ABSTRACT—Humans live out their lives knowing that their own death is inevitable; that their most cherished beliefs and values, and even their own identities, are uncertain; that they face a bewildering array of choices; and that their private subjective experiences can never be shared with another human being. This knowledge creates five major existential concerns: death, isolation, identity, freedom, and meaning. The role of these concerns in hu-man affairs has traditionally been the purview of phil-osophy. However, recent methodological and conceptual advances have led to the emergence of an experimental existential psychology directed toward empirically inves-tigating the roles that these concerns play in psychological functioning. This new domain of psychological science has revealed the pervasive influence of deep existential con-cerns on diverse aspects of human thought and behavior. KEYWORDS—death; isolation; identity; freedom; meaning Humans possess far more sophisticated intellectual abilities than other animals do, including a greatly enhanced capacity for self-reflection. This capacity is highly adaptive because it ena-bles people to develop complex strategies for dealing with risks and opportunities in their environment. However, self-reflection also leads people to realize that death is inevitable; that their most sacred beliefs and values, and even their own identities, are uncertain; that they face a bewildering array of choices in their lives; and that in many ways they are alone in an indifferent universe. Existential psychology seeks to understand how peo-ple somehow come to terms with these basic facts of life and how these issues affect diverse aspects of their behavior and ex-