Search | Korea Science

Kwak, Hae-Lie;Kim, Bom-Mae;Sohn, Young-Woo
- Science of Emotion and Sensibility
- /
- v.14 no.3
- /
- pp.361-370
- /
- 2011
We explore the priority between product attributes such as aesthetics and usability in consumer decision-making. In the recent study in Germany, consumers preferred a visually beautiful product but discounted the value of aesthetics in actual product choice (Diefenbach & Hassenzahl, 2009). In contrast to the individualistic culture which values personal needs(e.g., Germany), recognition from other members has great importance in the collectivistic culture (e.g., Korea). We propose that Korean consumers weigh greater value on the attribute easily perceived from the product appearance (i.e., aesthetics). We replicated the procedure of the study conducted in Germany. As expected, participants highly valued aesthetics rather than usability in product choice. As for aesthetics, participants were likely to choose an expensive but beautiful product; on the contrary a less expensive and less usable product were likely to be chosen as for usability (Study 1). Moreover, usability was sacrificed for aesthetics in the trade-off condition (Study 2). The participants who chose the beautiful product reported higher social recognition desire whereas no difference was shown with respect to usability.
PDF