• 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.10 no.1
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• pp.83-106
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• 2004

This study was conducted to explore how men's and women's self-construals do change according to gender-stereotype activation. The results showed that men have stronger gender-stereotypes and construe self more gender-stereotypic way than women. In general, women showed having less gender-stereotype but they construed self more stereotypic way. And the stereotype activation affected only on women to construe self less stereotypic way. Both men and women do accept physical appearance stereotypes more than other domains of gender-stereotype when they construe their selves. Gender-role stereotypes are more accepted by men than women, and gender-stereotypes of ability are more accepted by men but refused by women when stereotype was activated. And men accepted prescriptive gender-stereotype more than women. People of high gender-stereotype group construe self more stereotypic way than those of low stereotype group. But in low gender-stereotype group, women construe self less stereotypic way when stereotype is activated than when not. These results are taken to show, among others, that self-stereotyping of targets were different depending on whether the targets are man or woman, and that self stereotyping of an individual contributes to build a mechanism of maintaining gender-stereotype of a society to which he or she belongs.

• 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.

• 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 Community Nutrition
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.155-166
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• 2021

Objectives: Driven by a growth of single-person households and individualized lifestyles, solo dining in restaurants is an increasingly recognizable trend. However, a research gap exists in the comparison of solo and group diners' menu-decision making processes. Based on the self-control dilemma and the temporal construal theory as a theoretical framework, this study compared the ordering intentions of solo vs. group diners with healthy vs. indulgent (less healthy) entrées. The mediating role of consumption orientation and the moderating role of amount of menu nutrition information were further explored to understand the mechanism and a boundary condition. Methods: A scenario-based online survey was developed using a 2 (dining social context: solo vs. with others) × 3 (amount of menu nutrition information: no nutrition information vs. calories vs. calories/fat/sodium), between-subjects, experimental design. Consumers' level of nutrition involvement was controlled. A nationwide survey data (n = 224) were collected from a crowdsourcing platform in the U.S. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance, independent t-test, univariate analysis of covariance, and moderated mediation analyses. Results: Findings reveal that solo (vs. group) diners have less (vs. more) intentions to order indulgent menu items due to a more utilitarian (vs. more hedonic) consumption orientation in restaurant dining. Findings also show that solo (vs. group) diners have more (vs. less) intentions to order healthy menu items when the restaurant menu presented nutrition information including calories, fat, and sodium. Conclusions: The findings contribute to the literature of foodservice management, healthy eating, and consumer behavior by revealing a mechanism and an external stimuli of solo vs. group diners' healthy menu-decision making process in restaurants. Furthermore, the findings provide restauranteurs and health professionals with insights into the positive and negative impacts of menu nutrition labelling on consumers' menu-decisions.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.577-597
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• 2013

It has been known that it shows the negative correlation between social comparison and happiness. Nevertheless, the correlation depends on self-concept and motivation of comparison which a person take. Current study examined the effect of cultural self-concept (interdependent self, subjective-objective self) on social comparison and happiness (subjective well-being and psychological well-being), Total 2000 among 30-69 years old respondents participated in this survey. We found that, first, people with high interdependent self feel less happiness as they take more social comparison, but the people with low interdependent self do not show the relational pattern. Second, people with objective self show the negative correlation with happiness and social comparison, but there is no correlation with happiness and social comparison among people with subjective self. The implication for study were discussed.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.89-102
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• 2020

Consumers purchase gifts for themselves and for others. This research examined whether one's preferred purchase type (material or experiential) would depend on the gift recipient (self or others). A total of 200 participants took part in online studies via Amazon Mechanical-Turk. Based on the construal-level theory, people will focus on concrete product attributes for psychologically close objects; however, for psychologically distant objects, people will concentrate on abstract product attributes. Study 1 demonstrated that participants preferred material over experiential purchases in self-gifting situations, while they preferred experiential compared to material gifts for others. In Study 2, it was found that individual differences in emotional disconnection moderated the effect of gift recipient on preferred gift type. Specifically, the differences in preferred gift type increased as one's emotional disconnection level increased. The results of this research have theoretical implications in terms of extending construal-level theory to gift-purchasing behaviors. Furthermore, this research has practical implications for marketers and advertisers. Limitations and possible future research directions were also 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 Artificial Intelligence
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2020

In this paper, it is to identify the effects of differences in interpretation levels depending on the type of brand association and the brain psychological distance on the evaluation of the product of that brand through two experiments. To test our hypotheses empirically, we conducted online survey. We addressed the hypotheses involving the general and relative impact of actual and ideal self-congruence on emotional brand attachment (H1) and explored the effect of product involvement as the moderating variable (H1-1 and H1-2). The goal of this research was to validate the results from involving our basic model and to explore the impact of two additional moderating variables (self-esteem and public self-consciousness: H2). We followed the same procedure. This finding is theoretical to the extent of the interpretation level theory in brand association research by applying the interpretation level theory to the brand association, and provides the meaning that, in practice, it is necessary to utilize the message of different types of brain psychological distance depending on the brand association characteristics that the brand has in defining the brand. In particular, it was confirmed that functional brand associations and symbolic brand annals have representational harmonization, respectively, depending on the low and high levels of interpretation levels.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.14 no.1_spc
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• pp.319-348
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• 2008

Self-efficacy, achievement goals, task value, and attribution are some of the representative motivation constructs that explain adolescents' cognition, affect, and behavioral patterns in achievement settings. These constructs have won researchers' recognition by demonstrating explanatory and predictive utility that transcends various social and cultural milieus learners are exposed to. Korean adolescents' motivation is generally in line with this universal trend and can be described adequately with these constructs. Nonetheless, there also exist a host of indigenous factors that shape these motivation constructs to be uniquely Korean. The purpose of the present article was to explore some of the socio-cultural factors that appear to wield particularly determining effects on Korean adolescents' academic motivation. Review of the relevant literature identified interdependent self-construal, traditional morals of filial piety, familism, educational fervor, academic elitism, and the college entrance system as important cultural, social, and policy-related such factors. Also discussed in this article were the roles of these factors in creating more immediate psychological learning environments for Korean adolescents, such as parent-child relationships, teacher-student relationships, and classroom goal structures.