Citation

Lee SM, Heflick NA, Park JW, Kim H, Koo J, Chun S. Motiv. Emot. 2017; 41(4): 478-491.

Affiliation

Dongkuk Business School, Dongguk University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11031-017-9615-9

PMID

28757667

PMCID

PMC5509837

Abstract

Although men typically hold favorable views of advertisements featuring female sexuality, from a Terror Management Theory perspective, this should be less the case when thoughts of human mortality are salient. Two experiments conducted in South Korea supported this hypothesis across a variety of products (e.g., perfume and vodka). Men became more negative towards advertisements featuring female sexuality, and had reduced purchase intentions for those products, after thinking about their own mortality. Study 2 found that these effects were mediated by heightened disgust. Mortality thoughts did not impact women in either study. These findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of death interact with female sex-appeal to influence men's consumer choices, and that disgust mediates these processes. Implications for the role of emotion, and cultural differences, in terror management, for attitudes toward female sexuality, and for marketing strategies are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

Advertisements; Disgust; Mortality salience; Sex-appeal; Terror management