The effect of mortality salience on preferences for experiential creation

People often encounter death-related stimuli that can remind them of their own mortality. Research shows that consumers who think about their mortality may cope with existential anxiety through various consumption behaviors. Across three studies, our work extends these findings and demonstrates that mortality salience (MS) increases people’s desire for experiential creation. The results showed that MS (versus control condition) increased consumers’ preferences for experiential creation products. This occurs because such experiential creation consumption increases consumers’ sense of personal agency, which can help them cope with MS. These findings enrich the literature on MS as well as experiential creation and provide important practical implications.