The Reflexive Relationship between Consumer Behavior and Adaptive Coping

This article explores the reflexive nature of coping and consumer behavior in people who live for months or years with a heightened sense that they may die sometime in the near future. These themes were explored in the context of a diagnosis of breast cancer. The analysis shows that consumption plays a reflexive role in coping with this crisis and the uncertainty it brings. Various coping behaviors lead to consumption, but consumption can also lead to functional coping and act as a catalyst for forward thinking.