Why Do We Care About Our Bodies After We Die?

Death is the end of conscious experience—a concept familiar to humanity. From ancient rituals to modern-day pseudoscience, civilization has always been running from the idea of never waking up again. Yet, we often find ourselves caring about our bodies after death. It is paradoxical to care about something posthumously, but our bodies become a symbol of identity even after we die. They provide an image of the people surrounding us, including ourselves. Seeing a dead body makes humans reflect on mortality. It is this fear of dying that pushes us to care about our bodies; by knowing we are in good hands, perhaps we can mitigate that familiar fear.

Psychologists believe in the heavy association between the human body and its thoughts. Terms such as ‘body image,’ ‘schema,’ and ‘Embodiment of Cognition’ have been perpetuated for some years in research. In his book, How the Body Shapes the Mind, Shaun Gallagher writes, “Body image consists of a system of perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one's own body. In contrast, body schema is the system of sensory-motor capacities that function without awareness or the necessity of perceptual monitoring.”1, p. 24 He terms body image as the conscious perception of ourselves while also defining schema as the ability of the body to constantly monitor its own position which is tied to the sensorimotor system. Both terms however, pertain to the association between physical representation and mental abstraction. Gallagher writes about how these terms answer different questions. He writes: “The concept of body image helps to answer the first question about the appearance of the body in the perceptual field; in contrast, the concept of body schema helps to answer the question about how the body shapes the perceptual field.”1, p. 17 Body image is how the body appears to our perception and body schema is how our motor system shapes how we look at ourselves. Gallagher theorizes the inevitable connection between our bodies and perceptions, as both are embodied or associated with physical aspects, the perceptual field1.

However, Gallagher does not account for how we perceive others with the same phenomena as schema and image. A 2020 article by Coste et al helps reveal a case where body schema and image helps uncover this. Coste investigated how people recognized their own movement without the representation of their bodies. Fifteen participants had their motion mapped with a motion capture suit mapped with seven dots. Participants were asked to distinguish 144 clips that included their own and others as well2.

As shown in Figure 1, the average unit of change was found to be at 0.71, well above what it should be for chance, meaning that, on average, more people were able to determine their own movement far above than just guessing. Furthermore, they discovered patterns of movement when observing the point light movement diagram. This “kinematic fingerprint” provides certain cues to help patients recognize and distinguish themselves. In other words, the moving dots used in the study contained enough recognizable information for individuality for the patients to see as themselves. This means that it is possible that other people can also recognize you by viewing those dots with enough information on your movement. This aligns with the definition of schema.

Now, how does this relate with death? Even if consciousness is gone, the body still contains what other people associate with you. The body exists even after consciousness ceases and still acts as a carrier of the information that its inhabitant exhibited during the living. A study done by Chapple and Ziebland used 80 participants going through bereavement of loved ones and found that many treated their corpses as if they were still alive. They recognize that it's a corpse, yet they still give the otherwise objective compassion. They were able to recognize their loved ones due to the information that the body still holds post mortem3.

This proves Gallagher’s extensional point. Following Gallagher’s idea, if we associate the body to the person, it also conveys to us that they are dead, not living anymore. In this way, a corpse becomes a reminder not only of another person’s death but also our own fragility. It changes how we think about our lives and mortality. Now, the body functions as a reminder for the living that their identities are shaped by relationships, values, and social connections that may continue to matter long after death. This phenomenon is called the mortality salience, a state where we become reminded of our own mortality. Because our instincts for survival are built to keep us alive, facing such a primal and instinctive fear would cause anguish and distress. Through a series of studies, researchers Lambert et al investigated this state of being. They found that mortality salience caused increased fear, harmful moods, and fear related language4.

The fear of death not only shapes how societies respond to dying but also how individuals experience it. Jeff Greenberg, alongside Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski, developed Terror Management Theory, suggesting that mortality salience strengthens attachment to cultural values, beliefs, and social identities. Lambert et al, in one of his experiments, observed mortality salience in ingroup favoritism, finding that participants started to favor people that were in their social groups and become more resistant to outsiders. Greenberg and Abram Rosenblatt found that judges who had been reminded of their mortality recommended significantly higher bonds for an accused prostitute than judges who had not received the same reminder. The researchers argued that thoughts of death make people hold more tightly to the values that give their lives meaning6.

To theorize, this helps explain people’s tendency on religious, traditional, and cultural practices when confronted with death or funerals. Ingroup favoritism drives people to revert back to core values—it transforms the concept of death from a frightening unknown into something meaningful and familiar. Through rituals, prayers, and ceremonies, people reaffirm values that help them cope with the reality of death. Perhaps this is why the treatment of the body matters so much. These rituals and traditions focus on the body. Although the dead can no longer experience what happens to them, caring for the body allows the living to express respect, preserve memory, and reaffirm the beliefs that help them confront mortality.

To answer the question, it is the fear of death that drives us to care about our bodies after we die. Bodies remain a representation of a person post mortem and inadvertently causing stress. Death requires us to face what cannot be avoided, explained away, or escaped. Funerals and other rituals become ways in which people cope with mortality. It offers the promise that our lives will mean something even after we are gone. Death becomes easier to face when we know that we will be remembered, respected, and loved. Perhaps, this theory may explain why the prospect of dying without dignity or remembrance is so frightening. The body remains a symbol of identity, memory, and the values that connect us to one another. In caring for the dead, we find a way to cope with death itself.