All Types of Mortality Salience Are Not Equal: The Effect of Contemplating Natural versus Unnatural Death on Materialism Behavior

Just as nothing can last forever, people die. However, people die in different ways, for different reasons, and in different situations. While previous research based on Terror Management Theory (TMT) argues that Mortality Salience drives individuals to make different behavioral choices than they otherwise would (for example, previous research has identified Mortality Salience as an antecedent of materialism behavior), these studies have not differentiated individuals’ behaviors caused by the contemplating of death in different possible ways (i.e., unnatural death vs. natural death). Bringing together Terror Management Theory and Just World Belief, the present research aims to fulfill this gap by proposing that inducing individuals to contemplate bad ending of life (unnatural death) will increase their materialism behavior. On the contrary, inducing individuals to contemplate good ending of life (natural death) will decrease their materialism behavior. Two experiments adopted from previous research on effect of MS on materialism were designed to test hypotheses (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000). Our measures tapped two distinct aspects of materialism – making a great deal of money (Study 1) and consuming many resources (Study 2). INTRODUCTION Just as nothing can last forever, people die. However, people die in different ways and situations. While previous research based on Terror Management Theory (TMT) argues that individuals with Mortality Salience (MS) are in general inclined to make different behavioral choices than they otherwise would (e.g., materialism behaviors, Sheldon & McGregor, 2000), these studies have not differentiated individuals’ behaviors caused by the contemplating death in different possible ways (i.e., unnatural death vs. natural death). For example, imagining death in a car accident and imagining passing away in an easy chair may motivate people to be engaged in different behaviors. The present research aims to fulfill this gap by proposing that people as consumers tend to perform different behaviors if they are induced to imagine different type of death. Specifically, inducing individuals to contemplate bad ending of life (unnatural death) will increase their materialism behavior. On the contrary, inducing individuals to contemplate good ending of life (natural death) will decrease their materialism behavior. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK In this section, we first review previous TMT account of materialism and its shortcomings. Then, we present our arguments for the effects of contemplating different type of death (i.e., unnatural death vs. natural death) and respective hypotheses. The TMT Account of Materialism Previous TMT research argues that MS induces existential anxiety. The anxiety motivates people to imbue life with meaning and thus, to derive self-esteem from cultural beliefs about the nature of reality to maintain the feeling of secure and protected. Because the virtues of materialistic consumption are deeply woven into the very fabric of American (and now spreading to many other countries) culture, inducing consumers in these cultures to contemplate death may motivate them to behave acquisitively (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986). While Greenberg et al. and their followers’ argument appears to be plausible in some situations, it seems arbitrary to assume that MS will drive individuals to behave the same way regardless how they imagine their deaths. To predict their disparate behavior that may be derived from this comparison, the Just World Theory (JWT) comes into play. JWT, TMT and Materialism Just World Theory (JWT). People in general have motivation to believe that the world is fundamentally just (Lerner, 1998). That is, they tend to believe that good people (especially themselves) get rewarded and bad people (maybe others) get misfortunes. Since JWT is one of the universal values people hold, MS in general may increase the importance of maintaining belief that the world is just (Cai, 2010). We argue that, however, individuals contemplating bad ending and those contemplating good ending may use different methods to maintain the just world belief. Bad Ending Contemplators. When induced to imagine their unfortunate ending, people simultaneously think that since they are obviously good people, they are treated in an unjust manner. To maintain the just world belief, they may try to enhance their self-esteem by improving the quality of life and current well-being (As a good person, I live shorter than others, but with better quality. So that is fair.). As a result, they are more likely to engage in materialism behavior in order to compensate. Good Ending Contemplators. When induced to imagine their passing away peacefully, people may think that since they are obviously good people, they are actually treated in a fairly just manner. To this extent, they are less motivated to improve the physical quality of life in order to enhance the self-esteem. Instead, they tend to enhance the self-esteem by trying to behave in a “good person” manner. This is because people, although believe they are generally good, do know that they are not morally perfect (Lerner, 1965). As a result, to build a better image as a “typical good person”, they are motivated to behave according to social norms (Festinger, 1956). The line of logic is “I will die in a fairly just way, which identifies that I am a good person. As a result, I should perform like a good person, not a bad one.” To this extent, good ending contemplators may search their cultural values that are consistent with this consideration and use these values to direct their behaviors. If we assume that “squandering wantonly” is perceived as bad habit, then good ending contemplators may try to keep away with this behavior and thus, become less materialism-oriented. H1: Inducing individuals to contemplate bad ending of life (unnatural death) will increase their materialism behavior. H2: Inducing individuals to contemplate good ending of life (natural death) will decrease their materialism behavior. METHODOLOGY Two experiments adopted from previous research on effect of MS on materialism were designed to test hypotheses (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000). In Study 1(already done) we asked college students about their financial expectations projected 15 years in the future (e.g., salaries, worth of their homes); in Study 2 (in progress) we ask students to play a forest-management game and assessed how much they wished to harvest, as well as their subjective motivations for consuming. Our measures thus tapped two distinct aspects of materialism – making a great deal of money (Study 1) and consuming many resources (Study 2). 75 undergraduate students participated in Study 1 for credit. Subjects were randomly assigned to respond to one of two essay questions based on TMT’s MS manipulation (Greenberg et al., 1990) – Natural Death Contemplating (aging death) and Unnatural Death (traffic accident). An independent sample T-test showed that Unnatural Death Contemplators, compared with Natural Death ones, reported significantly higher expectation for Financial Worth (M = 6.48, 5.71, t(73) = 2.68, p < .01), Pleasure Spending (M = 6.06, 5.16, t(73) = 2.53, p < .05), and Value of Possessions (M = 5.70, 4.69, t(73) = 2.58, p < .05). The results are consistent with our prediction. Study 2 differs from Study 1 in two ways. First, Study 2 has a control condition (Listening to Music Contemplating) to further confirm the effect identified in Study 1. Second, Study 2 especially concerns the consuming behavior. Subjects participate in a forest-management game, a resource dilemma (Sheldon & McGregor, 2000). Subjects are told to imagine that they own a company that has to bid against three other companies to harvest timber in a forest. Subjects rate 1) how much they would like to profit more than competitors (Greed), 2) how much they expect other companies to try to cut large amounts each year (Fear), and 3) how many acres they would harvest in their Year 1 bid. It is predicted that Natural Death Contemplators report significantly higher Fear and significantly lower Greed and Year 1 bid than Unnatural Death Contemplators while the control group report on a medium level in all three measures (See Table 1). Table 1: Expected Result of Experiment 2 Good Ending Contemplators Bad Ending Contemplators Control Group Greed Low High Medium Fear High Low Medium Year 1 bid Low High Medium DISCUSSION By bringing together Terror Management Theory and Just World Theory, this paper suggests that contemplating different types of death can drive consumers behave different in terms of materialism. Specifically, inducing individuals to contemplate bad ending of life (unnatural death) will increase their materialism behavior. On the other hand, contemplating good ending of life (natural death) decreases their materialism behavior.This paper contributes to literature in three ways. First, it adds to the body of TMT literature on the types of Mortality Salience. This research introduces a new dimension to classify death into natural and unnatural death and identifies their disparate effect on materialism behaviors. While previous research generally treats all types of death contemplation as homogeneous, the present research proposes and demonstrates that not all kinds of Mortality Salience have identical consequence. Future research, by the same token, may focus on other dimensions to classify Mortality Salience. To this extent, this paper extends TMT research into a new frontier. Second, this paper builds a bridge between two motivation theories in consumer behavior research: Terror Management Theory and Just World Theory. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first time that the two motivation theories have ever been brought together. Thus, the present research provides a possible future research orientation – taking into consideration other motivational factors in interpreting the effect of Mortality Salience. 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