Leaving a Legacy Neutralizes Negative Effects of Death Anxiety on Creativity

Abstract

Mortality salience (MS) can lead to a paralyzing terror, and to cope with this, people strive for literal or symbolic immortality. As MS leads to conformity and narrow-mindedness, we predicted that MS would lead to lower creativity, unless creativity itself could lead to leaving a legacy and thus symbolic immortality. We show that this pattern holds (Experiment 1), but only when creativity is socially valued (Experiment 2). Finally, especially individualistic people are more creative under MS when they can leave a legacy than when they cannot, and high originality predicts subsequent accessibility of death thoughts (Experiment 3). Implications are discussed.

Keywords

mortality salience creativity individualism–collectivism legacy symbolic immortality

Death is the real inspiring or musagetes of philosophy, and for this reason Socrates defined philosophy as thanatos melete (rehearsal for death). Indeed without death there would not have been any philosophizing.

(Singh, 2007, p. x)

As the quote from Schopenhauer on Socrates illustrates, the driving force behind philosophy may be the awareness of our own death. Awareness of death impels one to overcome a fragmentary vision of reality and it arouses wonder and deep thinking. As so, awareness of death can lead to ruminating about the big questions of life, and thus may be a fundamental driver of inventing novel theories on existence. The ability to reflect on our own death arguably is one of the unique defining features of mankind and may have functional aspects, as we can anticipate life-threatening events and thus avoid these (Sedikides & Skowronski, 1997).

Research on how people respond to reminders of their own death has been conducted from the perspective of Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986). The rationale behind TMT is that people have an innate drive for existence, and that reminders of death can lead to a paralyzing terror. To cope with this potential terror, people rely on a cultural anxiety-buffer that leads to worldview defense and bolstering self-esteem (Gailliot, Stillman, Schmeichel, Maner, & Plant, 2008; Halloran & Kashima, 2004; Van den Bos, Poortvliet, Maas, Miedema, & Van den Ham, 2005). Worldview defense manifests itself in adhering more strongly to the cultural worldview and associated standards and values, while bolstering self-esteem reinforces the belief that one is meeting up to the standards and values within a worldview (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Worldview defense and bolstering self-esteem presumably serve to give a sense of immortality through one’s dominant group, as this group will continue to exist over and beyond a single life. Indeed, people seem to have a higher desire for offspring under mortality salience (MS; Fritsche et al., 2007; Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005).

The work of Otto Rank (1936) has been an important inspiration for TMT. According to Rank (see also Lifton, 1983), an important route to achieve a sense of immortality is by being creative and thereby potentially leaving a legacy. Creativity—the production of ideas, products, or solutions that are original and feasible (Amabile, 1983)—has the potential to exert a profound influence on society, and ideas, products, and solutions to pressing problems can outlive the conceiver by far (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Creativity could thus, in addition to worldview defense and bolstering self-esteem, be another route to reaching existential reassurance and symbolic immortality. However, research on the effects of MS on creativity is sparse and equivocal, with some studies showing that MS can increase creative performance (Routledge, Arndt, Vess, & Sheldon, 2008) and some reporting no effects (Routledge, Arndt, & Sheldon, 2004). Here, we conjecture that the extent to which people can leave a legacy is crucial in the relationship between MS and creativity and can explain previous inconsistent findings. We propose that creativity can be functional in coping with existential threats as long as it can lead to leaving a legacy and thus to a sense of immortality. We further propose that this should be the case only if creativity is culturally valued and holds especially for people to whom being unique and standing out is an important value.

Terror Management and Creativity

When reminded of the fact that they will die, people typically respond in one of two complementary ways: They adhere more strongly to cultural worldviews or bolster self-esteem. According to TMT, worldviews are culturally shared conceptions of reality that set standards for values and morals for members of a cultural group (Kashima, Halloran, Yuki, & Kashima, 2004). People have an individualized version of this cultural worldview that provides a set of concepts that grants a sense of order, permanence, and meaning; a set of standards that can lead to a sense of personal value; and the promise of literal or symbolic immortality to those who live up to the standards and values in the worldview. Self-esteem, according to TMT, is based on the extent to which a person thinks he or she is living up to the norms and values embedded in the cultural worldview.

When confronted with reminders of death, people thus react by clinging more strongly to their cultural worldview by rejecting people with views that oppose dominant norms and values, or by boasting their self-esteem. For example, under MS, people react with higher levels of nationalism, prejudice, and intergroup bias (Greenberg et al., 1990; Hayes, Schimel, Arndt, & Faucher, 2010), and they tend to become more extreme in their political convictions (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Kosloff, Greenberg, Weise, & Solomon, 2010). In addition, boosting self-esteem leads to less negative reactions to reminders of death (Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992), people high in self-esteem react to MS with worldview defense to a lesser extent (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997), and Australians low in self-esteem become more individualistic while Japanese become less individualistic under MS (Kashima et al., 2004; also see, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004).

MS thus leads to conformity and rigidity, and therefore may negatively impact creativity. However, at the core of TMT is the notion that MS threatens people’s sense of self, triggering the motivation to achieve literal or symbolic immortality, and being creative can be a pivotal route to such a goal. Creative products can last very long and have a profound influence on society. Creativity could thus lead to feelings of literal or symbolic immortality and leaving a legacy, alleviating people from potential terror. From the perspective of evolution, life is ephemeral and death reminders can be an impetus for creation, leaving a legacy, and getting a sense of meaning and immortality. Indeed, a recent study suggests that MS can lead to enhanced intergenerational solidarity as people want to have a lasting impact on significant others in the future (Wade-Benzoni, Tost, Hernandez, & Larrick, 2012). Our basic hypothesis therefore is that MS undermines creativity when it is not possible to leave a legacy, but that this effect disappears or reverses when it is possible to leave a legacy and achieve symbolic immortality through one’s creative achievements.

The argument so far suggests that there are two routes to existential reassurance under MS: conforming to a cultural worldview (potentially leading to conformity and low creativity) and leaving a legacy through one’s creative achievements. Which of these routes is taken may further depend on the extent to which engaging in creativity threatens connections to one’s social group. Consistent with this, research shows that people were less creative under MS (vs. control) when creativity would benefit themselves, but were as creative under MS as under control when their creativity would benefit their community (Routledge et al., 2008). Similarly, people under MS are less creative when they are asked to use cultural objects in inappropriate ways (e.g., to use a crucifix as a hammer; Greenberg, Simon, Porteus, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1995). Moreover, MS has been found to lead to feelings of guilt after creative activity, but this effect disappears when people’s connections to others had been confirmed (Arndt, Routledge, Greenberg, & Sheldon, 2005). Finally, when creativity was culturally valued, people showed less worldview defense under MS after creative activity, presumably because this granted them with the feeling they are living up to the standards in their cultural worldview (Routledge & Arndt, 2009). Regardless of the opportunity to leave a legacy, MS may thus demotivate creativity when one’s social group does not value creativity, and being creative sets one apart from the social group. MS may not undermine creativity if one’s social group values creative acts and achievements. In the case that creativity is valued, we expect that people under MS are creative especially when they can leave a legacy through their creative activities.

This line of reasoning also suggests that MS may not undermine creativity of those individuals who derive their self-esteem and self-worth from being different from others by, for example, competitive acts of achievement (Kitayama, Markus, & Lieberman, 1995), and want to remain independent. Compared with such individualistic personalities, collectivistic people tend to be more concerned with acts that set them apart from their social group and tend to conform strongly to norms and values of their group (Davidson, Jaccard, Triandis, Morales, & Diaz-Guerrero, 1976). Indeed, when creativity was valued, individualistic groups were more creative than collectivistic groups (Goncalo & Staw, 2006), and groups of people who are mainly motivated by self-interest were more creative than groups of prosocial people (Beersma & De Dreu, 2005). Regardless of the opportunity to leave a legacy, MS may thus lead to conformity and low originality of people who score low on individualism. However, MS may stimulate creativity of individuals high in individualism, especially when their creative achievements can lead them to leave a legacy.

Taken together, we conjecture that under MS, being creative can be an alternative route to either clinging to one’s cultural worldview or bolstering self-esteem. Adhering more strongly to a worldview or enhancing self-esteem gives some feeling of permanence, immortality, and a legacy. However, because creative products can last very long and have a profound influence on society, creativity could thus also lead to feelings of literal or symbolic immortality and leaving a legacy. We thus hypothesized that MS reduces creative performance, unless the creative products have the capacity to leave a legacy, that is, will be long-lasting. Moreover, we expected this to occur only when creativity is socially valued, and being creative thus does not set people apart from their social group. Finally, we predicted that this pattern holds for individualistic people, and not for those with more collectivistic tendencies. We tested these predictions in three experiments. In all experiments, our main focus was on originality, generally considered to be the hallmark of creativity. We also looked at creative fluency in an exploratory manner (fluency is generally more dependent on effort and not necessarily correlated with originality; Nijstad, De Dreu, Rietzschel, & Baas, 2010).

Experiment 1

Experiment 1 was designed to test the hypothesis that the possibility to leave a legacy leads to higher creativity under MS as opposed to a situation in which no such possibility exists. We used a newly developed task in which participants had to come up with names for an animal that would either live short or long. Only the latter incorporated the possibility that once a person would not live anymore, the animal would still live on and could thus provide the participant with a sense of symbolic immortality.

Method

Design and participants

Students (N = 125, age M = 20.7, SD = 5.0; 31 male) participated for partial course credit and were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2 (MS: yes/no) × 2 (legacy: yes/no) between-participants factorial design.

Procedures and manipulations

In the laboratory, participants were seated in front of a computer with keyboard. Instructions and measures were given on the computer. Participants were told that in this experiment, they would engage in a name-giving contest written out by Artis, the Amsterdam Zoo. They would have to come up with names for a newly discovered iguana that Artis zoo had recently acquired. A committee of Artis employees would choose the best names and the best name would appear on the information sign at the animals’ cages together with the name giver. In the legacy condition, we told participants that this iguana could live up to 100 years, while in the no-legacy condition, we told them the iguana could live up to 1 year.

To manipulate MS, we told participants that research had shown that it is conducive to coming up with many and original names to have an incubation period. In the MS (control) condition, participants were asked to write down (a) what emotions they experienced thinking about and (b) what would physically happen to them once they were dead (when they would go to the dentist). Thereafter, participants completed a 29-item mood scale (adapted from Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) that served as a delay task between the MS manipulation and the subsequent task. The 10-item positive (α = .80) and the 19-item negative (α = .89) affect subscales had good reliabilities, and ratings were coded so that higher (aggregate) scores reflected more negative or positive mood (range = 1-5). After coming up with names for the iguana for 2.5 min, participants were debriefed and dismissed.

Dependent measures

We used statistical infrequency (see Guilford, 1967; Torrance, 1966) of the names to assess originality. For all names, we counted how many participants had given the same name. We initially operationalized originality as the average uniqueness of responses, by using the formula (125 − number of participants giving the same name) / 125. However, because the majority of responses was unique (i.e., generated by only one participant), this resulted in extremely high scores on this measure, restrictions of range, and a negatively skewed distribution of the measure.¹ We therefore decided to use the proportion of unique responses (i.e., names generated only by a single participant) as our dependent measure of originality. Originality was calculated by the following formula: number of unique responses of a participant/total number of responses. We also counted the number of names generated by each participant to index creative fluency.

To check our manipulation of MS, participants had to check the correct box to the question: “In the previous research, I thought about (a) my own death or (b) a painful visit to the dentist.” To check our manipulation of legacy, they had to check the correct box to the question “The iguana for which I’ve produced names can become up to (a) 100 years old or (b) 1 year old.” After having given the names, we asked participants to answer three questions on the importance of giving the name to the iguana (e.g., “To what extent was the task in which you had to give names to the iguana important to you?”; 1 = not at all, to 5 = very; α = .74). It may be the case that perceived task importance varies as a function of MS, legacy, or some combination thereof.

Results and Discussion

Manipulation checks

All but eight participants correctly answered the manipulation check on MS. All but two participants correctly answered the manipulation check on legacy. Excluding these participants did not change the results.

Originality and creative fluency

Due to the large proportion of unique responses (see Note 1), originality was negatively skewed and transformations to normalize the distribution were unsuccessful. We decided to do a rank transformation to cope with the non-normal distribution of originality. We then submitted rank-ordered originality to a 2 (MS) × 2 (legacy) Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results showed the predicted interaction among MS and legacy, F(1, 122) = 6.90, p = .01, partial η² = 0.05. Under MS, participants were more original when they could leave a legacy (M = 77.23, SD = 31.62) than when they could not (M = 54.02, SD = 34.24), F(1, 122) = 6.69, p = .01, partial η² = 0.05, while in the control condition, we found no such effect (legacy: M = 60.00, SD = 38.74 vs. no legacy: M = 70.15, SD = 36.77; F < 2, n.s.). Moreover, participants under legacy were slightly more original in the MS than in the control condition, F(1, 122) = 3.59, p = .06, while under no legacy they were slightly less original under MS than under control, F(1, 122) = 3.28, p < .07 (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Rank-ordered originality scores as a function of mortality salience and legacy (Experiment 1).

The same analysis on creative fluency showed no main effects, but did show a significant two-way interaction among MS and legacy, F(1, 122) = 3.82, p = .05, partial η² = 0.03. Participants under MS and control were as fluent in the legacy as in the no-legacy condition, Fs < 2. Results did show that under no legacy, participants were more fluent in the control condition (M = 17.31, SD = 13.73) than in the MS condition (M = 11.78, SD = 6.67), F(1, 122) = 4.12, p = .05, while under legacy, they were as fluent in the control (M = 13.03, SD = 11.13) as in the MS condition (M = 14.94, SD = 10.05), F < 1. Creative fluency and rank-ordered originality did not correlate, r = −.10, p = .27.

Additional measures

Studies manipulating MS generally show no effect on mood measures, as MS initially leads to the suppression of death-related thoughts (Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Simon, 1997; but see Van den Bos & Miedema, 2000). Here too, we found no effects on positive and negative affect, Fs < 1, n.s.

An explanation for our effects could be that under MS, people become more selective as to what they want to invest their time and effort in—after having been reminded of their own death as opposed to the dentist, people potentially thought that being creative under legacy was more important than under no legacy (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). If true, we should find an interaction among MS and legacy on the importance people assigned to the task, but this was not the case, Fs < 1, n.s. Task importance did not correlate with creativity (see Table 1). Experiment 1 thus showed that under MS, the possibility to leave a legacy makes people more original, but not more fluent, than when no such possibility exists.

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations for All Dependent Variables in Experiment 1.

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5
1. Rank-ordered originality	65.05	36.21	—	−.10	.17†	.15†	.20*
2. Creative fluency	14.18	10.69		—	−.12	.11	.21*
3. Task importance	2.68	0.95			—	.14	.10
4. Positive affect	2.90	0.64				—	−.17†
5. Negative affect	1.44	0.45					—

†

p < .10. *p < .05.

Experiment 2

Experiment 1 confirmed our basic prediction that the possibility to leave a legacy would boost creativity under MS as opposed to a situation in which no such possibility exists. However, we hypothesized that this would mainly be true when creativity is socially valued. Under MS, people are very concerned with their connections to others, and they seem particularly motivated to maintain an optimal balance between fitting in and sticking out (Simon et al., 1997). In Experiment 1, we found that creativity was not undermined under MS when people could leave a legacy. It is conceivable that people implicitly assumed that creativity and its individuating nature were socially valued, as these are highly valued in Western society (including in The Netherlands, where Study 1 was conducted; see Bechtoldt, De Dreu, Nijstad, & Choi, 2010). In Experiment 2, we manipulated whether creativity was socially valued. We hypothesized that the possibility to leave a legacy would boost creativity under MS, but only when creative efforts would be socially valued, and would thus not set one apart from one’s social group.

Method

Design and participants

Sixty-three students (age M = 22.3, SD = 4.9; 20 male) participated for €3.50 (approximately US$5) or partial course credit. Participants were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2 (MS: yes/no) × 2 (culturally valued: yes/no) between-participants factorial design with a 2 (legacy: yes/no) within-participants factor.

Procedures and manipulations

Participants were asked to come up with names for two animals that would soon be born in Artis. A committee of Artis employees would choose the best names and the best name would appear on the information sign at the animals’ cages together with the name giver for as long as the animal would live. Participants were shown a picture of an elephant and of a fly and were told these were the two animals for which they would have to come up with names.

MS was manipulated as in Experiment 1 and was followed by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; positive affect, α = .88; negative affect, α = .85). Thereafter, participants were told they would start with giving as many names as possible to the elephant and the fly. To manipulate social valuation, we told participants that the Artis employees were very happy (not so happy) that students would come up with names for the animals and that they really liked (not so much liked) this initiative. To manipulate legacy, participants were told that an elephant could become as old as 100 years (legacy), while a fly could become only 1 year old (no legacy). We did not counterbalance the manipulation of legacy, as it would be implausible that an elephant would live only 1 year. Participants had 2.5 min for each animal and the order of presentation was randomized. We found no order effects. Then, participants were paid and debriefed.

Dependent measures

We used statistical infrequency to assess originality. We counted the number of times a specific name had been given by all 63 participants to the elephant or the fly. The originality of names was calculated by the following formula: (63 − number of people mentioning the same name) / 63. We averaged the originality scores for both animals per participant. We removed duplicate names that had been given by the same participant to either the elephant or the fly, and counted the number of unique names to index creative fluency.

Manipulation of MS was checked as in Experiment 1. To check our manipulation of social valuation, we asked participants to indicate on a 5-point Likert-type scale “To what extent did the Artis employees value the name-giving contest?” The importance of giving animals a name was assessed as in Experiment 1 (α = .67 for the elephant; α = .65 for the fly).

Results and Discussion

Manipulation checks

All but one participant correctly answered the manipulation check on MS. Excluding this participant did not change the results. ANOVA showed that participants in the positive valuation condition (M = 4.69, SD = 0.81) thought ideas for the animal names were socially valued more than participants in the negative valuation condition (M = 2.09, SD = 1.40), F(1, 59) = 76.27, p < .01, partial η² = 0.57. There was no main effect of MS or an interaction effect among MS and social valuation, Fs < 1, n.s. Thus, manipulations were successful.

Originality

As legacy was manipulated within participants—and participants generated names for two different animals—we first standardized the originality scores under legacy and no legacy to pit these against each other. We then submitted originality to a 2 (MS) × 2 (social valuation) × 2 (legacy) mixed-model ANOVA with legacy within-subjects.

Results showed no main effects or any two-way interactions, Fs < 1, but it did show the predicted interaction among MS, social valuation, and legacy, F(1, 59) = 15.94, p < .01, partial η² = 0.21. When creativity was socially valued, MS and legacy interacted, F(1, 59) = 9.75, p < .01, so that people under MS were less creative under no legacy (M = −0.61, SD = 1.37) than under legacy (M = 0.22, SD = 0.66), t(15) = 2.44, p = .03, while in the control condition, we observed a nonsignificant reversal (M = 0.33, SD = 0.56 vs. M = −0.31, SD = 1.03), t(16) = −1.88, p = .08. When creativity was not socially valued, MS and legacy also interacted, F(1, 59) = 6.56, p = .01, this time so that there were no differences under MS between no legacy (M = 0.24, SD = 0.67) and legacy (M = −0.26, SD = 1.23), t(16) = −1.56, p = .14. However, when creativity was not socially valued, people in the control condition were more creative under legacy (M = 0.48, SD = 0.71) than under no legacy (M = −0.10, SD = 1.09), t(16) = 2.22, p = .04.

Approached differently, results showed an interaction among MS and social valuation under legacy, F(1, 59) = 6.80, p = .01, and under no legacy, F(1, 59) = 6.97, p = .01. Under legacy, participants in the positive valuation condition were as original under MS as in the control condition, F < 3, but less original under negative social valuation, F(1, 59) = 5.02, p = .03. Under no legacy, participants in the positive valuation condition were less original under MS than in the control condition, F(1, 59) = 6.77, p = .01, but not under negative social valuation, F < 2 (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Standardized originality scores as a function of mortality salience, social valuation, and legacy (Experiment 2).

Creative fluency

We submitted creative fluency to a 2 (MS) × 2 (social valuation) × 2 (legacy) mixed-design ANOVA with the last factor as within-subjects. First, results showed a main effect of legacy, F(1, 59) = 8.35, p < .01, partial η² = .12. Participants produced more names under legacy (M = 10.83, SD = 6.16) than under no legacy (M = 9.44, SD = 5.91). Second, results showed a two-way interaction among MS and legacy, F(1, 59) = 4.86, p = .03, partial η² = .08. Analyses of simple effects showed that under legacy, people were as fluent under MS (M = 10.29, SD = 5.99) as in the control condition (M = 11.43, SD = 6.39), F < 1, n.s. Under no legacy, people were less fluent under MS (M = 7.85, SD = 4.27) than in the control condition (M = 11.23, SD = 6.98), F(1, 59) = 5.11, p = .02, partial η² = .08. Third, results showed a two-way interaction among legacy and social valuation, F(1, 59) = 4.73, p = .03, partial η² = .07. In the positive valuation conditions, people were relatively more fluent under legacy (M = 11.41, SD = 6.65) than under no legacy (M = 8.97, SD = 5.38). In the negative valuation condition, this was the case to lesser extent (legacy: M = 10.34, SD = 5.78 vs. no legacy: M = 9.83, SD = 6.36). No main effect of social valuation was found, F < 1, n.s.

Finally, results showed a marginally significant three-way interaction among MS, social valuation, and legacy, F(1, 59) = 3.33, p = .07, partial η² = .06. Breaking this three-way interaction into two-way interactions revealed that under positive social valuation, MS and legacy did not interact, F < 1. Under negative social valuation, MS and legacy did interact, F(1, 59) = 7.79, p < .01. When creativity was negatively valued, participants in the MS conditions were more fluent under legacy (M = 9.84, SD = 5.59) than under no legacy (M = 7.53, SD = 3.56), t(16) = 2.51, p = .02, whereas in the control condition, there was a marginal effect in the opposite direction (legacy: M = 10.94, SD = 6.13; no legacy: M = 12.56, SD = 7.86), t(15) = −1.88, p = .08 (see Table 2). Moreover, results did not show any interaction among MS and social valuation neither under legacy nor under no legacy, Fs < 2. Originality and creative fluency did not correlate (legacy: r < .10; no legacy: r < .20, n.s.; see Table 3).

Table 2.

Means (Standard Deviations) of Fluency as a Function of MS, Social Valuation, and Legacy (Latter Within-Participants) in Experiment 2.

	Positive social valuation		Negative social valuation
Condition	Legacy	No legacy	Legacy	No legacy
MS	11.14 (6.78)	8.50 (5.24)	9.84 (5.59)	7.53 (3.57)
Control	12.00 (6.87)	9.71 (5.73)	10.94 (6.13)	12.56 (7.86)

Note. MS = mortality salience.

Table 3.

Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations for All Dependent Variables in Experiment 2.

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Originality legacy	0.94	0.021	—	−.07	.16	.04	.01	.16	−.05	.18
2. Fluency legacy	10.89	6.19		—	−.10	−.02	.76**	.05	.17	−.13
3. Importance legacy	3.55	0.91			—	.07	−.05	.60**	.15	−.08
4. Originality no legacy	0.95	0.014				—	−.16	.16	−.04	−.11
5. Fluency no legacy	9.51	5.93					—	.04	.18	−.06
6. Importance no legacy	2.96	1.03						—	.01	.02
7. Positive affect	3.21	0.73							—	−.30*
8. Negative affect	1.44	0.39								—

p < .05. **p < .01.

In short, under MS, people became relatively more original when they could leave a legacy than when they could not, but this occurred only when creativity was socially valued. Unexpectedly, we also found that when creativity was not socially valued, people in the control conditions were more original when they could leave a legacy than when they could not. In line with Experiment 1, we did not find effects on creative fluency under positive social valuation. We did find that under negative social valuation, people in the MS condition were more fluent when they could leave a legacy than when they could not.

Additional measures

As in Experiment 1, we did not find any effects on positive or negative moods, Fs < 3, n.s. We also analyzed whether participants assigned more importance to the task under legacy especially when their mortality had been made salient. Results showed a main effect of legacy, such that the task was more important under legacy (M = 3.25, SD = .93) than under no legacy (M = 2.93, SD = 1.05). Results, however, showed no two-way or three-way interactions.

Taken together, when creativity is socially valued and when MS has been induced, the possibility for leaving a legacy leads to higher creative performance than when no such possibility exists. We found, unexpectedly, that when creativity is not socially valued, people in the control condition were more creative under legacy than under no legacy. A possibility here is that people want to enhance a feeling of uniqueness and individualism, and they can achieve this especially when their creative product will be long-lasting. Finally, it seems that these effects are not caused by sharper prioritization.

Experiment 2 has some limitations. First, we did not counterbalance our manipulation of legacy across the two animals, the elephant and the fly. But as an elephant clearly lives longer than a fly, it would be implausible to tell participants that an elephant would only live 1 year while a fly would live up to 100 years. Second, there are potential confounds of our manipulation of legacy. An elephant and fly differ on more dimensions than just life expectancy; elephants are more intelligent, heavier, larger, and it is culturally more accepted to generate names for mammals than for insects (see also Greenberg et al., 1995). However, because the results of Experiment 2 are in line with those of Experiment 1 and because we did not find any interaction effects on task importance, we believe results indicate that it is likely that the possibility to leave a legacy caused the observed effects.

Experiment 3

Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the possibility to leave a legacy can neutralize negative effects of MS on creative performance. However, the tasks used in the first two experiments were newly developed. To generalize our results to better known creativity tasks, we decided to use a brainstorming task (see Osborn, 1957) in Experiment 3.

As discussed earlier, it is conceivable that individualism moderates the effects reported thus far. Collectivistic people often are less creative because they stick more closely to the frame of reference of others and are thus less likely to think “outside of the box” and come up with original ideas (Goncalo & Staw, 2006). Individualists value standing out from the crowd and derive self-worth and self-esteem from being different from others; in other words, from being creative. We expected that MS leads to conformity as a way to manage existential threat for people low in individualism and thus to lower creativity; MS will, under legacy, lead to higher creativity only for those high in individualism.

Finally, we included a measure of death thought accessibility after people had engaged in creative activity. It has been shown that MS initially leads to the suppression of death-related thoughts. This effect reverses over time, leading people to have more death-related thoughts (Arndt et al., 1997; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994), unless they have high self-esteem (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997) or they have engaged in worldview defense (Greenberg, Arndt, Schimel, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 2001). It may be that death thoughts dissipate after creative activity under legacy, analogous to the study of Greenberg and colleagues (2001), because being creative has relieved death-related anxiety.

Method

Design and participants

In all, 97 students (age: M = 22.8, SD = 6.0; 33 male) participated for partial course credit. Participants were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2 (MS: yes/no) × 2 (legacy: yes/no) between-participants factorial design. We measured individualism–collectivism and included it as a continuous third independent variable.

Procedures and manipulations

Participants brainstormed about ways to improve the environment. Before this, participants filled out a 10-item Individualism–Collectivism questionnaire (adapted from Triandis, McCusker, & Hui, 1990; α = .65). To manipulate legacy, we told participants that we had two conditions in the experiment, one in which they would brainstorm and one in which they would write essays on the basis of the ideas of other participants. In fact, all participants did the brainstorm. In the legacy condition, we told participants that other participants would write essays based on their ideas. In the no-legacy condition, we told participants that the ideas they came up with would be completely anonymous and would only be used for the purpose of this experiment. At the core of leaving a legacy is transferring ideas, resources, or knowledge that may outlive the conceiver, and this manipulation of legacy taps into this: In the legacy condition, others may benefit from the participants’ ideas, whereas in the condition of no legacy, ideas would be ephemeral and short-lived.

The manipulation of MS was identical to the one used before, again followed by the adapted PANAS (α = .88 for the positive and α = .90 for the negative subscales). For the brainstorm, participants were told that they had to come up with as many ideas as possible, refraining from self-criticism and evaluation, and that they only had to describe their ideas in catchwords. After the brainstorm of 10 min, participants completed a word completion task to measure death thought accessibility (Rutjens, van der Pligt, & van Harreveld, 2009), were paid, and were debriefed.

Dependent measures

To assess originality, we first coded ideas into cognitive categories according to an imposed coding schema (see Nijstad, Stroebe, & Lodewijkx, 2003) with 11 goals (e.g. reducing pollution, improving use of energy sources) and 5 means to achieve these goals (e.g., production, consumption), yielding a total of 55 categories. A second rater coded a random subset of the ideas (n = 570, 30%) with good agreement (Cohen’s κ = 0.70). Originality was operationalized as the number of ideas a participant had generated that had been drawn from a category used by less than 1% of participants (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2011a, 2011b). This resulted in a total of 212 original ideas (11%). The number of nonredundant ideas was counted per participant to assess creative fluency.

The manipulation check of MS was as before. To check our manipulation of legacy, we asked participants to check the correct box to the question: “My ideas will be (a) used by other students for an essay or (b) completely anonymous.” After the brainstorm, we also assessed task importance as before (α = .78).

We included a measure of death thought accessibility (see Rutjens et al., 2009). Participants were presented with 16 Dutch word fragments from which one letter was missing. Of these fragments, 11 could be completed either as a death-related or a neutral word (e.g., doo . . . , which could be completed as dood, the Dutch translation of death, or doof, the Dutch translation of deaf), whereas the other five-word fragments could only be completed in a neutral fashion (e.g., kas . . . , which could only be completed as kast, which is Dutch for cupboard) and were included as fillers. We counted the number of words completed related to death.

Results and Discussion

Manipulation checks

All participants correctly answered the manipulation check on MS. All but two participants correctly answered the manipulation check on legacy. Excluding these participants did not change the results.

Originality

We submitted originality to a regression analysis, with MS (0 = MS; 1 = control), legacy (0 = yes; 1 = no), individualism (z scores), and their interactions as predictors. Results showed a significant two-way interaction of MS × Legacy, B = 1.77, t(90) = 2.03, p = .05. More importantly, this two-way interaction was qualified by a significant three-way interaction, B = 2.23, t(90) = 2.33, p = .02. Analyses of simple slopes showed that under MS, people who scored one standard deviation above the mean on individualism were significantly more original when they could leave a legacy than when they could not, B = −2.78, t(90) = −2.38, p < .05. For people scoring one standard deviation below the mean on individualism, legacy did not have an effect under MS, B = −.08, t < 1, n.s. (Figure 3). In the control conditions, people who scored one standard deviation above the mean on Individualism were slightly less original when they could leave a legacy than when they could not, B = 1.76, t(90) = 1.65, p = .10. For people scoring one standard deviation below the mean on Individualism, Legacy did not have an effect in the control condition, t < 1, n.s. (Figure 4). Moreover, analyses of simple slopes showed a trend that under Legacy, people who scored one standard deviation above the mean on Individualism were more original in the MS rather than control condition, B = −2.21, t(90) = −1.68, p < .10, while this was not the case under No Legacy, t < 1.5, n.s. For people scoring one standard deviation below the mean on Individualism, no differences were found, ts < 1, n.s.

Figure 3.

Originality as a function of legacy and individualism in the mortality salience conditions (Experiment 3).

Figure 4.

Originality as a function of legacy and individualism in the control conditions (Experiment 3).

Creative fluency

We submitted creative fluency to the same regression analysis as for originality. Results showed that under MS, people tended to be less fluent (M = 17.69, SD = 7.83) than in the control condition (M = 20.20, SD = 8.94), B = 3.06, t(90) = 1.76, p = .08. Moreover, this main effect was qualified by a marginally significant two-way interaction between MS and legacy, B = 6.58, t(90) = 1.88, p < .06. Inspection of simple effects showed that under MS, people tended to be more fluent under legacy (M = 19.79, SD = 7.07) than under no legacy (M = 15.58, SD = 8.12; F(1, 90) = 3.02, p = .09), while no such effect existed in the control conditions (legacy: M = 19.29, SD = 9.23 vs. no legacy: M = 21.08, SD = 8.76; F < 1, n.s.).

Finally, results showed a significant three-way interaction among MS, legacy, and individualism, B = 8.53, t(90) = 2.23, p = .03. Analyses of simple slopes showed that under MS, people who scored one standard deviation above the mean on Individualism, were significantly more fluent when they could leave a legacy than when they could not, B = −7.53, t(90) = −2.79, p < .01. For people scoring one standard deviation below the mean on Individualism, legacy did not have an effect under MS, B = −2.37, t(90) = −1.58, n.s. In the control conditions, we found an opposite pattern. There, people who scored one standard deviation above the mean on Individualism were significantly less fluent when they could leave a legacy than when they could not, B = 7.57, t(90) = 3.06, p < .01. For people scoring one standard deviation below the mean on Individualism, Legacy had no effect in the control condition, B = −4.34, t(90) = −1.62, n.s. Moreover, analyses of simple slopes showed that under legacy, people who scored one standard deviation above the mean on Individualism were more fluent in the MS rather than control condition, B = −4.92, t(90) = −2.21, p < .05, while this reversed under no legacy, B = 10.18, t(90) = 3.70, p < .01. For people scoring one standard deviation below the mean on individualism, analyses showed no differences for fluency under legacy, t < 1.60, n.s., while under no legacy they were less fluent in the MS than in the control condition, B = 2.52, t(90) = 2.16, p < .05.

It thus appears that in line with our predictions, people who are individualistic are more original and produce more ideas under MS when they can leave a legacy than when they cannot. In the control condition, they produced fewer but no less-original ideas when they could leave a legacy. However, this is not true for people low on individualism, and they were affected by the manipulation of legacy to a lesser extent.

Additional measures

We found no effects on positive and negative affect, Fs < 1, n.s. We also found no effects of our manipulations on our measure of task importance, Fs < 1, n.s. Individualism was negatively related to perceived task importance, B = −0.29, t(90) = −2.33, p = .02.

We also submitted death thought accessibility to the same regression analysis as above. Results only showed a two-way interaction among MS and legacy, B = 1.43, t(90) = 2.29, p = .02, partial η² = .08. Under MS, death thought accessibility was higher when participants could leave a legacy (M = 3.63, SD = 1.50) than when they could not (M = 2.75, SD = 1.23) F(1, 90) = 4.17, p = .04, partial η² = .06, while in the control condition, we found no such effect, F < 2.

Finally, correlation analyses (see Table 4) yielded an interesting effect: The number of death-related thoughts (r = .33, p < .01) was significantly correlated with originality. We regressed originality on death-related thoughts and negative affect, and found that death-related thoughts, B = .34, t(90) = 2.67, p < .01, was predicted by originality. A possibility is thus that death is less threatening—and people thus do not need to suppress death-related thoughts—because they have been existentially reassured through their creativity. This would be in line with a study that found that the possibility to express oneself creatively was associated with less fear of death (Florian & Mikulincer, 1998). However, it may also be the case that death thoughts were more accessible because people felt guilty about their creative activity (Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Schimel, 1999).

Table 4.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations for All Dependent Variables in Experiment 3.

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Originality	2.15	2.13	—	.50**	.09	.33**	.09	.26*
2. Creative fluency	18.96	8.46		—	−.03	.07	.11	.14
3. Importance	2.98	1.09			—	.13	.13	.12
4. Death thoughts	2.99	1.51				—	.05	.13
5. Positive affect	2.85	0.62					—	−.10
6. Negative affect	1.48	0.48						—

p < .05. **p < .01.

Experiment 3 replicates that people under MS become more creative when they can leave a legacy than when they cannot. Moreover, this was moderated by individualism and especially individualistic people (and not collectivistic people) are more creative under MS when they can leave a legacy rather than not. Finally, under MS, people had higher death thought accessibility after they had been creative. It remains unclear whether this is caused by death being less threatening, or that accessibility of death thoughts increased due to feelings of guilt.

We used a well-established creativity task, brainstorming, to further solidify our results. However, a clean manipulation of leaving a legacy was difficult to incorporate into this brainstorming task. We used the current manipulation, because the transfer of ideas, knowledge, or resources to significant others is at the core of leaving a legacy. However, our manipulation is to some extent confounded with a potential of evaluation, and such evaluation is possibly more motivating to individualistic people as this allows them to demonstrate their uniqueness to others. Because individualism did not interact with legacy to predict task importance, and because it is unclear why evaluation potential would interact with MS and individualism to predict creativity, we think it is unlikely that this can explain our results.

General Discussion

In this research, we tested the hypothesis that the possibility to leave a legacy neutralizes the negative effects of MS on creativity, but only when creativity is socially valued. Moreover, we tested whether this would be especially the case for people who are individualistically rather than collectivistically motivated. The results supported these predictions across different operationalizations and manipulations. Experiment 1 showed that people were more original under MS when they could leave a legacy than when no such possibility existed. Experiment 2 replicated this pattern and showed that this was only the case when creativity was socially valued. Experiment 3 showed that especially for people high on individualism, legacy led to higher originality under MS, while for people low on individualism, this was not the case. Finally, under MS, legacy led to more death-related thoughts after creative activity, and death thought accessibility was higher for people who had been more original. Our results were mixed on creative fluency, but fluency is more dependent on effort and does not necessarily correlate with originality, which is generally considered to be the hallmark of creativity (Nijstad et al., 2010). The possibility to leave a legacy may thus lead to existential reassurance under MS, and make death less threatening. Alternatively, having engaged in creative activity may have led to increased feelings of guilt, and consequently, to heightened death thought accessibility as a compensation mechanism.

TMT (Greenberg et al., 1986) posits that reflecting on one’s own death can lead to a paralyzing terror, which in turn causes people to cling more strongly to the cultural worldview and bolster self-esteem. This presumably occurs because people want to get a sense of immortality and permanence by supporting the norms and values of their group more strongly. As the group one belongs to exists beyond one human life, this can give existential reassurance. However, as creative products can outlive the conceiver by far and have a profound impact on society, we hypothesized and showed that the possibility of leaving a legacy can diminish negative effects MS has on creativity. Moreover, being creative has been suggested as an alternative way of reaching symbolic immortality (Lifton, 1983; Rank, 1936). Building on this earlier theorizing, we show that to reach symbolic immortality through creativity, it is crucial that people can leave a legacy through their creative production and that their social group values the creative products, and as such lead to social and existential validation.

That creativity can be functional to reach a goal—in this case existential reassurance—and be more than just an intrinsic expression of creativity, is consistent with previous studies. For example, low-power individuals who can gain power (vs. not) by being creative are more creative because they employ a global processing style (Sligte, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2011), people expecting a hostile negotiation are more creative in coming up with tactics to win the conflict inherent in negotiation (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008), and people with an avoidance motivation become more creative when this serves goal progress (Roskes, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2012). Finally, men who are confronted with an attractive sexual partner become more creative while women only show this pattern when confronted with a potential long-term partner (Griskevicius, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006). We believe creativity can also be functional in coping with mortality-related concerns.

One limitation relates to our manipulation of legacy in Experiments 2 and 3. In Experiment 2, the manipulation of legacy (generate names for a long-living elephant vs. a short-lived fly) may have been confounded with some other factors (e.g., large vs. small, rare vs. common animal). In Experiment 3, our manipulation (ideas would or would not be used by another participant) may be confounded with potential evaluation. However, our results were consistent across the three experiments and across different operationalizations, which increases confidence that the effects are due to the potential of leaving a legacy and not something else. An alternative explanation for our findings could be that MS leads to sharper prioritization of goals and needs (Carstensen et al., 1999), and, consequently, people who have been reminded of their own death assign higher importance to creativity under legacy. Moreover, one could say that it is not so much the possibility to leave a legacy that we have manipulated, but it is the importance the creativity task had for our participants. We believe there are three reasons that make this alternative explanation less plausible. First, across the three experiments, we did not find any effects on prioritization. Second, we consistently found that MS interacted with legacy to influence creativity, and it is unclear how task importance can account for this. Third, Experiment 3 showed that higher creativity was associated with more death-related thoughts, and it is unclear why task importance would have these effects.

Currently, we cannot fully vindicate the argument that creativity makes death less threatening once the creative products can outlive the conceiver. It is worthwhile to explore this in more detail in future research. Another interesting question is whether our results would hold once the dimension on which people are creative bears connections to important cultural themes. In our experiments, people were creative on relatively neutral topics (naming an animal and improving the environment). It may be that the possibility to leave a legacy through some nationalistic symbol leads to cognitive rigidity and consequently lower creativity (see also Greenberg et al., 1995).

To conclude, the possibility to leave a legacy, and thus be existentially reassured, neutralizes negative effects of MS on creativity. Moreover, this is only the case when creativity is socially valued, and holds especially for individualistic people. Under some conditions, death may not only be the inspiration of philosophy, but of creativity as well.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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