The effects of age and death awareness on intentions for healthy behaviours

Abstract

Terror management theory (TMT) suggests that people are motivated to distance themselves from death. One way of doing this is to report greater intentions to engage in health-promoting behaviours following increased awareness of mortality, also referred to as a proximal defense. Older adults' comparatively fewer remaining years and greater likelihood of having significant health problems may result in greater intentions to promote health following mortality reminders, but little is known about their proximal defenses and existing results are inconsistent. The current study examined how older (60-89 years) and younger (18-30 years) adults' intentions for future healthy behaviours were influenced by a death reminder (immediately and after a delay) compared to a control condition. Older adults (60-89 years) indicated greater overall intention to engage in healthy behaviours than younger adults (18-30 years). A two-way interaction revealed that regardless of age, participants engaged in proximal defenses immediately following a death reminder by distancing themselves from death via greater healthy intentions. After a period of delay, participants exhibited a reversal of this pattern, indicating lower intention to engage in healthy behaviours in the mortality condition compared to control. Results are discussed from the perspectives of TMT and terror management health model.

Measuring a new facet of post traumatic growth: Development of a scale of physical post traumatic growth in men with prostate cancer

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Factors associated with the designation of a health care proxy and writing advance directives for patients suffering from haematological malignancies

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The Last Word: A Comparison of Younger and Older Adults’ Brain Responses to Reminders of Death

“…Starting with proximal defenses, studies assessing age differences yield mixed results. Whereas Taubman-Ben- Ari and Findler (2005) found that younger adults reported greater healthrelated intentions, and older adults reported lower healthrelated intentions after a mortality prime, Bevan, Maxfield, and Bultmann (2014) found that both younger and older adults responded to increased awareness of mortality with greater intentions to engage in health-promoting behavior. Differences in results likely relate to the age groups, as Taubman-Ben-Ari and Findler included individuals aged 51-65 (M age = 56.25) in their older adult group, and Bevan and colleagues' older adult sample ranged in age from 60 to 89 years old (M age = 72.98), a sample that may be more representative of older age, given current life expectancies.…”