Terror Management Theory and the Financial Services Industry

As I continue to work with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) and learn about the CDFI industry, I have become increasingly aware of how dependent small businesses and those in underserved communities are on financial institutions to simply live their daily lives and survive. This unfortunate reality is a constant reminder of Terror Management Theory.

Terror Management Theory concerns humans’ conscious thoughts about their mortality and inevitability of death at any moment. As a result of these conscious thoughts, humans develop unconscious ones such as an increased faith and self-worth. It helps develop our self-esteem if we see our lives and ourselves as valuable due to our inevitable death. It can also lead to our unconscious beliefs and pursual of symbolic immortality. The small businesses and communities that OFN and its network of CDFIs help are in circumstances that often require them to think much more about their inevitable death, whether it be the death of their business or humans, compared to those in more fortunate positions. In order to mitigate existential terror, it is leaders’ jobs to help their followers create meaning in their life to build their confidence and feelings of self-worth. OFN and CDFIs serve as the leaders for underserved communities, aiming to help them financially so that they feel supported and as though they have the resources they need to thrive and survive. This means that other important characteristics and traits of those who lead OFN and the CDFI industry are necessary for terror management, such as high charisma.

This theory can work both ways in my opinion. Although the businesses and communities OFN serves may be more salient to terror management theory, it is something that all humans suffer from in some capacity. Therefore, those who work for OFN and the CDFI industry are in their own ways reacting to terror management theory. Death anxiety can drive people to adopt certain world views that protect their self-esteem/worthiness to help them believe that they are playing a meaningful role in the world. This means that although many people working for OFN, including myself, do it for the sake of wanting to make an impact in the world towards economic equality and help others, they could also be subconsciously motivated through an increase in self-esteem their work provides them that then mitigates their death anxiety.