Satisfaction With Businesses?

We examine how power distance belief (PDB) -the prevalence of inequality in society -affects consumers' satisfaction with loyalty programs. Five studies support the counterintuitive hypothesis that high (vs. low) PDB contexts decrease, rather than increase, nonloyalty-status consumers' satisfaction with such businesses, and illuminate the underlying mechanisms

Cognitive Load, Need For Closure, and Socially Desirable Responding: Cognitively Constrained Versus Motivated Response Biases in Cross-Cultural Consumer Research

Recent research reveals cultural differences in consumers' tendency to engage in socially desirable responding. Specifically, individualist consumers are shown to be prone to self-deceptive enhancement (SDE), the tendency to hold exaggerated views of one's skills and abilities, whereas collectivist consumers are shown to be prone to impression management (IM), the tendency to distort responses to appear normatively appropriate. We examine the divergent moderating effects of cognitive and motivational factors on these relationships. Across six studies, we find that depleting collectivists' cognitive resources impairs their ability to engage in IM but does not influence individualists' tendency to engage in SDE. In contrast, collectivists' tendency to engage in IM and individualists' tendency to engage in SDE are both seen to increase with high (vs. low) need for cognitive closure (NFC). Implications of these findings on theoretical and methodological research on SDR are highlighted

Forward genetic screen using a gene-breaking trap approach identifies a novel role of grin2bb-associated RNA transcript (grin2bbART) in zebrafish heart function

LncRNA-based control affects cardiac pathophysiologies like myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease, hypertrophy, and myotonic muscular dystrophy. This study used a gene-break transposon (GBT) to screen zebrafish (Danio rerio) for insertional mutagenesis. We identified three insertional mutants where the GBT captured a cardiac gene. One of the adult viable GBT mutants had bradycardia (heart arrhythmia) and enlarged cardiac chambers or hypertrophy; we named it “bigheart.” Bigheart mutant insertion maps to grin2bb or N-methyl D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR2B) gene intron 2 in reverse orientation. Rapid amplification of adjacent cDNA ends analysis suggested a new insertion site transcript in the intron 2 of grin2bb. Analysis of the RNA sequencing of wild-type zebrafish heart chambers revealed a possible new transcript at the insertion site. As this putative lncRNA transcript satisfies the canonical signatures, we called this transcript grin2bb associated RNA transcript (grin2bbART). Using in situ hybridization, we confirmed localized grin2bbART expression in the heart, central nervous system, and muscles in the developing embryos and wild-type adult zebrafish atrium and bulbus arteriosus. The bigheart mutant had reduced Grin2bbART expression. We showed that bigheart gene trap insertion excision reversed cardiac-specific arrhythmia and atrial hypertrophy and restored grin2bbART expression. Morpholino-mediated antisense downregulation of grin2bbART in wild-type zebrafish embryos mimicked bigheart mutants; this suggests grin2bbART is linked to bigheart. Cardiovascular tissues use Grin2bb as a calcium-permeable ion channel. Calcium imaging experiments performed on bigheart mutants indicated calcium mishandling in the heart. The bigheart cardiac transcriptome showed differential expression of calcium homeostasis, cardiac remodeling, and contraction genes. Western blot analysis highlighted Camk2d1 and Hdac1 overexpression. We propose that altered calcium activity due to disruption of grin2bbART, a putative lncRNA in bigheart, altered the Camk2d-Hdac pathway, causing heart arrhythmia and hypertrophy in zebrafish

FAMILY ROLES IN THE DECISION PROCESS OF SERVICES IN MULTIRACIAL SINGAPORE : EFFECT OF INTERPERSONAL ORIENTATION

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENCE (MANAGEMENT

The Distinct Influence of Cognitive Busyness and Need for Closure on Cultural Differences in Socially Desirable Responding

Research suggests that cognitive busyness and need for closure have similar effects on a host of consumer phenomena, leading some researchers to treat the two variables as substitutes. We propose that cognitive busyness and need for closure have distinct roots and can have different effects. We examine their distinction in the context of cultural differences in the two types of socially desirable responding—impression management and self‐deceptive enhancement. Our findings indicate that high (vs. low) cognitive busyness weakens the relationship between culture and impression management, but not that between culture and self‐deceptive enhancement. In contrast, high (vs. low) need for closure strengthens both relationships. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these findings.

Cognitive and Affective Scarcities and Relational Abundance: Lessons from the Confluence of Extreme and Chronic Scarcities in Subsistence Marketplaces

Research on subsistence marketplaces provides a number of insights about extreme and chronic resource scarcity as well as intangible scarcities in cognitive and affective realms. These insights have been developed from a variety of sources—quantitative and qualitative research, as well as education for communities and for students through a symbiotic academic-social enterprise. These insights are juxtaposed with extant work on scarcity in consumer research, to derive implications for future research and stimulate thinking on a broad variety of scarcities. Our holistic deep dive into extreme scarcity and its multiple dimensions from the perspective of consumer behavior has much to offer in stimulating future research on scarcity

A Reexamination of Frequency-Depth Effects in Consumer Price Judgments

Previous research has shown that when there are multiple possible prices for two brands, the brand that is discounted frequently but at shallow levels is perceived to have a lower average price than the brand that is discounted infrequently but at deeper levels (the "frequency effect"). However, when there are only two possible prices for each brand, the brand discounted infrequently but at deeper levels is perceived to have a lower average price (the "depth effect"). Over a series of experiments, we demonstrate that these frequency and depth effects do not generalize to other temporal price distributions. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..