How mortality awareness regulates intertemporal Choice: A joint effect of endpoint reminder and retrospective episodic thinking

Abstract

Although life is lived forward, it can only be understood backward. From the perspective of life-history theory, we propose that mortality reminders may induce backward thinking from the endpoint of life and regulate intertemporal choice between smaller-and-sooner (SS) and large-and-later rewards (LL), thereby helping individuals with time management. Experiment 1 compared the effects of mortality (endpoint) imagination with the imagination of being at age 70 and found that only mortality imagination significantly reduced delay discounting, the extent to which a delayed reward is discounted. In Experiment 2, mortality reminders companied by retrospective episodic mental time travel significantly reduced delay discounting compared to prospective episodic processing. However, the effect disappeared when the end-of-life reminder was replaced with an old-age (70 years) reminder. Highlighting the inevitability of death, coupled with retrospective episodic thinking, promoted future-oriented preferences, suggesting that end-of-life meditation is likely to induce retrospective mental time travels.