Understanding Materialistic Consumption: A Terror Management Perspective

ABSTRACT This study adopted terror management theory (TMT) to explore how people's materialistic consumption behaviors can be influenced by social events, such as September 11, i.e., mortality salience effects on materialistic consumption. By using survey data from a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, the influence of mortality salience on two consumption behaviors-brand name consumption and compulsive consumption-was examined. The results showed that people with a greater fear of becoming a terrorism victim showed a greater tendency for brand name consumption and compulsive consumption. Further, the relationship between mortality salience and materialistic consumption depended on the extent to which possession of materials becomes a source of one' self-esteem. Implications for academic researchers, advertisers, and consumer educators are discussed. Introduction At the time of the September 11 terrorist attacks, business communities worried, because of the magnitude and impact of the terror attack, that the incident would initiate a recession in the United States. American consumers, however, boosted the economy by buying homes, cars, appliances, and luxury products (e.g., RVs, ATVs, and Jet Skis) in record quantities in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack (Hallinan, 2002; Zuckerman, 2002). An interesting question to pursue is what drove the excessive pursuit of consumer goods after September 11. Insight regarding possible factors that fueled the post-September 11 rise in consumption can be drawn from recent discussions of terror management theory (Greenberg et al., 1986). Terror Management Theory (TMT) posits that events reminding people of the prospect of their own deaths can create potentially overwhelming anxiety, often called existential anxiety. TMT further posits that, when reminded of their mortality, people use dual coping strategies-the defense of cultural worldviews and the enhancement of self-esteem-to alleviate existential anxiety (Greenberg et al., 1997). Based on the notion of TMT, researchers (Arndt et al., 2004a, 2004b; Maheswaran & Agrawal, 2004; Rindfleish & Burroughs, 2004) argued that awareness of death engendered by external, uncontrollable events should intensify materialistic consumption among consumers, given that: 1) materialism is a pervasive cultural characteristic in western societies (Arndt et al., 2004b) and 2) acquisition and possession of material objects confer self-esteem in such materialistic societies (Mandel & Heine, 1999). These TMT dialogues are timely, given that realizations of their own mortality have become prevalent among American consumers in recent years, especially in light of the September 11 attack and the hurricane Katrina disaster. Adopting the accounts of TMT, this study explored how people's materialistic consumption behaviors can be influenced by social events, such as terrorism. By using survey data from the 2003 Life Style Study conducted by DDB, we examined how consumers' existential anxiety aroused by terrorism (i.e., mortality salience) influences two consumption behaviors-brand name consumption and compulsive consumption. Further, this study examined two key factors that influence the relationship between mortality salience and materialistic consumption-global self-esteem and ego involvement in materials (i.e., contingency of self-esteem). Methods We employed data from the 2003 Life Style Study conducted by DDB, an international marketing communications firm. The survey was sent to adult members of the Market Facts Consumer Mail Panel in 2002, chosen using an annual standing-panel quota sample similar to the U.S. adult population in terms of age, gender, income, geography, and other demographics. Of 5,000 questionnaires, usable responses were received from 1,440 males (48%) and 1,581 females (52%), for a response rate of 60.4%. The data set included a wide range of questions encompassing attitudes, interests, opinions, activities, and mass media use. …