Legacies, Immortality, and the Future: The Psychology of Intergenerational Altruism
Abstract
Acting on the behalf of future generations can require nontrivial sacrifice on the part of the present generation. Yet, people can gain important social psychological benefits from such acts, such as experiencing a connection to an entity that will presumably continue to exist in the social environment after they themselves are no longer a part of it. Consequently, intergenerational beneficence can help people to fill the basic human need for immortality striving. This is a benefit that is not as easily achieved by altruistic behaviors toward contemporary others. Based on some key insights from Terror Management Theory (TMT), I postulate that under conditions of mortality salience, people will demonstrate more altruism toward future generations than toward needy contemporaries − contrary to what might be expected based on the existing literature on intertemporal choice. Thus, the temporal aspect of intergenerational contexts may actually promote rather than hinder altruistic tendencies under certain conditions.
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Older individuals have a growing desire to make meaningful contributions to their environment.
“Consequently, older individuals have a growing desire to make meaningful contributions to their environment, which can-in the best case-outlive themselves (symbolic immortality; Grant & Wade-Benzoni, 2009;Wade-Benzoni, 2006).”
From What satisfies younger versus older employees, and why? An aging perspective on equity theory to explain interactive effects of employee age, monetary rewards, and task contributions on job satisfaction (2020) · cites this paper as Wade-Benzoni, 2006
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- Authors
- Wade-Benzoni, K. A.
- Venue
- Research on Managing Groups and Teams
- Publisher
- Emerald (MCB UP )
- Published
- 2006-04-01
- Pages
- 247-270
- ISSN
- 1534-0856 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2504235632
- Cited by
- 45
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 8.77
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Research on managing groups and teams (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- intergenerational altruism, terror management theory, mortality salience, intertemporal choice, legacy
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