Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Regulating Relationship Needs Via Joint Consumption: An Attachment Perspective, Jana M. Rosewarne

Doctoral Dissertations

Attachment style functions to regulate affect in relationships. I hypothesized that consumer decisions serve a similar purpose, producing distinct patterns of product preferences depending on people’s attachment goals. In a series of studies, I found that attachment avoidance predicted reduced preference for products framed as meeting closeness relationship goals and greater preference for products framed as meeting autonomy goals. The link between attachment anxiety and product preference depended on consumers’ emotions (S2) and relationship commitment (S3). Attachment style also predicted differences in the extent to which consumers thought about their partners when choosing products and their perceptions of how consumption …

Exploring The Role Of Collective Narcissism In Sport Team Identification, Ben Larkin

Doctoral Dissertations

Team identification is among the most widely studied concepts in sport fan behavior. This is largely due to the fact that highly identified fans exhibit drastically different and more avid consumption and purchase behavior compared to those low and/or moderate on team identification. Most notably, this has been manifested in a greater propensity to attend games, watch the team on television, and purchase team merchandise. While the study of team identification has focused both on its development and outcomes, one constant is that scholars have generally assumed team identification to take the form of a healthy and positive team attachment. …

May I Help You? How Stereotypes And Innuendoes Influence Service Encounters, Lauren Michelle Brewer

Doctoral Dissertations

"You only get one chance to make a good first impression." The dissertation focuses on marketing agents; among the most visible is the "service provider." Previous research establishes the important role of cognitive social schemata in determining the way consumers react to different types of marketing agents, including service providers. In the literature review, a classification schema is developed for service provider stereotypes derived from theory using social stereotypes. The development of the Service Provider Perception Framework (SPPF) creates a classification for the individual service provider along two main dimensions: competence and affect.

In services design (particularly situations involving a …

An Empirical Investigation Of A Model Of Environmentally Concerned Consumer Behavior And Its Determinants: The Moderating Role Of Market Mavenship And Product Involvement, Kishwar A. Joonas

Doctoral Dissertations

Extant literature offers incomplete explanations of environmentally concerned consumer behavior (ECCB), based on subsets of determinants. In this study, I have presented an integrated model of ECCB, and examined the main effects of three key psychological determinants (environmentally concerned beliefs and attitudes, personal norm, and perceived consumer effectiveness) and two key socio-cultural determinants (injunctive norm and collectivist orientation), on four dimensions of ECCB, namely purchase behavior, search for information, conserving behavior, and supporting intent. The study also examined the interactional effects of market mavenship and involvement on these direct linkages.

I conducted a national online survey among members of environmental …

An Exploratory Study On The Relationships Among Electorate's Voting Behavior, Party Identification, Personal Values, And Demographic Characteristics, Kuan-Shun Chiu

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was proposed to examine if there existed significant differences in voters' party identification and voting behavior due to gender, race, age, income, education and personal values.

The sample was chosen from eligible voters in Florida. Of the 1500 questionnaires managed, 161 were identified as useable. The sample was representative of the results of 2000 presidential election in Florida with respect to voters' gender, race, income, and voting choice by party identification. Statistical techniques used were ANOVAs, Chi-square statistics, factor analysis, and logistic regression.

This study demonstrates how personal values may be associated with demographic characteristics to create a …

The Effects Of Ethnicity, Ethnic Salience And Ethnic Identification On Consumers' Sources Of Information And Purchase Behavior, Patricia Wooten Humphrey

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were any significant differences in the search and purchase behavior between white and black consumers due to ethnicity, ethnic identification, ethnic salience and ethnic situation.

The sample was chosen from two universities, one predominately white, the other predominately black. Of the 360 questionnaires administered, 345 were usable. The sample was representative of the student population of each university with respect to age, gender, and ethnicity. Statistical techniques used were ANOVAs, t-tests and paired comparisons.

The findings indicate that ethnicity plays an important role in an individual's sources of information used …