• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.239-268
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• 2004

This study examined the role of self-construals in marital satisfaction among men and women, and explored how independent and interdependent self-construals contribute to or undermine marital satisfaction. Data were drawn from a self-administered questionnaire study in which 489 married people(aged 25-75) residing in Seoul participated. Path analyses were conducted using Structural Equation Modeling Program, and a goodness of fit of the proposed path model was evaluated. As expected, the positive impact of independent self-construal on marital satisfaction was mediated by self-esteem and clarity of communication, and that of interdependent self-construal on marital satisfaction was mediated by psychological stability and a sense of relational well-being. The direct effects of these two types of self-construal on marital satisfaction were opposite. As predicted, independent self-construal decreased marital satisfaction, whereas interdependent self-construal increased it. All of the direct and indirect effects of independent and interdependent self-construals on marital satisfaction were statistically significant, except the indirect effect of interdependent self-construal as mediated by psychological stability. The goodness of fit indexes of the path model indicated that the model was acceptable. However, the results of separate path analyses for men and women showed that some of the effects of self-construals on marital satisfaction differed by gender. Based on these results, implications for clinical social work practice were discussed.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.55-76
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• 2007

This study investigated the relationship between emotional contagion and altruistic behaviors and also examined the moderating effect of self-construals(independent and interdependent self) in this relationship. It was hypothesized that the emotional expression of people in need would be caught by others through automatic mimicry, that emotional information would be internalized through the facial-feedback process and that the transferred emotion would eventually result in a motive to call for altruistic behaviors. In Study 1, participants watched a video clip about a disabled student reporting difficulties in school life but showing facial expression opposite to the contents of message to separate emotional contagion and empathy. Participants' decision to participate in voluntary works for the disabled student was measured. As a result, it was found that the more participants experienced emotional contagion, the more they participated in altruistic behaviors. Study 2 measured the vulnerability to emotional contagion, actual experiences of altruistic behaviors, and self-construals. The results of hierarchical regression showed that interdependent self moderated the influence of emotional contagion on altruistic behaviors whereas independent self moderated the relationship in an opposite direction. The implications of emotion and altruistic behaviors in human evolution process are discussed.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.261-273
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to find out how the online brand community characteristics affect customer behavior according to self-construal level and gender difference. The characteristics of online community are divided into interaction, objectivity, information provision, and activity reward. First, interactivity and activity compensation among the characteristics of online community have a positive effect on brand community commitment. On the other hand, the effect of purpose and information provision is insufficient. Second, the greater the commitment to the brand community, the higher the WOM effect is. Finally, this study shows that customers with dependent self-construal tendencies have more brand community support than customers with independent self-construal tendencies, and females show more brand community support than males. This study suggests an efficient marketing approach to companies through a brand community commitment by understanding the intrinsic motivation of consumers' self-construal level.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.678-686
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• 2021

A smiling face usually has a positive effect on interpersonal relationships by delivering a warm impression. However, the stereotype content model and compensation effect between warmth and competence suggested that warmth perceptions caused by a smiling face could influence competence perceptions negatively. This study examined the negative impact of the advertising endorser's smile on purchase intention in an expensive product category by adopting the self-construal level. The study results showed that consumers with independent-self construal (vs. interdependent self-construal) showed a lower purchase intention when exposed to an ad containing an endorser's smile. In comparison, consumers with interdependent-self construal (vs. independent self-construal) showed a lower purchase intention when exposed to an ad without an endorser's smile. Thus, this study demonstrated a moderating role of self-construal in the relationship between advertising endorser's smile and purchase intention. These findings provide valuable theoretical and practical implications for effective advertising strategies in the expensive product category.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.323-338
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• 2013

There are multiple process mechanism in causal reasoning, which is estimation of the causal strength between cause and result. Further, because these mechanisms operate on different time phase during causal reasoning, it is highly possible that different individual difference factors are related to individual mechanisms of causal reasoning. Especially, the phenomena of conditionalization and discounting reflect attention to multiple potential causes when people infer the relationship between cause and effect. In this study, we manipulated self-construal which is an individual difference factor that reflects context sensitivity in cognition. As results, no difference was observed in conditionalization between individuals with an independent self-construal and those with an interdependent self-construal. However, independent self-construal group was observed to be lower in discounting than the interdependent self-construal group. The results indicate that conditionalization and discounting are independent cognitive process in human causal reasoning.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.177-201
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• 2012

This paper explored consumers' LoHAS purchasing behavior and factors influencing the behavior, including' self-construal, and LoHAS values, attitudes and behavior. First, this study investigated how self-construal affected LoHAS values, and then analyzed how LoHAS values influenced LoHAS attitude and behavior. Last, this study is to examine how the relationships among LoHAS values, LoHAS attitude and behavior are moderated by consumers' gender. We administerd a survey with undergraduates attending a university located in the metropolitan area. The analysis results indicate that interdependent self-construal affects LoHAS values. According to the analysis, both environmentalism and sustainability of LoHAS values also affect LoHAS attitude, and then the attitude influences LoHAS behavior. In addition, the results show that the relationships among LoHAS values, LoHAS attitude and behavior are not moderated by consumers' gender. This study shows the casual relationship between variables including self-construal, LoHAS values, attitude and behavior. In particular, this finding confirms that self-construal as one of psychological factors affects LoHAS consumers' values and behavior. Finally, based in the findings of this study, theoretical contribution and managerial implications are discussed.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.475-483
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• 2017

This study attempted to investigate how the effectiveness of value-oriented promotion for media contents depends on self-construal and incorporated Schwartz' value system theory(1992) and Gutman's means-end chain theory(1982) into the development of hypotheses. It was expected that media content promotion emphasizing "openness to change" value would be more appealing to those with independent self-construal, whereas media content promotion emphasizing "conservation" value would be more appealing to those with interdependent self-construal. These hypotheses were generally supported in a series of experiments. Also, the dynamic relationship among the four primary value dimensions proposed by Schwartz (i.e., openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, self-transcendence) was clearly validated in this study.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2016

Purpose Self-congruity deals with the effect of symbolic value-expressive attributes on consumer decision and behavior, which is the theoretical foundation of the "non-utilitarian destination positioning". Functional congruity refers to utilitarian evaluation of a product or service by consumers. In addition, recent years, social network services, especially mobile social network services have created many opportunities for e-WOM communication that enables consumers to share personal consumption related information anywhere at any time. Moreover, self-construal is a hot and popular topic that has been discussed in the field of modem psychology as well as in marketing area. This study aims to examine the moderating effect of self-construal on the relationship between self-congruity, functional congruity and tourists' positive electronic word of mouth (e-WOM). Design/methodology/approach In order to verify the hypotheses, we developed a questionnaire with 32 survey items. We measured all the items on a five-point Likert-type scale. We used Sojump.com to collect questionnaire and gathered 218 responses from whom have visited Korea before. After a pilot test, we analyzed the main survey data by using SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 18.0, and employed structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. We first estimated the measurement model for its overall fit, reliability and validity through a confirmatory factor analysis and used common method bias test to make sure that whether measures are affected by common-method variance. Then we tested the hypotheses through the structural model and used regression analysis to measure moderating effect of self-construal. Findings The results reveal that the effect of self-congruity on tourists' positive e-WOM is stronger for tourists with an independent self-construal compared with those with interdependent self-construal. Moreover, it shows that the effect of functional congruity on tourists' positive e-WOM becomes salient when tourists' self-construal is primed to be interdependent rather than independent. We expect that the results of this study can provide important implications for academic and practical perspective.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.193-222
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• 2010

This questionnaire study examined the processes linking complexity of self-construal to self-positivity conceptualized as taking multiple perspectives, self-acceptance and self-regulation that, in turn, affect psychological well-being among people with an experience of life-crisis during adulthood due to physical disability or divorce. Data were drawn from 359 adult Koreans residing in Seoul metropolitan area, including the physically disabled, the divorced, and their counterparts without a life-crisis experience during adulthood for comparison. On average, the life-crisis experience group(LEG) had a higher independent selfconstrual and a lower interdependent self-construal than the comparison group(CG). As predicted, complexity of self-construal contributed to taking multiple perspectives that helps searching for meaning, and this, in turn, was found to foster self-acceptance and self-regulation. Through these variables except self-regulation, complex self-construal contributed to psychological well-being as manifested by a higher level of positive emotion and a lower level of depression. As expected, while taking multiple perspectives fostered positive emotion both directly and indirectly through self-acceptance among LEG and CG, only in LEG it directly reduced depression. The comparative approach employed in this study enabled to discern that taking multiple perspectives promotes psychological well-being in LEG by contributing to both meaning making and positive attitude, whereas it promotes psychological well-being in CG primarily by fostering positive attitude. Finally implications for this study were discussed and directions for future research were suggested.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.95-119
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• 2010

Although there have been many studies regarding the inconsistency between consumers' attitudes and behavior, prior research has almost exclusively focused on the relationship between the attitude before behavior and the initial behavior. Relatively little research has been conducted on consumer satisfaction after purchase and post-purchase behavior. This research proposed that the relationship between satisfaction and post-purchase behavior is moderated by consumers' psychological characteristics such as need for cognitive closure(NCC) and temporal self-construal(SC). The need for cognitive closure refers to individuals' desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity. We assumed the need for cognitive closure as a major moderating variable because it is judged that the requirement for cognition clearly varies between when a consumer repurchases the same product and seeks a new alternative. Individuals who tend to end cognition due to time constraints or inappropriate conditions may display considerable cognitive impatience or impulsivity and has a higher probability in repurchasing the same product than a consumer without such limitations. They would avoid further consideration for new alternatives and the likelihood of the repurchase for prior alternative would increase. As hypothesized, significant moderating effect of the NCC was confirmed. This result gives a significant implication for a corporate to establish effective marketing strategies. For a corporate or product brand that has been occupying the market after entering the market earlier, it would be effective to maintain need for cognitive closure high in the existing consumers and thereby preventing the consumers from being interested in the new alternatives. On the other hand, new brands that have just entered the market need to lower the potential consumers' need for cognitive closure so that the consumers can be interested in new alternatives. Along with need for cognitive closure, temporal self-construal also turned out to moderate the satisfaction-repurchase. temporal SC reflects the extent to which individuals view themselves either as an individuated entity or in relation to others. Consumers under a temporarily independent SC would repurchase former alternative again according to their prior satisfaction and evaluation. In contrast, consumers in temporal interdependent SC tended to switch to a new alternative because they value interpersonal relationships above anything else and have a tendency to rely heavily on in-group opinions. When they are confronted with additional opinions, it is highly probable that he/she will choose a new product as an alternative. By proving the impact that temporal self-construal has on repurchasing behavior, this study is providing the marketers with new standards for establishing successful promotional strategies. For example, if the buyer and the user is the same for a product, it would be effective for the seller to convince the consumer to make decision subjectively by encouraging temporal independent self-construal. On the contrary, in the case where the purchase is made by an individual but the product is consumed by a group of people. For example, a housewife is more likely to choose the products or brands that her husband or children prefer rather than the ones that she likes by herself. In that case, emphasizing how the whole family can be satisfied and happy about the product would be effective for promoting repurchase.