Can Imagine About Death Make People Farsighted?

According to the mortality salience hypothesis,after the mortality salience manipulation,people tended to defend themselves against death threats by holding a cultural world view and seeking self-esteem(Greenberg,Pyszczynski &Solomon,1986).A number of studies have found that after the mortality salience manipulation,participants’ decision-making behaviors will change significantly.However,as for the influence of mortality salience on the intertemporal choice,foreign studies are still in the ascendant,while no relevant research reports have been published in China.In addition,there are still some deficiencies in existing researches from the perspective of research,task type,research content and research depth.Therefore,this paper discusses the impact of mortality salience on the intertemporal choice of gain and loss,and whether the impact will vary with the size of intertemporal choice’s options and the domain types.This paper was divided into four studies.Using convenient sampling,a total of 546subjects(including college students and full-time non-retired adults)were selected from several universities and two communities in Chengdu city.In the pilot study,multi-channel biofeedback instrument and standardized scale PANAS were used to explore whether and when emotional arousal would occur after mortality salience from the perspectives of potency and degree.Study 1,study 2,study 3 and study 4 explored the impact of mortality salience on the intertemporal choice in the domain of money and health respectively,and whether the impact will vary with the size of intertemporal choice’s options and the domain types.The different between these four studies was the study 1 and study 2 used the classical mortality salience manipulation to induce the death consciousness of the participants,while study 3 and study 4 used the common life education method(testament writing and meditation)in Chinese middle schools to induce the death consciousness of the subjects.The results showed that after the mortality salience manipulation,there was emotional arousal,which was specifically reflected in the increase in the skin electrical index,the decrease in the level of self-rated positive emotions and the increase in the level of self-rated negative emotions.In the intertemporal choice of the money domain,the main effect of the priming type was significant,and the proportion of the mortality salience group choosing the immediate option was lower.In addition,this mortality salience effect was reflected in the gain and loss intertemporal choice of different option sizes.In the intertemporal choice of the health domain,the main effect of priming type was not significant,that is,no significant impact of mortality salience on the intertemporal choice in the health field was found.The life education method commonly used in Chinese middle schools was also applicable to the mortality salience manipulation.So far,there was no relevant research reports have been published in China,and the existing studies only focused on the money domain of intertemporal choice.This article highlighted by four researches probes into the impact of mortality salience on the intertemporal choice of gain and loss,found mortality salience will induce participants’ emotional responses,and mortality salience effect on intertemporal choice with domain effect.And mortality salience effect on money domain of intertemporal choice is consistent in task type and options’ size.At the same time explored a more suitable mortality salience manipulation for the participants in China.These results have important theoretical significance for the psychological study of death and intertemporal choice.