How death anxiety influences coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic: investigating the role of spirituality, national identity, lockdown and trust

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a highly stressful environment in which reminders of death are constant. This context of permanent mortality salience is likely to arouse death anxiety in individuals around the world that they must manage. This study investigates the effects of death anxiety on the adoption of different coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in five different countries (N = 721, mean age = 32.83). The results show that higher levels of death anxiety mainly lead to the adoption of avoidance coping strategies and that spirituality and national identity moderate this effect, whereas lockdown does not. Moreover, trust in institutions is a mediator in the relationship between death anxiety and avoidance strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• death anxiety
• coping strategies
• spirituality
• national identity
• trust

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. www.who.int

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judith Partouche-Sebban

Judith Partouche-Sebban is Associate Professor and head of the MAXI research department at Paris School of Business. Her research topics are the elderly consumer behaviors, the attitude toward one's own death and its potential effect on consumption and the optimization of patient experience in health services.

Saeedeh Rezaee Vessal

Dr. Saeedeh Rezaee Vessal is an Associate Professor in the MAXI department at the Paris School of Business. She conducts experimental research in the consumer behavior area. As a member of the Living Health chair, she collaborates with other researchers, in projects focusing on understanding and improving the experience of cancer patients and caregivers.

Rossella Sorio

Rossella Sorio is an Associate Professor of marketing at ICN Business School. Her research interests include innovation, new product development, consumer decision-making and categorization, wine business. She also authored several case studies published at the French cases center (CCMP).

Sylvaine Castellano

Sylvaine Castellano is the Research Dean at EM Normandie Business School, Metis Lab. Her research interests include institutional and competitive processes, virtual and entrepreneurial dynamics; mainly in the wine and the luxury industries. Her publications are related to the concepts of reputation and e-reputation, legitimacy, heritage and retro-industries.

Insaf Khelladi

Insaf Khelladi is an Associate Professor at EMLV Business School - Léonard de Vinci Pôle Universitaire Research Center, 92 916 Paris La Défense, France. Her research interests evolve around the underlying cognitive processes in the online, offline and human-machine interaction contexts, and their inherent consequences on individual (consumer, individual investor), group (virtual teams, entrepreneurial teams, generational cohort), organizational (corporate e-reputation, Champagne houses) and industry (wine) level.

Mehmet A. Orhan

Mehmet A. Orhan, PhD is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior at EM Normandie Business School, Metis Lab. His research interests include social and behavioral issues linked to remote working, digital communication, and virtuality in organizations.