This episode is also on Bilibili too.
The key point of this episode is that our coping mechanisms are very different when the fear of death appears at the conscious level versus the unconscious level.
Do you remember that experiment we mentioned in the first episode on Fear of Death? When judges were reminded of their own mortality, they handed out harsher punishments to sex workers. The judges resisted death anxiety by defending the values tied to their own beliefs.
After that experiment was published, though, another group of researchers ran a very similar one—and got a very different result. This time, the participants also played judges, deciding how much punishment to give some sex workers. Before looking at the cases, they too had to imagine their own deaths. But this time they engaged in deep fantasy. It wasn’t enough to close their eyes and have a fleeting thought like “I will die.” They spent 20 minutes imagining what it would be like to be diagnosed with terminal cancer. After that painful 20-minute exercise, they immediately went on to decide the punishments. Strangely, although these participants had spent longer with a more intense image of death, they did not punish the sex workers more harshly. In other words, this time they did not call on their values to fend off death anxiety.
So what happened? We’ve already gone through plenty of examples showing that once people are reminded they will die, they deal with death anxiety by defending their self-esteem and values. So why did that experiment come to the opposite conclusion?
The author of Fear of Death guessed that the crucial difference was this: in the earlier experiments, after people were reminded of their own deaths, there was a brief time interval before they made judgments involving self-esteem and values. By then, the thought of death had largely faded from their current consciousness and moved into the unconscious. The threat of death was merely echoing faintly somewhere deep in their minds.
In the experiment I just described, however, the participants spent dozens of minutes imagining death. The thought of death therefore did not fade out of consciousness, and when they made their decisions, death anxiety was still at the conscious level.
Could it be that people only defend their self-esteem and values against death anxiety once that anxiety retreats into the unconscious? And when death anxiety is still in consciousness, they don’t do that?
The author of Fear of Death conducted a great many studies and found that this is indeed what happens. For example, American participants were asked to read an anti-American article and a pro-American article. If, after being reminded of their own deaths, they took a break before making their judgments, they disliked the anti-American article more and liked the pro-American article more. But if they made their judgments immediately after being reminded of death, their likes and dislikes were much less pronounced.
See? After a period of rest, death anxiety recedes from consciousness. Only then do people activate the coping mechanism of defending their values.
They ran a similar experiment too. Before participants read the article, the words “death” and “illness” flashed rapidly on a computer screen, remaining there for only a few dozen milliseconds—so quickly that people had no idea they had seen them. Yet previous research shows that such rapidly flashed words can enter the unconscious. And after unconsciously seeing the words “death” and “illness,” the American participants also disliked the anti-American article more and liked the pro-American article more.
So clearly, the maneuver of defending self-esteem and values against death anxiety is activated only when death anxiety appears at the unconscious level.
After gathering these experimental findings, the author of Fear of Death named this use of self-esteem and values to fend off unconscious death anxiety the distal defense mechanism.
If there’s a distal one, then naturally there’s a proximal one too.
Conversely, when death anxiety is still at the conscious level, we activate the proximal defense mechanism. The proximal defense mechanism is very simple and direct: do everything we can to clear death anxiety out of consciousness. When it kicks in, we try all sorts of ways to suppress and exclude thoughts about death.
The first way to suppress thoughts of death is distraction. After watching a horrific traffic-accident report, for instance, we may feel an overwhelming urge to watch a variety show, filling our minds with completely death-unrelated trivia like “What did The Debate argue about this time?” or “What new jokes came out on Rock & Roast?”
The second way is to tell ourselves, “Not me, not now.” For example: “That crash was awful, but it didn’t happen in our city. People in our city drive very carefully. Nothing like that will happen to me.” Or: “That disease sounds terrifying, but I’m still young. I won’t get it.” Through this kind of rationalization, we push death into the distance or into the future. It’s basically the famous line Arya’s mentor taught her in Game of Thrones: “What do you say to the God of Death?” “Not today.”
The third way of suppressing thoughts of death is a little more proactive: warn ourselves to stay away from danger. After watching a compilation of traffic accidents on Bilibili, we immediately remind ourselves to obey the traffic rules, value our lives—or next time, we’ll be the star of the compilation.
Exactly which method people use to suppress thoughts of death varies from person to person. In one experiment, psychologists had participants write down their thoughts about their own deaths and then asked how they viewed junk food. Some said, “It’s bad for my health. I should eat less.” But others said, “If I were really fat, fried cheese would be bad for my health. Luckily I’m not fat, so I can eat ten-odd pieces with no problem.” See? Some people tell themselves to stay away from danger, while others tell themselves, “Not me, not now.”
That’s the proximal defense mechanism. When thoughts of death are still in consciousness, we suppress them by every means available to ease our fear.
The concepts of proximal and distal defense have important implications for health-care policy. When governments promote medical and health information, a very common tactic is to scare everyone with death anxiety. To publicize the dangers of smoking, they show people data on smoking-related lung cancer, sometimes even pictures of lungs ravaged by cancer. But does that really scare everyone into quitting? Not necessarily.
After seeing data showing that smoking causes lung cancer, a smoker may immediately say they want to quit, because at that moment they have activated the proximal defense mechanism. But ten or more minutes later, smokers who believe smoking adds to their image and attractiveness may become even more determined to keep smoking. Once death anxiety retreats from consciousness, people activate the distal defense mechanism. At that point, the smoker embraces their values even more fervently. If smoking fits those values, death anxiety may actually make them more determined to keep smoking.
This effect has been confirmed in experiments—and confirmed again and again. For example, after writing down their thoughts about death, European and American consumers who shopped immediately chose sunscreen with a high SPF, which lowers the risk of skin cancer. But when they shopped after a delay, people who loved chasing trends and wanted to tan themselves the fashionable brown chose sunscreen with a low SPF instead.
For another example, after thinking about death, street racers who waited a few minutes drove even faster. Men with sex addictions, a few minutes after thinking about death, were actually more eager to have unprotected sex. See? The distal defense mechanism makes us cling more firmly to our values and act according to them. So if someone happens to have seriously warped values, death anxiety may instead drive them to “self-destruct” even harder. It’s a pretty interesting paradox.
So when promoting health knowledge, governments really need to take this subtle psychology into account. Most importantly, they shouldn’t just publicize the threat of death posed by unhealthy behavior; they also need to embed healthy behavior in people’s values. If anti-smoking campaigns create an atmosphere in which people broadly feel that “not smoking is what makes you cool,” then people who originally wanted to smoke to seem more attractive may actually quit under the suggestion of death anxiety. This approach has also been confirmed in experiments.
So this episode really expands on the first one. Besides knowing that people often defend themselves against death anxiety through self-esteem and values, we now also know when they activate that strategy.
Next time will be the final episode in the Fear of Death: The Driving Force Behind Human Behavior series. Now that we know all this about death anxiety, what on earth can we actually do with it?
By: Zhichao Wei
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