Loraine Lau-Gesk

Activating Culture Through Persuasion Appeals: An Examination of the Bicultural Consumer

In this research, I examined how biculturals, or individuals who have been equally influenced by an East Asian and Western cultural orientation, respond to various types of persuasion appeals that promote values unique to a particular culture. In the first experiment, I found that biculturals, relative to monoculturals, tend to react favorably toward both individually and interpersonally focused appeals due to their having 2 equally developed and accessible cultural dispositions. In the second experiment, I identified boundary conditions under which having relatively equal access to both cultural dispositions leads to favorable responses. Results indicate that biculturals who tend to compartmentalize each culture react less favorably toward appeals that are both individually and interpersonally focused than biculturals who tend to integrate the 2 cultures. In other words, the former type of bicultural prefers appeals that activate one cultural disposition, whereas the latter type of bicultural favors appeals that activate both cultural dispositions. These findings are discussed in light of the growing trend toward multiculturalism and the increasing need for researchers to understand the impact of this trend on various consumer behavior issues.

Blending Cobrand Personalities: An Examination of the Complex Self

This research examines the role of self-complexity in influencing consumer responses to cobrands with trait associations to two distinct brand personality dimensions versus one distinct brand personality dimension. Three experiments reveal that consumers whose complex self becomes activated prefer cobrands that exude both sophistication and excitement to those that exhibit either sophistication or excitement. Caucasians, who have a more complex independent self, tend to evaluate a sophisticated and excited personality cobrand more favorably when primed on independence, whereas Hispanics, who have a more complex interdependent self, tend to evaluate this cobrand personality combination more favorably when primed on interdependence. This research also suggests that this self-complexity-driven process is conscious in nature.

Retrospective evaluations of playful experiences

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of key affective moments of a playful experience on consumers’ overall retrospective evaluations. Design/methodology/approach The authors build on past literature on hedonic psychology and sequential preferences and link it to specific characteristics of playful experiences to derive their hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested through two field experiments conducted at a videogame arcade. Findings Results demonstrated that consumers’ overall evaluations are better aligned with the affective intensity at the final or end moment of a playful experience. Findings also revealed the complexity of understanding playful experiences, for it is the meaningfulness of end moments rather than simply their recent position in the experience that underlies overall evaluations. When end moments cease to be meaningful, the trough or least affective intense moment impacts overall evaluations. Practical implications This research has implications for marketers who are deciding on which point of a playful experience to concentrate their resources for optimizing evaluations. Originality/value This research contributes to literature on playful consumption by illuminating how consumers rely on affective moments of a playful experience to construct overall evaluations. Additionally, it highlights the important role of meaningfulness of end moments, a relatively underexplored process, which extends literature on key moments and retrospective evaluations.