The inevitability of death is a fundamental aspect of human existence. In contemporary society, individuals are frequently exposed to death-related information via real-world crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and global media coverage. This pervasive exposure makes it increasingly challenging to suppress the awareness of mortality, thereby intensifying existential anxiety. The articles compiled in this Research Topic offer a comprehensive examination of how death attitudes, mortality salience (MS), and existential concerns shape psychological processes, well-being, and social behavior, largely through the lens of Terror Management Theory (TMT).
This Research Topic highlights several critical pathways through which existential concerns are processed. Firstly, research by Gao et al. demonstrates that mortality salience increases self-objectification in both genders. They identify two underlying mechanisms: cultural worldview compliance and the suppression of creatureliness. While cultural norms explain baseline gender differences, creatureliness suppression – distancing oneself from biological reminders of mortality – functions as a universal existential defense.
Secondly, existential concerns significantly influence social and prosocial behaviors. Lu et al. posit that crisis-induced conformity acts as an affiliation defense, buffering against the distress triggered by mortality reminders. By conforming, individuals mitigate negative affect and mortality anxiety, enhancing positive emotional outcomes. Complementary to this, Chang et al. explore “altruism born of suffering,” finding that mortality salience promotes helping intentions, mediated by a search for meaning, with “negotiable fate” beliefs in Chinese culture acting as a key moderator that strengthens this prosocial response. Furthermore, Xie et al. examine the paradoxical nature of helping behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting how death anxiety and death reflection act as competing mediators in shaping individual willingness to provide support.
Finally, the Research Topic addresses the broader implications of death attitudes for well-being and professional functioning. Wang et al. show that neutral acceptance of death positively correlates with a “good life experience,” while extrinsic goal pursuit may suppress well-being when death anxiety is high. In a professional context, Zdziarski et al. investigate the attitudes of medical personnel toward death, suggesting that professional experience and habituation contribute to varying existential perspectives among doctors, nurses, and paramedics. Lastly, Das et al. suggest that confronting death through art and meditation can transcend the pervasive denial of mortality, fostering deeper connectedness and life appreciation.
Future directions: a cross-scale culturomics approach
Traditional terror management research has largely examined death anxiety through isolated variables (e.g., self-esteem, worldview defense) at a single psychological level. Moving forward, we advocate for Culturomics – a cross-level, interdisciplinary science that integrates micro (genetic/neural), meso (behavioral), and macro (societal/cultural) data into high-dimensional representational spaces (). This systems perspective transcends reductionist variable-centric models and captures the holistic, networked nature of existential defenses.
First, future studies should employ Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) to compare the geometric structure of mortality-related processes across levels (). For example, does the representational geometry of “creatureliness suppression” in brain activity (micro) mirror the pattern of cultural worldview compliance across nations (macro)? RSA can directly test such cross-level homologies, bridging neural, behavioral, and societal data within a unified framework.
Second, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) and large language models (LLMs) can extract higher-order, abstract cultural profiles from multi-modal inputs – including digital traces, policy responses, and historical archives (). Rather than merely counting word frequencies, DNNs reveal latent co-occurrence patterns of existential concerns across different ecological contexts (e.g., tight vs. loose cultures, rice vs. wheat farming regions). This enables the construction of dynamic cultural profiles of death anxiety that evolve over time and space.
Third, Culturomics urges integration of the biological basis of existential culture. Genetic (e.g., 5-HTTLPR, OXTR) and neuroimaging (e.g., frontotemporal connectivity) data should be incorporated into multi-level models to examine gene−culture co-evolution under mortality salience. How do specific alleles modulate sensitivity to cultural mortality buffers, and how does this interact with collective threat (e.g., pandemics)?
Finally, adopting a systems theory perspective, future research should map the distributed, networked, and topological properties of existential defenses – from individual neurons to societal institutions. By shifting from univariate, single-level analyses to high-dimensional representation comparison, Culturomics promises to transform existential psychology into a truly integrative, cross-scale science.
In summary, this Research Topic advances our understanding of the psychological mechanisms that allow humans to navigate the reality of death. As we continue to integrate cultural, psychological, and computational approaches, we look forward to a deeper understanding of how existential awareness can be transformed from a source of anxiety into an impetus for personal growth and social cohesion.
Statements
Author contributions
SL: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 32371125, 32071081) (SL) and the Project for the Development of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Guangzhou (2025GZYB02) (SL).
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Generative AI statement
The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
References
1
LuoSYuanHWangYBondMH. Culturomics: Taking the cross-scale, interdisciplinary science of culture into the next decade. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. (2024) 167:105942. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105942
2
ZhangYLiSYuanXYuanHCheZLuoS. The high-dimensional psychological profile of ChatGPT. Sci China Technol Sci. (2025) 68:1820401. doi: 10.1007/s11431-025-2934-8
3
YuanHCheZZhangYLiSYuanXHuangLet al. The cultural stereotype and cultural bias of ChatGPT. J Pacific Rim Psychol. (2025) 19:18344909251355673. doi: 10.1177/18344909251355673
Summary
Keywords
culturomics, death anxiety, LLM, mortality salience, well-being
Citation
Luo S (2026) Editorial: Mortality saliency and mental health: how could awareness of death promote well-being?. Front. Psychiatry 17:1905349. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1905349
Received
10 June 2026
Accepted
10 June 2026
Published
13 July 2026
Volume
17 - 2026
Edited and reviewed by
Wulf Rössler, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Germany
Updates
Copyright
© 2026 Luo.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Siyang Luo, ljc520ida@163.com
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.