The Role of Death in
Organizational Life
Effects of Mortality Salience on Work Motivation
Adam M. Grant, Ph.D.
Land of the Sticky Heels
Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, Ph.D.
The (Blue) Devil’s Advocate
Death is Pervasive in Organizations

Personal mortality cues
Dangerous jobs (Jermier et al., 1989)
 Illnesses and accidents (Zoller, 2003)


Vicarious mortality cues
Exposure to others at risk (Molinsky & Margolis, 2005)
 Deaths of executives (Worrell et al., 1986)


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Disasters and crises (Weick, 1993; Pearson & Clair, 1998)
Symbolic mortality cues
Organizational decline and death (Sutton, 1987)
 Downsizings (Kets de Vries & Balazs, 1997)

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What Do We Know?

Death is a threat—perhaps the most severe threat that
employees ever face

Employees are strongly responsive to threats
(Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981; Schachter, 1959)

Recent calls for systematic investigation
(Czarniawska, 1995; Sievers, 1993; Wade-Benzoni, 2006)

Thus far, unanswered

Scholars have shied away from theoretical and empirical inquiry
into the effects of mortality salience in organizations
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Tonight’s Agenda

Give overview of part of our theory paper
 Examines
motivational consequences of
mortality salience in organizations
 Attempts to motivate organizational scholars
to begin studying this phenomenon

Obtain your feedback
 What
is interesting?
 What is unclear? What is unconvincing?
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Mortality Salience: A Brief History

Moral philosophy


Humans naturally fear death
(Hobbes, 1651)
Existential philosophy

People experience anxiety, dread, and fear
when they contemplate their own mortality
(Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre)

Existential psychotherapy

Help people cope with awareness of
mortality (Frankl, 1959; Yalom, 1980)
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Becker’s Contributions

Cultural anthropologist wrote 3 books on
mortality salience




The birth and death of meaning (1971)
The denial of death (1973)– Pulitzer Prize
Escape from evil (1975)
Awareness of death is a uniquely
human (1) capability and (2) curse

Cultural belief systems buffer
against existential anxiety
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Empirical Inquiry Begins

1980s: 3 social psychologists read Becker’s work and
decided to test his ideas experimentally


Initial resistance


Tom Pyszczynski, Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon
“I'm absolutely certain this article will be of
no interest to any psychologist, living or dead.”
~Editor, American Psychologist
Authors’ reply

“We had been hoping at least the dead
might have shown some interest.”
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Two Decades Later

Terror management theory is among the most
generative perspectives in social psychology

Over 250 studies have tested and extended
propositions about how people respond to
awareness of their own mortality



Greenberg, Koole, & Pyszczynski, 2004
Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2003
Core premise: basic existential dilemma


Desire for life
Awareness that death is inevitable
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Terror Management Theory (TMT)

To protect against paralyzing terror, people
marshal “distal defense mechanisms”
(Pyszczynski et al., 1999, 2004)

Create and cling to cultural worldviews




Render existence meaningful, coherent, permanent
Offer standards for defining what is valuable
Confer literal or symbolic immortality
Defend personal worth by adhering to and advancing
cultural worldviews

Protect against anxiety by connecting with and contributing
to those that share worldviews, and attacking those with
alternative views
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Mortality Salience Increases…

Support for Bush and aggressive
counterterrorism policies
(Landau et al., 2004)

Donations to national but not
international charities (Jonas et al., 2002)

Optimism about unlikely victories in
soccer (Dechesne et al., 2000)

Displays of physical strength among
athletes but not individuals who do not
value strength (Peters et al., 2005)
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Further TMT Evidence

Defenses of cultural worldviews and personal
worth serve anxiety-buffering function
(Pyszczynski et al., 2004)

After inducing mortality salience,
giving positive feedback reduces



Self-reported anxiety
Physiological arousal
Effects of mortality salience (MS) are unique

Do not occur in response to other forms of anxiety
(pain, public speaking, failure)
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Implications for Organizational Life

TMT focuses on three categories of MS effects


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Motivated behavior
Group dynamics
Self-esteem
Correspond to three core domains of
organizational behavior research

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Work motivation (tonight’s focus)
Organizational attachment
Self-evaluations
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Work Motivation

Psychological processes that direct, energize,
and sustain action in organizations
(Mitchell & Daniels, 2003)

MS suggested to influence motivation


(Sievers, 1993)
“Of all things that move man [sic], one of the principal ones
is his terror of death” (Becker, 1973: 11)
Our focus





Goal-setting
Task effort
Escalation of commitment
Reward sensitivities
Prosocial behavior
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1. Goal-Setting

Defining outcome objectives

MS evidence

(Locke & Latham, 2002)
Increased desire to make lasting contributions and feel
connected with others (McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992; WadeBenzoni, 2006)

Example: R. Buckminster Fuller


“The larger the number for whom I work, the
more positively effective I become. Thus, it is
obvious that if I work always and only for all
humanity, I will be optimally effective.”
Propositions


P1a. MS increases the difficulty and ambitiousness of goals set.
P1b. MS increases participation and collaboration in goal-setting.
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2. Task Effort

Amount of energy invested in work

MS evidence

(Kanfer, 1991)
Increases desire to build legacy in own image
(McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992; Wade-Benzoni, 2006)

Example: Richard Dawkins


“We are going to die… Within decades we must close our eyes…
Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in
the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we
have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am
asked why I bother to get up in the mornings.”
Proposition

P2. The effect of MS on task effort is moderated by value
congruence. MS increases (decreases) effort on value-congruent
(incongruent) tasks.
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3. Escalation of Commitment

Persisting in failing course of action

MS evidence


Increases single-minded focus: compensatory conviction
and defensive zeal (McGregor, in press)
Example: Mann Gulch disaster


(Staw & Ross, 1987)
“Told to discard the very things that are their reason
for being there in the first place, the moment quickly
turns existential. If I am no longer a firefighter, then
who am I?” (Weick, 1993)
Proposition

P3. MS increases escalation of commitment
to losing courses of action.
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4. Reward Sensitivities

Tendency to be influenced by reinforcement
contingencies (Staw, 1984)

MS evidence

Increases concern for legacy symbols (McAdams & de St.
Aubin, 1992; Pyszczynski et al., 2004)
 Decreases concern for wealth (Cozzolino et al., 2004)

Example: near-death experiences
(Ring, 1984)

Propositions


P4a. MS increases sensitivity to rewards that symbolize status
and legacies (public recognition, unique job titles, awards).
P4b. MS decreases sensitivity to financial rewards.
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5. Prosocial Behavior

Efforts to benefit present vs. future generations
(Bazerman et al., 1998)

MS evidence

Increases desire to make lasting
contribution (Wade-Benzoni, 2006)

Example: Alfred Nobel

Propositions


P5a. MS decreases prosocial behavior toward present
generation.
P5b. MS increases prosocial behavior toward future generations.
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Theoretical Contributions

Offers novel, unifying explanation for apparently
unrelated phenomena

Identifies unexplored influences on work
motivation (and organizational attachment and
self-evaluations)

Challenges assumption that death awareness is
solely destructive in organizations, highlighting
hidden benefits of mortality salience
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Questions and Reactions
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