Nancy Wong

Personal taste and family face: Luxury consumption in confucian and western societies

East Asia is currently the biggest market for luxury and prestige brands from the West. This article examines the cultural factors that lie behind this phenomenon and, based on distinctions between Southeast Asian and Western cultures, explores how the practice of luxury consumption differs in these cultures. As part of this examination, self-concept theory is reviewed and integrated in a cross-cultural consumption model. Conceptual linkages between existing theories of materialism and conspicuous consumption are noted.

Do Reverse-Worded Items Confound Measures in Cross-Cultural Consumer Research? The Case of the Material Values Scale

Most measures of consumer behavior have been developed and employed in the United States. Thus, relatively little is known about the cross-cultural applicability of these measures. Using Richins and Dawsons (1992) Material Values Scale (MVS) as an exemplar, this article focuses on the problems researchers are likely to encounter when employing domestic mixed-worded scales (i.e., scales that contain both positive- and reverse-worded items) in cross-cultural applications. Through an initial study among over 800 adults from the United States, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and Korea, we show that the cross-cultural measurement equivalence and construct validity of the MVS is challenged by its mixed-worded Likert format. Through a second study among approximately 400 Americans and East Asians, we find that other mixed-worded scales produce similar problems and that the cross-cultural applicability of such scales may be enhanced by replacing items posed as statements with items framed as questions. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.

Cultural and Situational Contingencies and the Theory of Reasoned Action: Application to Fast Food Restaurant Consumption

This study investigated the usefulness of the theory of reasoned action for fast food restaurant patronage decisions. The theory of reasoned action was found to generalize across four samples drawn from the United States ( N = 246), Italy ( N = 123), The Peoples Republic of China ( N = 264), and Japan ( N =419). However, predictions under the theory of reasoned action were found to vary, depending on the social setting (eating alone or eating with friends) and cultural orientation (independent vs. interdependent). Among other results, subjective norms were found to influence decisions when eating with friends, but not when alone; the effects of attitudes, subjective norms, and past behavior on intentions were greater for Americans than Italians, Chinese, or Japanese; and in general, more explained variance occurred for Western (American, Italian) than Eastern (Chinese, Japanese) cultures.

The Role of Culture and Gender in the Relationship between Positive and Negative Affect

An integrative explanation proposes that culture and gender interact to produce fundamentally different patterns of association between positive and negative emotions. People in independent-based cultures (e.g. the United States) experience emotions in oppositional (i.e. bipolar) ways, whereas people in interdependent-based cultures (e.g. China) experience emotions in dialectic ways. These patterns are stronger for women than men in both cultures. In support of the theory, Study 1 showed that positive and negative emotions are strongly correlated inversely for American women and weakly correlated inversely for American men, but strongly correlated positively for Chinese women and weakly correlated positively for Chinese men. In Study 2, findings for Koreans, although mixed, were closer to the results for Chinese.

The Safety of Objects: Materialism, Existential Insecurity, and Brand Connection

Over the past 2 decades, a large body of research has examined how materialism is formed and how this value influences well-being. Although these studies have substantially contributed to our understanding of materialism, they shed little light on this values relationship to consumer behavior. Our research seeks to address this gap by examining the influence of materialism on self- and communal-brand connections. We ground our conceptualization in terror management theory and suggest that materialistic individuals form strong connections to their brands as a response to existential insecurity. We test this premise by conducting a national survey among 314 adults as well as an experiment among 125 college students. Our results provide broad support for our thesis and suggest that the fear of death encourages materialistic individuals to form strong connections with their brands. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Personality and Values Based Materialism: Their Relationship and Origins

This research investigates the developmental processes by which consumers become more or less materialistic. It begins with a review of Ingleharts work in this area, and then applies his theories to explain conceptions of materialism developed by Richins and Belk. Inglehart predicts that the subjective experience of economic deprivation and insecurity during ones formative years leads to adult materialism. Early subjective experiences of deprivation and insecurity strongly predict materialism as conceptualized by Belk, but are not related to materialism as conceptualized by Richins. Inglehart also allows for the social influence of family and peers to shape materialistic orientations. Findings indicate that the formative social influence of family and peers predicts both Belks and Richinss materialism. This difference between Belks and Richinss materialism is explained on the grounds that Belks materialism reflects personality whereas Richinss reflects personal values.

The Cultural Construction of Risk Understandings through Illness Narratives

A study of breast cancer screening and treatment decisions suggests that risk understandings are influenced by the dominant illness narrative of restitution within Anglo-Western cultures. Restitution stories reflect the cultural values of personal responsibility and control in combating disease and returning to a life of normalcy. In the context of breast cancer, individuals seek restitution by following the dictums of biomedicine, which promotes early detection as prevention, aggressive treatment as cure, and reconstructive surgery as concealment. Our findings suggest that these risk understandings contribute to the consumption of health-care interventions that exceeds medical guidelines in this country. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Advertising in Asia: Communication, Culture, and Consumption . Edited by Katherine Toland Frith. Ames, Ia.: Iowa State University Press, 1996. 313 pp.

This text collects the work of 11 practioners and scholars from Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. They show how advertising operates in these countries and prospects for the future within the mass media.

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Abstract This study investigates emotional intensity as a function of psychological distance and cultural orientation (strong vs. weak filial piety) for Chinese (N=262) and American (N=200) students. Subjects read four scenarios that depicted moral or ethical situations in which a protagonist injured another person through their actions. Subjects responded to each scenario four times by expressing how they would feel if they, their father (or brother depending on the scenario), their best friend, and a complete stranger were the victim. Anger, sadness, resentment, and contempt were measured toward each target person in each scenario. It was found that Americans expressed less psychological distance between in-group and out-group members than Chinese. Toward in-group members (father, brother, or close friend), Americans exhibited greater psychological distance than Chinese. Felt emotional intensity was found to decrease with psychological distance for Americans and Chinese, and Americans were less likely to incorporate close others as extensions of self than Chinese. Contrary to predictions, Americans actually showed greater psychological distance toward out-group members (strangers) than Chinese.

Emotional intensity as a function of psychological distance and cultural orientation

Research on financial vulnerability has largely focused on the relationships between the economic environment, consumer financial activities and indebtedness, limiting our understanding of the role assumed by interpersonal relationships that underlie this socially embedded phenomenon. Using the common Brazilian practices of borrowing–lending amongst family and friends as the research context, we show that these practices can be viewed as a gift guided by the logic of a moral economy. Our findings show that individuals resort to the market economy to maintain a moral economy of credit which can be a blessing (when the extension of financial help to important others alleviates financial vulnerability by negotiating the marketplace) or a curse (when extension of financial help to others leads to one’s own financial constraints). This study illustrates an inverted gift giving process whereby the recipients’ own indulgence is presented as a monadic gift in accessing the dyadic gift giving relationship.