ISSEP-2025-15
GRANT ID#: ISSEP-2025-15
GRANT TITLE: Testing Becker's ideas about death denial across the lifespan: Age, mortality awareness, and psychological distancing from death.
GRANTEE: Cleveland State University
PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR: Caroline C. Lapish. Cleveland State University.
CO-PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR: Molly Maxfield. Arizona State University.
GRANT AMOUNT: USD $15,000
DURATION OF GRANT PROJECT: December 15, 2024 – Dec 31, 2026
Description of the Project
Executive summary:
The proposed study tests Ernest Becker’s ideas about death denial by examining how adults across the lifespan might manage mortality awareness by adjusting perceived psychological distance from death via subjective age perceptions and life expectancy estimates. Drawing from Ernest Becker and terror management theory (TMT), we will test the hypothesis that mortality salience (MS) will motivate psychological distancing from death, operationalized as the distance between felt subjective age and estimated life expectancy. Using a 4 (chronological age group: young 18-34, middle 35-59, young-old 60 74, old-old 75+) × 2 (prime: MS vs. dental pain) factorial design to examine whether individuals increase psychological distance from death following MS. First, we predict a main effect such that MS will motivate increased psychological distance from death (a greater distance between subjective age and estimated life expectancy). Additionally, we will also test whether the distancing strategies differ by chronological age group. Specifically, we predict that younger, middle, and young-old adults will achieve distance from death by increasing their estimated life expectancy, while old-older adults achieve it by perceiving themselves to be a younger subjective age. This study will contribute to understanding how age-related shifts in death denial may serve a regulatory role in existential well-being.
Itemized budget:
Grant funding will cover the expenses detailed below:
The entire budget of $15,000 will go toward recruiting participants via online crowdsourced data collection services (e.g., CloudResearch, Prolific), including participant compensation, platform fees, and other related expenses.
The total amount approved for this project is USD $15,000.