Death is the unescapable event that most of individuals want to hide motivated by a fundamental will to stay alive. Because it can be source of mystery, fascination and anxiety, this topic has been of specific interest in psychology thanks to the Terror Management Theory (TMT). This theory enables to understand how fear of death is fundamentally anchored in the human nature and the defense mechanisms that are used in response to death reminders that are aroused by the mortality salience situation. This doctoral research aims at filling the gap in the litterature on TMT while studying specifically the impact of mortality salience on situational regulatory focus, i.e. the adoption of an approach versus avoidance strategy and the preferences for promotion versus prevention products. In this perspective, an experimentation has been conducted among 360 individuals from two distinct age classes (40-59 and 60-79). The results confirm the existence of two independent processes (approach vs. avoidance), so that the mortality salience manipulation leads to the adoption of a specific strategy and distinct product preferences. They also show the main moderator role of chronological age in this process, that can be mainly explained by the aging process.
