Paper Infomation
The Influence of Death Reflection on Existential Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Relational Self-Esteem
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Author: Lei Yue
Abstract: Global challenges like epidemics, wars, and climate change expose humans to life-and-death threats daily, triggering death anxiety and subsequent death reflection, which involves deliberate cognitive processing of mortality. While some studies have shown the positive impacts of death reflection, such as on well-being, the relationship between death reflection and existential well-being, closely related to life and death, remains unexplored. This study aimed to investigate the effects of death reflection on existential well-being and the mediating role of relational self-esteem. 675 university students from Sichuan and Hubei, China, completed the death reflection scale, relational self-esteem scale, and the existential well-being subscale of the spiritual well-being scale. Results indicated that death reflection was positively correlated with both relational self-esteem and existential well-being, and relational self-esteem was positively related to existential well-being. Mediation analysis confirmed that relational self-esteem mediated the relationship between death reflection and existential well-being. This study not only enriches the research content on the positive effects of death reflection theoretically, but also holds significant practical value in guiding individuals who have experienced death or been exposed to death-related information in their psychological reconstruction and recovery.
Keywords: Death Reflection; Existential Well-Being; Relational Self-esteem
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