Self-Other Connectedness in Consumer Affect, Judgments, and Action

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the effects of consumers' identities and connections to others on their behaviors. In the first essay I examine the notion that consumers have multiple identities that interact to influence charitable judgments and behaviors. In the first study, I examine the effect of internal moral identity and gender on adult volunteers' donation allocations to terrorist victims in London or Afghanistan. In studies 2 and 3, I explore the effect of these identities on judgments of relief efforts and donation intentions for terrorist victims in London and Iraq. The pattern in these studies indicate that males give more to ingroups (i.e., London) than to outgroups (i.e., Afghanistan or Iraq) when they have high internal moral identity whereas females with high internal moral identity give equally to both the ingroup and outgroup. Study 4 examines how self-construal moderates the effect of these identities on donation likelihood to victims of natural disasters. I show that consumers have multiple identities that interact to influence judgments, rather than a single salient identity that influences behavior. In my second essay I explore the role of closeness to others and domain relevance, using the self-evaluation maintenance model, on consumer regret. In the first study, I show that closeness to others moderates the effect of performance on regret in entrée choice. In two additional studies, I show that relevance moderates the effect of closeness and performance on regret such that consumers experience more regret when they compare to a friend than to a stranger for high relevance domains with the reverse effect occurring for low relevance domains. Jealousy mediates this interactive effect on regret. Finally, in my third essay I explore the effect of special promotions on purchase intentions. I consider when special promotions such as extended employee discounts or birthday discounts increase consumers' intentions to purchase. Self-construal, or one's view of him or herself as connected to or distinct from others, moderates the effect of these inclusively- and exclusively-framed promotions on purchase intentions. Furthermore, I explore the role of feelings of brand connectedness in the effect of self-construal and promotion type on purchase intentions

Helpful Hopefulness: The Effect of Future Positive Emotions on Consumption

Although positive affect may enhance self-control, some research suggests that this is not always the case. To clarify this relationship, we investigate the role of temporal focus on the effect of specific positive emotions on self-control dilemmas in snack consumption. In four studies, we demonstrate that participants experiencing a future-focused positive emotion (i.e., hopefulness) consume less unhealthy food and have lower preferences for unhealthy snacks than those in a past- or present-focused emotional state (i.e., pride, happiness). We demonstrate the role of temporal focus through its natural occurrence in emotion-induction essays (study 1), chronic temporal focus (study 2), and manipulation of anticipated versus retrospective emotional states (study 3). A fourth study demonstrates that self-control benefits do not arise from future-focused negative emotions (i.e., fear) as they do from future-focused positive emotions. These results suggest that consumers may benefit from adapting the temporal focus of positive emotions to the future.

Donation Behavior toward In‐Groups and Out‐Groups: The Role of Gender and Moral Identity

We investigate how two important social identities—gender identity and moral identity—result in differential donations to in‐groups and out‐groups. Results from three studies indicate that moral identity importance tends to increase donations to out‐groups (Iraq, Indonesia) and not to in‐groups (London, New Orleans). However, this occurs only for consumers with a feminine gender identity. For consumers with a masculine gender identity, moral identity importance increases donations to the in‐group but not the out‐group. Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) mediates the moderating role of gender identity on the effect of moral identity on in‐group and out‐group donations.

Increasing Blood Donor Retention with Past Donation Use Appeals: The Mediating Role of Perceived Relationship Investment and Relationship Quality - Diss. BV

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Understanding How Sustainable Initiatives Fail: A Framework to Aid Design of Effective Interventions

Many sustainability initiatives are successful and produce results that benefit the environment. However, others miss the mark and fail to produce the desired outcome. Past research has typically focused on understanding why initiatives fail, without first considering differences in how they fail. This manuscript is related to Research and Evaluation—specifically, the social marketing concept it focuses on is evaluating the outcome of sustainability initiatives. Research Question: What are the different ways in which sustainability initiatives can fail? A multi-day workshop of interdisciplinary behavioral sustainability scholars led to the identification of five systematic differences in how sustainability initiatives can fail, suggesting that failure can take on not only different levels of severity, but different forms altogether. Within this framework, we provide examples of each type of failure. We argue that diagnosing how instead of just why an initiative fails offers important insights that can reduce the likelihood of future failures—insights that may be missed by a narrow focus on the why behind any given failure. The identification of the different ways in which sustainability initiatives fail can lead to improvements in the design and implementation of behavioral interventions, facilitating successful sustainability outcomes and preventing unintended outcomes. Specific recommendations are discussed for each type of failure. Limitations: The examples in our framework are not exhaustive, but are instead intended to be illustrative exemplars of each type of failure. Moreover, as our focus is on how sustainability initiatives fail, we do not attempt to diagnose why particular initiatives fail