A recent study published in Psychological Reports reveals that the fear of death significantly influences people’s tendency to engage in lavish funeral spending, known as death-related status consumption. This study also found that avoiding thoughts of death partly mediates this relationship, and materialism intensifies the connection between fear of death and status-driven funeral expenses.
The motivation behind this study stems from the observed growth in the funeral industry, which was valued at $18 billion in the United States in 2022. Despite the industry’s expansion and the significant costs associated with funerals, little is understood about what drives people to spend heavily on funeral products and services.
Previous research has largely overlooked the reasons behind individuals’ preferences for death-related products, focusing more on life-related consumption. This study aimed to fill this gap by examining how people’s attitudes towards death influence their consumption of high-status funeral products and services.
To explore these relationships, researchers conducted a survey involving 346 participants over the age of 18. The participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, ensuring a diverse sample. The majority of the participants were between 35 and 54 years old, with a nearly equal split between males and females. Participants’ educational backgrounds varied, with the largest group having completed undergraduate education.
The survey measured four main constructs: fear of death, death avoidance, materialism, and death-related status consumption. Fear of death was assessed with statements like “I have an intense fear of death,” while death avoidance was measured with items such as “I avoid thinking about death.” Materialism was gauged through statements reflecting admiration for expensive possessions. Death-related status consumption included items like “The atmosphere of funerals should be magnificent.”
The researchers found a strong positive relationship between fear of death and death-related status consumption. Individuals who reported higher levels of fear of death were more likely to spend on high-status funeral products and services. This suggests that fear of death drives people to invest in luxurious funerals as a way to cope with their anxiety.
Death avoidance was found to partially mediate the relationship between fear of death and status consumption. This means that people who avoid thinking about death are likely to spend more on status-driven funeral products, but this avoidance only partly explains the overall spending behavior. The direct influence of fear of death on status consumption remained significant even after accounting for death avoidance.
Materialism was shown to strengthen the relationship between fear of death and status consumption. People with high materialistic values were more likely to engage in status-driven funeral spending when they feared death. However, materialism did not significantly affect the relationship between death avoidance and status consumption.
“The research results generally indicate that individuals see death-related status consumption as an escape from thoughts of death,” the researchers concluded. “However, how this form of consumption contributes to the subjective wellbeing of bereaved families has not yet been examined.”
“Given this gap in the research, future studies should focus on whether death-related consumption is a positive, therapeutic coping mechanism for dealing with fear and anxiety about death or a factor that only leads bereaved families towards maladaptive consumer behavior. Because concepts such as subjective well-being and happiness are familiar to both consumer researchers and death researchers, these research findings are expected to contribute to the link between the two disciplines.”
The study, “Status Consumption as Coping With Fear of Death: The Mediating Role of Death Avoidance and the Moderating Role of Materialism,” was authored by Hakan Cengiz and Joanne Cacciatore.