ARTICLE

Volume 4,Issue 5

Cite this article
1
Download
21
Citations
45
Views
26 May 2026

Why Do We Care What Happens to Our Body After Death?

Xinyue Sun1*
Show Less
1 Borong Ten Thousand Miles Silver Beach School, Huizhou 516347, Guangdong, China
LNE 2026 , 4(5), 35–41; https://doi.org/10.26689/LNE.v4i5.15047
© 2026 by the Author. Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Why do we care what happens to our corpses? We will not be there to experience whatever happens, and yet we care. In line with attachment theory and the social construction of self, our identity is in part constructed from how others remember us; they continue to hold our life story in their minds, our social existence lives on in them - and our corpse is the final physical remnant of that story [1,2].

Keywords
Attachment theory
Social construction
Death
Corpse
References

[1] Bowlby J, 1969, Attachment and Loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.

[2] McAdams DP, 2001, The Psychology of Life Stories. Review of General Psychology, 5(2): 100–122.

[3] Kruglanski AW, Webster DM, 1996, Motivated Closing of the Mind: “Seizing” and “Freezing.” Psychological Review, 103(2): 263–283.

[4] Becker E, 1973, The Denial of Death. Free Press.

[5] Greenberg J, Pyszczynski T, Solomon S, 1986, The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory. In Baumeister RF (Ed.), Public Self and Private Self: 189–212.

[6] Cicirelli VG, 2006, Fear of Death in Mid-Old Age. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 61(2): 75–81.

[7] Rosenblatt A, Greenberg J, Solomon S, et al., 1989, Evidence for Terror Management Theory: I. The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Violate or Uphold Cultural Values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(4): 681–690.

[8] Goldenberg JL, Pyszczynski T, Greenberg J, et al., 2001, I Am Not an Animal: Mortality Salience, Disgust, and the Denial of Human Creatureliness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(3): 427–435.

[9] Cox CR, Goldenberg JL, Pyszczynski T, et al., 2007, Disgust, Creatureliness and the Accessibility of Death-Related Thoughts. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(3): 494–507.

[10] Parry J, 1994, Death in Banaras. Cambridge University Press.

[11] Goss RE, Klass D, 2005, Dead but Not Lost: Grief Narratives in Religious Traditions. AltaMira Press.

[12] Boss P, 1999, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief. Harvard University Press.

[13] Boss P, 2010, The Trauma and Complicated Grief of Ambiguous Loss. Pastoral Psychology, 59(2): 137–145.

[14] Worden JW, 2009, Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. 4th ed. Springer.

[15] Klass D, Silverman PR, Nickman SL (Eds.), 1996, Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Taylor & Francis.

[16] Belk RW, 1988, Possessions and the Extended Self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2): 139–168.

[17] Aron A, Aron EN, Tudor M, et al., 1991, Close Relationships as Including Other in the Self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(2): 241–253.

[18] Ramachandran VS, Blakeslee S, 1998, Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. William Morrow.

[19] Ehrsson HH, Spence C, Passingham RE, 2004, That’s My Hand! Activity in Premotor Cortex Reflects Feeling of Ownership of a Limb. Science, 305(5685): 875–877.

[20] Blanke O, 2012, Multisensory Brain Mechanisms of Bodily Self-Consciousness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13(8): 556–571.

[21] Guterstam A, Ehrsson HH, 2012, Disowning One’s Seen Real Body During an Out-of-Body Illusion. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(2): 1037–1042.

[22] O’Connor MF, Wellisch DK, Stanton AL, et al., 2008, Craving Love? Enduring Grief Activates Brain’s Reward Center. NeuroImage, 42(2): 969–972.

[23] Gundel H, O’Connor MF, Littrell L, et al., 2003, Functional Neuroanatomy of Grief: An fMRI Study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(11): 1946–1953.

[24] Shear MK, Simon N, Wall M, et al., 2011, Complicated Grief and Related Bereavement Issues for DSM-5. Depression and Anxiety, 28(2): 103–117.

[25] McCorkle WW Jr, 2010, Ritualizing the Disposal of the Deceased: From Corpse to Concept. Peter Lang.

[26] Harrop E, Medeiros Mirra R, Goss S, et al., 2023, Prolonged Grief During and Beyond the Pandemic: Factors Associated with Levels of Grief in a Four Time-Point Longitudinal Survey of People Bereaved in the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Frontiers in Public Health, 11: 1215881.

[27] Pino C, Shipsey F, Weston-Stanley P, et al., 2023, The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Bereavement and Grief. National Center for Social Research, visited on April 23, 2026, https://natcen.ac.uk/publications/overhaul-bereavement-support-wake-pandemic

[28] Russell B, 1997, The Analysis of Mind. Routledge, London.

[29] Nanamoli B (Trans.), 1995, The Discourse on the Six Charnel Grounds (Majjhima Nikāya 10: Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta). In The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya: 145–155.

[30] Srivastava T, Lee K, Ehrenkranz R, et al., 2025, The Efficacy of Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Prolonged Grief Disorder: A Systematic Review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 380: 561–575.

[31] Churchland PM, 1984, Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. MIT Press, Massachusetts.

[32] Block N, 1980, Troubles with Functionalism. In Block N (Ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1: 268–305.

[33] Ryle G, 1949, The Concept of Mind. Hutchinson.

[34] Quirin M, Loktyushin A, Arndt J, et al., 2011, Existential Neuroscience: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Neural Responses to Reminders of One’s Mortality. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(2): 193–198.

[35] Arnold D, 2017, Burning the Dead: Hindu Nationhood and the Meaning of Cremation in Colonial India. In Kent EL (Ed.), Death and the Afterlife in the Religions of India: 45–62.

[36] Lowa W, 2020, Sky Burial in Upper Mustang: A Sacred Funeral Ritual of the Himalayas. The Annapurna Express.

Share
Back to top