How thoughts of death and intrinsic/extrinsic goal orientation affect well‐being during the pandemic

• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Fatih Sonmez
• Date: 01 March 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12411

SPECIAL ISSUE

How thoughts of death and intrinsic/extrinsic

goal orientation affect well-being during

the pandemic

Fatih Sonmez

Department of Business Administration,

Mus¸ Alparslan University, Mus¸, Turkey

Correspondence

Fatih Sonmez, Mus¸ Alparslan University,

Mus¸, Turkey.

Email: fsonmez.phd@gmail.com

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, reminders of death

are so ubiquitous that it is almost impossible to avoid

death-related thoughts. This research examined the

effect of COVID-19-induced thoughts of death on life

evaluation, a core component of well-being, and investi-

gated the moderating role of goal orientation in this effect.

Results from two experiments (N=384) indicated that

participants with a relative orientation toward extrinsic

aspirations (wealth, fame, image) decreased their life

evaluation, bot h when under consc ious death

thoughts (Study 1) and after being distracted from

these thoughts (Study 2). By contrast, participants

with a relative orientation toward intrinsic aspirations

(personal growth, meaningful relationships, commu-

nity contributions) increased their life evaluation

when under conscious death thoughts, while they

maintained their baseline life evaluation after being

distracted from these thoughts. This research also

found evidence for the moderating role of belonging-

ness. However, no evidence was found for the moder-

ating roles of self-esteem and attachment style.

KEYWORDS

COVID-19, consumer culture, death thoughts, goal orientation,

well-being

Received: 15 November 2020 Revised: 12 August 2021 Accepted: 25 August 2021

DOI: 10.1111/joca.12411

© 2021 American Council on Consumer Interests.

292 J Consum Aff. 2022;56:292–318.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joca

1|INTRODUCTION

Numerous large-scale research projects have robustly found that people from diverse regions of

the world and of all ages suffer from poor mental health and reduced well-being during the

COVID-19 pandemic (Every-Palmer et al., 2020; Magson et al., 2021; O'Connor et al., 2020; Qiu

et al., 2020; Ruggieri et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2020; Von Soest et al., 2020; Zacher &

Rudolph, 2021). An important factor prompting these deleterious psychological consequences is

the death thoughts that the novel coronavirus pandemic can trigger at any given moment

(Arslan, 2021; Cui et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2020). During the pandemic, individuals are constantly

exposed to the concept of death through social and traditional media, being reminded of the

virus and its deadliness by numerous stimuli (e.g., warning posters, masks, or sanitizers), hav-

ing death-related conversations, hearing about incidences of infection or mortality within their

social circles, and, more threateningly, personally getting infected with the virus. In other

words, as the pandemic spreads, so do thoughts of death's imminence and inevitability.

The present research examines the moderating roles of goal orientation, belongingness, self-

esteem, and attachment style in the relationship between COVID-19-induced mortality salience

(MS; awareness of the inevitability of death) and life evaluation, with a focus on the moderating

role of goal orientation. Recent research conducted before the pandemic indicated that goal ori-

entation moderates the effect of non-conscious death thoughts on life evaluation, such that

individuals with a relative extrinsic goal orientation experience a decrease in life satisfaction in

the face of non-conscious death thoughts, whereas those with a relative intrinsic goal orienta-

tion experience an increase in life satisfaction (Vail et al., 2019). However, the pandemic context

triggers death thoughts so frequently that it is difficult to remove these thoughts from con-

sciousness. This situation calls for an investigation into the effects of conscious death thoughts.

Furthermore, the pandemic provides a natural context for MS, and therefore an ecologically

more valid way of manipulating death thoughts. Given the replication crisis in psychology, rep-

lication studies are also needed to assess the replicability of relevant previous findings under

conditions that are more ecologically valid.

In the first study, we sought to investigate the effect of conscious death thoughts on life eval-

uation and the moderating roles of goal orientation and belongingness therein. In the second

study, we conducted close replications of two relevant studies from before the COVID-19 pan-

demic, both of which investigated the effect of non-conscious death thoughts on life evaluation,

namely Study 2 of Vail et al. (2019), which tested the moderating effect of goal orientation, and

Study 1 of Routledge et al. (2010), which tested the moderating effect of self-esteem. In the sec-

ond study, we also explored the moderating effect of attachment style, a factor that has been

investigated as an alternative buffer to MS effects in a large body of literature (for a review, see

Plusnin et al., 2018).

2|MORTALITY SALIENCE AND WELL-BEING

Terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg et al., 1986) contends that, for an organism whose

primary motivation is self-preservation, awareness of mortality causes a psychological conflict

resulting in a paralyzing terror; further, it posits that unless this conflict were resolved,

the organism would not be able to function well and survive. According to TMT, cultural

worldview and the sense of worth derived from living up to it have helped humans transcend

the natural world, hence death, by providing a sense of meaning and symbolic permanence.

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