Age-related differences in responses to thoughts of one's own death: Mortality salience and judgments of moral transgressions.

Abstract

Two experiments explored age differences in response to reminders of death. Terror management research has shown that death reminders lead to increased adherence to and defense of one's cultural worldview. In Study 1, the effect of mortality salience (MS) on evaluations of moral transgressions made by younger and older adults was compared. Whereas younger adults showed the typical pattern of harsher judgments in response to MS, older adults did not. Study 2 compared younger and older adults' responses to both the typical MS induction and a more subtle death reminder. Whereas younger adults responded to both MS inductions with harsher evaluations, older adults made significantly less harsh evaluations after the subtle MS induction. Explanations for this developmental shift in responses to reminders of death are discussed. Keywordsterror management; fear of death; moral judgments and aging; healthy aging Aging entails more than just the emergence of new wrinkles, impaired memory, or increased joint pain; it also entails knowing that one is moving inexorably closer to death. For older adults, frequent medical problems, loss of loved ones, and deteriorating cognitive abilities are just a few reminders that the end of life is drawing nearer. Terror management theory (TMT; Correspondence NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptGreenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) asserts that awareness of the inevitability of death has a potent impact on human judgment and behavior. Empirical support for TMT has been obtained in a large body of research (for a review, see showing that reminders of mortality increase young adults' self-esteem striving and defense of their cherished beliefs and values (i.e., their cultural worldviews). Although people of varying ages have been included in these studies, none of this research has explicitly examined these processes in older adults. Given older adults' more frequent encounters with mortality; the changes in cognitive, social, and emotional functioning that occur in later life; and the adaptations they often make in response to these changing life circumstances (e.g., P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Brandtstadter & Greve, 1994;Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995), it seems likely that this population would differ in their responses to mortality. Research is needed to assess possible age-related differences in the use and adaptation of terror management processes to cope with reminders of mortality. The research reported here explored this issue by testing hypotheses derived from an integration of TMT with ideas from a variety of developmental theories. Following Becker (1973), TMT posits that the uniquely human knowledge of the inevitability of death in an organism that is biologically oriented toward staying alive creates the potential for paralyzing terror. People are protected from the anxiety that awareness of death would otherwise produce by maintaining faith in their cultural worldviews and attaining self-esteem by living up to the standards of that w...

Origins of Ageism at the Individual Level

“…These studies indicate that older adults, especially in the last stage of life, tend to achieve greater acceptance of the inevitability of their own death. The different reactions of older and younger adults to mortality salience is also reflected in studies that have found that young adults respond to mortality salience induction as predicted according to terror management theory, that is, by holding a harsher judgment of moral transgressions and by engaging in health-promoting behaviours, whereas older adults do not (Bozo et al 2009;Maxfield et al 2007). …”

How aging affects self-reports

“…Yet, whether or not they need to form an estimate depends on how much attention they pay to the respective behavior, which itself is age-dependent. For example, older adults pay more attention to physical symptoms because of an increased salience of their mortality (Maxfield et al 2007). In line with Borchelt et al's (1999) finding that older adults' responses were less affected by experimental variations of response choices when responding on personally relevant information (frequency of physical symptoms), Schmitz et al (2002) found that there was more than 85 % agreement between self-reports and physician reports for the recall of physician visits.…”

Societies’ tightness moderates age differences in perceived justifiability of morally debatable behaviors

“…As moral standards constitute an essential part of one's cultural worldview, older adults may adhere more closely to culturally valued moral standards compared to younger adults, thus make harsher judgments about transgressions of those standards. In fact, a study that compared younger and older adults on their moral judgments following the mortality salience manipulation found that the effect of mortality salience in causing a harsher punishment of moral transgression was found only among younger participants-older participants generally suggested a harsher punishment with or without the mortality salience manipulation (Maxfield et al 2007). This pattern suggests that mortality salience may be chronically high among older adults, so they would defend culturally valued moral rules more rigidly compared with younger adults.…”