Okay, how would you caption this image?
Joe?
“You guys have anything other than Cat Fancy Magazine around here? Woof”
Anna?
"I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re adopted.”
So researchers asked this question in a 2013 study. But just before they asked, some participants
were instructed to think about death.
The researchers found the participants who were asked to think about death wrote funnier
captions. Meaning an independent panel sat down and judged their captions to be more
humourous. Thinking about death has all kinds of effects on your life that you might not
expect.
Back in 1973 Ernest Becker published “The Denial of Death”, where he argues that
“all human action is taken to ignore or avoid the anxiety generated by the inevitability
of death”.
In the caption study, humour is one way to cope with the idea of death – It’s an
“anxiety buffer”, a coping mechanism to make you feel more comfortable.
Becker’s work inspired “Terror Management Theory”, which, quite similarly, suggests
that thinking about our mortality influences our behaviour.
There are ways where this seems pretty logical, like how the thought of death makes us more
generous.
For example, one study found people who think more about their own death are more likely
to donate blood. People diagnosed with a terminal illness or those who have a near death experience
tend to focus on more positive things in life.
But for the most part, thinking about death has surprising effects.
One of the biggest claims of Terror Management Theory is that thinking of death can intensify
how people’s values guide their actions.
After judges ruling in prostitution cases answered questions about their own mortality,
they set much higher penalties. On average, they set a $455 bond compared to a $50 bond
from judges who didn’t complete the personality test.
Being reminded of their mortality can actually cause younger people to behave more recklessly.
They adopt a “#YOLO”–you only live once–mentality.
In a series of studies, participants were asked to write about what would happen to
them when they physically died. Following this task, those participants were more likely
to show reckless driving behaviour. Like running a red light or speeding.
And even when people were shown a film about car accidents, they still drove over the speed
limit.
It’s kind of ironic that these reminders of death promote reckless behaviour. In a
way, people think they’re invincible.
While avoiding death is instinctual to all animals, fearing death is unique to humans.
Ernest Becker wrote
“The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is
a mainspring of human activity—activity designed to avoid the fatality of death, to
overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.” –Ernest
Becker
Avoiding the uncomfortable fact that one day, you are going to die, shapes all kinds of
interesting behaviour. Even if you laugh in the face of death, this response is influenced
by your conscious or unconscious knowledge of your mortality.
No one gets to avoid this. We could be scared of it or we could have fun living.
So death is a pretty complicated topic and some of my friends have videos that explore
it as well. Go over to It's Okay To Be Smart where Joe asks, do animals mourn?
And be sure to check out Gross Science, where Anna looks at the juicy science of what happens
inside your body after death.
And subscribe to BrainCraft! For a new video every week.
While I'm alive, anyway.