ON WILLINGNESS TO BUY

AWE AND ITS INFLUENCE

ON WILLINGNESS TO BUY

VIA THE SMALL SELF

MSc Thesis Charlotte van Zuthem S2186500

Problem statement

 Awe inducing stimuli in

advertising all around us

 E.g. Vichy, Milka & Almhof

 Little research on downstream

effects on consumer behavior

(Rudd et al., 2011)

 Does awe lead the consumer in

the desired direction?

What is awe?

 Awe is characterized by (Keltner & Haidt, 2003):  Vastness

 Need for accommodation  Experiences of awe:

 Awesome nature

 Wonder at childbirth

 Admiration for person with exceptional ability

 Awe has the power to transform (Keltner & Haidt, 2003) 

The Self

 Self-concept

 Products/ brands relevant for the self concept: Range Rover, Chanel bag

 Self symbolization (Grubb & Grathwohl, 1967) = relationship consumption of

goods and enhancing of the self-concept

 Part of the self-enhancement concept

 Self transcendence is the opposite of self-enhancement (Schwartz, 1994):

 Self-enhancement: social superiority & self-centered satisfaction

 Self-transcendence: enhancement of others & transcendence of selfish interest

Self transcendence

 Self transcendence: (Koltko-Rivera, 2006; Schwartz et al. 2001):

 Universalism  Benevolence

The small self & materialism

 Self transcendence can be elicited by awe (Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012)

 Joye and Bolderdijk (2015) label this self-transcendent state, triggered by

awe, as the small self

 One’s own being and goals feel less important  One feels small and humble

Thus awe leads to a shift in values, how does it influence the values consumers hold?

 Values consumers hold regarding material goods = materialism  Increase in materialism

Awe influencing consumer values

 Self-symbolization is part of self-enhancement  Awe triggers self-transcendence/ small self

 Self-transcendence and self-enhancement are not able to co-exist  self-enhancement  urge to buy symbolic goods

 Lower willingness to buy of material goods  Lower materialism

 Existing literature about possible link between awe and materialism:

Moderator: product involvement

 Involvement = an unobservable state reflecting the amount of interest, arousal, or

emotional attachment a consumer has with a product (Bloch, 1986).

 Can also be applied to brands (Hoyer et al. 2012)

 Enduring product involvement:

 High levels of involvement  Stable across time and place  Sign dimension

 High involvement  extended decision making, thorough information seeking 

less room for emotional judgement

Hypotheses

H1: Inducing awe-related stimuli leads to the small self

H2: The Small Self leads to (a) lower willingness to buy of material goods and thus to (b) lower level of materialism.

H3: The relationship between awe and (a) WTB of material goods and (b) materialism is mediated by the small self.

Methods (1) – Design and participants

 DV’s = willingness to buy of material goods & materialism  Mediator = the small self

Methods (2) – Materials

1. Materialistic Values Scale 1 (Richins & Dawson, 1992)

 6 items

 E.g. “I admire people who own expensive homes, cars, and clothes”

2. Manipulation

 awe versus pride scenarios (Shiota et al., 2007; Piff et al., 2015)

3. Emotion measurement (Piff et al. 2015)

 Amusement, awe, disgust, anger, fear, pride, sadness and happiness

4. Smallness index (Shiota et al., 2007; Huta & Ryan, 2010; Piff et al., 2015)

 4 items

Methods (2) – materials

5. Willingness to buy

 luxury vs non-luxury

 Laptops, mobile phones, watches, sunglasses and shower

foam

6. Materialistic Values Scale 2

 9 items

8. Enduring product involvement scale (Zaichkowsky, 1985)

 20 items

 E.g. Important : Unimportant, Irrelevant : Relevant

Results (1)

Relationship Test Significant Hypothesis

Scenario writing test One-Way ANOVA Yes (p < .001) Direct effect of awe on

WTB

One-Way ANOVA No Direct effect of awe on

materialism

One-Way ANCOVA No

Awe leads to small self One-Way ANOVA Yes (p < .001) H1: accepted Direct relationship between

the small self and WTB

Correlation No H2a: could not be

confirmed Direct relationship between

the small self and materialism

Partial correlation Yes (p =.02 r = .31), thus moderate positive

Results (2) – mediation & moderation

Mediation analysis (small self) for WTB

Model 4 of PROCESS tool by A.F. Hayes (2013)

No H3a: could not be

confirmed Mediation analysis (small

self) for materialism

Model 4 of PROCESS tool by A.F. Hayes (2013)

Yes (LLCI: 0.0150 to ULCI: 0.2260)

H3b: could not be

confirmed (because small self leads to higher

materialism) Moderation analysis (EI) for

WTB

Model 1 of PROCESS tool by A.F. Hayes (2013)

No H4a: could not be

confirmed Moderation analysis (EI) for

materialism

Model 1 of PROCESS tool by A.F. Hayes (2013)

Yes, only for watches p = .03 (LLCI: .3980 to ULCI: -.0717)

H4b: accepted only for watches

Results (3)

Discussion – Connection and relevance to

existing literature

 Established evidence:

 Awe leads to the small self, confirms findings Joye & Bolderdijk (2015) and Piff et al. (2015)

 New evidence:

 Small self leads to higher materialism  Mediation effect

 Awe leads to higher materialism via the small self

 Moderation effect

 EI in watches

 Coincidence, gift-giving, self symbolization

 Inconsistency with existing literature:

Discussion – limitations and suggestions

 Small sample (N = 56), drop-out rate of 63,4%

 Homogeneous sample: young Dutch females in possession of bachelors degree  Recall condition

Suggestions for the future:

 Generate a measurement scale for self-transcendence

 Self-transcendence might be something different as the small self

 More easy manipulation, through VR glasses (Chirico et al., 2017)  More heterogenous and larger sample

 Distribute survey in national language  Looking at other product categories

Practical implications

 Awe leads to the small self:

 When advertising symbolic goods: NO

 When advertising goods that benefit society: YES

 Awe leads to higher materialism via the small self

 If a company want to increase materialism amongst consumer they could expose

them to awe. Note however, that this positive relation between the small self and materialism was moderate.

 No direct and indirect relationship could be confirmed between awe and

WTB.

 Means that still no downstream effects on actual buying behavior of consumers are

Thank you for