A series of seven studies published in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology examined the link between existential anxiety and self-determination, exploring how individuals’ autonomy over their lives may mitigate the unsettling knowledge of inevitable death.
Awareness of one’s mortality is a profound and universal human experience that can influence psychological well-being. In this work, Kenneth E. Vail III and Dylan E. Horner weaved together self-determination and terror management theory to explore how agency and existential anxiety can influence happiness and life satisfaction.
In Study 1, a total of 160 participants viewed song titles that were either neural or related to death, as a means of inducing mortality salience. They completed a word-stem completion task designed to measure death-thought accessibility (DTA). Participants completed word stems like “COFF___” that could be neutrally completed as “COFFEE” or death-related as “COFFIN.” A higher number of death-related completions indicates greater DTA. Additionally, participants’ psychological needs satisfaction across autonomy, competence, and relatedness was assessed using a 21-item measure (e.g., “I feel like I am free to decide for myself how to live my life”).
The results demonstrated that exposure to death-related cues increased DTA, a marker of existential anxiety. However, this effect was less pronounced in participants who reported higher levels of needs satisfaction, suggesting that fulfilling psychological needs may provide a buffer against the anxiety triggered by mortality awareness.
Study 2 involved 216 participants and employed a subtler approach to inducing mortality salience through subliminal priming, where the word “death” or a neutral word “field” was flashed briefly. Following this procedure, participants engaged in a lexical decision task to assess their DTA. Psychological needs satisfaction was again measured using the same 21-item scale.
The findings indicated that subliminal exposure to the concept of death increased DTA, mirroring the results of Study 1. Yet, as with the previous study, higher need satisfaction mitigated the impact of these death-related cues.
Study 3 expanded the manipulation of existential thoughts by asking 188 participants to write about experiences where they felt either self-determined or controlled. Participants also ranked the importance of various public policy issues, which had themes of death and mortality (e.g., terrorism, capital punishment) or were unrelated to death (e.g., trade regulations, education). DTA was measured using a word-stem completion task similar to the one used in Study 1.
The results supported the buffering effect of self-determination: participants in the self-determination condition showed less increase in DTA in response to mortality cues compared to those in the controlled condition.
Study 4a involved 301 participants completing measures of need satisfaction and death anxiety (e.g., “Do you worry about dying?”), revealing that higher need satisfaction correlated with lower death anxiety, suggesting that fulfilling psychological needs can mitigate existential concerns without direct exposure to mortality cues. Similarly, Study 4b’s larger sample of 1,849 participants used a shorter 9-item need satisfaction measure and a different 5-item death anxiety scale (e.g., “I am disturbed by the finality of death.”).
The results aligned with Study 4a, showing a negative association between need satisfaction and death anxiety, reinforcing the protective role of satisfying psychological needs against existential fears.
Study 5 revisited direct experimental manipulation by having 119 participants unscramble sentences to prime concepts of self-determination or being controlled, coupled with a writing task. Participants wrote about death or dental pain to induce mortality salience or control conditions. Death anxiety was measured using a 14-item scale [e.g., “the thought of never thinking or experiencing anything again” on a scale of 1 not at all disturbed/anxious to 10 (very disturbed/anxious)].
The study found that while mortality reminders increased death anxiety, this increase was significantly attenuated in participants primed with self-determination, highlighting the mitigating effect of perceived autonomy in the face of mortality awareness.
In Study 6, 271 participants were again assessed for their levels of psychological need satisfaction and DTA alongside overall satisfaction with life. The study found that higher DTA typically predicted lower life satisfaction; however, this effect was attenuated in individuals with higher levels of need satisfaction, suggesting a buffering role of fulfilled psychological needs against the negative impact of mortality awareness on life satisfaction.
Study 7 focused on happiness in a sample of 228 participants, using the same measures as previous studies alongside a 4-item happiness scale [e.g., “In my life right now, I consider myself” (1 = not a very happy person, 5 = a very happy person)]. While DTA generally decreased happiness, this adverse effect was significantly reduced in participants who experienced higher need satisfaction.
Overall, self-determination appears to serve as a buffer against the existential dread triggered by mortality awareness, enhancing both subjective well-being and life satisfaction. These results suggest that fostering a sense of personal agency and connectedness may help manage the psychological impacts of existential threats.
A limitation noted by the authors is the reliance on a predominantly young, North American sample, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other demographic contexts.
The research, “The captain of my soul: Self-determination and need-satisfaction help manage death-related cognition, anxiety, and well-being”, was authored by Kenneth E. Vail III and Dylan E. Horner