Proximal and distal effects of mortality salience on willingness to engage in health promoting behavior along the life span

Abstract

The current studies examine proximal and distal mortality salience effects on the willingness to engage in health-promoting activities and explore the roles of age and self-esteem. In Study 1, 164 participants completed a self-esteem scale, were assigned to a mortality salience or a neutral condition, and then completed a scale, tapping their willingness to engage in health promoting activities. Findings revealed that in the proximal mode, mortality salience led the young and middle-aged adults to report higher willingness to promote health behaviors, whereas older adults tended to show a lower willingness to promote their health compared to the control condition. In Study 2, a total of 251 participants completed the same series of questionnaires, including a distracting task immediately after the mortality salience manipulation. Findings revealed that, in the distal mode, whereas death reminders did not affect young adults, mortality salience led middle-aged participants to express higher willingness to conduct health-promoting behaviors than in a control condition. The mortality salience induction did not affect older adults with high self-esteem, but led low self-esteem individuals to report higher willingness to promote their health. The differences between the reactions of the different age groups in both the defense modes are discussed in view of the terror management theory.

Keywords:

• Terror management theory
• health-promoting behavior

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank our research assistant Ateret Malachi, and our students: Zohar, Chagit, Uri and Shay, for their help in data collection. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

We use the term “older adults” in the current article to relate to individuals aged 51–65, as relative to younger adults, and not because they are old in the literal sense of the word.

Although we used a neutral control topic in the current study, various studies have contrasted the effects of mortality salience with a variety of other aversive topics, yielding similar unique effects of morality salience.