ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates consumer spending and marketing and how death salience, in the theoretical grounding of terror management theory (TMT), can help explain these spending phenomena. Rindfleisch and colleages proposed that the reason people who experience mortality salience demonstrate an interest in accumulating wealth and a fondness for luxury brands is to restore a sense of psychological security. Most observers agree that modern Western culture, and perhaps especially American culture, values the acquisition of wealth and the display of material possessions. The symbolic nature of money, as well as the symbolic nature of one's product choices, has been established in the literature, as money and products often fill symbolic needs rather than filling strictly instrumental needs. Research on terror management theory described herein suggests that people spend as a means of quelling the dreadful thoughts. Spending lavishly on a coffin may allow people a measure of comfort and reassurance of their continued existence.
