The Effects of Death Contemplation on Meaning and Purpose in Life

Abstract

Affective involvement during reflection on personal mortality was expected to facilitate psychological change. Twenty participants engaged in an age progression fantasy during which they imagined themselves gradually aging and eventually dying. Then, one-half of the participants evaluated their fantasy experiences objectively and one-half attended to their feelings about their fantasies and attempted to find words or images that characterized their feelings. Compared to participants in the objective evaluation condition, participants in the affective involvement condition provided lower scores on the Purpose in Life Scale and on the rated meaningfulness of several specific activities. There were no differences in reported death anxiety. These results indicate that the immediate effect of affective involvement during death contemplation is a distressing disengagement from some previously meaningful pursuits. The role of this effect in long-term psychological change is discussed.

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