Mortality, self-interest, and fairness: The differential impact of death-related news on advantageous inequity aversion

Abstract

Within the framework of Terror Management Theory (TMT), both the pursuit of monetary gain and engagement in prosocial behaviors can buffer against death anxiety. However, these buffers are in conflict in the context of fairness decision-making. Integrating TMT and Life History Theory, we investigated whether different death-related news articles lead individuals to adopt different anxiety-buffering strategies, resulting in varying levels of advantageous inequity aversion (IA). The participants were asked to read one of four news types (accidental death, illness-related death, natural death, or negative affect) and subsequently allocate money between themselves and their co-player. Both Study 1 and 2 demonstrated that participants in the accidental death news condition prioritized acquiring money to buffer against death anxiety, exhibiting lower advantageous IA. In contrast, participants in the illness-related death news condition prioritized engaging in prosocial behavior, exhibiting higher advantageous IA. Study 2 further revealed that accidental (vs. illness-related) death news priming decreased advantageous IA by increasing self-interest concern. Additionally, social distance moderated these effects, with both conditions leading to similarly high advantageous IA when allocating money to friends. These results extend the TMT by showing that the “priority” of different buffers (money, prosocial behavior) varies with mortality threats and social distance.