• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.41-59
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• 2003

The present study was conducted to (1) explore the perceptions of Korean men and women about what is an important relationship for them and how do each gender group construe relational self, and (2) develop the scale to assess the factors of relational self and verify construct validity of the scale. 40 college students and 60 adults participated in survey and FGI (Focused Group Interview) respectively, and content analysis of their responses yielded 2 categories with 39 characteristics of relational self. The one category was named 'instrumentality' which was important to men and the other was named 'expressivity' which was important to women. The list of 39 items was administered to a nationwide sample of 1503 Korean adults to assess their construal of relational self through the 6-point Likert scale. Principal axis factor analysis showed that the two categories were unidimensional with high reliability. As a result of factor analysis on each category, a total of 9 factors were extracted. Specifically, the instrumentality consisted of factors such as utilitarianism, independence, initiativeness, self-assurance, and competence. And the factors of expressivity were empathy, passiveness, dependency, consideration. The tests of mean difference revealed that men had higher scores in most of the instrumental factors, while women had higher scores in most of the expressive factors. But there was no sex difference in the interdependent self-construal scale(Cross, 2000) which has been frequently used for measuring relational self. This is related to the Korean's collective cultural characteristics, and it was concluded that the relationship with others is very important to both Korean men and women, but the meaning and expectation of the relationship as well as the method for its preservation are different to each sex group. In addition, the correlation analyses indicated that the feminity score was positively correlated with the expressiveness while the masculinity score was positively correlated with instrumentality. This result implicated the differences of relational self among Korean people were related to the socialization process of each sex, i.e., sex role identity. Finally, limitations of this study and the directions for future research were discussed.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.171-197
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• 2023

The traditional Korean society has been classified as an Eastern collectivist culture, but in the flow of globalization and digitalization along with the post-Cold War era of the 1970s, Western individualistic culture and values quickly permeated the Korean younger generation. Since rapid changes occurred within a short period of time, there may be differences in cultural self-construal between generations living in the same era. Due to this, psychological problems related to emotional expression and suppression may appear differently depending on generations. Therefore, in the current study, 1,000 Korean adult men and women from their 20s to 60s were investigated for their level of independent and interdependent self-construal, alexithymia, ambivalence over emotional expression(AEE) and emotional suppression(ES). Then the relationship between the variables(self-construal and alexithymia,) and the mediating process of AEE and ES were examined. The generation of participants were divided into the industrialization cohort (birth year < 1970) and the digitalization cohort (birth year starting from 1970). Using the PROCESS macro(Hayes, 2022), we tested a serial mediation model of AEE and ES between the relative independent self-construal(RIS) and alexithymia. The results indicate that the level of alexithymia increases by the serial increase of AEE and ES when RIS decreases. Next, we examined a moderation effect of generatione on the mediation process of AEE and ES, and found that generation moderates the relationship between ES and alexithymia. That is, the effect of ES on alexithymia is significant for the digitalization cohort, while it is not significant for the industrialization cohort. The current results imply that emotion regulation strategies of Koreans have been differently developed according to prevailing cultural values in each generation, and that the negative influence of emotion suppression could be different according to the cultural background of each generation.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.133-173
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• 2013

Consumers empty perfectly safe to intake perishable foods everyday if they are older than what prints on expiration date. The variation in expiration dating is freshness labeling represented in various terms such as sell by, package, best before, and so on. Regardless of the terms used and meanings are attached, consumers tend to conceive of freshness labeling on food as end of its shelf-life. Consequently, the food waste becomes a big issue for businesses in food sector. In an effort to demonstrate flexibility on this, KFDA(Korea Food & Drug Administration) introduced "best before" date in domestic market place to reduce food waste, based on the food safety test conducted by KCA(Korea Consumer Agency 2009). The results indicated freshness labeling on food should not be considered as the end of its life. Current study examined the underlying mechanisms(i.e. risk perception, self-construals, and indecisiveness) that influence consumers' intention on prolonged consumption of food beyond its stamped date when the KCA test results are shown to them. In addition, the moderating effect of regulatory focus is tested in the causal relationships between underlying mechanisms and different groups of prolonged consumption intention. Study participants are divided into three groups of prolonged consumption intention: no-change, moderate-change, and wide-change. The group with moderate-change in intention being as our point of reference, logistic regression analyses are conducted on 276 sample population. The results indicated that consumers with high source credibility risk are likely to show wide-change in intention on prolonged consumption while physical risk did not show significance. The consumers with independent self-construal are likely to show no-change in intention on prolonged consumption while interdependent self-construal did not show significance. Indecisiveness showed association a group with wide-change in intention on prolonged consumption. The moderating effect of regulatory focus showed valid results in most situations; the promotion-focused consumers showed wide-change in intention, while prevention-focused consumers showed no-change in intention. Furthermore, the moderating effect of promotion-focus showed a dominant position over the causal effect of indecisiveness in which decisive consumers(i.e. no-change in intention); if they are promotion-focused they tend show for the wide-change in intention instead. It is important to note that for those promotion-focused consumers(or situations), promotion-related arguments are more effective, while for those prevention-focused consumers(or situations) prevention- related arguments are more effective means of persuasion.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.177-203
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• 2014

It is well known that personality and situation which person possess have an impact on the relationships between stress coping and psychological wellbeing. Although most of studies on cultural self-construal have used the concept of individual/collectivism (independent/interdependent) scale, a part of research showed that it was not similar results when the concepts were used with Korean samples. We applied new scale, subjective-objective self, to our study. Two hundred eighty three participants (M = 21.66) participated in the present research. We found that persons with higher subjective self used more problem solving and seeking help, and less denial coping methods. Next, the higher subjective self influenced happiness and interpersonal relationship satisfaction. Finally, the coping methods of problem solving and seeking help influenced more happiness and interpersonal relationship satisfaction among people with higher objective self than did among people with higher subjective self. The implication for study were discussed.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.445-456
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• 2013

This study addresses the relationship between individual differences regarding self-concept, measured by Self Concept Clarity (SCC) scale and Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal and relationships (RISC) scale, and diverse affective consequences after choice behavior. We hypothesized that lower self-concept clarity and higher relational interdependence would be related to increased susceptibility to choice context-for example, how a choice set is constructed based on one's initial preference. We examined how variations in a choice set can produce different affective consequences after making choices, and investigated the underlying neural mechanism using fMRI. In this experiment, participants first rated their preferences for art posters, and made a series of choices from a presented set. After the choice task, they completed post-choice measures including preferences for the chosen posters, as well as measures of their self-concept clarity and relational interdependence. Our behavioral results demonstrated that when participants faced more conflicting choice context, self-concept clarity was related to more positive affective consequences after choice, whereas relational interdependence was correlated with a lower second-rated attractiveness of the chosen option. The neuroimaging analysis of choice-making revealed that self-concept clarity and the degree of their relational interdependence served as modulators in shaping how one perceives and experiences the same decision-making process. These results have theoretical and practical importance in that it is one of the first studies investigating the influence of the individual differences regarding self-concept on value-based decision making process among diverse choice set contexts.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.21-43
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• 2006

This study was conducted to explore college students' implicit identification with others powerful or powerless, and implicit association of self-enhancement & authenticity with their relationships with others powerful or powerless. The study was based on measuring 3 sorts of IAT: an explicit identification test, RWA, & RISC. The results were summed up as follows: Students identified their selves with others more powerful than others powerless; expressed self-enhancement when they were with powerful others; and associated 'true' with relationship with others powerful. Men with high RWA & women with low RWA identified their selves more with others powerful; low RWA & high RISC groups' associated relationship with others powerful to 'true' and others powerless to 'false' more rapidly. These results were discussed in terms of structure of authoritarianism, SEM, relationship with others powerful and powerless.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.36
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• pp.254-286
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• 2006

The purpose of the present study is to examine how visitors of personal web sites evaluate self presentation styles. We hypothesized that visitors' gender, self construals, and self esteem would influence the evaluation (likeability and perceived competence) of the self presentation styles (bragging or positive presentation). The hypothesized models were tested with structural equation modeling. Gender differences among the constructs were also examined through latent mean analysis. The results revealed that females tended to have higher interdependent self construal than males. And the male and the female students showed higher likeability toward the self presentations of the other gender. Regarding perceived competence, women and men perceived the other gender more competent, and especially, women perceived men's bragging presentation more competent. Self construals and self esteem, however, did not show any significant effects, which were inconsistent with the results of the previous studies conducted with offline self presentation styles. One of the main implications of this study is that visitors' gender, among other things, is the most infueltial factor in perceiving and evaluating others' self presentation through personal web sites.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-25
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• 2010

Motion pictures are so typical experience goods that consumers tend to look for more credible information. Hence, movie audiences consider movie viewers' reviews more important than the information provided by the film distributor. Recently many portal sites allow consumers to post their reviews and opinions so that other people check the number of consumer reviews and scores before going to the theater. There are a few previous researches studying the electronic word of mouth(eWOM) effect in the movie industry. They found that the volume of eWOM influenced the revenue of the movie significantly but the valence of eWOM did not affect it much (Liu 2006). The goal of our research is also to investigate the eWOM effects in general. But our research is different from the previous studies in several aspects. First, we study the eWOM effect in Korean movie industry. In other words, we would like to check whether we can generalize the results of the previous research across countries. The similar econometric models are applied to Korean movie data that include 746,282 consumer reviews on 439 movies. Our results show that both the valence(RATING) and the volume(LNMSG) of the eWOM influence weekly movie revenues. This result is different from the previous research findings that the volume only influences the revenue. We conjectured that the difference of self construal between Asian and American culture may explain this difference (Kitayama 1991). Asians including Koreans have more interdependent self construal than American, so that they are easily affected by other people's thought and suggestion. Hence, the valence of the eWOM affects Koreans' choice of the movie. Second, we find the critical defect of the previous eWOM models and, hence, attempt to correct it. The previous eWOM model assumes that the volume of eWOM (LNMSG) is an independent variable affecting the movie revenue (LNREV). However, the revenue can influence the volume of the eWOM. We think that treating the volume of eWOM as an independent variable a priori is too restrictive. In order to remedy this problem, we employed a simultaneous equation in which the movie revenue and the volume of the eWOM can affect each other. That is, our eWOM model assumes that the revenue (LNREV) and the volume of eWOM (LNMSG) have endogenous relationship where they influence each other. The results from this simultaneous equation model showed that the movie revenue and the eWOM volume interact each other. The movie revenue influences the eWOM volume for the entire 8 weeks. The reverse effect is more complex. Both the volume and the valence of eWOM affect the revenue in the first week, but only the volume affect the revenue for the rest of the weeks. In the first week, consumers may be curious about the movie and look for various kinds of information they can trust, so that they use the both the quantity and quality of consumer reviews. But from the second week, the quality of the eWOM only affects the movie revenue, implying that the review ratings are more important than the number of reviews. Third, our results show that the ratings by professional critics (CRATING) had negative effect to the weekly movie revenue (LNREV). Professional critics often give low ratings to the blockbuster movies that do not have much cinematic quality. Experienced audiences who watch the movie for fun do not trust the professionals' ratings and, hence, tend to go for the low-rated movies by them. In summary, applied to the Korean movie ratings data and employing a simultaneous model, our results are different from the previous eWOM studies: 1) Koreans (or Asians) care about the others' evaluation quality more than quantity, 2) The volume of eWOM is not the cause but the result of the revenue, 3) Professional reviews can give the negative effect to the movie revenue.