Thinking about death promotes healthy behavior

Researchers of the University of Missouri announced the new finding after reevaluating research conducted on Terror Management Theory (TMT), a branch of social psychology which focuses on how people cope with fear of mortality.

Their findings reject those of some prior findings which suggested that thinking about death is destructive and can motivate prejudice, greed and violence or depression.

The new study says subconscious thoughts about death can also lead people to make positive changes helpful for themselves and others.

“This tendency for TMT research to primarily deal with negative attitudes and harmful behaviors has become so deeply entrenched in our field that some have recently suggested that death awareness is simply a bleak force of social destruction,” explained lead author Kenneth Vail.

“There has been very little integrative understanding of how subtle, day-to-day, death awareness might be capable of motivating attitudes and behaviors that can minimize harm to oneself and others, and can promote well-being,” he added.

A 2008 study by Matthew Gailliot and colleagues showed that a mere physical presence near a cemetery affected people’s will to help a stranger.

“Researchers hypothesized that if the cultural value of helping was made important to people, then the heightened awareness of death would motivate an increase in helping behaviors,” Vail noted.