The Role Of Social Presence In Mortality Salience Effects

Mortality salience and brand attitudes: The moderating role of social presence

Marieke L. Fransen University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Dirk Smeesters Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Bob M. Fennis Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Marieke L. Fransen, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, telephone: +31 20 525 2110 ([email protected]). Dirk Smeesters, Erasmus University, Rotterdam School of Management, Department of Marketing Management, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, telephone: +31 10 408 2952 ([email protected]). Bob M. Fennis, Utrecht University, Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands, telephone: +31 30 253 9189 ([email protected]).

1 EXTENDED ABSTRACT

The fear of death is so fundamental to human beings that it pervades all aspects of life. People tend to cope with the aversive thought of one’s own death in various ways. Several coping strategies have been identified and investigated, including self-esteem striving, in-group affiliations, and self-serving biases (see Pyszczynski et al. 2004 for a review). More recently another domain of human behavior has been added to this list, that of consumer behavior. Several studies have already provided empirical evidence for a relationship between mortality salience and consumer behavior. For example, it has been shown that individuals are more attracted to high status products (Heine, Harihara, and Niiya 2002; Mandel and Heine 1999), show a preference for domestic over foreign products (Fransen, Pruyn, Fennis, and Das 2008; Liu & Smeesters in press), evaluate their financial future more positive (Kasser and Sheldon 2000), intend to purchase and actually eat higher quantities of food products (Mandel and Smeesters 2008), and become more materialistic (Arndt et al. 2004) when they are reminded of their mortality. The explanation for the relationship between mortality salience and various forms of consumer behavior has mainly been sought in ‘distal’ defense mechanisms (Terror Management Theory -TMT-; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon 1986). These defense mechanisms are aimed at increasing self-esteem levels. Self-esteem is subsequently expected to serve as a buffer against mortality-related anxiety. It has been argued that consumerism and materialism are important values intrinsic to our contemporary western worldview (Arndt et al. 2004). Our current society turned into a consumer society in which the defining activity of individuals is consuming; money and possessions can therefore be seen as measures of self- worth (Bauman 1995). It is argued therefore that people can derive self-esteem by living up to these ‘new’ culturally valued norms of being wealthy, spending loads of money and live exorbitantly. Living up to these norms provides people with high levels of self-esteem functioning as a buffer against existential threat. But are these coping strategies invariant across different consumption situations? We argue that they are not. Rather, the present paper will present evidence showing that consumption related terror management strategies are especially likely to unfold when consumption is public, and can be witnessed by others, rather than when consumption is private. More specifically, the present paper investigates the role of social presence in consumer-related mortality salience effects. As mentioned before, TMT states that individuals derive self-esteem from living up to culturally prescribed values and norms because meeting these norms allows people to feel like valuable persons in a valuable society. However, it remains unclear whether one directly derives self-esteem from looking at oneself and knowing that one behaves according to valued norms or that self-esteem is derived more indirectly from the fact that other society members witness how ‘correctly’ one behaves? From research on Social Impact Theory (Latané 1981) we know that individuals desire to be viewed in a positive light by others (Baumeister 1982; Frey 1978; Leary and Kowalski 1990; Riordan, James, and Dunaway 2001), and therefore have the tendency to engage in impression management strategies when other persons are present or only imagined to be present. For instance, consumers are more likely to purchase expensive luxury brands when others are present in a retail environment whereas consumers who are alone in a store opt more often for a cheaper brand (Argo et al. 2005). Consumers seem to be motivated to gain the approval of others, which can be achieved by behaving in ways that are approved within a situation or cultural worldview (Kallgren, Reno and Cialdini 2000). But why do individuals need social approval? Research on Sociometer theory (e.g., Leary 2003; Leary, Baumeister, and Zanna 2000; Leary, Downs, and Kernis 1995; Leary, Haupt, Strausser, and Chokel 1998) demonstrated that social approval positively affects self-esteem, which according to TMT is

2 essential for dealing with mortality-related thoughts. Therefore, we argue that not only behaving according to cultural norms but also the knowledge that others see and witness one’s culturally approved behavior is essential in dealing with existential anxiety. Hence, social presence might be an important factor in explaining mortality salience effects. In accordance with TMT, we propose that individuals derive self-esteem from living up to cultural norms which makes them valuable persons in their society. In extension, we proffer that self-esteem will receive an even greater boost when others (can) witness their socially approved behavior. Hence, based on the notion that social approval leads to enhanced levels of self-esteem (e.g., Leary 2003; Leary, Downs, and Kernis 1995), we expect that people are especially prone to show culturally prescribed behavior (i.e., expressing favorable attitudes towards luxury brands and less favorable attitudes towards non-luxury brands) when other members of their cultural worldview can witness their behavior but less so when others are not present. The results of Studies 1 and 2 indeed showed that the (imagined) presence of others increased the effects of mortality salience on brand evaluations. Individuals who were reminded of their mortality evaluated luxury brands more positive (Studies 1 and 2) and non- luxury brand more negative (Study 2) under conditions of social approval. This implies that self-esteem receives an extra boost when one knows that others are aware of one’s culturally prescribed behavior. In sum, the present research reveals that mortality salience effects are moderated by social presence in such way that these effects become stronger when people are pointed to the notion that others will observe their behavior. This implies that people experience an extra self-esteem boost when they know that others observe (and approve) their culturally prescribed behavior.

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