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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1567600
This article is part of the Research Topic Mortality Saliency and Mental Health: How Could Awareness of Death Promote Well-being? View all 5 articles
Death attitudes and good life experience: mediation and suppression effects of intrinsic and extrinsic goals
Provisionally accepted- 1 School of Psychology, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
- 2 School of Psychology, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, Shandong Province, China
- 3 Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
- 4 School of Mental Health, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China
- 5 The Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China
Based on Heidegger's viewpoint, Goal Contents Theory and Terror Management Theory, this study aims to examine the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic goals in the relationship between two types of death attitudes and good life experience. Using data from the Chinese Social Mentality Survey, the sample size was 10,195. We found that neutral acceptance to death had a positive effect on the good life experience, while death anxiety had a negative effect. And in the mechanism by which neutral acceptance and death anxiety influenced good life experience (Model 1), the intrinsic goals exhibited a mediation effect, while the extrinsic goals show a suppression effect. Further analysis indicated that in the national stability model (Model 2) and personal richness model (Model 4), the intrinsic goals played a mediating role, while the extrinsic goals showed a suppression effect, consistent with Model 1. However, in the model of family happiness (Model 3), both intrinsic goals and extrinsic goals showed mediation effects. In the model of personal richness (Model 4), the total effect of death anxiety and neutral acceptance on personal richness did not reach a significant level. These findings have revealed the underlying mechanism through which death attitudes are linked to the good life experience among Chinese individuals, thereby contributing to the literature on well-being, and further validating and refining Goal Content Theory.
Keywords: Death Anxiety, neutral acceptance, Intrinsic goals, Extrinsic goals, good life experience
Received: 27 Jan 2025; Accepted: 31 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Wu, Pei and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Junxiu Wang, School of Mental Health, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China
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