measure of death salience, and then some morals and beliefs people can align themselves with. There is no Batman without loss and death. However, there is also no Batman without finding light and hope within darkness. 

Lydia Manson, Research Assistant

Spring 2021

Sense of hope?

With still being in the midst of a pandemic that has been going on for months now it can be easy for one to lose hope.  Over quarantine I started reading Everything is F*cked: A Book about Hope by Mark Manson.  Manson starts off the book by talking about life’s uncomfortable truth;  dying.  The only known truth is you and everyone you love will die. That’s just Depressing right?   Nevertheless, the only thing that allows us to go along with our days is this idea of hope.  Basically, something needs to matter in our lives because if nothing matters there is no reason to go on living.  I would have to argue that Manson is right with these claims.  I am always subconsciously hoping for things such as hoping next year will go back to normal and I can sit in carrier for hours with my friends and not have to wear a mask. 

Everything is F*cked says hopelessness is the root of anxiety, mental illness and depression.  So, besides the fact that Covid.-19 can kill you, there is a flip side that many may be losing hope during these times causing more anxiety, mental illness and depression, while possibly worrying about dying.   Manson states that “To build and maintain hope, we need three things: a sense of control, a belief in the value of something, and a community” (pg. 19).  Well, I would certainly love to hear Manson’s advice in these trying times.  As of right now, many people like me may feel like there is no sense of control,  we have no idea what even the next semester at school will look like.  As for a belief in the value of something, I have come to find that difficult during these times, especially with the election having just happened and seeing that my values do not align with half of the country.  To have a sense of community is definitely trying during these times when you can only really interact with your community virtually.  The uncomfortable truth has become especially uncomfortable when there is a diminished since of hope during this pandemic.  

Sarah Dunn

Lab assistant

Class of 2022

Reference: Manson, Mark. Everything Is -: a Book about Hope. Harper, 2019. 

Social Distancing Can Save The Future

A few weeks ago, my mom came into my room and asked me to speak to her when I had some free time. Usually, when my mom wants to talk to me she just comes into my room and starts talking about whatever it is, be it what she wants to make for dinner, her current favorite book, or the annoying person at her work. But that day, it was different. 

At the time, I was reading for Abnormal Psychology. I was worried about staying on track to finish the semester strong, and I was stressed about my grades. Overwhelmed by the world of academia and my educational responsibilities, I wasn’t thinking about our current climate of COVID-19. I couldn’t think about it. 

Quite honestly, I wanted to ignore my mom and keep working on school. However, something in me knew I couldn’t do that to her. My mom is one of the most important people in my life. She is one of the reasons I decided to go to JMU, as she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees there. She is my constant encouragement, my support. I bookmarked the section of my textbook, the chapter on mood disorders, and made my way to the dining room to see her. 

“Okay,” she said to me. “I’m going to show you where I keep all my passwords, a list of our bank accounts, and how to cancel my subscriptions and accounts.” 

My mom has a few major health issues. One of my first memories of her was going to the hospital to visit after she had gotten a major surgery. She had been taking one of the drugs that Donald Trump had been touting as a lifesaving cure for COVID-19, and although the benefits of the drug have not been proven, she and her doctor had decided she would no longer take it. If she gets COVID-19, she is at a higher risk of death. 

Over and over again, I hear that I am not at risk of dying if I get COVID-19. 

“It’s only the really old and the morbidly obese that are dying,” one friend tells me over FaceTime, as he takes a sip from his Starbucks coffee. “That’s what my nurse friend told me.” 

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” says another, “you don’t have any preexisting conditions.” 

Every time someone says that only people with preexisting conditions or only old people are going to die of coronavirus, I feel angry inside. Just because you don’t know someone with a preexisting condition doesn’t make their life any less valuable. I can guarantee you do know someone who is at high risk, you just don’t realize it. People’s lives should not be sacrificed because you want to go out day drinking and socialize. People’s lives should not be sacrificed, period. 

Every life on this planet has innate value, simply by existing. I believe that we should do all we can to protect and preserve that life, to nurture and grow every people of every nation. We may not currently have the resources to do so on a global scale, but for now, we have the ability to protect each other, our global and local community. It is not too much to ask people to stay home, to not perform unnecessary duties. In fact, it is our duty to do our due diligence and social distance. 

At JMU, we say that Dukes hold doors. We, the JMU Dukes, do this because we care about each other. We do this small act to help each other out, to show each other that someone else cares about the smallest part of the day. This small act, repeated over and over again, is a major part of our community, it’s one of the many things we are proudly known for. 

When we come back this fall, I hope that in the same spirit and enthusiasm we have for holding doors, we Dukes will be able to take steps to protect each other and our wider community. We can do this easily, by wearing masks and washing our hands, by changing our social norms just a little bit to make sure we aren’t infecting anyone with any virus. COVID-19 is hitting closer to home than one might think. There are 583 confirmed cases in Harrisonburg. Twenty-one people have died. 

My mom is one in millions of people that are at a high risk of dying due to COVID-19. Yes, people at high risk of death do survive, but they face greater health risks in the future, as great harm is done to their bodies. Some people may experience COVID-19 similarly to a bad cold or flu and are able to wait it out at home. Some people may be more than willing to get infected, thinking it will make them immune, even though there is no hard proof that they would gain immunity. 

To the people who are being reckless to their own health, I say to think not what you are missing in the present, but what our world may be missing in the future. You can save people’s lives, people’s futures, by staying away. People like my mom are relying on you. 

Lydia Manson

Research Assistant

Class of 2021