Browsing by Subject "Self concept"
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Item The dilemma of the gift registry : how social closeness intensifies it(2010-05) Ward, Morgan Kraft; Broniarczyk, Susan M., 1965-; Dahl, Darren; Irwin, Julie; Swann, William; Zhang, YingWhen choosing a gift, the gift-giver has three distinct but interdependent goals: the item must 1) satisfy the recipient 2) be self-reflective for the gift-giver, and 3) indicate the nature of the relationship between the giver and the recipient. However, these goals are often mutually exclusive, making it infeasible for the giver to meet both his/her own and the recipient’s needs with his/her gift choices. In both essays we look at how the important moderator of social closeness between the giver and recipient influences givers’ prioritization of these goals. In Essay 1, we constrain givers to choose from a gift registry and posit that purchasing an identity-incongruent product can threaten an individual’s identity, particularly when purchasing for a close (vs. distant) friend who is an integral part of the self. Five experiments in the context of gift registry show that givers choosing identity-incongruent gifts for a close (vs. distant) friend experience an identity threat and seek to re-establish their shaken identities by endorsing the threatened identity and choosing identity-expressive products in subsequent decisions. In Essay 2 we loosen the constraints of the gift choice and allow givers to choose or reject the gift registry. Our main hypothesis is that when choosing for a close (vs. distant) friend, the giver will discount the recipient’s explicit preferences in favor of a gift that signals the giver’s identity or the relationship between them. However, prior research indicates that close friends choose inaccurately for one another as they conflate their own preferences with those of the recipients’. Thus we suggest that since givers are more likely to make a free choice (vs. registry choice) for a close (vs. distant) friend, they face an increased likelihood of choosing a less desirable gift for their close friends.Item Social forces and hedonic adaptation(2013-05) Chugani, Sunaina Kumar; Irwin, Julie R.Consumers acquire products to enhance their lives, but the happiness from these acquisitions generally decreases with the passage of time. This process of hedonic adaptation plays an integral role in post-acquisition consumer satisfaction, product disposal and replacement behavior, and the "hedonic treadmill" that partially drives the relationship between consumption and happiness. Humans are social animals, however, and we know little about the relationship between the social environment and hedonic adaptation. My dissertation addresses this gap by exploring the moderating role of social presence (Essay 1) and self-concepts (Essay 2) on hedonic adaptation to products. Essay 1 explores how social presence affects hedonic adaptation to products. Research on general happiness has shown that significantly positive life events tend to maintain their positivity for longer periods of time when they involve active social interactions. I examine a more common situation in the domain of product consumption, i.e., the presence of others during consumption, and test whether hedonic adaptation to products is moderated by public contexts. By tracking happiness with products over time, I show that a "social audience" (i.e., the presence of others and the perception that those others notice the consumer) moderates hedonic adaptation through a consumer's inference of the social audience perspective. Inferring that the social audience is admiring one's product slows down adaptation, and inferring that the social audience is negatively viewing one's product accelerates adaptation. Essay 2 explores the role the identity-relevance of a product plays in hedonic adaptation. Extant research illustrates that consumers avoid consuming identity-inconsistent products in order to avoid dissonance arising from product choices conflicting with important self-concepts. I show that dissonance can also arise from consuming identity-consistent products because of the force of hedonic adaptation. I provide evidence that consumers feel uncomfortable experiencing declining happiness with identity-consistent products and thus resist hedonic adaptation to such products in order to resolve the dissonance.