Associations Between Psychological Buffers and Death Anxiety in Younger and Older Adults: The Moderating Role of Future Time Perspective

This study aims to examine the associations of three death anxiety buffers, close relationships, cultural worldview, and self-esteem, with death anxiety in younger and older adults and to test whether Future Time Perspective (FTP) moderated these associations within each age group. The current study recruited 208 older adults and 506 younger adults. The results showed that among older adults, cultural worldview had greater relative predictive importance for death anxiety than attachment orientations and self-esteem. However, none of the interactions involving FTP remained statistically significant after Bonferroni correction. Among younger adults, attachment orientations appeared to have relatively greater predictive importance for death anxiety, and FTP moderated the relationships between attachment anxiety, self-esteem, and death anxiety. These findings are consistent with the fluid compensation model, as the relative associations between different buffers and death anxiety showed distinct patterns across age groups.