Death awareness can influence individuals’ attitudes, motivation, and behavior. Drawing from terror management theory, this paper explores the potential effect of death awareness on individuals' preferences for competitive and cooperative conflict management styles.

This study employs a survey experiment method to examine the impact of mortality salience on conflict management styles. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (Mortality Salience vs. Neutral), and their preferences for cooperative versus competitive conflict management styles were measured.

The study provides empirical support for the hypotheses, demonstrating that individuals experiencing mortality salience are more inclined toward cooperative rather than competitive conflict management styles. This suggests that heightened awareness of mortality fosters a preference for collaboration, likely driven by a psychological need for social connectedness and group cohesion in times of existential uncertainty.

A richer and deeper knowledge of cooperative and competitive conflict management styles can help people gain better consequences and can potentially contribute to training and talent development by educating conflict management practitioners. Further implications and future research have been discussed.

This paper contributes to the literature by establishing a novel connection between conflict management styles and mortality salience, an area previously unexplored. By highlighting how existential concerns shape individuals' preferences for cooperative versus competitive conflict resolution, this study offers fresh theoretical insights and practical implications for workplace dynamics.