Split Decisions: The effects of mortality salience on consumption, savings, and charity as a functio

1
Split Decisions The effects of mortality
salience on consumption, savings, and charity as
a function of empathy and materialism

• By Florette Cohen, M.S.
• John R. Aiello, Ph.D.
• Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Sheldon Solomon, PhD.
• Skidmore College
• Jill P. Grodkiewicz, M.S.
• Jason M. Glushakow, B.A.
• Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

2
Split Decisions

• After the events of 9/11 a rise was seen in both
  consumer spending and charitable donations.
• First we must ask why?
• And second, who spent on consumer goods and who
  contributed to needy causes?
• These questions may be answered through a Terror
  Management Theory perspective.

3
Terror management theory (TMT Solomon,
Greenberg, Pyszczynski, 1991)

• Human beings are explicitly aware of the
  inevitability of death
• Death can occur at any time
• Death creates the potential for overwhelming
  terror
• This terror is reduced by two psychological
  structures Cultural Worldviews and Self-Esteem

4
Cultural worldview Self-esteem

• Cultural worldview
• Humanly constructed beliefs about the nature of
  reality shared by individuals in a group
• Provides a conception of the universe
• Imbues the world with order, meaning, and
  permanence.

• Sets standards of valued behavior
• Minimizes death anxiety by promises of
  immortality (symbolic and/or literal) to those
  who live up to these standards

5
Cultural worldview Self-esteem

• Self-esteem the perception that one is a person
  of value in a world of meaning
• Obtained if standards of valued behavior are
  satisfied

• Self-esteem buffers death anxiety, by making you
  feel like a person of value within your cultural
  worldview. You feel a part of something bigger
  than yourself something that will last long
  after you are gone.

6
Overview of TMT research

• SUPPORT FOR TMT HAS BEEN OBTAINED IN OVER 250
  PUBLISHED EXPERIMENTS BY INDEPENDENT RESEARCHERS
  IN 9 COUNTRIES BASED ON TWO BASIC HYPOTHESES

7
The mortality salience (MS)
hypothesis

• If worldview and self-esteem provide protection
  from the potential for death-related anxiety
• Then reminders of death should intensify efforts
  to uphold worldview and self-esteem.

8
Mortality Salience Paradigm

• Mortality salience manipulation typically
  consists of two open-ended questions pertaining
  to death Describe the feelings that the thought
  of your own death arouses in you and (b)
  Describe what you think will happen to you as you
  physically die and once you are dead.
• Control Parallel questions about unpleasant but
  non-lethal events
• Mortality salience also engendered by fear of
  death scales, videos of gory automobile
  accidents, standing in front of funeral parlors,
  and subliminal death primes have obtained similar
  results
• Mortality salience effects appear to be unique to
  concerns about death, control conditions asking
  people to ponder anxiety-provoking but non-lethal
  things like dental pain, exams, social exclusion
  paralysis do not produce these effects.
• An experiment conducted by Greenberg et al (1990)
  demonstrated that Mortality salience increased
  liking for a member of one's own religious group
  (Christians) while decreasing liking for a member
  of a religious out-group (Jews)

9
MS Defense Mechanisms

• Mortality Salience has been demonstrated to
  increase
• affiliation with sports teams
• alleviation of depressive and anxiety disorders
• close relationships
• sexual relationships
• body image
• voting preferences
• a desire for conspicuous consumption
• charitable donations

10
Charity As A Worldview Defense

• From the perspective of terror management theory,
  reminders of mortality should intensify the
  desire to express culturally prescribed
  pro-social attitudes and engage in culturally
  prescribed pro-social behaviors.
• By acting altruistically e.g. donating more money
  to charity, individuals reaffirm their value as
  kind and generous citizens, thereby enhancing
  their self-esteem.

11
Consumption As A Worldview Defense

• From the perspective of Terror Management Theory,
  money and conspicuous possession and consumption
  are thinly veiled efforts to assert ones special
  uniqueness and thereby deny ones ultimate fate.
• Large piles of gold, enormous mounds of
  possessions, and lavish consumption are
  ineluctably real and symbolically indicative of
  immortal power.
• The Urge to Splurge is fundamentally defensive
  death denial above and beyond the quite
  legitimate pursuit of material comfort and
  aesthetic pleasure
• In a capital based economy consumption is
  considered a civic duty.
• President Bush's encouraged Americans to shop
  after 9/11 (The New York Times, 10/12/2001, p.
  B4) .

12
Lethal Consumption

• Kasser and Sheldon (2000) examined the effects of
  mortality-salience manipulation on financial
  expectations.
• They asked people to think either about their own
  death, or listening to music, and then answer
  questions about their expected financial status
  15 years in the future.
• They were then asked if they were willing to cut
  down forest trees for financial gain.

13
Lethal Consumption

• Results indicated a desire to deplete the forest
  in return for financial gain after thinking about
  death (relative to listening to music).
• From the perspective of terror management theory,
  reminders of mortality should intensify the
  desire to express culturally prescribed
  pro-social attitudes, of which the accumulation
  of wealth is one.

14
Charity versus Consumption

• Which is the preferred death anxiety buffer? What
  role do individual differences such as empathy
  and materialism play?

15
Charity versus Consumption

• A preliminary study gave students who were either
  high or low in empathy a choice to donate up to
  500 or spend it on consumer items after a
  mortality salience or control induction.
• We found that students in the mortality salience
  condition who were also low on empathy actually
  spent more than they could afford, going into
  what many would deem as credit card debt.
• The present study was therefore designed to learn
  how participants would allocate their funds if
  they were given the additional option of putting
  money into various savings accounts.
• And also to examine how materialism might
  interact with mortality salience in determining
  allocation of resources to consumption, savings
  or charity.

16
Charity versus Consumption

• 174 Rutgers undergraduate students participated
• Materials Informed consent statement (study
  testing the relationship between personality
  attributes)
• Questionnaire booklets
• Instruction page answer all of the questions in
  the order you encounter them and do not put your
  name on any of the booklet pages
• Empathy Scale (CITE) and an Aspiration scale
  (CITE)
• mortality salience or TV salience induction
  (randomly assigned and experimenter blind to
  condition)
• PANAS self report mood inventory (to assess
  affective reactions to ms induction)
• distraction

17
Charity versus Consumption

• 500 hypothetical money was allocated to each
  student
• In addition students were given the potential for
  500 in credit through American Express at a 6.9
  interest rate.
• The choices were to allocate the money for
  consumption, savings, and/or charity
• The choices for consumption ranged from
  electronics, to dress wear, beauty products and
  recreation.
• The choices for savings were to deposit money
  into various interest earning accounts such as a
  0 interest checking account.
• The choices for charitable donations were through
  organizations such as the American Heart
  Association and the World Trade Center fund.
• Demographic questionnaire was completed
• Participants were thanked and debriefed

18
Charity v. ConsumptionResults

• Median Splits were used on the composite scores
  of both the Empathy and Materialism scales in
  order to classify participants as Low/High
  Empathy and Low/High Materialism
• Consumption, Savings and Charity measures were
  subjected to 2 (MS, Control) X 2 (Low, High
  Empathy) X 2(Low, High Materialism) ANOVAs
• No Significant Interactions were found for
  Gender.
• A condition main effect for savings, F (2, 173)
  4.563, p lt .05, was obtained in which those who
  were induced with thoughts of death (M
  161.875) allocated less money towards savings
  compared to those in the control condition (M
  222.849).

19
Charity v. ConsumptionResults
Marginally significant interactions were obtained
for Condition X Empathy for beauty products F (1,
173)3.471, p.064
20
Charity v. ConsumptionResults
Marginally significant interactions were obtained
for Condition X Empathy for dress F (1,
173)3.117, p.079
21
Charity v. ConsumptionResults

• A three-way interaction was also observed for
  Condition X Empathy X Level of Materialism for 0
  interest checking F (1, 170)5.879, plt.05.

22
Charity v. ConsumptionDiscussion

• Consistent with terror management theory,
  mortality salience induced individuals to think
  more about what was important to them in the
  present time, as evidenced by lower savings in
  the MS condition.
• Personality characteristics such as empathy and
  level of materialism had an important effect when
  considering peoples proclivity to spend as
  evidenced by the differences in the findings for
  high/low empathy people and high/low materialism
  people under MS conditions.

23
Charity v. ConsumptionConclusion

• The present study gives us additional support for
  the notion that concerns about death influence
  charity, savings and consumer decisions as a
  function of individual differences.
• However, more work is in order with more
  realistic (externally valid) paradigms that
  involve actual resources rather than hypothetical
  funds.