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ISSN : 1229-8778
With the internet of Things (IoT) changing our lives, a wearable device has been major area of the smart healthcare industry. With its essential features such as counting steps and calculating calories, a wearable device plays an important role in goal-directed behavior. This study aims at proving the effectiveness of interaction between social comparison (downward vs. upward) and goal frame (to-date vs. to-go) in terms of QOS on each goal-directed behavior (walking as much as possible to get healthy). To test the proposed hypotheses, participants wore smartbands for two days and then received manipulated feedback based on their real performance. The goal-directed behavior of each participant was measured how much he walked after the feedback. The results suggest that people walk more when they receive downward comparison (upward comparison) with to-go frame (to-date frame) feedback than when they receive downward comparison (upward comparison) with to-date frame (to-go frame) feedback. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed.
This research aims to verify consumer responses toward celebrity endorsers who have engaged in immoral behavior. Specifically, this research suggested that the attractiveness of the celebrity endorser would influence consumer responses toward him or her, and this influence would be moderated by consumers’ social comparison orientation as a personal trait. To verify the suggested hypotheses, an experiment was conducted. Through the analyses, it was found that when the endorser was attractive, consumers perceived the expertise of the endorser as lower in comparison to a non-attractive endorser. Also, this pattern was more pronounced for consumers with a high level of social comparison orientation. This research expanded the research scope to include negative information on celebrity endorsers, and suggested that the beauty of the celebrity endorser was an antecedent and social comparison orientation was a moderator. It is expected that the findings of this research can have practical implications for marketers.
The purpose of this research is to find out whether the mental accounting principle of consumers follows the principle of prospect theory and information integration theory. The results of this research are as follows: Firstly, in the case of hedonic bundles, the preference for integration shown in the area of multiple gains supports the integration principle of the information integration theory. In the area of mixed gains, the results support the integration principle, which satisfies both the prospect theory and information integration theory. In the area of multiple losses, the results partially support the prospect theory’s integration principle, whereas the results for the area of mixed losses partially support segregation principle that satisfies both the prospect theory and information integration theory. Secondly, in the case of utilitarian bundles, the result of preference for integration partially shown in the area of multiple gains support the information integration theory’s integration principle. The area of mixed gains supports integration principle that satisfies both information integration and prospect theory. For the area of multiple losses, the results partially support the information integration theory’s principle of preference for segregation. Every condition was responded by indifference in the area of mixed losses. Therefore, the results do not support the segregation principle that satisfies both the prospect theory and information integration theory.
Internet of Things(IoT) is the key technology of the hyperlinked society that enables the mutual communication among people, objects, and things based on the internet network and provides personalized services. This study is to investigate the psychological characteristics and needs of consumers who use devices with IoT in terms of consumer psychology. In particular, we examined the effect of innovativeness and self-regulatory focus on consumer satisfaction, WOM intention, and continuance intention of use. As a result, the higher level of the social innovativeness, the hedonic innovativeness, and the promotion focus people were, the more satisfied with the IoT devices and higher intention to WOM. Regarding continuance intention of use, there were significant effects of the functional innovativeness, the hedonic innovativeness, and the promotion focus. Prevention focus did not have a significant effect of satisfaction, WOM intention. and continuance intention of use. Based on the results of this study, it was found that it is important not only to improve technological aspects but also to develop entertainment elements that can help consumers to experience social affairs and to experience positive emotions in order for IoT devices to have meaningful impact on consumers' lives. In addition, we confirmed that it is necessary to provide not only information that the IoT can achieve the ideal by improving the quality of life, but also information that it can safely protect the consumers' lives and prevent the risk. Theoretical and practical implications were further discussed.
User Interface(UI) must be easy to understand, learn, and use for human-computer interaction. Most UI/UX researchers have demonstrated that the simpler a design is, the more effective use of UI is. But some researchers have argued a simple design may cause boredom and make difficult to distinguish between UI components if it is too simple. So, it is hard to say which one is better. Moreover, previous researches have used stimulus to differ the number of UI components in order to show simplicity and complexity of website design. It could be rather difficult to apply smartphone interface because it has a small display. Colors and shadows help to find target among UI components, but at the same time they increase perceived complexity. The depth of menu is also important for simplicity because smartphone applications have various depth. So, the purpose of this paper is demonstrate that various colors, shadows and the depth of menu affect perceived simplicity and task performance by using eye-tracker. The result shows that the effective performance were appeared in stimuli including either shadows or various colors. A basic type and shadow+color type lead to relatively ineffective performance because it help differentiating components but is too complex and distract attention from target. In other words, relation in simplicity and complexity is revealed U-shaped pattern. This study provide implication that various colors and shadows affect design simplicity and user's performance.
This study examined the antecedents of consumers’ intentions to participate in a boycott. One hundred eighty five male and female college students participated in this study. We expected that consumers’ perceived egregiousness of a company’s malicious act, identification with the victims of the company’s act, preliminary company preference, and consumer’s perceived self-efficacy of the boycott success would affect the intention of boycott participation. We also expected that self-efficacy would have a mediating effect on the antecedents which affect the intention of boycott participation. In the main survey, participants read an article about a boycott against one of the two companies (Oxy, E-Land), and they rated the perceived egregiousness, the degree of identification with victims, perceived efficacy of the boycott success, and their intention to participate in the boycott. As a result of a structural equation model, perceived egregiousness of the company’s evil act had no direct effect on the participation intention, but it had an effect through the perceived efficacy of the boycott success. However, the identification with victims (+) and preliminary company preference (-) were shown to directly affect the formation of the intention to participate in a boycott. Also, these two variables had indirect effects on the intention of boycott participation thorough perceived efficacy. We suggest some practical implications and future research ideas based on the results.
Emoticons in computer-mediated communication play a substitute for gestures, facial expressions which are used for non-verbal means of face-to-face communication. According to previous studies, emoticons have the characteristics of friendliness and lightness at the same time. Because of the nature of these emoticons, companies' use of emoticons in brand fan pages can have a positive or negative impact on consumers. Previous researches focused on emoticon use effect of interpersonal communication and they did not disclose emoticon use effect and psychological mechanism in communication situation between company and consumer. Therefore, this study examined the mediating role of emotional variables (warmth, competence, playfulness) and the moderating role of individual differences variable(consumer’s visiting orientation) in the brand fan page. As a result, it was found that when the company uses emoticons consumer perceive the warmth and playfulness of brand more highly. Also, consumer’s visiting orientation plays a moderating role in these relationships. Specifically, Consumers who are higher the motivation of relationship-seeking, the higher perceived warmth and playfulness of the brand when company use the emoticons. On the other hand, Consumers who are higher the motivation of information-seeking, perceived the competence for emoticon use lowerly. But rather they are perceived more competence when they are text based not using emoticons. Furthermore, these relationships have an important influence on consumer’s message trust and revisit intention. Finally, Based on the results of this study, we suggest implications for corporate emoticon communication strategy.
The purpose of this study is to understand consumers’ boycott decision making process and to extend literature on boycott behavior by examining the factors that influence on consumers’ boycott participation decision, and identifying the relationship between the factors. First, the effects of consumers’ empathic responses high or low) to the victim of a target company generated incident and consumers’ perceived overall expected participation of others in a boycott on their likelihood of boycott participation were demonstrated. Second, the interaction of the two variables on consumers’ likelihood of boycott was also identified. Third, the moderating role of the severity of incidents was also exploratively examined. The data were collected from undergraduate students(N = 321) at a large city university in and ANOVAs were employed to determine the relationships between the variables. The results show that the main effects of both of consumers’ perceived empathic level and overall expected participation on their likelihood of boycott participation were significant. Further, the interaction effect of consumers’ perceived empathic level and overall expected participation on their likelihood of boycott was also significant. On the other hand, the moderating role of the severity of incidents was found to be significant in the effect of consumers’ perceived empathic level on their likelihood of boycott participation. However, there was no significant moderating effect in the effect of consumers’ perceived overall expected participation on their likelihood of boycott participation. Detailed academic discussions that extend the consumers’ boycott decision making process and managerial implications for practices based on the results of this study are provided in the conclusion section.
There have been two different theories which result in conflicting predictions regarding the influence of homogeneous and heterogeneous recommenders. While homophily principle emphasizes the importance of a homogeneous recommender, diffusion model argues vice versa. The present study tried to integrate these two theories especially in the context of social curation service. Regulatory focus is suggested as a moderator variable which moderates the effect of recommenders’ homophily cue on information seeking intention in the short and long terms, and their personal influence. An experiment was conducted in order to test the hypotheses. The result generally supported homophily principle. However, there was a significant interaction effect between recommenders’ homophily cue and participants’ regulatory focus. As hypotheses expected, the promotion focused group sought heterogeneous recommenders more often compared to the prevention focused group did. Moreover, promotion focused participants preferred recommendations given by heterogeneous recommenders over homogeneous recommenders. They also reported higher intention to accept heterogeneous recommenders’ recommendations. The prevention focused group, on the other hand, reported preference and higher intention to accept homogeneous recommenders’ recommendations over that of heterogeneous recommenders. Theoretical and practical implications were further discussed.
This study examined whether the mere sharing of an experience with other increases its hedonic value (satisfaction) as well as economic valuation. Female participants were asked to rate the taste and monetary value of food (bread) they tasted together with a same-sex confederate. The participant and confederate tasted either their own food or after sharing the food with the partner. Compared to those in the eating-alone condition, participants in the food-sharing condition thought the same food was significantly more tasty and were willing to pay approximately 40% higher price for the food (Study 3). However, people failed to forecast the enhancing power of sharing involved in eating experience (Studies 1-2). The critical role of social element in consumer behavior and satisfaction and its implications are discussed.