Consumer culture as worldview defense: A terror management perspective

According to terror management theory, acquiring wealth and consuming culturally valued materials and goods helps bolster the validity of one’s cultural worldview and the perception that one is a valued member of that culture. In this chapter we present a detailed critical overview of research on the effects that activated thoughts of death (mortality salience) have on materialism, conspicuous consumption, brand preference, and patriotic consumption. Moreover, important boundary conditions of mortality salience effects in the context of consumer behavior will be discussed and we present an overview of the different manipulations of mortality salience that are used in consumer behavior studies. The chapter ends by presenting future avenues for terror management research in the domain of consumer behavior.