The awareness of death reduces subjective vitality and self-regulatory energy for individuals with low interdependent self-construal

Abstract

Existentialists have proposed that defining the self in terms of social groups—interdependent self-construal—helps maintain adaptive psychological functioning in the face of death awareness. Supporting this idea, research has demonstrated that when the awareness of death is experimentally heightened, individuals display greater investment in their social groups. No research, however, has directly tested the fundamental assertion that the awareness of death aversely effects psychological functioning for those without an interdependent self-construal. To provide an initial test of this claim, we examined the extent to which the awareness of death compromises the subjective sense of energy and aliveness (i.e., vitality) and self-regulatory energy at varying levels of interdependent self-construal. Specifically, in two experiments, we measured interdependent self-construal, experimentally heightened the awareness of death, and subsequently measured subjective vitality (Study 1) and self-regulation (Study 2). Results demonstrated that heightened death awareness reduced subjective vitality and self-regulation, but only for individuals with low, not high, levels of interdependent self-construal.