What would you have as a last supper? Thoughts about death influence evaluation and consumption of food products

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volumn 44, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 1388-1394

  Friese, Malte ^a   Hofmann, Wilhelm ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BASEL   (Switzerland)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG   (Germany)

Author keywords

Consumer behavior; Consumption; Death; Implicit measures; Mortality; Predictive validity; Product evaluation; Self control; Self regulatory resources; Terror Management Theory

Indexed keywords

EID: 48749095668     PISSN: 00221031     EISSN: 10960465     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.06.003     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. Aiken L.S., and West S.G. Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions (1991), Sage, Newbury Park
2. Arndt J., Greenberg J., Solomon S., Pyszczynski T., and Simon L. Suppression, accessibility of death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense: Exploring the psychodynamics of terror management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73 (1997) 5-18
3. Arndt J., Solomon S., Kasser T., and Sheldon K.M. The urge to splurge: A terror management account of materialism and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology 14 (2004) 198-212
4. Castano E., Yzerbyt V., Paladino M.-P., and Sacchi S. I belong, therefore, I exist: Ingroup identification, ingroup entitativity, and ingroup bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 (2002) 135-143
5. Egloff B., and Schmukle S.C. Predictive validity of an implicit association test for assessing anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83 (2002) 1441-1455
6. Epstein S. Integration of the cognitive and psychodynamic unconscious. American Psychologist 49 (1994) 709-724
7. Fazio R.H., and Olson M.A. Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology 54 (2003) 297-327
8. Fazio R.H., and Towles-Schwen T. The MODE model of attitude-behavior processes. In: Chaiken S., and Trope Y. (Eds). Dual-process theories in social psychology (1999), Guilford Press, New York 97-116
9. Ferraro R., Shiv B., and Bettman J.R. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die: Effects of mortality salience and self-esteem on self-regulation in consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Research 32 (2005) 65-75
10. Friese M., Hofmann W., and Wänke M. When impulses take over: Moderated predictive validity of explicit and implicit attitude measures in predicting food choice and consumption behavior. British Journal of Social Psychology 47 (2008) 397-419
11. Gailliot M.T., Schmeichel B.J., and Baumeister R.F. Self-regulatory processes defend against the threat of death: Effects of self-control depletion and trait self-control on thoughts and fears of dying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91 (2006) 49-62
12. Goldenberg J.L., Arndt J., Hart J., and Brown M. Dying to be thin: The effects of mortality salience and body mass index on restricted eating among women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31 (2005) 1400-1412
13. Greenberg J., Arndt J., Simon L., Pyszczynski T., and Solomon S. Proximal and distal defenses in response to reminders of one's mortality: Evidence of a temporal sequence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26 (2000) 91-99
14. Greenberg J., Pyszczynski T., Solomon S., Rosenblatt A., Veeder M., Kirkland S., et al. Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990) 308-318
15. Greenberg J., Pyszczynski T., Solomon S., Simon L., and Breus M. Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1994) 627-637
16. Greenberg J., Solomon S., and Pyszczynski T. Terror management theory of self-esteem and cultural worldviews: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. In: Zanna M. (Ed). Advances in experimental social psychology Vol. 29 (1997), Academic Press, Orlando, FL 61-139
17. Greenwald A.G., Nosek B.A., and Banaji M.R. Understanding and using the implicit association test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (2003) 197-216
18. Hofmann W., Rauch W., and Gawronski B. And deplete us not into temptation: Automatic attitudes, dietary restraint, and self-regulatory resources as determinants of eating behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43 (2007) 497-504
19. Jonas E., Fritsche I., and Greenberg J. Currencies as cultural symbols-An existential psychological perspective on reactions of Germans toward the Euro. Journal of Economic Psychology 26 (2005) 129-146
20. Jonas E., Schimel J., Greenberg J., and Pyszczynski T. The scrooge effect: Evidence that mortality salience increases prosocial attitudes and behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 (2002) 1342-1353
21. Karpinski A., and Steinman R.B. The single category implicit association test as a measure of implicit social cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91 (2006) 16-32
22. Krohne H.W., Egloff B., Kohlmann C.-W., and Tausch A. Untersuchungen mit einer deutschen Version der "Positive and Negative Affect Schedule" (PANAS). Diagnostica 42 (1996) 139-156
23. McGregor H.A., Lieberman J.D., Greenberg J., Solomon S., Arndt J., and Simon L. Terror management and aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (1998) 590-605
24. Muraven M., and Baumeister R.F. Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle?. Psychological Bulletin 126 (2000) 247-259
25. Muraven M., Collins R.L., and Nienhaus K. Self-control and alcohol restraint: An initial application of the self-control strength model. Journal of Addictive Behaviors 16 (2002) 113-120
26. Nelson L.J., Moore D.L., Olivetti J., and Scott T. General and personal mortality salience and nationalistic bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23 (1997) 884-892
27. Pyszczynski T., Solomon S., and Greenberg J. In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror (2003), American Psychological Association, Washington, DC
28. Rosenblatt A., Greenberg J., Solomon S., Pyszczynski T., and Lyon D. Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57 (1989) 681-690
29. Solomon S., Greenberg J., and Pyszczynski T. A terror management theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. In: Zanna M. (Ed). Advances in experimental social psychology Vol. 24 (1991), Academic Press, Orlando, FL 91-159
30. Strack F., and Deutsch R. Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8 (2004) 220-247
31. United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (2008). Table 1.1.1. Percent change from preceding period in real gross domestic product. Retrieved May 2, 2008. Available from: .
32. Vohs K.D., and Heatherton T.F. Self-regulatory failure: A resource-depletion approach. Psychological Science 11 (2000) 249-254