THE HOT AND COOL OF DEATH AWARENESS AT WORK: MORTALITY CUES, AGING, AND SELF-PROTECTIVE AND PROSOCIAL MOTIVATIONS.
Abstract
Although death awareness is pervasive in organizations and can have powerful effects on employees' experiences and behaviors, scholars have paid little attention to it. We develop a theoretical model of the nature, antecedents, and consequences of death awareness at work. We differentiate death anxiety and reflection as distinct states that strengthen self-protective versus prosocial motivations, examine how mortality cues and aging processes trigger these states, and explore their impact on withdrawal and generative behaviors.
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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 Grant & Wade-Benzoni, 2009
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- Authors
- Grant, A. M., & WADE-BENZONI, K. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- ORCID
- Grant, Adam M.
- Venue
- Academy of Management Review
- Publisher
- Academy of Management
- Published
- 2009-10-01
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 600-622
- ISSN
- 0363-7425 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2027697553
- Cited by
- 231
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 13.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Academy of Management Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning
- Keywords
- death awareness, fear of death, aging, prosocial motivation, withdrawal behavior, generative behavior, September 11 attacks, meaning of life
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