Summary: Exposure to portrayals of death in films and television can help people come to terms with their mortality. In experiments conducted by researchers at Radboud University, participants who were prompted to reflect on death before watching emotionally meaningful scenes from works such as Me Before You, House, and Grey’s Anatomy showed greater acceptance of death and reduced avoidance than participants who did not engage in that pre-viewing reflection.
This research highlights how thoughtfully crafted media—stories that center on death and give it meaning—can become effective, safe environments for confronting and processing difficult emotions surrounding mortality. By engaging with characters and narratives, viewers can explore death-related thoughts and feelings in a consequence-free setting, which may reduce fear and encourage acceptance.
Key findings
- Participants instructed to think about death before viewing meaningful cinematic scenes demonstrated greater understanding and acceptance of death afterward.
- Media that treats death as a central, meaningful theme had a stronger impact on attitudes toward death than films that depicted non-meaningful endings or other forms of loss, such as breakups.
- Storytelling and emotional engagement in films provide a low-risk context in which viewers can reflect on mortality and practice coping with existential concerns.
Source: Radboud University
People who actively engage with the idea of death—for example, by reflecting on it—then watch films in which death is central, tend to learn to cope with death better.
This conclusion is based on research conducted by Enny Das and Anneke de Graaf at Radboud University. The investigators examined how the salience of death, the centrality of death to a story, and the presence of a clear meaning attached to death in the narrative influence viewers’ fear, avoidance, and acceptance.
“It’s quite strange that we enjoy watching films about death,” says Professor Enny Das, who specializes in Persuasive Communication. “In everyday life, people typically avoid thinking or talking about death. Yet we willingly watch dramatic stories in which people die.”
Meaningful media and pre-viewing reflection
In the study, researchers selected emotionally powerful, or “meaningful,” scenes from television dramas such as House and Grey’s Anatomy and the film Me Before You. Participants were divided into groups: one group completed a brief exercise to make death more salient by thinking about it before viewing the scenes; the comparison group watched the same clips without that preparatory reflection.
Participants who had been prompted to reflect on death prior to viewing reported greater acceptance of death as a part of life and were less inclined to avoid thoughts of death after watching meaningful scenes, compared with those who did not receive the introspective prompt. In short, pre-viewing activation of death-related thoughts made meaningful cinematic portrayals more likely to influence attitudes.
Active fear and motivation to learn
Das explains that viewers do not automatically learn from moving films; people often prefer not to confront uncomfortable topics. The research suggests that a certain level of psychological urgency or salience—such as briefly reflecting on one’s own mortality or encountering reminders in daily life—encourages viewers to absorb lessons from stories about death.
When scenes were emotionally meaningful but death was not made salient beforehand, or when films depicted other kinds of endings (for example, the close of a relationship) rather than death itself, viewers showed little change in death-related attitudes. That indicates that both the content of the story and the viewer’s mindset going into the viewing experience matter.
Consequence-free practice through storytelling
The researchers attribute the effect to the power of narrative and empathy: through identification with a protagonist, viewers can mentally rehearse and reflect on challenging issues without real-world consequences. Film allows people to experience intense situations—grief, moral dilemmas, loss—in a simulated environment, which can facilitate emotional processing and perspective-taking.
An example discussed by Das is the storyline in Me Before You, in which a character ultimately accepts a loved one’s decision regarding death. Such narratives can teach viewers that while death is painful, it can sometimes be reconciled with complex moral and emotional considerations—an insight that may lessen fear or avoidance in certain viewers.
About this mortality and psychology research
Author: Lieneke van Dijk, Radboud University
Source: Radboud University
Contact: Lieneke van Dijk – Radboud University
Image credit: Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access. “When meaningful movies invite fear transcendence: An extended terror management account of the function of death in movies” by Enny Das et al., published in Communications Research. The study reports two experiments (N = 206; N = 401) that test conditions under which meaningful movies about death promote decreased fear of death, reduced death avoidance, and increased death acceptance.
Abstract
When meaningful movies invite fear transcendence: An extended terror management account of the function of death in movies
Meaningful movies can function as an anxiety buffer against the fear of death—except when death itself is central to the story. This raises the question of what occurs when death occupies the central role in a film’s narrative. The research introduces and empirically tests a so-called “fear transcendence route,” a mechanism in which meaningful movies about death invite viewers to confront and transcend their fear of death in a virtual, narrative context.
Two experiments examined three preconditions for fear transcendence: (1) death is salient in real life or is made salient for the viewer; (2) death is central to the storyline; and (3) the movie conveys a specific meaning regarding death. The authors measured outcomes related to fear transcendence, operationalized as decreased fear of death, reduced death avoidance, and increased acceptance of death. The results indicate that especially older viewers became less avoidant and more accepting of death when those preconditions were met. In sum, meaningful films about death can, under the right conditions, evoke fear transcendence and alter viewers’ attitudes toward mortality.