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

The Effects of Race-Related Factors on Social Cognition in Black Women

Social cognition, the ability to perceive, interpret, and process information in social interactions, is an important predictor of functional outcomes in individuals with schizophrenia (Green et al., 2015; Halverson et al., 2019). Past studies have found differences across race in social cognition tasks in both clinical and non-clinical populations, highlighting a need to assess contextual and individual race-related factors behind this discrepancy (Nagendra et al., 2018; Pinkham et al., 2008, 2017). The Challenge and Threat model provides a framework to understand how multiple race-related factors interact to impact physiological and psychological response to social cognitive tasks. Specifically, we hypothesized that experimenter race and level of perceived discrimination would impact social cognitive performance, in that participants with higher perceived discrimination and who were tested by White experimenters would have the most inhibited performance. Forty eight Black women were assessed with a battery of social cognitive tasks while continuous physiological data was collected. A multi-level regression was conducted to assess main and interaction effects of experimenter race and perceived discrimination on social cognitive performance, as well as correlations to assess underlying physiological responses to the tasks. However, the results did not support the hypotheses. Future research should assess other race-related factors under the Challenge and Threat model to advance understanding on racial disparities in social cognitive tasks.Bachelor of Art

Critical-incident trauma and crime scene investigation: A review of police organizational challenges and interventions

It is hypothesized that exposure to critical-incident trauma affects crime scene investigators. Individual and organizational attribution factors are analyzed through the use of self-report data collected from crime scene investigators working in a large Midwestern state. This paper analyzes key variables in the job of a crime scene investigator in an effort to determine the level of stress related to CSI work and the nature of organizational support available to the investigator. Although initial findings suggest a high level of satisfaction with the job, the nature of the job can lead to high levels of both professional and personal stress, with work-related stress often driving personal stress. Policy implications for reducing officer stress as well as future research questions are discussed

A lifeworld phenomenological study of the experience of living within ageing skin

Understanding people’s experience of skin ageing as it is lived can enable sensitive approaches to promoting healthy skin and to care in general. By understanding the insider perspective, what it is like for individuals, a way to sensitise practice for more humanly sensitive care is offered. Through interviews with seventeen, community-dwelling older people the essential meaning of living within ageing skin was illuminated as a state of managed inevitability. The skin is inevitably changing, ageing skin is a marker of change over time but the person within remains. Constituents of the phenomenon comprise: the experience of unfamiliar sights and sensations given by ageing skin; facing and accepting bodily changes and seeing this back and forth in family connections; taking care of the skin ‘to face’ the world and to present oneself to others and a different place in the world, same person, changed body. Findings point to why and how nurses can treat older people as persons by not over emphasising a view on ageing bodies or bodies with aged skin alone, but in tempering this view with deeper existential insights, meeting the older person with a skin care need as a person and not just as a physical entity

Multi-tier Loyalty Programs to Stimulate Customer Engagement

Customers differ in their purchase behavior, profitability, attitude toward the firm, and so on. These differences between customers have led to numerous firms introducing multi-tier loyalty programs. A multi-tier loyalty program explicitly distinguishes between customers by means of hierarchical tiers (e.g. Silver, Gold, Platinum) and assigns customers to different tiers based on their past purchase behavior. Next, customers in different tiers are provided varying levels of tangible rewards and intangible benefits, which are potentially powerful instruments to stimulate customer engagement. In this chapter, we focus on the design and effectiveness of such multi-tier loyalty programs. Building on loyalty program and customer prioritization research, we discuss whether, why, and how multi-tier loyalty programs are effective (or not) in influencing customer behavior, thereby enhancing customer engagement and financial performance

Later life sex and Rubin’s ‘Charmed Circle'

Gayle Rubin’s now classic concept of the ‘charmed circle’ has been much used by scholars of sexuality to discuss the ways in which some types of sex are privileged over others. In this paper, I apply the concept of the charmed circle to a new topic– later life – in order both to add to theory about later life sex and to add an older-age lens to thinking about sex hierarchies. Traditional discursive resources around older people’s sexual activities, which treat older people’s sex as inherently beyond the charmed circle, now coexist with new imperatives for older people to remain sexually active as part of a wider project of ‘successful’ or ‘active’ ageing. Drawing on the now-substantial academic literature about later life sex, I discuss some of the ways in which redrawing the charmed circle to include some older people’s sex may paradoxically entail the use of technologies beyond the charmed circle of ‘good, normal, natural, blessed’ sex. Sex in later life also generates some noteworthy inversions in which types of sex are privileged and which treated as less desirable, in relation to marriage and procreation. Ageing may, furthermore, make available new possibilities to redefine what constitutes ‘good’ sex and to refuse compulsory sexuality altogether, without encountering stigma

Possessions and memories

People often acquire souvenirs and photographs to facilitate remembering, but possessions and memories can relate to each other in a variety of ways. This review paper presents four different connection types found between meaningful things in our everyday lives and our personal memories. Each connection type either focuses on possessions or memories and the connection between the two is either active or lost. These perspectives will be detailed through examples of studies and design cases from different fields and research areas. More studies have been found focusing on existing connections between possessions and memories, such as in human-computer interaction, design, material culture, psychology, and marketing, than those lost, which were specifically focused around ageing, forgetting, heirlooms, identity and hoarding behaviour. Our review of connections between possessions and memories accumulate to suggest the attachment people ascribe to certain possessions is mirrored by the ability of objects to fulfil people’s desire to preserve, embody, showcase and recollect certain memories