• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2019

The present study investigates how consumers' construal level affects their variety seeking behavior when choosing multiple items simultaneously. Especially the authors focus on the perceptual level at which variety seeking takes place and propose that variety seeking can take place not only at brand level but also at category or subcategory level. Categorical variety seeking refers to diversification of one's choices over multiple brands not within the same category but across multiple categories. Building on construal level theory, the authors expected that people engaging in higher-level construals tend to subcategorize the choice set and distribute their choices across more subcategories and designed four experiments to test the related hypotheses. The experimental results showed that consumers' construal level can affect the level at which variety seeking takes place and those with higher construal level tend to choose options seemingly more dissimilar to each other.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.11-20
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the construal level and temporal distance of a message and consumer's Social Network Service (SNS) self-efficacy on consumers' attitudes toward SNS fashion advertising. This study employed a 2 (message configuration: high construal level/low construal level) ${\times}$ 2 (temporal distance: distant future/near future) ${\times}$ 2 (SNS self-efficacy: high/low) between-subject factorial design. The survey was conducted on Facebook users in their twenties (N=216). The results are as follows: First, attitude toward SNS fashion advertising and purchase intention was higher when the message construal level was lower and when the temporal distance was closer. Second, no interactions between temporal distance and message construal level for attitude toward SNS advertising and purchase intention were found in this study. However, interactions between temporal distance and SNS self-efficacy for attitude toward SNS advertising and purchase intention were found. When the SNS self-efficacy was high, message with the low construal level reacted significantly positive in terms of attitude toward the ad as well as purchase intention. It is expected that this study will provide insight for apparel makers or retailers to use SNS as a new advertising media for fashion marketing. Practical implications and limitations are discussed.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.73-81
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• 2018

Purpose - When indulging in hedonic items is construed as wasteful and evokes anticipated regret or guilt, consumers are more likely to seek reasons to justify their indulgence. Justification requirement for spending on indulgences over necessities could lead to the places of their finding the ways that mitigate the anticipated regret and guilt. However the previous research focusing on consumers' own great effort leading to positive outcomes has not given much attention to other's outcomes induced from his or her little or no efforts, by which consumers could feel envy. The guilt associated with consumers' indulgence could vary according to envy type felt according to their evaluation about other's outcomes and their self construal level. Current research explored the envy type's effects on consumers' spending on hedonic products, and moderation effects of self construal level on the envy type's effects. Research design, data, and methodology - 2(envy type: benign versus malicious) × 2(self construal level: high versus low) between-subjects design was employed. Data for empirical analysis were from 173 undergraduate participants. ANOVA was used to verify hypotheses. Results - The tendency of choosing utilitarian product versus hedonic product was moderated by the envy type. The participants who felt benign envy were more likely to choose utilitarian product versus hedonic product than those who felt malicious envy were. And the tendency of benign envy-felt participants' choosing hedonic versus utilitarian product was more weakened to those with lower-level self construal than to those with higher-level self construal. However the tendency of malicious envy-felt participants' choosing hedonic versus utilitarian product was not moderated by the self construal level. Conclusions - This research could advance the theory related to indulgent hedonic consumption by exploring the effects of self construal level and envy type on hedonic indulgence. In view of the results from current study, marketers should make efforts of communicating and selling utilitarian products to persuade consumers with lower-level construal when they feel benign envy to others. And they should conduct marketing acts for hedonic products to persuade consumers when they feel malicious envy to others.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.131-142
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• 2013

The current study examined how different level of self-constol and construal level influences game users' game addiction. Also we explored the interaction effect between the individual's self-control and construal level on game addiction. To answer the research questions, we conducted an online survey and total 918 participants were selected for the final analysis. According to the results, users with low level of self-control and low-level construal showed higher level of game addiction. In addition, we found a significant interaction effect between self-control and construal-level on game addiction. In high self-control group, game addiction level was low regardless of level of self-construal. However, in low self-control group, the level of construal-level affected game addiction. We found that construal-level played an important mediating variable. These findings suggest a noble insight for autonomous control in alleviatinggame addiction by changing one's level of self-control and self-construal.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.760-777
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• 2023

Fashion brands seek guidelines for effective green advertising messages, considering benefit appeals, brand types, and construal level. However, few studies have explored their simultaneous interplay. Thus, the present study conducted an experiment with a 2X2X2 between-subjects design to investigate how brand type and construal level moderate the mediating role of ad-brand congruency between benefit appeals and purchase intention. A total of 245 Millennials and Generation Z participants completed an online survey, and the data were analyzed using SPSS. A significant three-way interaction was revealed. Low-construal-level messages with concrete content showed disparities between aspirational and accessible brands concerning other-benefit appeals: Accessible brands utilizing other-benefit appeals demonstrated higher ad-brand congruency, while aspirational brands had lower ad-brand congruency. Furthermore, within aspirational brands, self-benefit appeals resulted in higher ad-brand congruency than other-benefit appeals. Finally, a moderated mediating effect was discovered, indicating that brand types and construal level moderated the mediating effect of ad-brand congruency between benefit appeals and purchase intention. The mediating effect was prominent in the context of self-benefit appeals, aspirational brands, and low-construal-level messages. This study highlights the intricate dynamics of the three factors in green advertising, providing valuable insights for crafting more targeted green advertisements.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2020

Purpose: Understanding which product types of overseas travel (free independent travel vs. package travel) consumers will choose is one of the key issues of marketing and consumer behavior in travel agency management. Prior studies on overseas travel type preferences mainly focused on comparing regional differences (e.g., Asian vs. Westerner, or Korean vs. Australian, or Korean vs. Japanese, or American, French, Italian vs. Japanese) influencing the choice of overseas travel type. Another researchers focused on comparing cultural differences (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism, or individualistic culture vs. collectivistic culture), subcultural difference (e.g., acculturation; Koreans living in Republic of Korea vs. Koreans living in Australia), travel lifestyle, and socio-demographics (e.g., age, gender, income level, education level, marital status, occupation etc.). However, there are few studies that identify individual psychological differences (i.e., individual psychological differences within the same culture) influencing the choice of overseas travel type. Self-construal is a psychological factors that greatly influences choice behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of self-construal as an antecedent variable influencing choice of overseas travel product type. Research design, data and methodology: To achieve the purpose of this study, the questionnaire survey method was used. Self-construal items composed of independent self-construal items and interdependent self-construal items. Product types of overseas travel were free independent travel (FIT) type versus package travel type. In this study, the correlation coefficient between independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal was nonsignificant. It meant that the relationship between independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal was orthogonal. Therefore it was analyzed that independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal separately. Reliability analysis, factor analysis, and logistic regression analysis (controlling gender and age) was used as the data analysis method. Results: According to the results of this study, the stronger independent self-construal, the more preference for the free independent travel type rather than package travel, and the stronger interdependent self-construal, the more preference for the package travel type rather than free independent travel. Conclusions: Self-construal is an antecedent variable influencing the choice of travel type. Travel agencies must consider the consumer's self-construal (independent self-construal vs. interdependent self-construal) before planning and designing overseas travel products.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.49-65
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• 2017

Financial products entail either gains or losses, and customers' psychological reaction to these gains and losses affect the selection of the financial products. This study explains the financial customers' behavior by introducing consumers' psychological variables such as loss aversion and construal levels. According to the construal level theory, people use more abstract and higher levels of construal to represent objects that are more distant on psychological distance. Based on extant research about loss aversion and construal levels, this study proposes two hypotheses and test the hypotheses. The experimental study examines how loss aversion affects the choice between deposit products and fund products in short-term and long-term investment situations. In the long-term condition the respondents prefer fund products to deposit products, whereas in the short-term condition the respondents have showed the opposite result. Also, the effects of loss aversion on preferences for financial products have interacted with the time horizon of investments. Implications and limitations are discussed to establish more effective marketing strategies based on the results of this study.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.129-149
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• 2021

Recently, interest in social robots that can socially interact with humans is increasing. Thanks to the development of ICT technology, social robots have become easier to provide personalized services and emotional connection to individuals, and the role of social robots is drawing attention as a means to solve modern social problems and the resulting decline in the quality of individual lives. Along with the interest in social robots, the spread of social robots is also increasing significantly. Many companies are introducing robot products to the market to target various target markets, but so far there is no clear trend leading the market. Accordingly, there are more and more attempts to differentiate robots through the design of social robots. In particular, anthropomorphism has been studied importantly in social robot design, and many approaches have been attempted to anthropomorphize social robots to produce positive effects. However, there is a lack of research that systematically describes the mechanism by which anthropomorphism for social robots is formed. Most of the existing studies have focused on verifying the positive effects of the anthropomorphism of social robots on consumers. In addition, the formation of anthropomorphism of social robots may vary depending on the individual's motivation or temperament, but there are not many studies examining this. A vague understanding of anthropomorphism makes it difficult to derive design optimal points for shaping the anthropomorphism of social robots. The purpose of this study is to verify the mechanism by which the anthropomorphism of social robots is formed. This study confirmed the effect of the human-likeness of social robots(Within-subjects) and the construal level of consumers(Between-subjects) on the formation of anthropomorphism through an experimental study of 3×2 mixed design. Research hypotheses on the mechanism by which anthropomorphism is formed were presented, and the hypotheses were verified by analyzing data from a sample of 206 people. The first hypothesis in this study is that the higher the human-likeness of the robot, the higher the level of anthropomorphism for the robot. Hypothesis 1 was supported by a one-way repeated measures ANOVA and a post hoc test. The second hypothesis in this study is that depending on the construal level of consumers, the effect of human-likeness on the level of anthropomorphism will be different. First, this study predicts that the difference in the level of anthropomorphism as human-likeness increases will be greater under high construal condition than under low construal condition.Second, If the robot has no human-likeness, there will be no difference in the level of anthropomorphism according to the construal level. Thirdly,If the robot has low human-likeness, the low construal level condition will make the robot more anthropomorphic than the high construal level condition. Finally, If the robot has high human-likeness, the high construal levelcondition will make the robot more anthropomorphic than the low construal level condition. We performed two-way repeated measures ANOVA to test these hypotheses, and confirmed that the interaction effect of human-likeness and construal level was significant. Further analysis to specifically confirm interaction effect has also provided results in support of our hypotheses. The analysis shows that the human-likeness of the robot increases the level of anthropomorphism of social robots, and the effect of human-likeness on anthropomorphism varies depending on the construal level of consumers. This study has implications in that it explains the mechanism by which anthropomorphism is formed by considering the human-likeness, which is the design attribute of social robots, and the construal level of consumers, which is the way of thinking of individuals. We expect to use the findings of this study as the basis for design optimization for the formation of anthropomorphism in social robots.

• 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.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.31-51
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• 2019

Construal level theory (CLT) have been researched in wide range of disciplines such as marketing, organizational study, psychology, or education. Current study asserts that CLT would explain the effect of different devices of PC and smartphone on interaction between human-computer interfaces and information systems use. In CLT, those who are far from an object in terms of physical, temporal, social or psychological distance, they construe their understanding as abstract (high level) and vice versa. We hypothesized different size of digital device will increase psychological distance and result in behaviors that correspond to present construal level. The analysis result shows that users of PC recognized that they are socially distant from the device and those of smartphone felt that they are socially close to the device. However, the device did not have significant effect on attention to essential information, advertisement preference, and immediacy. The implication to academia, practice and future research and limitations are also discussed.