Jerome B. Kernan

Mundane Consumption and the Self: A Social-Identity Perspective

The self—a sense of who and what we are—is suggested as an organizing construct through which peoples everyday activities can be understood. Lifes mundane tasks and the consumer behaviors necessary to enact them are cast in a perspective of self little used by consumer psychologists—social—identity theory. Two structural modeling studies in support of the perspective are reported. The results of the first one imply that people use products to enact one of their social identities and that products relate only indirectly to the overall or global self. The second study indicates that the frequency with which activities are performed depends on the salience of the identity they represent and that such salience, in turn, depends on several enabling factors. Taken together, the studies provide theoretical support for the common-sense notion that we are attracted to products that are consistent with, and that enable the enactment of, the various social identities which make up our sense of self; the more important an identity to us, the more attractive its associated products.

On the Meaning of Leisure: An Investigation of Some Determinants of the Subjective Experience

This study investigates six determinants of the subjective leisure experience and attempts to validate them within the framework of existing leisure theory. Mixed results suggest that three of these—intrinsic satisfaction, perceived freedom, and involvement—are invariant across situational contexts, while the remaining ones—arousal, mastery, and spontaneity—are more activity-specific. Interactions between personal variables and the situation are shown to affect the leisure dimensions perceived.

Social perception and interpersonal influence: Some consequences of the physical attractiveness stereotype in a personal selling setting

Several effects of the physical attractiveness stereotype were assessed in a personal selling context. In a series of three experiments it was established that: (a) More favorable selling skills are attributed to physically attractive salespersons than to their unattractive counterparts; (b) in simulated sales scenarios, buyers treat ostensibly attractive sellers more cordially and are more likely to yield to their requests than is the case for unattractive sellers; and (c) in actual solicitations for a charitable organization, attractive persons induce a compliance rate significantly higher than that induced by unattractive solicitors. Results of the experiments, which are consistent with extant literature on physical attractiveness, are discussed in terms of commercially inspired interpersonal influence.

Contextual Influences on the Meanings Ascribed to Ordinary Consumption Objects

Although the perception of contextualized objects pervades our everyday experiences, the literature provides little insight into how consumers ascribe meaning to contextualized.products, or indeed into what meaning is. The authors address this gap in the literature by providing a conceptualization of consumption-object meaning and an a priori model for measuring it. An experiment tested several hypotheses concerning how the kind and amount of context affects the meanings people ascribe to ordinary consumption objects (and the labels that they use to identify those meanings). Overall, the findings support the proposed conceptualization. Copyright 1991 by the University of Chicago.

Mirror, mirror: Some postmodern reflections on global advertising

Abstract Global advertising succeeds when it is perceived in semiotically-equivalent ways by multicultural consumer segments. Before campaigns can be standardized, it is necessary to identify segments of consumers who share an ethos, since this represents the foundation for creating advertising executions that can be understood multiculturally. This paper develops the argument that fashion and food products — what people put on and in their bodies—enable the universally-held need of self-expression, and in that sense their perceptions are thereby driven by a common ethos. Certain consumers, apart from their resident cultures, regard these products in essentially equivalent, self-relevant ways, so they are prime candidates for global, if not wholly standardized, advertising. Two multicultural segments for which these products are especially self-relevant are identified: (1) the worlds economically-elite consumers (a segment which has been widely recognized); and (2) the post-World-War-II generations of co...

Reading Advertising: The What and How of Product Meaning

Analyses successful international ads for alcoholic drinks, cigarettes and corporate identity to determine the core meanings for each product. Argues that these meanings constitute “cultural definitions” of the products, and that they represent a significant aspect of marketing information. Concludes that the meaning exemplars discerned in each category define parameters for advertising appeals, but still leave a lot of decision latitude about how to target within the market.

Achtung! The Information Processing of Foreign Words in Advertising

This article explains the use of foreign words in advertising from an information processing perspective. The ability of such distinctive words to enhance an advertisements effectiveness derives f...

Locus of Control as a Personality Correlate of Materialism: An Empirical Note

For a sample of 148 undergraduate students, scores on Belks materialism scale correlated negatively with Rotters locus-of-control scores. Stepwise regression further indicates that Rotter scores are responsive largely to the envy subscale of materialism, with the possessiveness and nongenerosity subscales contributing little to the explained variance. Inasmuch as composite materialism (the sum of three subscales) relates inversely with internal locus of control, this result is consistent with the other/external-directed nature of envy and the self/internal-directed focus of possessiveness and nongenerosity.

Memory structure in the processing of advertising messages: how is unusual information represented?

Two models of memory structure--schema-copy-plus-tag (Graesser & Nakamura, 1982; Schmidt & Sherman, 1984) and associative-network/depth-of-processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Hastie & Kumar, 1979)--were tested in a 2 x 2 between-subjects design. Type of argument (typical vs. atypical) and measurement interval (immediate vs. 2-day delay in recognition and recall) were manipulated in a print-advertising context. Results indicated that atypical arguments (unusual information) prompt deeper processing of the entire message (implying an associative-network memory structure) rather than some part of the message (as would be hypothesized by the schema-copy-plus-tag formulation) and that this effect prevails under both immediate- and delayed-measurement conditions.

Deliberative vs disingenuous subjects on the social desirability of need for cognition

Petty and Cacioppos need for cognition scale (NCS)—both long version and short version—correlated significantly with the social desirability scale of Crowne and Marlowe. Inasmuch as need for cognition is an important individual-difference variable in Petty and Cacioppos elaboration likelihood model of attitude change, caution seems warranted whenever this model is used in settings associated with cognitive achievement, lest subjects disingenuously feign cognitive need in a socially desirable attempt to appear “smart” or deliberative.