The Big Questions

Life, death and free will.

by Nathan Heflick

Do This and You'll Die

I Could Die? I Need a Cigarette!

Published on May 12, 2011 by Nathan A. Heflick, Ph.D. in The Big Questions

People generally want to live, so it seems intuitive that death related health threats would bolster healthy behavior. But do they?

A wide range of research (lead by professors Jamie Goldenberg and Jamie Arndt) has tested the effects of death reminders on people's health behaviors. The results suggest that - ironically - death reminders often increase unhealthy behavior.

A key to when death reminders do and do not promote healthy behavior is whether or not the thoughts are recent. If they are recent (still conscious), people will show heightened healthy behavior (e.g., reduced intentions to tan). However, if the thoughts are no longer conscious, either unhealthy or unhealthy behavior can be increased.

If people value and derive self-esteem from an unhealthy behavior, then a death reminder (once out of consciousness) will actually increase the unhealthy behavior.

For instance, in one series of studies, people who had just answered questions about their own death showed less tanning intentions (relative to questions on pain). But, once these thoughts of death were unconscious, they showed heightened tanning intentions (relative to people who had thought about a different topic).

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This isn't to say death reminders (when the thoughts become unconscious) will always trigger unhealthy behaviors. If the person derives self-esteem from exercising, for instance, then thoughts of death (whether still conscious or not) will increase exercising.

This research is embedded in a broad range of research showing that when people have just been thinking about death, with a short delay, they show heightened defense of their worldviews and their self-esteem. For instance, Americans will agree less with an anti-American essay, and people will take more credit for their successes when they have just pondered their own mortality.

So is "do this and you will die" an effective health message? Well, it all depends on if the person hearing the message derives self-worth (perhaps even comfort) from the unhealthy behavior. If they do, then this message could actually backfire, and make the person be even more unhealthy.

I once was with a smoker who heard a commercial about how smoking kills. He said that the commercial stressed him out, so he had to go outside and smoke. Research suggests that such death reminders as health threats, in some cases, do totally backfire.