Abstract: Terror management theory regards worldview, self-esteem and close relationship as the basic three defensive mechanisms of terror management. The author introduces some researches on these mechanisms first and then reviews several new interpretations on mortality salience effect from perspective of cognitive closure, meaning pursuit, offensive defense, coalitional and control motivation. After that, the author presents his own idea, which differentiates terror management strategy into two categories: approach and avoidance. The approach strategy aims to control the uncertain death and transcendent the inevitable demise, the avoidance strategy indicates that individuals react to the potential reminder of death negatively. Meanwhile, the author points that TMT probably misinterprets the function of the cultural worldview. Additionally, some recommendations on terror management research in china are proposed.

Key words: terror management, cognitive closure, meaning maintenance, coalitional motivation, control motivation