I've come to enjoy research that Baba Shiv, Professor of Marketing at Stanford, has been producing. While, at times, his research could seem strange, it really gets to the core of consumer behavior. Baba, along with Rosellina Ferraro and James R. Bettman from Duke, produced an interesting paper "Let Us Eat and Drink, for Tomorrow We Shall Die: Effects of Mortality Salience and Self-Esteem on Self Regulation in Consumer Choice" that was published in The Journal of Consumer Research in June of 2005.
The study looks to investigate self-regulation in consumer decision making when faced with thoughts of death.
As is common, and fun, in Baba Shiv research the choice of chocolate cake and fruit salad is used in two of the three the experiments to get an idea of how well subject's self-regulatory systems kicked in.
Experiment one's purpose is to "examine the effects of mortality salience on choices of an indulgent food option and the role of gender and body esteem in moderating these effects" (Shiv, 67). Subjects were under the guize that they they would be asked to talk about an event that occurred recently and afterword the choice of chocolate cake or fruit salad was the snack provided for taking part in the research. Questions for one group asked about the September 11th attacks, while the control group was asked about a fire that occurred on campus in November of 2001, no deaths occurred from this fire. Once the questions were asked the subjects then were allowed to choose chocolate cake or fruit salad in private. Subjects were asked questions about their body esteem as well. The results of this experiment showed that women with low body esteem chose the chocolate cake more often when they were asked about the September 11th attacks than the campus fire. Women with high body esteem chose fruit salad more often when asked about the September 11th attacks. Men were not affected by talking about either event.
Experiment two's purpose is to "examine the role of making earlier coping behaviors salient in moderating the effects observed in experiment one" (Shiv, 69). Only women participated in this experiment. The same experiment was performed, but asked the female participants to focus on explaining their emotions about past events. The findings were similar in women of experiment one, that chocolate cake was chosen higher among women with low body esteem when asked about September 11th. Women of high body esteem chose fruit salad when asked about September 11th.
Experiment three tried to reproduce the findings of experiment 1 and 2 by using charitable donations instead of food choices. People high on virtue as a source of self-esteem, were more likely to give to charity. Individuals low on virtue as a source of self esteem were less likely to donate more. Both men and women were more likely to react the same way.
While on the surface the findings are really common sense; if someone recalling events that cause anxiety about death they will seek out products or activities that boost their self-esteem. I saw this with my mother after a near miss car accident caused a little overboard shopping trip. We also see this with the massive amounts of blood and money donations whenever there is a disaster. I think it is normal, and healthy, for people to seek out comfort when presented with the fact that they may die sooner then they think.
While it would be clearly unethical to give your customers near death experiences as they walk in the store or blast TV screens showing the 9-11 attacks, I'd like to argue that marketing what comforts people is essentially going along with nature. This NPR article, released around the same time as this study, talks about this effect: "Anthropologists tell us that our predecessors would chow down on high-calorie, fatty foods because some brain wave told them to grab a leg of deep fried Tyrannosaurus Rex whenever possible to store up fat for leaner times". In a way products and services are easing the burden of already busy therapists during tragedies (almost).
Citations:
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, Vol. 32, June 2005, p. 65-75
Rosellina Ferraro (Duke)
Baba Shiv (Stanford)
James R. Bettman (Duke)
