Would you want to know when you die? What people say

Most people say they would not want to know. In a 2017 study of more than 2,000 adults in Germany and Spain, 86 to 90 percent preferred not to know about upcoming negative events, and only 1 percent wanted to know the future every time. A 2018 YouGov poll in Britain found 8 percent wanted to know only when they would die. Stories about the question, from the Samarra fable to Final Destination, usually end with fate winning anyway.

Would most people want to know when they die?

No. Both surveys we found on the question point the same way. In Germany and Spain, the great majority turned down knowledge of coming bad news, death included. In Britain, about a quarter wanted some information about their death, and fewer than one in ten wanted only the date.

It's a question that sounds simple and isn't. Knowing could mean time to prepare, or years spent watching a calendar. The answers below come from people asked in representative surveys, not from forum polls or essays.

What did the Germany and Spain study find?

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the University of Granada asked more than 2,000 adults whether they would want to know about future events. Between 86 and 90 percent did not want to know about negative ones. Even for good events, 40 to 77 percent preferred to stay in the dark.

The study by Gerd Gigerenzer and Rocío García-Retamero, called "Cassandra's regret," used nationally representative samples and appeared in Psychological Review in 2017. Its title refers to the Trojan princess of Greek myth who could see the future but was cursed so that nobody believed her. The researchers asked about several things: the date and cause of one's own death, a partner's death, whether a marriage would end, and lighter matters.

Only 1 percent of participants wanted to know what the future held every time. The one item where more people wanted to know than not was the sex of an unborn child: only 37 percent said they would rather not find out. Gigerenzer called deliberate ignorance "a widespread state of mind."

Why would someone rather not know?

The researchers give two reasons. People want to avoid the suffering and regret that knowing the future may bring, and they want to keep the suspense that makes good things enjoyable. A death date would hang over every birthday and holiday until it arrived.

Not knowing is not the same as not planning. In the same study, people who preferred not to know the future were more risk averse and more often bought life and legal insurance. They prepared for bad events in general while declining to learn the specific one.

One way to read the figures: if a date can't be changed, knowing it adds a deadline without adding any control. Most respondents seem to have weighed it that way.

Who is more likely to want to know?

Younger people. In the 2017 study, older adults were less likely than younger ones to want to know the date and cause of their own or their partner's death. The BPS Research Digest reported that 13 percent of under-35s wanted to know when their partner would die, against 8 percent of over-50s.

The British poll shows the same split. YouGov, writing in October 2018, found that 52 percent of under-25s wanted to know nothing about when or how they would die, while among people 55 and older the figure was 74 percent. Young respondents were also more likely to say they were afraid of dying.

What are the reasons people give for wanting to know?

The case for knowing is about control. A known date would let someone settle their affairs, say what they wanted to say and decide how to spend the time left. In the YouGov poll, 27 percent of Britons wanted at least some information, so the wish is far from rare.

It's worth separating this thought experiment from real life. A doctor talking with a seriously ill patient about what lies ahead is a different situation, with real people and real choices; those conversations belong between patients, families and their doctors. The surveys here asked healthy adults about an imagined forecast.

How do movies and stories treat knowing when you die?

Fiction tends to give the same answer: you can know, but you can't escape. The oldest version is the tale W. Somerset Maugham retold and John O'Hara used as the epigraph of his 1934 novel Appointment in Samarra. A servant meets Death in Baghdad and flees to Samarra, where Death was already expecting him that night.

Final Destination turned the idea into a horror franchise of six films. Its characters survive a disaster after one of them has a premonition of it. Then they are picked off one by one by an unseen force known as Death while they try to escape their fate.

Other stories are gentler. In Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), a witch shows young Edward Bloom how he will die, and the knowledge does not faze him; the film follows the tall tales of the life he goes on to live. In Stranger than Fiction (2006), a tax agent, Harold Crick, hears a narrator say he will soon die and sets out to stop it.

Why is this question so popular in stories?

Because it hands a writer suspense and a reveal at once. The audience knows the deadline, so every scene counts down, and the end raises one question: will fate win? That makes the premise a natural home for a final turn; our guide to what a plot twist is shows how such reveals are built.

The premise also fits short formats. A web series can deliver one character, one forecast and one reckoning in a handful of short episodes; read what a web series is to see how that format works.

How can you think through the question yourself?

There is no right answer, and the surveys suggest most people end up at "no." If you want to test your own view, these questions help:

1. Would knowing the date change what you do this year, or only how you feel about it?
2. Would you tell the people close to you?
3. Would you rather know the date, the cause, or neither? YouGov respondents split on exactly this.
4. Could you enjoy a holiday, a birthday or a good day while counting down?
5. Do you prepare for risks in general, the way the study's "don't tell me" group bought insurance?

For more ideas that drive films and series, browse formats and genres and the film section.