Goals Change When Life's Fragility is Primed: Lessons Learned From Older Adults, the September 11 Attacks and Sars

Socioemotional selectivity theory maintains that the perception of time systematically influences motivation. Most experimental research testing this postulate has relied on paradigms in which participants are asked to make choices under conditions where they imagine that time is constrained or expanded. The present studies tested key theoretical postulates under naturalistic conditions by examining social goals before and after the September 11 attacks and throughout the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong. Findings suggest that sociocultural events that presumably prime the fragility of life increase motivation to derive emotional meaning from life in both the young and old.