The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Subject noted in several academic sources. El_C 19:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Terror management theory[edit]

Completing a nom. Rationale in the talk page:

Do we have any references of this theory anywhere? Right now, it looks uncomfortably like a largely-ignored pet theory. 75.73.153.18 23:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. A "developing field of study", a/k/a a non-notable neologism. Terror management researchers have shown that making mortality salient to research participants will lead to such changes in behaviors and beliefs that seemingly protect worldview and encourage self-esteem striving. What is this trying to say in plain English? That if you threaten to kill people, they will change their behaviour in order to avoid being killed? I wonder how much grant money it took to discover this. - Smerdis of Tlön 13:49, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep It appears that the "Further reading" section is actually a list of offline references. If this phrase is in fact being used in multiple academic studies, then an artilce is valid. However, this badly needs to be de-jargonized. If the academics use this sort of jargon (and I'll bet that they do) then the article oiught toi expalin what it means as well as that can be done, not simply repeat it. But all that is a cleanup issue, not a deletion issue. DES ^(talk) 14:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- This Google scholar search returns 1130 hits on the phrase "Terror management theory". I haven't gone through them yet, but i suspect that there are some valid sources in there. DES ^(talk) 14:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete- needs massive rewrite and restructure. Very innovative comment by IHCOYC. Onnaghar (sch-peak) 16:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The article passes WP:NEO because there are reliable secondary sources (peer-reviewed journals) about the term. From Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, "one of the top journals in the fields of social and personality psychology" [1], [2], [3]. From Psychological Review, "one of psychology's most prestigious journals", [4]. From Advances in Experimental Social Psychology [5] and European Journal of Social Psychology [6]. These sources are from just the first 10 of the 1,100+ hits from the Google Scholar search. It does need a massive rewrite, but that isn't grounds for deletion. --Bláthnaid 10:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Enough references to the Journal of personality and social psychology to indicate that this is not just a pet theory. Mandsford 00:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:HEY. I removed the tag for unreferenced. Also per Blathnaid, passes NEO but needs a re-write. Bearian 15:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. A massively influential theoretical perspective in social psychology. Plenty of references out there in the most reliable of sources. IronGargoyle 15:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.