Does anyone have any pointers to a formal treatment of pain or death avoidance in formal economic literature, bargaining theory or game theory?

I ask because it seems like it has its own rules. Strange things happen in terms of the decisions one makes when their life is on the line.

I'm not talking solely as something as dramatic as a gun to the head or selflessly saving someone from danger, though I'd be interested in seeing material on that, too. I am also interested in long term desperation where people, say, sell their time for decades but never seem to gain from the transactions because the alternative is starving or going homeless.

My intuition is that death and pain are almost an infinite variable like checkmate in a game theoretical analysis of chess. Is there any validity to that?

Anyway, just curious what the experts have to say on the matter.

Thanks!