- 권한신청
- P-ISSN1738-3110
- E-ISSN2093-7717
- SCOPUS, ESCI
주관적 행복이 대안에 대한 소비자의 가격 책정에 미치는 영향
The Effect of Subject Well-being on the Consumer's Pricing of Alternatives
최종안 (Department of Psychology, Seoul National University)
초록
주관적 행복이 각광 받고 있다. 주관적 행복에 따라 사회비교 및 인지부조화 해소가 달라지는 것처럼, 주관적 행복이 소비자의 대안 비교와 평가에 영향을 미칠 것이다. 본 연구는 소비자가 선택한 혹은 선택하지 않은 대안에 대한 추가 정보로 인해 대안의 절대적 가치 및 상대적 가치가 변동할 때, 대안에 대한 평가가 소비자의 주관적 행복에 따라 어떻게 달라지는지 연구하는 것을 목적으로 하였다. 특히, 소비자가 제품에 대해 지각하는 가치를 반영하는 소비자가 생각하는 대안의 적정가격을 사용하여 대안에 대한 평가를 측정하였다. 즉, 선택 혹은 비선택 대안의 상대적 가치 및 절대적 가치의 변화가 대안의 적정가격에 미치는 영향이 주관적 행복에 따라 달라지는지 살펴보고자 하였다. 연구를 위하여 98명의 대학생을 대상으로 실험을 실시하였다. 먼저, 학생들을 두 집단(비선택 대안 악화, 선택 대안 개선)에 무작위 할당한 후, 실험실 모니터에 2개의 대안에 대한 소비자 리포트를 제시하였다. 학생들이 하나의 대안을 선택하면, 대안에 대한 소비자 리포트의 평가가 변동(비선택 대안 악화, 선택 대안 개선)하면서 비선택 대안의 가격이 주어지고, 학생들은 선택 대안의 적정가격을 답하였다. 2주 후 학생들의 주관적 행복을 설문지로 측정하였다. 연구 결과, 집단, 주관적 행복의 단순효과 및 이 둘의 상호작용효과가 유의하였다. 또한, 행복한 사람은 비선택 대안이 악화될 때 보다 선택 대안이 좋아질 때 선택 대안의 적정가격을 높게 평가한 반면, 불행한 사람은 이러한 차이가 없었다. 이는 행복한 사람은 선택 대안의 절대적 가치 상승에 민감한 반면, 불행한 사람은 선택 대안의 절대적, 상대적 가치 상승 모두에 민감하며, 불행한 사람은 행복한 사람보다 비선택 대안의 악화 정보에 집중함을 의미한다. 본 연구는 소비자의 주관적 행복이 대안 평가에 미치는 영향을 제시함으로써 기존 연구를 확장하였다. 특히, 타인의 존재가 명시되지 않은 상황에서도 행복한 사람보다 불행한 사람이 부정적인 사회비교 정보에 민감함을 보였다는 점에서 이론적 의의가 있다. 아울러, 이러한 결과는 소비자의 주관적 행복 수준에 따라 대안을 어떻게 제시해야 하는지에 대한 시사점을 유통업체들에 제공한다. 본 연구는 한국의 소비자를 대상으로 진행하였으나, 향후 연구에서 국가간 차이를 비교하는 것도 의미 있을 것이다. 또한, 주관적 행복이 대안 평가에 미치는 영향의 메커니즘을 밝히기 위하여 예상되는 후회감, 고통, 기쁨 등을 매개변수로 놓고 추가 연구를 진행할 필요가 있다.
- keywords
- 주관적 행복, 사회비교, 가격, 인지부조화
Abstract
Research on subjective well-being (SWB) has flourished in recent years. As SWB determines cognitive and motivational processes, including social comparison and cognitive dissonance, it determines how consumers make decisions, including the comparison and evaluation of alternatives. Considering that the comparison and evaluation of alternatives is related to social comparison and cognitive dissonance, the influence of SWB on the comparison and evaluation of alternatives needs to be investigated. This research aims to examine the effect of SWB on the comparison and evaluation of alternatives, especially when people acquire additional information about their chosen or non-chosen alternatives, leading to a change of absolute/relative value of alternatives. The reasonable price of an alternative as evaluated by individuals is used as a measure reflecting the perceived value of an alternative. Putting all of this together, the current study intended to investigate the influence of absolute and relative value on the reasonable price of an alternative depending on SWB. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experiment groups (deterioration of non-chosen alternative vs. improvement of non-chosen alternative). After reading consumer report ratings of alternatives shown on monitor screens, participants chose one of the alternatives, followed by the change of the consumer report ratings (deterioration of non-chosen alternative vs. improvement of non-chosen alternative). Participants evaluated the reasonable price of their chosen alternative based on the provided price of the non-chosen alternative. Two weeks after the experiment, they were asked to answer survey questionnaire on SWB measures. A regression was performed on the reasonable price with experiment groups, mean-centered SWB, and their interaction. There was a significant simple effect of groups and SWB. More importantly, these effects were qualified by the predicted interaction of groups and SWB. To interpret this interaction further, simple slope tests were performed on the price when SWB was centered at one standard deviation above (i.e., happy people) and below (i.e., unhappy people) the mean. As predicted, happy people rated the reasonable price of the chosen alternative higher in the improvement of non-chosen alternative group than in the deterioration of non-chosen alternative group. Conversely, unhappy people showed no price difference between groups. These results show that happy people pay attention to the absolute value of the alternative, whereas unhappy people give more weight to the relative value as well as to the absolute value of a chosen alternative, indicating that unhappy people are more sensitive to the negative information of a non-chosen alternative compared to happy people. The present research expanded the existing research stream on SWB by showing the influence of SWB on the consumers' evaluation of alternatives. Furthermore, this study adds to previous research on SWB and social comparison by suggesting that unhappy people tend to be more sensitive to negative social comparison information of alternatives even when a target of social comparison is not explicitly present. Moreover, these results yield some managerial implications on how to provide product information based on SWB in order to make products more attractive among the alternatives available to consumers.
- keywords
- 주관적 행복, 사회비교, 가격, 인지부조화
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