THE HOT AND COOL OF DEATH AWARENESS AT WORK: … · the hot and cool of death awareness at work:...

THE HOT AND COOL OF DEATH AWARENESSAT WORK: MORTALITY CUES, AGING, AND

SELF-PROTECTIVE AND PROSOCIALMOTIVATIONS

ADAM M. GRANTUniversity of Pennsylvania

KIMBERLY A. WADE-BENZONIDuke University

Although death awareness is pervasive in organizations and can have powerfuleffects on employees’ experiences and behaviors, scholars have paid little attentionto it. We develop a theoretical model of the nature, antecedents, and consequences ofdeath awareness at work. We differentiate death anxiety and reflection as distinctstates that strengthen self-protective versus prosocial motivations, examine howmortality cues and aging processes trigger these states, and explore their impact onwithdrawal and generative behaviors.

The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the humananimal like nothing else; it is a mainspring ofhuman activity—designed largely to avoid thefatality of death, to overcome it by denying insome way that it is the final destiny. . . . Of allthings that move man, one of the principal ones ishis terror of death (Becker, 1973: ix, 11).

The tragedies of September 11 had a dramaticeffect on work experiences and behaviors, bothfor those who were directly involved (Bacharach& Bamberger, 2007) and those who were not(Johns, 2006). For some employees the terroristattacks resulted in crippling anxiety, leading tostress and absenteeism from work (Byron &Peterson, 2002; Salgado, 2002). For others the at-tacks inspired reflection about death and themeaning of life, motivating remarkable efforts tocontribute to other people and society. Organi-zational scholars began to reflect on how theycould best serve the public interest through theirresearch and their students through their teach-ing (Greenberg, Clair, & MacLean, 2007; Rynes &

Shapiro, 2005; Starbuck, 2002). Applications tohelping professions soared as many employeeschanged careers in order to make a greater dif-ference in their communities and societies(Wrzesniewski, 2002). For example, in the monthand a half following the events, applications toTeach For America tripled, and half of appli-cants polled attributed their decisions to pursueteaching to the events of September 11 (Good-nough, 2002). Similar trends occurred in otherhelping professions, such as firefighting andhealth care. For example, after narrowly escap-ing from the World Trade Center, actress AmyTing reflected on death and the meaning of herlife. She walked away from a successful filmcareer to join the Air Force Medical Service: “Af-ter September 11, my perspective on lifechanged. I have always wanted to help people,so I decided to go back to pursuing the medicalfield” (Wrzesniewski, 2002: 231; see alsoPomeroy, 2002).

Although these reactions were particularlypronounced and widespread, they are notunique to September 11. Employees are re-minded of their mortality by an array of eventsthat occur both outside of and inside organiza-tions. Many employees, such as police officers,soldiers, firefighters, miners, and nuclear powerplant employees, work in dangerous jobs thatplace their lives on the line. Some studies sug-gest that dangerous work leads to anxiety about

We are grateful to former associate editor Linda Trevinoand four anonymous reviewers for their insights and recom-mendations. We also appreciate feedback from Jane Duttonand Alison Fragale, as well as discussions with Josh Ber-man, Tina Juillerat, Meagan Peters, Wendy Smith, JimWalsh, and participants in the May Meaning Meeting (espe-cially Sue Ashford and Andy Molinsky) and the University ofMichigan Management & Organizations half-baked brownbag series (particularly Wayne Baker, John Paul Stephens,and Lynn Wooten).

� Academy of Management Review2009, Vol. 34, No. 4, 600–622.

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death, emotional exhaustion, and absenteeism(Chisholm, Kasl, & Eskenazi, 1983; Jermier,Gaines, & McIntosh, 1989), whereas others indi-cate that exposure to death in dangerous workmotivates bonding and helping between co-workers (Elder & Clipp, 1988). Other employees,such as doctors, nurses, rescue workers, funeralemployees, paramedics, and grief counselors,work in jobs that expose them vicariously todeath (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999). More generally,employees in all jobs are susceptible to ill-nesses and accidents that can serve as remind-ers of mortality (e.g., Dutton, Worline, Frost, &Lilius, 2006; Kivimaki, Vahtera, Elovaino, Lill-rank, & Kevin, 2002; Worrell, Davidson, Chandy,& Garrison, 1986).

By making employees aware of death, all ofthese events have the potential to motivate sub-stantial changes in their behaviors. Indeed, twodecades of social psychological research hasdemonstrated that awareness of death hasunique, surprisingly powerful effects on individ-uals’ motivations and behaviors (Pyszczynski,Solomon, & Greenberg, 2003). However, we knowlittle about how death awareness arises in or-ganizations and why employees display diver-gent reactions when they experience it. Organi-zational scholars have been silent about the roleof death awareness in work motivation (Sievers,1986, 1993) and organizational life in general(Reedy & Learmonth, 2008).

Understanding the role of death awareness inorganizations is of particular theoretical andpractical significance, given that workforcesworldwide are aging rapidly. In the UnitedStates the median age of employees is nowabove forty; the number of employees forty-fiveand older has increased by more than 35 percentin the past decade, and they now represent over40 percent of the entire U.S. workforce (Bureau ofLabor Statistics, 2007; Fullerton, 1999). Paralleltrends have emerged in the European Union andCanada, where employees forty-five and oldernow make up over 37 percent and 40 percent ofthe workforce, respectively, reflecting sizable in-creases in the past decade (Carone, 2005; Euro-pean Commission, 2007; Statistics Canada,2006). This dramatic aging of domestic and in-ternational workforces is attributable to in-creases in life expectancy, combined with de-clines in early retirement and birth rates. Inlight of these trends, organizational scholarsagree that the aging workforce is one of the most

critical theoretical and practical issues organi-zations face today (Greller & Simpson, 1999;Hansson, DeKoekkoek, Neece, & Patterson, 1997;Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004; Warr, 2001).

Accordingly, organizational scholars have be-gun to devote systematic attention to the role ofage in work motivation and behavior. Recently,Kanfer and Ackerman (2004) developed an ele-gant theoretical framework to explain how workmotivation is influenced by age-related changesin cognitive ability, personality, self-concept,values, affect, and interests. Although theirframework significantly advances existingknowledge about the role of age in work moti-vation, it does not address death awareness as avital psychological change precipitated by ag-ing. Several decades of research in personalityand life-span developmental psychology high-lights that as adults reach midlife, they becomeincreasingly aware of their own mortality (Erik-son, 1963; McAdams, de St. Aubin, & Logan, 1993;Stewart & Ostrove, 1998). However, in spite ofwidespread agreement about the theoreticaland practical importance of understanding therole of aging in work motivation, and despiteevidence that death is increasingly salient andmotivationally potent as employees age, calls toincorporate death into work motivation theorieshave gone unanswered (Czarniawska-Joerges,1995; Sievers, 1993).

In this article we seek to answer these callswith systematic theorizing about the nature, an-tecedents, and consequences of death aware-ness. We begin with a review of existing theoryand research about psychological and behav-ioral reactions to death awareness, paying par-ticular attention to theories of terror manage-ment (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997)and generativity (McAdams & de St. Aubin,1992). We build on this review to distinguishbetween two distinct forms of death aware-ness—death anxiety and death reflection—andexamine how they differentially engage dis-crete “hot” experiential versus “cool” cognitivepsychological processing systems, therebystrengthening either self-protective or prosocialmotivations. Second, we turn from the nature ofdeath awareness to its antecedents. We presenta typology of mortality cues, examine how theytrigger death anxiety and death reflection, andexplore the role of aging processes in influenc-ing employees’ responses to these cues. Third,we examine the behavioral consequences of

2009 601Grant and Wade-Benzoni

death awareness. We explore how the effects ofdeath anxiety and death reflection on work be-haviors are contingent on boundary preferences,work orientations, and the meaningfulness ofwork. And we conclude by discussing theoreti-cal contributions, future research directions,and practical implications. The contingencymodel of death awareness at work that we de-velop in this article is displayed in Figure 1.

THE NATURE OF DEATH AWARENESS

We define death awareness as a psychologi-cal state—a mental experience triggered by ex-ternal events (Chaplin, John, & Goldberg,1988)—in which people are conscious of theirmortality. Scholarly attention to death aware-ness was stimulated more than 300 years ago

when Hobbes (1950/1651) noted that humans nat-urally fear death and attempt to avoid it byseeking peace. Although subsequent work in po-litical philosophy has elaborated on this basicassumption, the majority of scholarship ondeath in the social sciences and humanities isbased on existential philosophy. Building on thework of Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, ex-istentialists such as Heidegger and Sartrecalled attention to the anxiety, dread, and fearthat people experience when they becomeaware of their own mortality (Appignanesi, 2006;Solomon, 2005). Near the turn of the twentiethcentury, existentialism informed the theories ofa number of key thinkers in psychology, includ-ing Allport, Dewey, Freud, James, and Wundt.However, as behaviorism began to dominatepsychology, existentialism fell out of favor

FIGURE 1A Contingency Model of Death Awareness at Work

602 OctoberAcademy of Management Review

(Koole, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2006; cf.Frankl, 1959, and Yalom, 1980).

Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker set thestage for empirical attention to how individualsrespond to death awareness with three books onthe denial of death, one of which won the Pu-litzer Prize (Becker, 1973). Becker argued thatawareness of death is a uniquely human capa-bility and curse, and he focused on the role ofcultural belief systems in buffering against ex-istential anxiety about impending death (for areview see Liechty, 2002). In the 1980s three so-cial psychologists discovered Becker’s work andbegan to design experiments to test and elabo-rate on his theories. Now, two decades later,terror management theory is among the mostgenerative perspectives in social psychology.Researchers have conducted well over 250 stud-ies to test and extend terror management theorypredictions about how individuals deal with thecognizance of their own mortality (Greenberg,Koole, & Pyszczynski, 2004; Pyszczynski et al.,2003).

Terror Management Theory: Death AwarenessIncreases Self-Protective Motivation

The central premise of terror managementtheory is that people face a basic existentialdilemma: they desire life but know that theirown death is inevitable. To defend and protectthemselves against existential anxiety, peoplecreate and cling to cultural world views—collective understandings of reality that (1) ren-der existence meaningful, coherent, and perma-nent; (2) offer a set of standards for definingwhat is valuable; and (3) confer either literal orsymbolic immortality through religious institu-tions that assure an afterlife or social institu-tions that allow them to feel that they are con-nected to something larger, more powerful, andmore permanent than themselves (Pyszczynski,Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999; Wade-Benzoni,2006). People defend against existential anxietythrough self-protective responses—connectingwith and contributing to people and groups whoshare their world views and showing hostilitytoward people and groups with alternativeworld views that challenge the legitimacy oftheir own.

A large body of research has supported thesecore propositions by manipulating death aware-ness with a range of situational cues, including

writing about one’s own death, answering ques-tions about what will happen while dying orafter death, watching videos of deadly automo-bile accidents, walking past a cemetery, andbeing subliminally exposed to death-relatedwords. For example, studies have shown thatdeath awareness increases preferences forcharismatic leaders (Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield,Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2004), strengthenedsupport for former President Bush and aggres-sive counterterrorism policies (Landau et al.,2004), increases donations to national but notinternational charities (Jonas, Schimel, Green-berg, & Pyszczynski, 2002), increases punish-ment of criminal offenders who threaten one’sworld view (Arndt, Lieberman, Cook, & Solomon,2005), enhances optimism about unlikely victo-ries over opponents in soccer matches(Dechesne, Greenberg, Arndt, & Schimel, 2000),boosts overconfidence about future financialworth (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000), amplifies dis-plays of physical strength among athletes butnot among individuals who do not valuestrength (Peters, Greenberg, Williams, & Schnei-der, 2005), and even motivates individuals toallocate large quantities of hot sauce to world-view-threatening outgroup members who do notlike spicy foods (McGregor et al., 1998). Re-searchers have even demonstrated that peopleexpress more nationalistic views—and believecharities are more important—when surveyedwhile walking past a funeral home (Jonas et al.,2002).

Several studies have further shown that theseefforts to defend cultural world views and per-sonal worth serve the anxiety-buffering functionof protecting people against fears of their ownmortality. For example, researchers have foundthat, after inducing death awareness, giving in-dividuals positive feedback reduces self-re-ported death anxiety and objective measures ofphysiological arousal (for a review see Pysz-czynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel,2004). Perhaps most important, research sug-gests that these effects of death awareness maybe unique; they do not occur in response to otherforms of anxiety, such as worries about futureplans and success, fears of public speaking,concerns about intense physical pain or failinga test, and actual poor performance on intelli-gence tests (Pyszczynski et al., 1999). Althoughscholars have questioned whether the theorycomprehensively explains the origins of motives


for self-esteem and meaning (e.g., Heine, Proulx,& Vohs, 2006; Leary, 2004, 2007; Navarette &Fessler, 2005; Ryan & Deci, 2004), terror manage-ment research provides strong empirical evi-dence that death awareness has a broad arrayof unique psychological and behavioral effectson individuals. In sum, the core theme cuttingacross terror management research is thatdeath awareness strengthens self-protectivemotivation—a desire to defend one’s identityand image (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003;Larrick, 1993; Leary, 2007).

Generativity Theories: Death AwarenessIncreases Prosocial Motivation

Personality and life-span developmental psy-chologists have offered a different perspectiveon death awareness. In his classic epigenetictheory of development, psychologist Erik Erik-son (1963, 1982) proposed that people progressthrough eight psychological stages of life, eachof which involves a developmental crisis. Hededicated the last two of his eight stages of lifeto issues related to death. He proposed that inthe final stage of life people become increas-ingly aware of death, which leads to a crisisbetween ego integrity and despair. Those whoovercome this crisis experience ego integrity,finding coherence and meaning in their livesand accepting death. Those who succumb to thiscrisis experience despair, continuing to fear anddread death. Erikson proposed that, beforereaching this stage, in the penultimate stage oflife—which occurs throughout middle adult-hood—people grapple with the notion that theirlives are finite. They undergo a midlife crisisbetween generativity and stagnation—contrib-uting to the next generation versus ceasing to bea productive member of society. He proposedthat people who prevail over this crisis becomegenerative by performing socially valuablework and mentoring members of younger gen-erations. People who fall victim to this crisis,however, become stagnant by withdrawing fromsocially valuable work and mentoring activities.

Erikson’s conceptualization of generativity hasitself been generative, motivating several de-cades of research on the antecedents and conse-quences of generativity. Research supports thecore hypothesis that generativity increasesaround midlife (Keyes & Ryff, 1998; McAdams etal., 1993; Peterson & Klohnen, 1995; Stewart & Os-

trove, 1998; Stewart, Ostrove, & Helson, 2001; Vail-lant & Milofsky, 1980). Survey data and narrativeanalyses of life stories suggest that generativityemerges most prominently around midlife, result-ing from the strengthening of two motives bydeath awareness: the desire to make lasting con-tributions and the desire to feel connected withothers (McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992, 1998). AsKotre explains, death awareness strengthens the“desire to invest one’s substance in forms of lifeand work that will outlive the self” (1984: 16). Thedesire to make lasting, self-transcendent contribu-tions is an agentic desire that motivates individ-uals to buffer against death by extending theircontributions into the future, striving for symbolicimmortality (Wade-Benzoni, 2006). The desire tofeel connected with others is a communal desirethat motivates individuals to buffer against deathby linking their actions and identities to enduringrelationships, groups, organizations, and institu-tions (Peterson & Stewart, 1996). As sociologistMorrie Schwartz explained it, “Death ends a life,not a relationship” (Albom, 1997: 174).

By strengthening these agentic and communalmotives to meaningfully contribute and connect,death awareness can lead individuals to take per-sonal responsibility for promoting the welfare ofother people and the next generation by seekingout work as teachers, mentors, leaders, organizers,and inventors (McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992).Consistent with this perspective, experimental re-search indicates that death awareness can leadindividuals with self-serving values to endorsemore prosocial values (Joireman & Duell, 2005). Asan illustration, Jonas Salk, the inventor of the poliovaccine, described the goal of his life as “to be agood ancestor” (Weiner, 2008: 110). Similarly, con-sider the case of R. Buckminster Fuller, the inven-tor, engineer, mathematician, architect, and pub-lic intellectual often described as the “DaVinci ofthe twentieth century.” In 1922 his four-year-olddaughter, Alexandra, died from complications ofpolio and spinal meningitis. Devastated, he wentto the shore of frozen Lake Michigan to commitsuicide. Contemplating his death led him to re-consider the meaning of his life, and instead ofcommitting suicide, he decided to embark on anexperiment to learn what a single person can ac-complish at work to change the world and benefitall of humanity. This led him to work tirelesslyand persistently to make lasting contributions tosociety (e.g., Edmondson, 1987; Sieden, 1989). Thus,the core theme cutting across generativity re-


search is that death awareness strengthens proso-cial motivation—a desire to give, contribute, help,benefit, make a difference, or protect and promotethe welfare of other people (Grant, 2007, 2008).

Reconciling Terror Management andGenerativity: Death Anxiety versus DeathReflection

Terror management and generativity theoriesappear to offer competing predictions abouthow individuals respond to death awareness.From a terror management perspective, deathawareness strengthens self-protective motiva-tion; from a generativity perspective, deathawareness strengthens prosocial motivation.We reconcile these two theoretical perspectivesby calling attention to two different forms deathawareness can take. A significant limitation ofboth terror management and generativity theo-ries is that they fail to differentiate between thetwo fundamentally distinct forms of deathawareness (Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Sam-boceti, 2004; Lykins, Segerstrom, Averill, Evans,& Kemeny, 2007). We integrate initial work ondeath awareness by Cozzolino et al. (2004) andLykins et al. (2007) with theory and research oninformation processing systems (Metcalfe &Mischel, 1999) to distinguish two discrete psy-chological pathways through which individualscan be conscious of mortality.

Death anxiety describes an emotional state ofdeath awareness in which individuals experi-ence fear, panic, and dread about their own mor-tality (Cozzolino et al., 2004; Russac, Gatliff,Reece, & Spottswood, 2007). Death anxiety is pro-cessed psychologically in what is known as the“hot” or experiential system, which is character-ized by immediate, emotional, intuitive, vis-ceral, and impulsive reactions based on heuris-tic processing (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; seealso Epstein, 1994, and Haidt, 2001). These hotpsychological processes form the basis of theself-protective reactions depicted in terror man-agement theory and research. Indeed, Simon etal. (1997) presented empirical evidence that ter-ror management responses occur in the hot ex-periential system. When individuals are re-minded of their mortality after being primed orinstructed to share their natural, emotional re-actions, they show strong self-protective reac-tions. Initially, they deny their personal vulner-ability by asserting their health and noting that

death is far off (Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon,Pyszczynski, & Simon, 1997; Simon et al., 1997).They then avoid the paralyzing existential terrorthat death awareness can provoke by marshal-ing distal defense mechanisms, seeking to pro-tect themselves by affiliating with value-congruent groups and criticizing value-incongruent groups (Greenberg et al., 1997;Pyszczynski et al., 2004). This evidence suggeststhat individuals process death anxiety in a hotexperiential system to protect the self. Deathanxiety can thus be thought of as an affect-driven (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996; Zajonc, 1980)or reactive (Grant & Ashford, 2008) state in whichvisceral emotional responses drive the process-ing of mortality cues.

Death reflection describes a cognitive state ofdeath awareness, one in which individuals puttheir lives in context, contemplate their meaningand purpose, and review how others will lookupon them after they have passed (Cozzolino etal., 2004; Ring, 1984; Ring & Elsaesser Valarino,1998). Death reflection is processed psychologi-cally in what is known as the “cool” or cognitivesystem, which is characterized by deliberate,analytical, rational reactions based on system-atic processing that is subject to intentional con-trol (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; see also Bazer-man, Tenbrunsel, & Wade-Benzoni, 1998;Epstein, 1994; Haidt, 2001). These cool psycholog-ical processes form the basis of the self-transcendent reactions depicted in generativitytheory and research. Indeed, Simon et al. (1997)found that when primed or instructed to thinkabout their own deaths in a rational, analyticalmode, individuals did not display self-protectivereactions, and Cozzolino et al. (2004) found thatwhen asked to engage in death reflection, indi-viduals engaged in the prosocial, self-transcen-dent behavior of sharing raffle tickets and giftcertificates.

Similarly, studies of near-death experienceshave shown that as individuals reflect on death,they become increasingly interested in helpingothers and often change their careers in thisdirection, as when an accountant becomes anurse after contemplating death (Ring & El-saesser Valarino, 1998). Illustrating this point, awoman described how seeing her four-year-oldson narrowly survive being hit by a car led herto reflect on death and motivated her to becomean emergency medical technician in order tohelp others survive accidents: “I felt sure he was


dying, and I didn’t know of anything I could do tohelp him or to preserve his life. . . . [it] was a realturning point. . . . I served an ambulance servicefor 10 years and have saved more than one life”(McAdams et al., 1993: 228).

Moreover, McAdams and de St. Aubin (1992,1998) reported extensive evidence from longitudi-nal survey and narrative interview studies indi-cating that individuals make deliberate choicesand commitments to become generative and self-transcendent. This evidence suggests that indi-viduals process death reflection in a cool cogni-tive system that they deliberately control so as tofind ways to contribute to others and have a last-ing impact. Death reflection can thus be thought ofas a cognition-driven (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996)or proactive (Grant & Ashford, 2008) state in whichthoughts and anticipatory plans about the futuredrive responses to mortality cues. Together, thesearguments and illustrative examples suggest thefollowing proposition.

Proposition 1: Death anxiety anddeath reflection represent distinctforms of death awareness with dis-crete motivational consequences:(a) death anxiety engages the hotexperiential processing system,strengthening self-protective motiva-tion, whereas (b) death reflection en-gages the cool cognitive processingsystem, strengthening prosocial moti-vation.

This understanding of death anxiety anddeath reflection as two distinct forms of deathawareness provides the basis of the contin-gency model of death awareness that we de-velop in this article. To further unpack the dif-ferences between these two states of deathawareness, our preceding discussion suggeststhat they can be differentiated in terms of threedimensions: emotionality, duration, and focus ofattention.

In terms of emotionality, death anxiety ischaracterized by extreme, vivid emotions,such as fear, panic, and dread, while deathreflection is characterized by less emotional-ity and calmer, more controlled thoughts. Thiscontrast in emotionality has important impli-cations for understanding how the two statesdiffer in terms of duration. Because death anx-iety engages the hot experiential system, likeother emotional states focusing on specific

events, it tends to be a short-lived responsetriggered by situational cues, lasting in manycircumstances for moments, hours, or days(Lykins et al., 2007). However, death anxietycan also linger for weeks and months (e.g.,Russac et al., 2007), at which point it is pro-cessed more like a diffuse mood state than aspecific emotion (e.g., Weiss & Cropanzano,1996). On the other hand, because death reflec-tion is subject to greater intentional, effortfulcognitive control, it can involve an extendedcontemplation and deliberation process thatextends for many months or even years (Lykinset al., 2007). Thus, death anxiety is likely toproduce faster, more intense psychological re-sponses, whereas death reflection is likely toproduce slower, less intense responses. Fi-nally, in terms of focus of attention, death anx-iety emphasizes protecting the self againstnegative outcomes, while death reflection em-phasizes promoting positive outcomes for oth-ers.

THE EMERGENCE OF DEATH AWARENESSAT WORK

Having developed the distinction betweendeath anxiety and death reflection, we now turnto the antecedents of these two forms of deathawareness. When and how does death becomesalient to employees at work? Research sug-gests that death awareness is triggered byevents—experiences or episodes that occur in abounded time period and place (e.g., Weick &Roberts, 1993)—that serve as “mortality cues” bymaking death salient. To capture the range ofevents that can make employees aware ofdeath, we present a typology of mortality cues,which we derived from a review of the terrormanagement theory literature describing an ar-ray of situational forces that increase deathawareness, as well as from research in organi-zational studies referring to death. Our typologyfocuses on three core situational dimensionsalong which mortality cues vary: source, self-relevance, and exposure.

Source, the first dimension, captures the ori-gin of the cue—internal or external. Internalmortality cues are events that originate withinthe workplace, and external mortality cues areevents that originate outside the workplace.Self-relevance, the second dimension, captureshow the individual is connected to the mortality


cue—personally or vicariously. Personal mortal-ity cues are events that trigger death awarenessby exposing employees to direct threats to theirown lives, and vicarious mortality cues areevents that trigger death awareness by expos-ing employees to others who are dead or indanger. Exposure, the third dimension, capturesthe frequency and duration of the cue—chronic

or acute. Chronic mortality cues are recurring,lasting events, and acute mortality cues areshort-lived, intermittent events. Figure 2 repre-sents these three core dimensions of mortalitycues in a 2 � 2 � 2 diagram, provides examplesof each type, and describes their predicted im-pacts on death anxiety and death reflection,which we detail below.

FIGURE 2A Typology of Mortality Cues

Chronic AcuteInternal External Internal External

Personal

Definition: Extendedworkplace events thatthreaten employees’own lives

Definition: Extendedoutside events thatthreaten employees’own lives

Definition: Time-bounded workplaceevents that threatenemployees’ own lives

Definition: Time-bounded outside eventsthat threaten employees’own lives

Example: Dangerousjobs, where firefighters,police officers, soldiers,ambulance drivers,astronauts, pilots, mineworkers, infectiousdisease specialists, andintelligence agents areresponsible for tasks thatdirectly place their liveson the line (Jermier,Gaines, & McIntosh, 1989)

Example: Prolongedpersonal illness ordisease (Baldridge &Veiga, 2001)

Example: Workplaceaccidents (Hofmann &Stetzer, 1998; Perrow,1984; Weick & Roberts,1993)

Example: Crisesaffecting the self, suchas natural disasters,automobile accidents,and terrorist attacks(Pearson & Clair, 1998)

Impact: Low deathanxiety, high deathreflection

Impact: Low deathanxiety, moderate deathreflection

Impact: High deathanxiety, low deathreflection

Impact: Moderate deathanxiety, low deathreflection

Vicarious

Definition: Extendedworkplace events thatplace employees incontact with others deador in danger

Definition: Extendedoutside events thatthreaten the lives ofothers in physical oremotional proximity toemployees

Definition: Time-boundedworkplace events thatthreaten the lives ofothers in physical oremotional proximity toemployees

Definition: Time-boundedoutside events thatthreaten the lives ofothers in physical oremotional proximity toemployees

Example: Dirty work andnecessary evils, asexperienced byphysicians, nurses,hospice workers,paramedics, soldiers,executioners, firefighters,police officers, disasterand rescue workers,trauma and crisiscounselors, and funeralworkers (Ashforth &Kreiner, 1999; Clark &LaBeff, 1982; Molinsky &Margolis, 2005)

Example: Aging or illparents (Goodstein, 1995;Ingram & Simons, 1995)

Example: Executivedeath (Worrell, Davidson,Chandy, & Garrison,1986)

Example: Crisesaffecting other people ororganizations, such asterrorist attacks andnatural disasters(Pearson & Clair, 1998)






The Effects of Mortality Cues on Death Anxietyand Death Reflection

Source. We first propose that internal mortal-ity cues are more likely than external mortalitycues to increase both death anxiety and deathreflection at work. We base this prediction onevidence of the encoding specificity principle inmemory theory and research, which demon-strates that memory is context dependent: indi-viduals are most likely to recall events in thedomains in which they occurred (Baddeley,1982). For example, employees will be mostlikely to think of death at work when they areexposed to mortality cues at work, whetherthrough performing a dangerous task, havingcontact with others in danger or death, or en-countering accidents and disasters in the work-place. Accordingly, when mortality cues origi-nate within the workplace, they will be moreaccessible to employees while working and,thus, have greater potential to elicit both deathanxiety and death reflection.

Proposition 2: Internal mortality cuesare more likely than external mortal-ity cues to increase (a) death anxietyand (b) death reflection at work.

Self-relevance. Next, we propose that per-sonal mortality cues are more likely than vicar-ious mortality cues to increase both death anx-iety and death reflection at work. As discussedpreviously, terror management research revealsthat individuals often dismiss vicarious mortal-ity cues by asserting their own health, longevity,or immunity to the triggering events (Arndt etal., 1997; Simon et al., 1997). In contrast, personalmortality cues are more difficult to disregardsince employees are confronted with direct evi-dence that their lives are at risk. For example,physicians and nurses treating sick patients canmore easily distance themselves from deaththan police officers and rescue workers who arerisking their own lives. When employees per-form dangerous jobs or are injured in accidentsor disasters, they will find it difficult to deny thethreats that they have experienced. As such,personal mortality cues have greater potentialto elicit both death anxiety and death reflectionthan vicarious mortality cues.

Proposition 3: Personal mortality cuesare more likely than vicarious mortal-

ity cues to increase (a) death anxietyand (b) death reflection at work.

The Moderating Role of Exposure

We further propose that these effects of inter-nal and personal mortality cues on death anxi-ety and death reflection are moderated by expo-sure. More specifically, we propose that whethermortality cues trigger death anxiety or deathreflection is a function of exposure. When em-ployees face acute exposure to mortality cues,these cues will be more likely to elicit deathanxiety and less likely to elicit death reflection(Lykins et al., 2007). In the face of acute cues,such as accidents, natural disasters, and terror-ist attacks, employees are often overwhelmedby fear of the unknown (Pyszczynski et al., 2003).We predict the opposite, however, when employ-ees are chronically exposed to mortality cues;these cues will be less likely to elicit deathanxiety and more likely to elicit death reflection.

We propose that chronic exposure increasesawareness of death but enables employees toprocess mortality cues with reflection in the coolcognitive system, instead of with anxiety in thehot experiential system. Why would chronic ex-posure to mortality cues change the nature ofdeath awareness from anxiety to reflection,rather than reducing the salience of death alto-gether? Although one might expect that chronicexposure would enable employees to ignoremortality cues or disengage cognitive process-ing, theory and research on social cognition re-veals that chronic exposure to information tendsto increase the accessibility of that information(Higgins, 1996; Schwarz, 1999). Such increases inaccessibility under chronic exposure are partic-ularly common when the information is self-threatening (Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000), which isa defining feature of mortality cues (Baumeister,1991). Because mortality cues are self-threaten-ing events, they are extremely difficult to ignoreor suppress (Arndt et al., 1997; Wenzlaff & Weg-ner, 2000). Thus, under chronic exposure, em-ployees will still be conscious of mortality, butthey will process it differently: instead of react-ing emotionally with anxiety, they will respondcognitively with reflection.

Indeed, research on coping with harm doing,trauma, and death suggests that, over time, ex-posure facilitates a process of emotional habit-uation, or desensitizing, through which mortal-


ity becomes less terrifying and paralyzing(Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Molinsky & Margolis,2005; Palmer, 1983; Regehr, Goldberg, & Hughes,2002). Through exposure, employees gain accessto supportive occupational ideologies and col-leagues and are able to learn cognitive strate-gies for coping with death, thus rendering mor-tality less terrifying and unpredictable. As amanager of morticians remarked, “A group offuneral directors . . . could sit around in the res-taurant talking about the most gory details andit doesn’t bother them a bit” (Ashforth, Kreiner,Clark, & Fugate, 2007: 149).

In other words, chronic exposure to mortalitycues enables employees to shut down the hotexperiential system that governs death anxiety,processing death instead in the cool cognitivesystem, where they are able to think and reflectabout mortality in a deliberate, rational, con-trolled fashion. By facilitating emotional habit-uation and desensitization, chronic exposuresoftens employees’ visceral anxiety reactions,enabling them to engage the cool cognitive sys-tem to reflect on the meaning of life and theirpotential contributions. For example, firefight-ers often enter their jobs seeking excitement,danger, and job security and benefits (Smith,1988). However, through chronic exposure todeath, they often come to think of saving lives asa central source of meaning. As one firefighterexplained it, “I can look back and say, ‘I helpedput out a fire. I helped save somebody.’ It showssomething I did on this earth” (Terkel, 1972: 589).

Thus, we expect that mortality cues elicit highdeath anxiety and low reflection for employeeswith acute exposure and—reversing the pat-tern—low death anxiety and high reflection foremployees with chronic exposure. From a dy-namic viewpoint, this prediction implies that asemployees have repeated exposures to acutemortality cues, they may experience these cuesas chronic, thereby experiencing less death anx-iety and greater reflection (see Lykins et al.,2007).

Proposition 4: Exposure moderates theeffect of mortality cues on deathawareness such that (a) acute expo-sure increases death anxiety and de-creases death reflection while (b)chronic exposure decreases deathanxiety and increases death reflec-tion.

The Moderating Role of Aging Processes

Thus far, our analysis has focused on howsituational variations in the source of, self-relevance of, and exposure to mortality cues willinfluence death anxiety and death reflection.We now consider the impact of aging processes,which play a fundamental role in shapingwhether employees react to mortality cues withdeath anxiety or death reflection. As noted pre-viously, workforces worldwide are aging rap-idly, and organizational scholars have begun tocall for theory and research to explain how ag-ing affects employees’ experiences and behav-iors (e.g., Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004; Warr, 2001).However, little theory and research has exploredthe linkages between aging and death aware-ness.

We propose that as employees age, mortalitycues are decreasingly likely to trigger deathanxiety and increasingly likely to trigger deathreflection. It is not a coincidence that the vastmajority of support for the predictions of terrormanagement theory has been provided by ex-periments involving college students, for whommortality cues tend to elicit death anxiety (Max-field et al., 2007), whereas the bulk of researchon generativity has focused on adults at midlifeand beyond, for whom mortality cues tend toelicit death reflection (McAdams & de St. Aubin,1998). Indeed, Maxfield et al. (2007) found thatyounger adults, but not older adults, displayedthe anxiety-driven self-protective reactions todeath awareness predicted by terror manage-ment theory. Consistent with these findings,several studies suggest that death anxietypeaks when individuals are in their twentiesand declines in a relatively linear fashion there-after (Cicirelli, 2002; Fortner & Neimeyer, 1999;Gesser, Wong, & Reker, 1988), and that, overextended periods of death exposure, individu-als’ psychological reactions shift away fromanxiety and toward reflection (Lykins et al.,2007).

Accordingly, we expect that as employeesage, they are increasingly likely to respond tomortality cues with death reflection rather thandeath anxiety. Research identifies two interre-lated mechanisms through which aging shiftsreactions to mortality cues away from anxietyand toward reflection. First, aging gives rise to aprocess of selective optimization and compensa-tion, in which individuals adapt to age-related


changes by prioritizing interests, choosingmeaningful and realistic goals, adjusting stan-dards, and finding new methods to completetasks and accomplish goals (Baltes &Carstensen, 1996; Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004).Several decades ago Kubler-Ross (1969) arguedthat as they gain exposure to death, individualsmove through stages of denial, anger, bargain-ing, and depression, toward eventual accep-tance. Indeed, recent research suggests that in-dividuals are increasingly likely to reflect ondeath as they age, which leads them to selectvalue-congruent, personally significant goalsthat reduce death anxiety (Lykins et al., 2007),typically by becoming generative through con-tributing to other people or to future generations(McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992; Midlarsky &Hannah, 1989). As they age, rather than fearingdeath, individuals find value in reflecting on“time passed” and getting the most out of “timeleft” (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999;Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004).

Second, aging enhances employees’ capacityfor self-control, which has been shown to de-crease death anxiety (Gailliot, Schmeichel, &Baumeister, 2006). Research on personality de-velopment reveals that as they age, individualsshow dominant trends toward becoming in-creasingly emotionally stable and conscien-tious (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005), two traitsthat play a central role in self-control and will-power (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; Olson, 2005).Accordingly, aging equips employees with aheightened capacity for controlling thoughtsand feelings that allow them to override thevisceral, impulsive, emotional death anxiety re-actions triggered by the hot experiential systemand to activate the deliberate, rational, analyti-cal processing guided by the cool cognitive sys-tem. Thus, we propose that employees’ re-sponses to mortality cues are age dependentsuch that aging decreases death anxiety reac-tions and increases death reflection reactions.

It is important to note that these predictionsapply to both chronological and symbolic agingprocesses. As employees age chronologically,they are increasingly likely to experience ob-servable physical and psychological changesthat promote death reflection, such as grayinghair and losses in vision, hearing, and memory.However, organizational life is replete with sym-bolic signals that draw attention to aging andcan thus promote increased death reflection. Ad-

vancing career stages, achievement of higherlevels of organizational and occupational ten-ure, and retirement planning programs are ex-amples of symbolic aging processes that canstrengthen employees’ tendencies to reflect ondeath by serving as reminders of time passedand by highlighting that time left is finite anddecreasing. In some organizational and occupa-tional settings, these symbols may be particu-larly salient, as in the case of air traffic control-lers, who face a mandatory retirement age offifty-six (Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004). We expectthat these types of symbolic aging processes,not only chronological aging processes, can trig-ger death reflection.

Proposition 5: Aging processes moder-ate the effect of mortality cues ondeath awareness such that as employ-ees age chronologically and symboli-cally, they tend to respond to mortalitycues with (a) decreasing death anxietyand (b) increasing death reflection.

BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF DEATHAWARENESS AT WORK

Now that we have explained how mortalitycues and aging processes interact to influencedeath anxiety and death reflection, we can ex-amine the consequences of these two psycho-logical states for work behavior, an importantissue that has rarely been addressed in organi-zational scholarship (Sievers, 1986, 1993). We fo-cus on two core classes of work behavior: with-drawal behaviors, which involve behavioraldisengagement from work through absenteeism,tardiness, and turnover (Harrison, Newman, &Roth, 2006), and generative behaviors, which areactions taken to make meaningful, lasting con-tributions that benefit other people and groups(McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992). We focus onthese behaviors not only because they can havedestructive versus constructive implications forjob performance but also because they havebeen linked directly to aging processes (Ng &Feldman, 2008) and to different psychologicalstates that closely parallel our distinction be-tween death anxiety triggering self-protectivemotivation and death reflection triggeringprosocial motivation. More specifically, re-searchers have found that withdrawal behav-iors are often driven by stress and negative


emotions (e.g., Podsakoff, LePine, & LePine, 2007;Spector & Fox, 2002), whereas generative behav-iors are often driven by the desire to help others(e.g., Grant, 2008; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992;Rioux & Penner, 2001; Spector & Fox, 2002). In thefollowing sections we develop propositions thatexplain how both individual and contextual con-tingencies moderate the effects of death anxietyon withdrawal behaviors and death reflection ongenerative behaviors in the work domain.

Death Anxiety and Stress-Related WithdrawalBehaviors at Work

We expect that, in general, death anxiety islikely to increase withdrawal behaviors at work.The logic behind this prediction is provided bytheory and research on stress, which suggeststhat death anxiety is a cause of stress andstrain, and stress and strain can result in feel-ings of emotional exhaustion. The consequenceof stress and strain caused by death anxiety canbe short-term withdrawal behaviors, such as ab-senteeism and tardiness, since employees lackthe emotional energy to attend work or findthemselves distracted from work-relatedthoughts (Byron & Peterson, 2002). In the case ofparticularly intense or long-lasting levels ofdeath anxiety that employees find emotionallyoverwhelming, the consequence can be thelonger-term withdrawal behavior of turnover, asemployees seek to protect themselves by transi-tioning to jobs with less exposure to mortalitycues (e.g., Zaccaro & Stone, 1988).

The proposed linkages among death anxiety,stress, and withdrawal behaviors are supportedby several studies. With respect to the effect ofdeath anxiety on stress, a naturally occurringquasi-experiment showed that the deadly ThreeMile Island nuclear accident predicated higherlevels of employee tension (Chisholm et al.,1983). Similarly, a study of physical danger inpolice work linked objective hazards to fear ofdeath, which was associated with higher emo-tional exhaustion and disaffection with the or-ganization (Jermier et al., 1989), and a study ofNew York city firefighters showed that involve-ment in the traumatic September 11 events wasassociated with higher levels of depression andstress (Bacharach & Bamberger, 2007).

Because few researchers have explicitly mea-sured death anxiety, there is little direct evi-dence that death anxiety causes withdrawal be-

haviors. However, several studies provideindirect evidence of this effect by linking acutemortality cues to withdrawal behaviors throughstress processes. One study showed that thedeath of a family member predicted higher lev-els of sickness absenteeism among municipalemployees in the following year (Kivimaki et al.,2002). Another study showed that employees’ re-ports of strain from the acute events of Septem-ber 11 predicted higher levels of absenteeism insubsequent weeks (Byron & Peterson, 2002). Anda third study showed that employees who per-ceived high levels of danger in their jobs werelikely to report strong intentions to quit (Zaccaro& Stone, 1988). Accordingly, we propose thatdeath anxiety, particularly when it is intense orlong-lasting, will lead employees to protectthemselves from stress by withdrawing fromwork.

Proposition 6: Death anxiety increasesstress-related withdrawal behaviorsof absenteeism, tardiness, and turn-over.

However, there are conditions under whichdeath anxiety is more versus less likely to in-crease withdrawal behaviors. Our earlier prop-ositions suggested that employees will experi-ence greater death anxiety at work whenmortality cues are internal rather than externalto the workplace. This suggests that internalmortality cues are generally likely to causedeath anxiety at work and, therefore, stress andwithdrawal behaviors. But when mortality cuesare external, different employees may displaydifferent patterns of responses. Work-family re-search indicates that employees differ in theirboundary preferences: “integrators” prefer toblur the boundary between work and other lifedomains, whereas “segmenters” prefer to sepa-rate work from other domains of life (Edwards &Rothbard, 1999; Rothbard, Phillips, & Dumas,2005). Because integrators choose not to com-partmentalize their lives, external mortalitycues are likely to spill over and influence theirthoughts and feelings about death at work, pre-cipitating higher death anxiety, which will leadto more withdrawal behaviors.

Segmenters, on the other hand, are motivatedto draw sharp boundaries between work andother life domains. For segmenters, then, workmay provide a respite from external mortalitycues, promoting task focus and reducing the ten-


dency to display such withdrawal behaviors asabsenteeism, tardiness, and turnover. Indeed,terror management research has shown thatsome individuals seek to escape death anxietyby fleeing from the source of the anxiety andfocusing intensely on another domain (McGre-gor, Gailliot, Vasquez, & Nash, 2007; McGregor &Marigold, 2003). This is a pattern that we expectto see among segmenters: their motivation tocompartmentalize their lives will lead them torespond to external mortality cues by increasingtheir focus on work tasks, which will reduce thestress and distraction of death anxiety andthereby prevent withdrawal behaviors. Thus, inthe event of external mortality cues, death anx-iety is more likely to influence withdrawal be-haviors among integrators than segmenters.

Proposition 7: When mortality cues areexternal to the workplace, workboundary preferences moderate theeffect of death anxiety on withdrawalbehaviors such that segmenters en-gage in fewer withdrawal behaviorsthan integrators.

Death Reflection and Generative Behaviorsat Work

As noted previously, death reflection is likelyto trigger prosocial motivation, which has beenlinked to higher levels of generative behaviors,such as helping, mentoring, and effort and ini-tiative in tasks that benefit others (Grant, 2008;Rioux & Penner, 2001). However, rather than dis-playing generative behaviors at work, employ-ees can choose to express their prosocial moti-vations in generative behaviors outside thedomain of work (McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992).In this section we consider the individual andcontextual contingencies that shape whetherdeath reflection drives employees to expressprosocial motivation in generative behaviorswithin or outside the domain of work.

From the perspectives of theories of resourceallocation (Becker, 1965; Hobfoll, 2002) and valuecongruence (Cable & Edwards, 2004; Schwartz,1992), when employees reflect on death, theybecome increasingly aware that time is finiteand turn to their values in order to make deci-sions about how to allocate their resources. In-deed, recent research shows that death reflec-tion motivates individuals to turn to their values

for cues about how to prioritize tasks, goals, andactivities (Lykins et al., 2007). For example, Ap-ple founder Steve Jobs explained that being di-agnosed with cancer led him to pursue morevalue-congruent projects: “I have looked in themirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If todaywere the last day of my life, would I want to dowhat I am about to do today?’ . . . Rememberingthat I’ll be dead soon is the most important toolI’ve ever encountered to help me make the bigchoices in life” (Jobs, 2005).

We expect that whether death reflectiondrives employees to express their prosocial mo-tivation in generative behaviors within or out-side the domain of work depends on their orien-tations toward work, which capture the valuesthey attach to work (Wrzesniewski, Dutton, &Debebe, 2003). Psychologists and sociologistshave argued that employees typically hold oneof three orientations toward work—job, career,or calling (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, &Tipton, 1985; Schwartz, 1986). Job-oriented em-ployees see work as a means to fulfill the valuesof supporting oneself, one’s family, and one’sleisure time. Career-oriented employees seework as a means to fulfill the values of status,promotions, achievement, and challenge. Call-ing-oriented employees see work as an end inand of itself, as an intrinsic source of personalmeaning, and as a means to fulfil the value ofhelping others.

We draw on theories of resource allocationand value congruence to propose that thesework orientations play a critical role in influenc-ing employees’ behavioral reactions to deathreflection. By enhancing the salience of mortal-ity, death reflection increases employees’awareness that time is finite, motivating them tomake decisions about where to allocate theirenergy and attention (Becker, 1965; Hobfoll,2002). Theories of value congruence explainthese responses with reference to values: to de-termine where to allocate scarce resources, em-ployees turn to their values, or guiding princi-ples, for information about how to prioritize theiroptions (Cable & Edwards, 2004; Schwartz, 1992;Vroom, 1964). Indeed, terror management re-search indicates that when death is salient, in-dividuals invest more time and energy in activ-ities that are reflective of their personal valuesand identities (McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, &Spencer, 2001).


The moderating role of work orientations. Wepropose that work orientations provide a set ofprinciples to guide the decision about how toallocate time and energy. Research on work ori-entations shows that job-oriented employeestend not to define their identities strongly interms of work (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001;Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz,1997). Accordingly, we expect that employeeswith job orientations will choose to express theirprosocial motivations outside the work domain,since they do not expect to find meaning in work(Wrzesniewski et al., 1997). Thus, death reflec-tion will motivate job-oriented employees topursue generative activities outside of work,such as childrearing and volunteering, and toinvest less time and energy in the work domain.For instance, consider a funeral home directorwho explains that she has a job orientation to-ward work: “I didn’t want to go into the funeralbusinesses. . . . I had some choices, somechances to do other things, but, well, it’s a familybusiness. . . . It’s not something that I picked”(Bowe, Bowe, & Streeter, 2000: 663, 668). She de-scribes how chronic mortality exposure in her jobleads to death reflection, which motivates her tospend more time with her family: “I know thatseeing so much death firsthand . . . I appreciatelife more because I do this . . . because I know itcould all end like that. . . . I appreciate family andget-togethers more doing this” (Bowe et al., 2000:668).

Employees with career and calling orienta-tions, on the other hand, will choose to expresstheir prosocial motivations in the work domain.These employees invest their identities morestrongly in work than job-oriented employees,thereby attaching more meaning and impor-tance to work as a life domain (Wrzesniewski etal., 1997). For career-oriented employees, work isa central source of status and prestige(Wrzesniewski et al., 1997). Moreover, researchon near-death experiences shows that death re-flection can broaden individuals’ focus of atten-tion beyond their own narrow career goals to-ward a consideration of helping others anddoing good (Cozzolino et al., 2004; Lykins et al.,2007). These findings suggest that death reflec-tion will motivate career-oriented employees toengage in higher levels of generative behaviorin order to simultaneously achieve their agenticand communal goals of improving their ownreputation and contributing to other people.

For calling-oriented employees, work is a po-tential source of meaning, identity expression,and social contribution. We expect that deathreflection will motivate calling-oriented em-ployees to express their prosocial motivations atwork by engaging in generative behaviors. Ifthey recognize opportunities to help and mentorothers, they will be likely to take initiative incrafting their jobs to provide more help andmentoring (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Theyalso will be likely to display high levels of effortand persistence in tasks that benefit others(Grant, 2007). For example, psychologists havediscovered surges in objective contributions ascreative workers, such as artists, composers,and writers, reach retirement age in their 60s,70s, and even 80s (Simonton, 1988). One expla-nation for this pattern is the “swan-song” phe-nomenon: reflecting on death strengthens themotivation of calling-oriented individuals toleave behind a meaningful contribution. In astudy of nearly 2,000 works of composition by 172classical composers, Simonton (1989) found thatlast works had higher objective popularity andexpert ratings of aesthetic significance, even af-ter controlling for age and eminence:

As people approach their last years, they mayundergo a life assessment, a reflection on wherethey have been and on how little time remains totravel, and so may feel that the limited futuremust be exploited to the utmost. . . . For creativeindividuals, the outcome of this life review maybe a significant reshaping of the content andform of those works selected as the career’s coda,rendering them qualitatively distinct from otherworks. Last-works effects hinge not on the cre-ator’s chronological or even career age but ratheron the perceived proximity of death (Simonton,1989: 42).

Together, these arguments and examples sug-gest that death reflection will increase the gen-erative behaviors of calling-oriented and ca-reer-oriented employees while it will decreasethe generative behaviors of job-oriented em-ployees in the work domain.

Proposition 8: Work orientations mod-erate the effect of death reflection ongenerative behaviors in the work do-main such that death reflection (a) in-creases work generativity for career-oriented and calling-oriented employeesand (b) decreases work generativity forjob-oriented employees.


The moderating role of job design. For bothcalling-oriented and career-oriented employees,the targets of their generative behaviors arelikely to depend on the opportunities providedin their job designs. If employees are responsi-ble for meaningful work that is high in tasksignificance and helping opportunities (Grant,2007; Hackman & Oldham, 1980), they will belikely to express generativity in their currentjobs. However, if employees cannot find highlevels of task significance or helping and men-toring opportunities in their current jobs, theywill be likely to consider two options for ex-pressing generativity. One option is to engagein generative job crafting, altering their tasksand relationships to expand the amount of helpand mentoring that they provide to others(Grant, 2007; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Iftheir current jobs provide autonomy for job craft-ing, employees are likely to take advantage ofthese opportunities. However, if employees lackthe autonomy to engage in job crafting, theymay eventually change jobs, moving into a ser-vice occupation that enables them to expresstheir prosocial motivations more effectively ingenerative behaviors (e.g., Ring & Elsaesser Val-arino, 1998). For example, reflecting on deathafter the events of September 11 strengthenedone man’s prosocial motivation, leading him tobecome a firefighter: “I was on the fence aboutjoining because of the time it would take, thenafter 9/11, all I wanted to do was help”(Wrzesniewski, 2002: 231).

These arguments suggest that death reflec-tion will be more likely to motivate career-oriented and calling-oriented employees to ex-press greater generativity in their current jobswhen those jobs are meaningful or provide au-tonomy for job crafting. But death reflection willbe more likely to motivate these employees tochange to more generative jobs when their cur-rent jobs lack meaningfulness or autonomy forjob crafting.

Proposition 9: Job design interactswith work orientations to moderatethe effect of death reflection on gener-ative behaviors such that career-oriented and calling-oriented employ-ees will express generativity withintheir current jobs when those jobs arehigh in meaningfulness or autonomyfor job crafting, but they will express

generativity by seeking new jobswhen their current jobs lack meaning-fulness or autonomy for job crafting.

DISCUSSION

We have developed a theoretical frameworkto expand existing knowledge about deathawareness in organizations. Our discussion ofthe nature, antecedents, contingencies, and be-havioral consequences of death awareness atwork offers valuable implications for organiza-tional theory and research.

Theoretical Contributions

We have focused on challenging conventionalwisdom about death awareness in three keyways. First, we suggest that death awareness isa heterogeneous rather than homogeneous phe-nomenon. Whereas terror management and gen-erativity theorists have traditionally treateddeath awareness as a unitary psychologicalstate, we have articulated how death awarenesscan take the form of either anxiety, processed inthe hot experiential system, or reflection, pro-cessed in the cool cognitive system. Second, wesuggest that death awareness and work motiva-tion are interdependent rather than indepen-dent phenomena. Whereas organizationalscholars have rarely considered death aware-ness as an influence on motivation (Sievers,1993), we have proposed that death awarenesscan exert surprisingly powerful effects on workmotivation. Third, we highlight the upsides aswell as the more obvious downsides of deathawareness in organizations. Whereas scholarsand practitioners alike often have regardeddeath awareness as a solely destructive phe-nomenon, we have called attention to conditionsunder which death awareness can be beneficialin organizations, offering a more thorough, bal-anced view of the effects of death on organiza-tional life. Our propositions suggest that deathawareness is more likely to have constructiveeffects when it takes the form of reflection ratherthan anxiety, particularly when employees havecalling orientations toward work. In addition tooffering these general contributions, our theoret-ical model advances existing knowledge in sev-eral specific areas.


Work motivation and behaviors. Our articleadvances work motivation theory and researchby calling attention to death awareness as anunderexplored influence on employee motiva-tion. In examining how situations influencework motivation, scholars have traditionally fo-cused on intentionally designed features of or-ganizational contexts, such as job designs,goals, and rewards (Katzell & Thompson, 1990).We complement these perspectives by accentu-ating the importance of mortality cues and ag-ing processes that trigger awareness of one’sown mortality in shaping work motivation.Moreover, existing motivation theory and re-search has not considered death anxiety as atrigger of self-protective motivation or death re-flection as a trigger of prosocial motivation. Bydoing so, our article suggests that death anxietygenerates a prevention-focused mindset inwhich employees seek to defend their identitiesand world views, whereas death reflection gen-erates a promotion-focused mindset in whichemployees seek to contribute to other peopleand future generations. These propositionshighlight the importance of death awareness asan antecedent of prevention versus promotionregulatory focus—an issue not considered in ex-isting theory and research on regulatory focus(Brockner & Higgins, 2001).

In addition, researchers have not previouslyexamined the role that aging processes play inshaping whether mortality cues trigger deathanxiety and self-protective motivation or deathreflection and prosocial motivation (see Kanfer& Ackerman, 2004). Our propositions suggestthat aging is likely to shift employees’ reactionsto mortality cues away from death anxiety andself-protective motivation and toward death re-flection and prosocial motivation. This impliesthat by promoting death reflection and prosocialmotivation, aging should play an important rolein stimulating generative behaviors. Finally, re-searchers have yet to link death awareness towithdrawal and generative behaviors. Our re-search identifies death anxiety and death re-flection as new influences on withdrawal andgenerative behaviors.

Threats, aging, and meaning. Our proposi-tions extend existing knowledge about threats,aging, and meaning. First, although organiza-tional scholars have long recognized the impor-tance of threatening events in employees’ expe-riences and behaviors (Pearson & Clair, 1998),

few typologies exist to categorize and classifythe content of these threatening events. Our ty-pology of mortality cues introduces three keydimensions along which threatening events canvary: exposure (chronic versus acute), source (in-ternal versus external), and self-relevance (per-sonal versus vicarious).

Second, whereas existing models suggest thatthreatening events lead to a restricted, nar-rowed focus of attention (Staw, Sandelands, &Dutton, 1981), we suggest that aging processesplace an important boundary condition onthreat-rigidity effects. For aging employees,mortality cues may actually broaden the focusof attention by triggering the process of deathreflection. These propositions provide new in-sights into the role of aging in work motivation.As mentioned previously, recent models of ag-ing and work motivation have not accounted fordeath awareness (Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004).Our model takes steps toward filling this gap byspecifying how aging influences employees’psychological responses to mortality cues andhow these death anxiety versus death reflectionreactions, in turn, are likely to influence behav-iors.

Third, we highlight a paradoxical effect ofmortality cues on meaning. Baumeister (1991)noted that death awareness threatens mean-ing by reducing the predictability and control-lability of life, eradicating the potential forfuture meaning, signaling that one’s existenceis likely to be forgotten, and undermining thevalue of one’s accomplishments. Althoughmortality cues initially threaten meaning, bytriggering states of death anxiety and deathreflection, they drive employees to seek outmeaning through protecting themselves orcontributing to others. Thus, by threateningmeaning, mortality cues stimulate self-protec-tive and prosocial motivations that enable em-ployees to restore and renew their feelings ofmeaning. Accordingly, we suggest that mor-tality cues serve to threaten meaning in theshort run but to enhance meaning in thelonger term. These ideas fill a gap in themeaning literature (e.g., Podolny, Khurana, &Hill-Popper, 2005; Pratt & Ashforth, 2003; Wrzes-niewski et al., 2003) by illuminating a counter-intuitive, time-contingent effect of mortalitycues on meaning.


Future Directions

We believe that the most critical starting pointis to establish the construct validity of the twodeath awareness states. We recommend that re-searchers develop and validate scales to mea-sure death awareness at work. In doing so it isparticularly important to assess the discrimi-nant validity of the death anxiety and deathreflection scales. We hope that researchers willdevelop multimethod instruments so that bothconvergent and discriminant validity can betested with a multitrait-multimethod matrix(Campbell & Fiske, 1959). However, becausedeath anxiety is often short-lived, we recom-mend that researchers utilize experience-sampling (Beal & Weiss, 2003) and daily diary(Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, &Stone, 2004) methodologies, which are designedto capture brief, momentary psychologicalstates and assess their temporal duration. Inaddition, because of its “hot” nature, death anx-iety may be difficult to measure accurately withself-reports. To transcend this limitation, we rec-ommend that researchers consider linguisticanalyses of expressive writing, which are wellsuited to the assessment of the intense emotionsthat can accompany death anxiety (e.g., Cohn,Mehl, & Pennebaker, 2004).

After establishing construct validity, we rec-ommend that researchers turn to questions ofpredictive or consequential validity. We believeit is important to study the effects of deathawareness before considering its antecedents,since many researchers may not be concernedabout how death awareness emerges until wehave evidence that it matters. To link deathawareness to behavioral outcomes, we recom-mend that researchers use experimental meth-odologies to manipulate death anxiety anddeath reflection (e.g., Cozzolino et al., 2004). Be-cause of the ethical challenges of manipulatingdeath awareness in organizations, quasi-experiments may be the ideal methodology forestablishing external validity, for they allow re-searchers to study the impact of naturally occur-ring mortality cues on employees’ psychologicalstates and behaviors (Cook & Campbell, 1979;Grant & Wall, in press). For example, research-ers may enter organizations in the wake of trau-mas, accidents, illnesses, and disasters to studythe psychological and behavioral responses ofindividuals who were exposed to these events in

different ways. In addition to providing theoret-ical insights into the consequences of deathawareness, quasi-experiments may open doorsfor researchers to help employees cope withthese tragic events. Finally, we hope to see re-searchers turn to an examination of the anteced-ents of death awareness. For example, rela-tively little is known about the work events thattrigger death awareness states or the frequencyof death awareness in the workplace.

In addition to empirically testing our proposi-tions, researchers may explore further questionsstimulated by our discussion. Scholars havelong observed that cultures vary in their ap-proaches to coping with death (e.g., Phillips &Feldman, 1973; Sims & Baumann, 1972). It isworthwhile to examine whether differences inorganizational cultures, norms, values, and be-liefs about death moderate employees’ reac-tions to death awareness (see Arndt, Solomon,Kasser, & Sheldon, 2004; Kasser & Sheldon, 2000;Wade-Benzoni, 2006). It is also critical for re-searchers to examine the dynamic relationshipbetween death anxiety and death reflection. Al-though emotions and cognitions can act to-gether (Damasio, 1994), in the case of death anx-iety and death reflection, the two states areunlikely to co-occur, for two reasons. First,through reciprocal processes, each form of deathawareness can reduce the likelihood that theother will emerge. Terror management research-ers have suggested that death anxiety moti-vates individuals to avoid existential terror byavoiding death-related thoughts, which mayprevent death reflection (Pyszczynski et al.,2003). Generativity researchers have suggestedthat death reflection facilitates proactive plan-ning and marshaling of cognitive, emotional,and behavioral coping strategies for meaningmaking, and these reduce death anxiety (Cozzo-lino et al., 2004; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992).

Second, these bodies of literature also suggestthat the two states can trigger each other, butwhen they do so, a “phase shift” occurs in whichthe triggering state is replaced by the new state.For example, reflecting on death may lead someindividuals to experience anxiety, which willactivate the experiential system and shut downthe cognitive system, preventing further reflec-tion from occurring. Conversely, when experi-encing death anxiety, some individuals may be-gin to rationalize; this reflection may activatethe cognitive system and shut down the experi-


ential system, preventing further anxiety fromoccurring.

Ultimately, the dynamic relationship betweenanxiety and reflection may depend on the tem-poral dimension of exposure. Death anxiety, be-cause it is processed in the experiential system,is likely to be short-lived and acute in nature.When it occurs repeatedly over time, our propo-sitions imply that employees may habituate,which will allow them to transform deathawareness into reflection rather than anxiety.Death reflection may arise as a consequence ofone or more acute events that initially triggeranxiety and/or through intrinsic age-related pro-cesses. We hope to see researchers explorethese issues in further depth.

Practical Implications

Because organizations typically provide fewguidelines for responding to death, managersare often overwhelmed by uncertainty, discom-fort, and doubt about how to deal with mortalitycues (e.g., Dutton et al., 2006; Sanchez, Korbin, &Viscarra, 1995). Our model may assist managersin understanding and managing mortality cues.Our propositions suggest that when mortalitycues are present, managers stand to benefitfrom supporting reflection rather than fromsweeping the event under the rug. Younger em-ployees tend to react to mortality cues with anx-iety, which can prompt withdrawal behaviors,such as absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover.Moreover, the attempt to suppress death anxietycan lead to dysfunctional rebound effects, inwhich death anxiety becomes increasingly sa-lient and the hot experiential system distractsattention away from work tasks (Gailliot et al.,2006). By structuring forums for thinking about ordiscussing death-related events, managers mayshift younger employees’ reactions away fromanxiety and toward reflection, encouraging gen-erative behavior among those who are callingoriented and career oriented. If managers seekto facilitate generative behavior among job-oriented employees, it may be particularly im-portant to offer monetary rewards for taking ini-tiative and mentoring others. This may motivatejob-oriented employees to invest more time ingenerative behaviors, with similar effects on ca-reer-oriented employees as well.

Our model thus has important implications forpromoting safety and preventing errors and ac-

cidents—a topic of substantial importance inorganizational theory and practice (e.g., Hof-mann & Stetzer, 1998; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obst-feld, 2005). In organizations in which safety andphysical danger are chronically salient con-cerns, if employees are unwilling to comply withsafety practices, managers may consider struc-turing occasions for death reflection. This maymotivate employees with calling orientations toengage in generative behaviors to promotesafety for others, and it may motivate employeeswith career orientations to engage in generativebehaviors to build a reputation and leave a leg-acy. To motivate employees with job orienta-tions to engage in safety-related generative be-haviors, managers may be more dependent onincentive compensation practices linking mone-tary rewards to safety performance.

Conclusion

We anticipate that some scholars may objectto the intellectualization of such a philosophi-cally profound, emotionally potent topic. Theymay fear that systematic theory developmentand positivistic empirical methods will do vio-lence to its richness. We submit, however, thatas scholars seek to understand and explain or-ganizational life, it is important to consider therole of death awareness as a central feature ofthe human condition.

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Adam M. Grant ([email protected]) is associate professor of managementat The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. from theUniversity of Michigan. His research focuses on job design, work motivation, andprosocial and proactive behaviors.

Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni ([email protected]) is an associate professor of manage-ment and Center of Leadership and Ethics Scholar at the Fuqua School of Business,Duke University. She received her Ph.D. from the Kellogg School of Management,Northwestern University. Her research focuses on intergenerational behavior, ethics,social entrepreneurship, environmental issues, interrelationships between societaland organizational interests, and negotiation.


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