The Indirect Effect of Death Anxiety on Experienced Meaning in Life via Search for Meaning and Prosocial Behavior

This study investigated the relationship between death anxiety and experienced meaning in life. Six hundred and forty-eight Chinese college students were surveyed using the Death Anxiety Scale, the Prosocial Behavior Scale, and the Meaning in Life Scale. The results showed that death anxiety predict...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFrontiers in psychology Vol. 12; p. 673460
Main Authors Chang, Baorui, Cheng, Jiaxin, Fang, Jiandong, Dang, Junhua
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Frontiers Media S.A 28.05.2021
Subjects
death anxiety
experienced meaning
prosocial behavior
Psychology
search for meaning
terror management theory
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Summary:This study investigated the relationship between death anxiety and experienced meaning in life. Six hundred and forty-eight Chinese college students were surveyed using the Death Anxiety Scale, the Prosocial Behavior Scale, and the Meaning in Life Scale. The results showed that death anxiety predicted experienced meaning through three pathways: the first one was through search for meaning singly; the second one was through prosocial behavior singly; and the third one was through search for meaning and prosocial behavior serially, which accounted for the highest proportion of the total effect. This study highlights the positive side of death anxiety.
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Edited by: Leonardo Carlucci, University of Studies G. d'Annunzio Chieti and Pescara, Italy
This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
Reviewed by: Andrew A. Abeyta, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Camden, United States; Manuel Martí-Vilar, University of Valencia, Spain
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.673460