The Effect of Mood on Short Term Memory

ABSTRACT AMY VITELL: The Effect of Mood on Short Term Memory Eighty-four undergraduate students (13 males and 71 females) from the University of Mississippi were tested on the effect of mood on short term memory. The participants, with a mean age of 19, were made up of 61 Caucasians, 21 African American, and 2 Asians. The participants took part in a free recall task involving 25 neutral words. Next, a film clip was shown to induce a particular mood (either positive or negative, depending on assigned condition). Following the mood manipulation the participants took part in a second recall task involving another set of 25 neutral words. Data analysis revealed that after the mood manipulation participants in the positive mood condition recalled more words while participants in the negative mood condition recalled fewer words

An Exploratory Study into the Factors Impeding Ethical Consumption

Although consumers are increasingly engaged with ethical factors when forming opinions about products and making purchase decisions, recent studies have highlighted significant differences between consumers’ intentions to consume ethically, and their actual purchase behaviour. This article contributes to an understanding of this “ethical purchasing gap” through a review of existing literature, and the inductive analysis of focus group discussions. A model is suggested which includes exogenous variables such as moral maturity and age which have been well covered in the literature, together with further impeding factors identified from the focus group discussions. For some consumers, inertia in purchasing behaviour was such that the decision-making process was devoid of ethical considerations. Several manifested their ethical views through post-purchase dissonance and retrospective feelings of guilt. Others displayed a reluctance to consume ethically due to personal constraints, a perceived negative impact on image or quality, or an outright negation of responsibility. Those who expressed a desire to consume ethically often seemed deterred by cynicism, which caused them to question the impact they, as an individual, could achieve. These findings enhance the understanding of ethical consumption decisions and provide a platform for future research in this area

Religiosity, materialism, consumer environmental predisposition. Some insights on vegan purchasing intentions in Italy

This paper explores the effects of environmental predisposition on purchasing intentions. The proposed model considers religiosity as a determinant of consumer environmental predisposition, adopting a multidimensional view entailing both intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. Further, the effects of materialism are investigated, as it has been recognized as one of the most relevant hampering factors in determining consumer environmental predispositions and behaviors. Such factors appear intimately related, as materialism has been indicated as largely antithetical with respect to religion. Literature has suggested religiosity to be a key determinant of consumer environmental predispositions and behaviors. This might be even more important for specific, environmentally relevant consumer lifestyles. This work is hence set within vegan consumption. Veganism has been mostly related to specific religious beliefs (like Buddhism), according to which it represents a core component of larger worldviews. A structural equation model is proposed, based on a sample of 842 Italian consumers. Results show that religiosity exerts some effect on consumer environmental predisposition, and that, in turn, such predisposition determines vegan purchasing intentions. A split model is then proposed considering Christian and Buddhist consumers. Results of multigroup analysis show that religious influxes on consumer environmental predispositions might vary according to different religious faiths. Given the lack of previous empirical research, results of this study require further validation; still, they might provide some insights for managers, as markets related to environmentally relevant products and services are exhibiting a sustained growth

Spirituality and religiosity at the junction of consumerism: Exploring Consumer Preference for Spiritual Brands

This paper extends the growing research on the influence of religion and spiritualism on consumer behavior by exploring the relationship between spirituality and religiosity (intrinsic vs. extrinsic) as well as their effects on consumers’ purchase of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) brands promoted by spiritual leaders (spiritual brands). Results from an online survey of 238 Indian consumers across four food product categories (honey, cheese, biscuits and cooking oil) shows that both intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity have significant positive effects, but spirituality has no significant effect on the purchase of spiritual brands. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings as well as some limitations of our study and useful directions for future research

The Role of Individual Variables, Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and (in Libya) Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world

Neutralization techniques as a moderating mechanism: ethically questionable behavior in the Romanian consumer context

YesBased on an empirical investigation in the context of Romania, this paper identifies a moderating role of neutralization techniques within ethically questionable consumer behavior. The quantitative study is based upon a synthesized model of Theory of Planned Behavior incorporating the factor of perceived unfairness and neutralization techniques. Significantly, neutralization techniques are shown to have a negative, but definite impact on the action to behave unethically. This leads to their consideration as a process of thinking, rather than as static judgement. As such, neutralization techniques are conceptually distinctive to the other factors. The paper analyses the results specific to the Romanian context, but noting implications for an understanding of the morality of markets with similar historical, political and economic conditions. Overall, the findings offer a more nuanced reading of consumer behavior. The paper places moral flexibility in terms of a specific cultural context, but also reveals how neutralization techniques can moderate ethically questionable behaviors beyond matters of self-interest, which in turn has implications for how companies can consider their responsibilities in relation to their customers

Measuring Unethical Consumer Behavior Across Four Countries

The huge amounts spent on store security and crime prevention worldwide, not only costs international businesses, but also amounts to a hidden tax on those law-binding consumers who bear higher prices. Most previous research has focused on shoplifting and ignored many other ways in which consumers cheat businesses. Using a hybrid of both qualitative research and survey approaches in four countries, an index of 37 activities was developed to examine consumers’ unethical activities across UK, US, France, and Austria. The findings indicate that around three quarters of consumers in all four countries can be classified as heavy offenders for these minor cheats. The paper argues that government agencies, marketers, and retailers should adopt more pro-active preventative approaches, rather than reactive loss limitation measures to combat unethical behavior

E-retailing ethics in Egypt and its effect on customer repurchase intention

The theoretical understanding of online shopping behaviour has received much attention. Less focus has been given to the formation of the ethical issues that result from online shopper interactions with e-retailers. The vast majority of earlier research on this area is conceptual in nature and limited in scope by focusing on consumers’ privacy issues. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model explaining what factors contribute to online retailing ethics and its effect on customer repurchase intention. The data were analysed using variance-based structural equation modelling, employing partial least squares regression. Findings indicate that the five factors of the online retailing ethics (security, privacy, non- deception, fulfilment/reliability, and corporate social responsibility) are strongly predictive of online consumers’ repurchase intention. The results offer important implications for e-retailers and are likely to stimulate further research in the area of e-ethics from the consumers’ perspective

Driven to excess? Linking calling, character and the (mis)behaviour of marketers

We are presently at a point of unique circumstantial convergence where recession, an increased emphasis on business ethics, and marketer’s reluctance to accept shifting social agendas have combined to identify the need for a new approach to marketing. Using concepts from the human resources, marketing and psychology literatures, and especially Erich Fromm’s ideas concerning economic character, this paper posits that marketers – as a professional community – are driven to promote consumerist outcomes; victims of an automaton amalgam of calling and character. The analysis suggests the vulnerability of both marketer and consumer are mutually reinforcing and that we need, somehow, to break this damaging cycle of dependence. We know little, however, about how marketers think and feel about their discipline, so this paper also promotes an agenda for marketer behaviour research, as a countervailing balance to a currently disproportionate focus on the consumer