The Allocation of Limited Life Resources

Hypothesis 1: The activation of mortality awareness diminishes time perception, thereby enhancing cognitive effort. Awareness of mortality affects the allocation of cognitive effort resources via the intermediary function of time perception.
Hypothesis 2: Happiness orientation moderates the impact of mortality awareness on cognitive effort. Mortality awareness stimulates cognitive effort when a eudaimonic orientation is activated. In contrast, mortality awareness reduces cognitive effort when a hedonic orientation is activated.
Result: 1.time perception fully mediates the relationship between mortality awareness and cognitive effort;(DATA1) 2.The results indicated that after controlling for the effect of gender, the interaction between mortality salience and happiness orientation significantly influenced cognitive effort [F(1, 147) = 9.393, p = 0.003, η² = 0.062]. Further simple effects analysis showed the following: under the hedonic orientation activation, the mortality salience group scored significantly lower in cognitive effort compared to the toothache salience group [F(1, 73) = 4.904, p = 0.030, η² = 0.065]; under the eudaimonic orientation activation, the mortality salience group scored significantly higher in cognitive effort compared to the toothache salience group [F(1, 73) = 4.483, p = 0.038, η² = 0.059]. (DATA2)