AWE AND ITS
INFLUENCE ON
WILLINGNESS TO
BUY VIA THE SMALL
SELF
MSc Thesis Marketing Management
KEYWORDS:
Awe, the small self, willingness to buy,
materialism and enduring product involvement.
C.M. van Zuthem
S2186500
ABSTRACT
In advertising, all around us we see awe-eliciting stimuli every day. However, little research has been conducted on the downstream effects that the emotion awe might have on consumer behavior. This research examines the effects of awe on willingness to buy of material goods and on materialism and looks at how the small self possibly mediates this relationship. Furthermore, it looks at the moderating effect of enduring product
involvement on this relationship. The small self is a state in which the consumer feels less like the center of the universe and cares more about society as a whole. Caring less about the self lowers the urge to buy symbolic goods. The results of this research indicate that awe leads to the small self and that the small self leads to higher materialism. Furthermore, this research found that awe leads to higher levels of materialism via the small self. However, no relationship is found between awe and lower willingness to buy. This research also revealed that high enduring product involvement in watches leads to high levels of materialism, however, this finding did not hold for any of the other tested product categories.
Master thesis Marketing Management
University of Groningen
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Awe and its influence on willingness to buy
via the small self
MSc Marketing Thesis
by
Charlotte van Zuthem
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc Marketing
June 2017
Spaarndammerstraat 115-2
1013 TD Amsterdam
0629238463
charlottevanzuthem@gmail.com
student number 2186500
First Supervisor: Yannick Joye
Second supervisor: Mehrad Moeini Jazani
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis marks the end of my Master Marketing and with that it marks the end of my studies. Writing this thesis has been a journey comprised of challenges and victories but above all it has been a true learning experience. I would like to thank several people for helping me through this process. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Yannick Joye who, by his detailed comments, always helped me to lift my thesis to the next level. Furthermore, I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional support during my entire studies. Finally, I would like to thank my boyfriend who had to listen to all my endless thesis stories.
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CONTENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 2 PROBLEM STATEMENT ... 5 INTRODUCTION ... 7 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ... 8The Emotion Awe ... 8
Main feature: vastness ... 8
Main feature: need for accommodation ... 8
Additional features ... 9
Awe in marketing practices ... 10
The Self ... 11
Self-enhancement versus self-transcendence ... 12
Shift in values ... 15
The small self ... 15
Materialism ... 17
The small self as a possible mediator ... 18
PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT ... 19
Situational involvement and Enduring involvement ... 19
CONCEPTUAL MODEL ... 21
METHODOLOGY ... 22
METHODS ... 22
Participants and Design ... 22
MATERIALS ... 22
Stimuli ... 22
MEASURES ... 24
Materialistic Values Scale ... 24
Emotion measurement ... 24
The smallness index ... 25
Willingness to buy ... 25
Enduring Product Involvement ... 27
PROCEDURE ... 28
RESULTS ... 29
Manipulation check ... 29
Emotion measurement ... 29
Direct effect of awe on WTB and Materialism ... 29
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Is awe related to materialism? ... 30
Awe and the small self ... 31
Is awe related to the small self? ... 31
The small self and WTB and Materialism ... 31
Is the small self related to WTB? ... 31
Is the small self related to materialism? ... 32
Mediation analysis ... 32 Willingness to buy ... 32 Materialism ... 33 Moderation analysis ... 33 Willingness to buy ... 33 Materialism ... 34 DISCUSSION ... 36 Findings ... 36
Potential limitations & suggestions for further research ... 38
Potential practical implications ... 40
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PROBLEM STATEMENT
Nowadays, we see awe provoking images in advertising a lot. But is this wise to do so? Does this really lead to a purchase in the end? Or may this withhold consumers from their purchase? To give an example, beauty brands make use of beautiful landscapes in their commercials. The reasoning behind this, could be, to indicate the source of important ingredients in their products. For example, Vichy and their thermal mineralizing water coming from the volcano Vichy source located in France. But also, chocolate and diary commercials like those of Milka and Almhof make use of images of grand mountains, like the Alpes in their commercials. For both brands, it is to indicate where their milk is coming from. But are these brands sure of the effects that their awe eliciting advertisement might have on consumers?
“Although marketers often incorporate awe-eliciting stimuli into promotional materials, surprisingly little is known about awe’s downstream effects.” (Rudd, Vohs and Aaker, 2011 p. 1)
As Rudd et al. (2011) state, the emotion awe is often used by marketers for advertising purposes. Such as in the Vichy, Milka and Almhof examples mentioned above. However, the downstream effects of this are not fully established. This means that the specific effects that awe has on its end consumers are not yet known. It could be that awe pushes the consumer in the direction of a purchase, however the opposite could also be true. Does awe lead to the desired customer behavior? Do marketers push the consumer in the desired direction when they elicit awe within them? What is awe exactly, and how does it influence consumption behavior? These are all important questions marketers should ask themselves before incorporating awe eliciting stimuli into their promotional material.
Awe is one of the seven positive emotions besides, joy, contentment, pride, love, compassion and amusement (Griskevicius et al., 2010). Positive emotions are important in the making and maintaining of social bonds and serve interpersonal functions (Shiota et al., 2004). Furthermore, positive emotions are said to wipe out the effects of negative emotions (Frederickson et al., 2000) and to help people in responding to opportunities that help them in building and broadening physical, intellectual and socials resources (Frederickson, 1998). Despite the supposedly beneficial effects of positive emotions, recent literature emphasizes that research on specific positive emotions and their distinct effects on behavior is still largely lacking (Cavanaugh et al., 2007; Lerner, Han & Keltner, 2007). Marketers invest highly in engineering positive emotions for consumers (Griskevicius, Shiota & Nowlis, 2010) and because of this it should be a top priority to conduct more consumer research on the specific effects of these positive emotions on consumer behavior. With awe being one of these distinct seven positive emotions that is understudied (Shiota, Keltner & John, 2006), studying the effects of awe on the buying
6 However, before studying the effects of awe, it is important to understand the concept of awe.
According to literature, the emotion awe is characterized by perceived vastness and a need for accommodation (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), meaning that it is triggered by something larger than ourselves which requires a need to alter existing thought schemas. Awe is also said to shift our focus outward instead of inward (Bonner & Friedman, 2011) and is found to be a trigger for pro-social behavior (Raihani & Bshary, 2012; Weinstein et al., 2009). This shift in values is triggered by what is called the self-diminishing effect (Joye & Bolderdijk, 2015) which makes people feel small (Piff et al., 2015) also referred to as the small self.
This self-diminishing effect is caused by a shift from self-enhancing values to self-transcending values which could possibly be triggered by awe. Self-enhancement is understood as the focus on enhancing one’s own relative success and dominance over others (Schwartz, 1994). Within a consumer context self-enhancement translates to the buying of goods that people use to confirm the self to themselves and to their social surrounding which is labeled as self-symbolization (Grubb & Grathwohl, 1967). Self-transcendence on the other hand means that people are driven by a need to live for something higher then themselves (Koltko-Rivera, 2006). This need shifts their focus outward instead of inward. Therefore, this self-transcendent state might lead consumers away from their constant urge to confirm the self by buying of material goods. Consequently, this might lead to a change in the consumption behavior of consumers.
In sum, this research will investigate what the influence of awe is on willingness to buy of material goods and how this relationship is mediated by the small self. Willingness to buy is used as a proxy for materialism where materialism is defined as the high value people place on the acquiring and owning of material goods.
However, the relationship between awe and willingness to buy (WTB) and materialism might also be influenced by other factors than the small self alone. It could also be influenced by product
involvement. Product involvement reflects the amount of interest, arousal, or emotional attachment a consumer has with a product (Bloch, 1986). When these three factors are at a constant high level (enduring product involvement), for the consumer for a specific product category, it could be expected that the buying choice for that product category will not be influenced by the seeing of awe eliciting promotional stimuli. Therefore, it is expected that when experiencing enduring involvement (EI), there will be high levels of WTB of material goods and high materialism regardless of awe.
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INTRODUCTION
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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The Emotion Awe
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein
As Einstein highlights, the mysterious is a trigger of awe. Next to this, the effects that awe has on our everyday life could also be considered mysterious since there is plenty left to discover when it comes to awe. Nevertheless, research regarding the meaning of awe and its building blocks is present. According to Keltner and Haidt (2003) awe is felt about diverse events and objects and is characterized by two central features being perceived vastness and a need for accommodation.
Main feature: vastness
Vastness here means “anything that is experienced as being much larger than the self, or the self’s ordinary level of experience or frame of reference” (Keltner & Haidt, 2003, p.303). It not only refers to physical size but also to social size such as fame, authority or prestige. But also to number, complexity of detail, ability and even in volume of human experience (Shiota, Keltner & Mossman, 2007).
Main feature: need for accommodation
The second feature, accommodation refers to a concept brought to us by the Piagetian theories of cognition. This theory is explained as the process of adjusting existing mental schemas that cannot capture the new experience (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966/1969). Piaget states that people understand the world through mental representations of experiences, defined as schemas, stored in the face of an everchanging environment (Piaget, 1970; Siegler, 1998). Piaget makes a distinction between
9 In sum, during an event, that evokes awe, something larger than the self is present and the existing mental schemas cannot assimilate this stimulus thus a need for accommodation occurs. Meaning that the existing mental schemas will be adjusted to process the new experience. Thus, awe involves vastness and a need for accommodation. However, it is important to realize that it is also possible that this need for accommodation fails (Keltner & Haidt, 2003; Sundarajan, 2002) and no new schemas are formed.
Additional features
In the previous section, it is explained that awe is characterized by vastness and a need for accommodation. However, awe is a very diverse emotion and can therefore appear to us in many different forms. Keltner and Haidt (2003) were aware of this and distinguished between four themes which according to them lead to the differences between awe-related states. These four themes are: threat, beauty, ability, and supernatural causality. Awe could be flavored by threat when it is built on terror which causes a form of delight (Burke, 1970). Awe can also be induced by beauty that brings aesthetic pleasure. This beauty can for example be found in awesome natural scenes (Joye and Bolderdijk, 2015) such as an enormous lake surrounded by mountains or a wide oceanic view. When admiration is combined with vastness it can lead to a feeling of awe which is labeled as ability. In this case, people experience awe because they admire a person which has exceptional ability. But only when they initially do not understand this ability (thus, accommodation is required) this can be labeled as awe. The final theme which is also connected to a specific awe state is labeled as supernatural causality. This is connected to God or some other supernatural being.
So far, it is established that awe is characterized by vastness and a need for accommodation and it can take many different forms. Like any other emotion, awe also has a distinct facial expression.
According to Shiota, Campos & Keltner (2003) awe is frequently characterized by raised inner eyebrows, widened eyes, and an open, slightly drop-jawed mouth. Further, a slight forward jutting of the head and visible inhalation was also associated with awe. Thus, it can be said that awe influences our physical appearance.
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Awe in marketing practices
A good example of how awe is used in marketing is the promotional video of Rituals in which they market their ‘The Ritual of Dao line’ which is a line of products used in the bathroom such as shower foam. In this video, they first show images of a busy and noisy city. The text belonging to this fragment is “you need to experience noise, to appreciate the value of silence”. They then show a beautiful lake in the middle of the mountains in China and invite you to discover the wisdom of an ancient philosophy in China. After this you see another image of a natural scene of the rice fields in China. They explain the theory of Yin and Yang after which again an image is shown of widespread rice fields. Then they state, “a collection of luxury products designed to nurture yin so you can unwind and find balance in your busy life, discover the ancient art of tranquility”. After this line of text, a woman is shown standing in a waterfall in the middle of high rocks which are covered by trees. Then the text “The Ritual of Dao your path to inner peace” follows.1 This is a good example of a brand that
uses awe-inspiring stimuli, in the form of nature, in their promotional material.
In this thesis, it will be researched how awe influences the buying behavior of the consumer. This relationship will be analyzed by looking at the influence that awe has on our values. Awe is said to lead to more pro-social behavior and more spirituality (Joye and Bolderdijk, 2014; Piff et al., 2015). But it is expected that is also has an influence on consumer behavior by shifting the focus from self-enhancement behavior to self-transcendence behavior. This is labeled as the small self-concept and is expected to lower willingness to buy and therefore lower levels of materialism. Next to looking at the main relationship between awe and willingness to buy as a proxy for materialism, it will also be analyzed how enduring product involvement moderates this relationship.
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The Self
To answer the question of how awe will influence the buying behavior of the consumer, one must take a closer look at the self-concept. Awe influences our psychological behavior and especially has an influence on ‘the self’. This influence of awe on the self is already hinted upon in the early days, by a noted philosopher named Iris Murdoch who wrote the following paragraph in her book the
Sovereignty of the Good (1971):
“The most obvious thing in our surroundings which is an occasion for ‘unselfing’ is what is popularly called beauty… I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel…
… In a moment, everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared.”
In above paragraph, Murdoch, refers to beauty that leads her away from herself. This beauty has come to her by means of unexpected nature, a kestrel in this case. When looking at the description of awe it is found that it can be elicited by awesome nature which brings aesthetic pleasure. The kestrel in this story can be identified as the unexpected awesome element of nature characterized by vastness and a need for accommodation. Interestingly to see here, is that the emotion awe does not lead the focus towards the self but leads the focus away from the self and the present moment.
12 The relationship between the consumption of goods and the enhancing of the self-concept is labeled as symbolic classification by Grubb & Grathwohl (1967). With symbols, they mean that goods are used as social tools. This because the goods are used to confirm the view of the self to the self and to confirm the self to others. In order for the good to get this symbolic meaning it must achieve social recognition. Thus, the meaning associated with the product must be clearly established and understood within the relating society in which the self lives. Because of this association, self-enhancement can take place through goods which have a desirable social meaning and evoke the favorable reactions of the social surrounding of the self. Therefore, the purchase of these symbolic goods can be
self-enhancing. An example of such a symbolic good is a pair of RayBan sunglasses. You buy this product because you want to confirm to yourself that this pair of RayBan sunglasses is part of your identity, your ‘self’. However, this is only possible when your social surrounding also recognizes that this pair of RayBan sunglasses has a certain image and is of certain value and therefore confirms back to you that it is indeed part of your identity. When your social surrounding would not associate a RayBan with any specific image or value, the symbolic classification would not work. This is because, a gap would occur between the identity you want to confirm to yourself and the way others view you. This buying of symbolic goods is an element of self-enhancement and is labeled as self-symbolization. People who are occupied by self-enhancement can be defined as people who focus on the pursuit of one’s own success and dominance over others (Schwartz, 1994).
Self-enhancement versus self-transcendence
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Figure 1: The circular value model of Schwartz
Source: http://valuesandframes.org/handbook/2-how-values-work/ accessed on 05-05-2017
14 When analyzing the value circle, it can be treated as a continuum in which values next to each other share the same focus. Where, power and achievement focus on social superiority, achievement and hedonism focus on self-centered satisfaction. Universalism and benevolence focus on enhancement of others and transcendence of selfish interest (Schwartz, 1994). Based on these opposing characteristics of self-enhancement compared to self-transcendence it seems logical to infer that they are not able to co-exist within one person. This idea is confirmed by Koltko-Rivera (2006) who explain that self-transcendence is the last motivational level in the hierarchy of needs pyramid, introduced by Maslow in 1943, and thus comes after the need for self-enhancement. When motivated by self-transcendence a person “seeks to further a cause beyond the self and to experience a communion beyond the
boundaries of the self through peak experience” (Koltko-Rivera, 2006, p. 303). A cause beyond the self may involve service to others, devotion to an ideal or a cause and/ or a desire to be united with what is perceived as transcendent or divine. According to Koltko-Rivera a peak experience may involve mystical experiences and certain experiences with nature, aesthetic experiences, sexual experiences, and/ or other transpersonal experiences. Furthermore, these peak experiences include ego-transcendence and self-forgetfulness (Keltner & Haidt, 2003) and the feelings of passiveness, receptiveness and humbleness. These transpersonal experiences involve an event in which the person experiences a sense of identity that transcends or extends beyond the self. According to Cappellen & Saroglou (2012) self-transcendence can be elicited by different positive emotions like awe, love and admiration. They also find that the key factor of a self-transcendent emotion is the positive evaluation of realities other than the self. As awe is one of the positive emotions that can elicit self-transcendence it might shift the attention away from the self-enhancement goals through the buying of symbolic goods. In this thesis, awe will be chosen over the other two positive emotions being love and
admiration since Keltner & Haidt (2003) state that awe is hypothesized to have the power to transform the self. This point is also highlighted by John & Srivastava (1999) who say that given the personality and values, awe inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth. Furthermore, when looking at the definition of self-transcendence by Koltko-Rivera (2006) it has multiple concepts, such as the divine, the mystical and the nature aspects that are all related to the characteristics of awe.
Awe can lead to self-transcendence because it leads people to positively evaluate realities other than themselves (Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012). This positive evaluation of realities other than the self is illustrated by the paragraph of I. Murdoch (1971) mentioned on page 11. Awe makes the person aware of the reality outside itself and shifts the focus towards that reality. This makes the person extend beyond the self which is labeled as self-transcendence. Furthermore, awe connects the individual with broad social entities such as the nation (Keltner & Haidt, 2003) which also shifts the person
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Shift in values
The small self
As seen above awe might lead to self-transcendence. Joye & Bolderdijk (2015) also talk about this self-transcendence effect that is elicited by awe but they label it as the small self. The small self is triggered by awe and makes the people, that are experiencing awe, feel small and humble. It also means that one’s own being and goals are made to feel insignificant. This is in line with the definition of self-transcendence which is brought to us by Koltko-Rivera (2006) stating that self-transcendence leads people to seek for a further cause beyond themselves. Because, awe triggers self-transcendence which is labeled as the small self, the following relationship is hypothesized:
H1: Inducing awe-related stimuli leads to the small self.
Next to leading to the small self, awe also triggers other value related concepts such as pro-sociality, religiosity and spirituality, which will be discussed in the following section.
Awe as a trigger for increased pro-sociality via the small self
Awe is a trigger for pro-social behavior through feelings of the small self, meaning that awe makes people feel small and humble (Joye and Bolderdijk, 2015). With pro-sociality, it is meant that people seek to “enhance joint outcomes and equality in outcomes” (van Lange et al., 2007, p.4). This feeling small is caused by the fact that awe is a response to natural vastness (Joye and Bolderdijk, 2015). Furthermore, the small self-concept also entails that one’s own being and goals become less important. Joye & Bolderdijk (2015) researched this relationship between awe and higher pro-sociality by
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Awe as a trigger for Religiosity and Spirituality
Thus, awe can lead to more pro-social values. Next to the influence that awe has on pro-sociality it also has influence on another type of value. Namely, the religious and spiritual values. It was found that the induction of awe increases people’s level of reported religiosity and spirituality (Saroglou, Buxant & Tilquin, 2008). Van Cappellen and Saroglou (2012) confirmed this finding and found that awe led religious and spiritual people to express their feelings of oneness with unfamiliar others and with friends. They found that only when the self-transcendent positive emotion awe, was induced, religion and spirituality were positively related with feelings of self-other overlap with friends or humanity in general. This was, however, not the case for non-self- transcendent emotions like, for example, pride. Saroglou et al. (2008) found that after exposing participants to videos of appreciation of nature and wonder at childbirth, both triggers of awe, their spirituality was higher. It must be noted that, in both papers, these findings were clearer for spirituality then religiosity.
In conclusion, awe can lead to a shift in values through the concept of the small self. Two examples of these shift in values are that people become more social and experience more feelings of spirituality. However, in this thesis the focus lies on the possible influence that awe has on consumer behavior. In other words, will awe also lead to a shift in the values consumers hold?
Awe as a trigger for lower willingness to buy and lower materialism via the small self
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Materialism
Materialism could be defined as “The importance a consumer attaches to worldly possessions. At the highest levels of materialism, such possessions assume a central place in a person’s life and are believed to provide the greatest sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction” (Belk, 1984, p.291). The Oxford English Dictionary defines materialism as a “devotion to material needs and desires, to the neglect of spiritual matters; a way of life, opinion, or tendency based entirely upon material interests” (in Richins and Dawson, 1992, p.304). Thus, materialism is about the high value people place on their possession of material goods. There is scientific literature that provides support for the link between awe and lower materialism such as the work of Rudd, Vohs and Aaker (2011). They found that people who experienced awe reported reduced impatience, greater life satisfaction and that they preferred more experiential versus material goods. This finding implicates that exposing people to awe means that their willingness to buy of material goods goes down. Rudd et al. (2011) found that the reason behind this increased life satisfaction and reduced urge to buy material goods was driven by the perception of having more time available. This perception of having more time available was triggered by the awe experience. In the work of Rudd et al. (2011) willingness to buy (WTB) of material goods is used as a proxy for materialism which will also be done in this thesis. Thus, WTB will be used as a proxy to measure materialism. Willingness to buy of material goods can either be low or high, indicating low or high levels of materialism.
As stated before, symbolic classification is the consumption of goods and by this the self-concept is enhanced. In hypothesis 1, awe is hypothesized to lead to the small self, meaning that a state of transcendence is triggered. From the circular value model of Schwartz (1994) it became clear that self-transcendence and self-enhancement are not able to co-exist within one person at the same time. Therefore, when awe elicits self-transcendence this reduces self-enhancement within that person. Thus, enhancing of the self will become of less value and it is more about seeking a cause beyond the self and less about a person his own being and goals. Therefore, buying things for the self might become of less value. Also, people start to live for a higher cause then themselves such as society and the environment which possibly also takes away their need for continuous self-symbolization.
Furthermore, after being exposed to awe people prefer more experiential goods over material goods. Because of these reasons, it is expected that the willingness to buy of material goods might become less and thus the level of materialism will become lower. Therefore, the following relationship is hypothesized:
18 To summarize, self-transcendence leads to lower levels of materialism. This self-transcendent state, which is called the small self, is triggered by awe which could be elicited by using awe-related promotional stimuli in advertising. Awe leads to a to a self-transcendence state labeled as the small self. This shifts the values of the consumer from self enhancement values to self-transcendent values. Once being in small self state, the focus of the consumer shifts from self-symbolizing goals to higher goals beyond the self which leads to a lower level of WTB of material goods which is a proxy for lower levels of materialism.
The small self as a possible mediator
In Hypothesis 1 it is expected that awe leads to the small self and in Hypothesis 2 it is expected that the small self leads to lower WTB of material goods and to lower materialism. However, it is possible that the relationship between awe and the dependent variables WTB of material goods and materialism is mediated by the small self. Meaning that the direct relationship between the independent variable awe and the dependent variables WTB of material goods and materialism is explained by the small self. It is expected that when people are confronted with awe it will lead to the small self which will lead to lower levels of WTB of material goods and materialism. The small self makes people have less self-enhancement tendencies which implies that people feel less urge to confirm the self through the buying of symbolic goods. Because of this it is expected that WTB and materialism goes down. Based on this the following relationship is expected:
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PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT
This research will also look at the moderating effect of product involvement on the relationship between awe and materialism. Bloch (1986, p.52) defines product involvement as “an unobservable state reflecting the amount of interest, arousal, or emotional attachment a consumer has with a product”. Hoyer, Maclnniss and Pieters (2012) extended this definition by highlighting that product involvement can not only be applied to a product but also to a brand.
Situational involvement and Enduring involvement
There are two sorts of product involvement being situational involvement (SI) and enduring
involvement (EI) (Bloch, 1986). SI represents involvement that only occurs in certain situations such as a purchase occasion, while EI reflects the type of involvement that is stable across time and place. Whereas, SI is elicited by the desire to maximize the purchase outcome because of high interest at that moment, EI is elicited by the product’s relatedness to the self and/ or the enjoyment obtained from ownership and use. For example, SI occurs when your car breaks down and you are in need of a new one. In this case, your SI involvement in the product, car, becomes high and you start searching for information about your best possible buying option. On the other hand, EI occurs when someone, for example, has a continuous high interest in fashion clothing and buys these clothes not for purchase optimality but for self-symbolization and the pleasure of use. The difference in these two examples is that the involvement in the new car was depended on the need that occurred through the breaking of the own car (incident) while the involvement in fashion clothing is persistent and does not need to be elicited by any certain event (stable across time).
20 Next to the risk dimension, described above, Kapferer & Laurent (1985/1986) found three other dimensions of EI which are sign, interest and pleasure. The sign dimension is defined as the perceived symbolic value of a product to a consumer (Kapferer & Laurent, 1985). This concept is closely related to the consumers’ perception and the perception of significant others and also the
self-enhancement factor of using the product. The interest dimension is described as the perceived importance of the product and the pleasure dimension is defined as the hedonic and rewarding value that the product offers (Kapferer & Laurent, 1985, 1985/86).
Furthermore, it is found that when consumers experience high product involvement they engage in extended decision making when deciding about buying the product or not. This extended decision making, involves multiple stages such as information search an evaluation of criteria (Bian &
Moutinho, 2011; Brown & Kaldenberg, 1988; Celsi & Olsen, 1988). On the contrary, when consumers experience low product involvement they are not able or do not feel the urge to exert lots of effort when processing information (Bian & Moutinho, 2011; Chung & Zhao, 2003).
From this it can be concluded that EI involves thorough information processing, which leaves less room for emotional judgement. Further, the sign dimension tells us that EI is driven by the need for self-symbolization and we saw that EI is stable across time and place. Taken together, this could imply that because of the strong nature of EI, awe will be of little or no influence on the shift to the small self and therefore there will be high willingness to buy of material goods and high materialism. Because of this, the following relationship is hypothesized:
H4: When a person is driven by high EI, awe will be of little or no influence, on the shift to the small self and therefore there will be high (a) willingness to buy of material goods and high (b) materialism.
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CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Conceptual model on: Awe and its influence on Willingness to Buy of material goods as a proxy for Materialism via the small self
Overview of 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.
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METHODOLOGY
To test our hypotheses, we conducted a study through a survey in Qualtrics. In this study people were asked to write about a recent awe or a recent pride scenario. After this we tested the concepts that further make up the conceptual model being, the small-self effect, materialism, willingness to buy of material goods and enduring product involvement. How these concepts are tested in specific will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
METHODS
Participants and Design
This study was conducted using an internet-based study in Qualtrics. A total of 114 people filled out the survey of which 56 completed all the questions. Thus, there were 56 usable respondents that participated in this study (44 females, Mage = 27.98, SD = 11.00 and 12 males, Mage = 33.67, SD = 14.33). Three respondents, of the total sample, were removed because they took more than one day to complete the survey which might wear off the effect of the manipulation. The average execution time to complete the survey was about 36 minutes (M = 2137.88, SD = 3042.55 seconds). Respondents were recruited via Facebook and through the personal network of the researcher. To recruit more participants the snowball sampling technique was used, meaning that the existing participants asked their friends to also fill out the survey. The study has a between-subject design, with awe as the IV and willingness to buy of material goods and materialism as the DV’s. The dependent variable willingness to buy of material goods is used as a proxy for materialism.
MATERIALS
Stimuli
23 Thus, it can be said that awe and pride have the opposite effect on the self- concept. The following scenario writing task is taken from Piff et al. (2015) and Shiota et al. (2007). The two different scenarios were distributed randomly across participants and were introduced as followed:
Awe condition:
“Please take a few minutes to think about a recent experience when you encountered a natural scene that caused you to feel awe. This might have been a sunset, a view from a high place, or any other time you were in a natural setting that you felt was beautiful. Make sure this was a recent experience (in the last 2 months). Write at least five sentences about this experience and use as much detail as possible. Describe this situation, then describe your emotions during this experience and finally describe what you were thinking during this event.”
Pride condition:
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MEASURES
Materialistic Values Scale
Before the scenario writing test started, participants were asked to fill out the materialistic value scale on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). This was done to establish the baseline materialism level of the respondents. This measure is used again after the willingness to buy measure to see whether the level of materialism was changed due to the scenario writing task. The materialism scale that was chosen is the Material Values Scale (MVS) developed by Richins and Dawson (1992) which is a well-established and reliable measure of people’s materialistic tendencies (Pandelaere, 2016; Richins & Dawson, 1992). The complete MVS scale consists of eighteen items, and measures the extent to which an individual considers material possessions as central to his/her life (“centrality” subscale), as a source and prerequisite for happiness (“happiness” subscale), and as an indicator of success (“success” subscale). The renewed version of the scale was used as this one has better dimension properties than the original scale. For the first materialism measure the 6-item (Cronbach’s α = 0.78) scale was used and for the second materialism measure the 9-item (Cronbach’s α = 0.84) scale was used. This was done to make it a little less likely that respondents will notice that the same questions were asked again. The shorter forms of the scale, 6 and 9 items instead of 15, were chosen as it leaves room on the survey for the measurement of the other constructs and saves the respondents time when filling out the survey.
Examples of questions that are asked in the 6 and 9-item MVS are the following: 1. “I admire people who own expensive homes, cars, and clothes.” (6 & 9) 2. “The things I own say a lot about how well I’m doing in life. “(6 & 9). These questions were taken from the MVS scale developed by Richins (2004, p. 217/218), an overview of all the questions can be found in appendix A.
Emotion measurement
To check whether the desired emotion was elicited in the scenario writing task an emotion
25
The smallness index
To determine whether awe leads to the small self, participants were asked to what extent they agreed with the following statements (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree): “I feel small or
insignificant,” “I feel the presence of something greater than myself,” “I feel part of some greater entity,” and “I feel like I am in the presence of something grand” (Huta & Ryan, 2010; Piff et al., 2015, Shiota et al., 2007). These items capture the perception of vastness in comparison with the self and the belonging feelings of smallness.
Willingness to buy
26
Figure 2: Images of material goods and their descriptions shown to participants.
€229
Laptop Aspire One AO1-132-C0T9 by Acer
€965
Laptop MacBook Air 13 MMGF2N/A by Apple
€99
Mobile phone Lenny Dual Sim by Wiko
€838
Mobile Phone Iphone 7 by Apple
€34,95
Watch by Kiomi
€7550
27 €1,29 Sunglasses by Action €139 Sunglasses by RayBan €0,89
Shower foam by Etos
€8,50
Shower foam by Rituals
Images* shown to the respondents, with on the left side of the table the cheaper versions being either from a private label or a less-known brand and on the right side the more expensive versions from a well-known brand.
* reduced in size to fit into this paper, survey size pictures can be found in appendix A.
All products were represented to the participants in a random order to prevent order effects. The product categories were the following; laptops, mobile phones, watches, sunglasses and shower foams. There were 10 pictures used in total and the pictures used were all in full color and taken from the internet by using the Google search machine.
Enduring Product Involvement
28
PROCEDURE
29
RESULTS
Manipulation check
Emotion measurement
In order to analyze whether the scenario writing test elicited the desired emotion, we performed a One-Way ANOVA in which the scenario condition (awe versus pride) was used as the between subjects variable and the emotions amusement, awe, disgust, anger, fear, pride, sadness and happiness as the dependent variables. This test will tell us whether the scenario writing test indeed elicited awe to the strongest extent when the respondent was asked to write about a recent awe experience and elicited pride to the strongest extent when the respondent was asked to write about a recent pride experience. All descriptives and F-statistics can be found in table 1. The One-Way ANOVA was significant for awe. Meaning that the awe scenario leads to a higher sense of reported awe (M = 5.11, SD = 1.64) compared to reported pride (M = 3.07, SD = 1.41). Furthermore, the One-Way ANOVA test for pride was also significant. Meaning that the pride scenario lead to a higher sense of reported pride (M = 5.82, SD = 0.77) compared to the reported sense of awe (M = 3.79, SD = 1.95). Thus, based on these results we can infer that the scenario writing test elicited the desired emotions and that the data is reliable to conduct further analyses.
Table 1 | Means (standard deviations) per condition for scores on the emotion measurement, and overall F-statistics.
Awe Pride F p Amusement 4.65 (1.54) 4.71 (1.24) 0.009 0.924 Awe 5.11 (1.64) 3.07 (1.41) 24.760 0.000 Disgust 1.39 (0.88) 1.54 (1.14) 0.277 0.601 Anger 1.18 (0.55) 1.50 (1.00) 2.225 0.142 Fear 1.21 (0.42) 2.04 (1.53) 7.537 0.008 Pride 3.79 (1.95) 5.82 (0.77) 26.367 0.000 Sadness 1.79 (1.13) 1.64 (1.20) 0.230 0.634 Happiness 6.00 (1.05) 5.57 (0.74) 3.096 0.084
Direct effect of awe on WTB and Materialism
Is awe related to the WTB of material goods?
30
WTB of luxury products. In order to analyze whether WTB of luxury products differs per scenario condition (awe versus pride), we performed a One-Way ANOVA of WTB of luxury products on the scenario condition. The descriptives for awe are M = 3.48 and SD = 1.50 and the descriptives for pride are M = 3.31 and SD = 1.29. However, this One-Way ANOVA was not significant, F(1, 54) = 0.21, p = .65. Meaning that there is no direct relationship between scenario elicited awe and WTB of luxury products.
WTB of non-luxury products. In order to analyze whether WTB of non-luxury products differs per scenario condition (awe versus pride), we performed a One-Way ANOVA of WTB of non-luxury products on the scenario condition. The descriptives for awe are M = 2.75 and SD = 1.30 and the descriptives for pride are M = 3.08 and SD = 1.27. However, this One-Way ANOVA was not significant, F(1, 54) = 0.91, p = .34. Meaning that there is no direct relationship between scenario elicited awe and WTB of non-luxury products.
Is awe related to materialism?
To test whether the scenario elicited awe is related to our other dependent variable, materialism, a One-Way ANCOVA was conducted to determine a statistically significant difference between awe and pride on materialism. Here the pre-MVS is taken as a covariate to control for the initial materialism state of the respondents. The descriptives for awe are M = 3.75 and SD = 1.09 and the descriptives for pride are M = 3.46 and SD = 0.93. However, we did not find a significant effect of the two different scenario conditions, awe versus pride, on materialism, F(1,53) = 0.90, p = .77. Meaning that there is no direct effect of the scenario elicited awe on materialism. However, we did find that the pre-MVS measure was significant, p = <.001, meaning that the pre-MVS measure is a significant predictor of the post-MVS measure.
31
Awe and the small self
Is awe related to the small self?
To test hypothesis 1, we performed a One-Way ANOVA. This test will tell us whether awe leads to the small self. In order to analyze whether the small self differs per scenario condition (awe versus pride), we performed a One-Way ANOVA of the scenario condition (awe versus pride) on the small self. This One-Way ANOVA was significant, F(1,54) = 7.02, p = <.001. Thus, it can be concluded that the type of scenario influenced the small self. When analyzing the descriptives, it shows that feelings of the small self were significantly higher in the awe elicited scenario (M = 3.77, SD = 1.37) compared to the pride elicited scenario (M = 2.91, SD = 1.02). From this we can conclude that awe leads to the small self and therefore hypothesis 1 can be accepted.
The small self and WTB and Materialism
Is the small self related to WTB?
In hypothesis 2(a), it is expected that the small self is related to a lower WTB of material goods. Here, we will discuss the results based on the distinction between luxury and non-luxury products. The results based on findings per product category can be found in appendix B2.
Luxury products. To test whether there is a relationship between the small self and WTB of luxury products, we performed a correlation analysis. This correlation analysis showed that the small self and WTB of luxury products did not significantly correlate r(54) = -.03, p = .82. Meaning that there is no direct relationship between the small self and WTB of luxury products.
Non-luxury products. To test whether there is a relationship between the small self and WTB of non-luxury products, we performed a correlation analysis. This correlation analysis showed that the small self and WTB of non-luxury products did not significantly correlate r(54) = -.10, p = .47. Meaning that there is no direct relationship between the small self and WTB of non-luxury products.
2 The correlation analysis showed that the small self did not significantly correlate with any of the following five
32
Is the small self related to materialism?
To test whether the small self is related to materialism, we performed a partial correlation analysis where we controlled for the pre-MVS value. This partial correlation analysis showed that there is a significant positive relationship between the small self and materialism, r(53) = .31, p = .02. The correlation coefficient is positive meaning that when the small self increases the level of materialism also increases and likewise when the small self decreases the level of materialism also decreases. This is the opposite of what we expected in hypothesis 2(b) as we expected that higher levels of the small self would lead to lower levels of materialism. Therefore, hypothesis 2(b) is rejected.
In sum, we can say that there is no relationship between the small self and WTB of luxury and non-luxury products. However, we did find significant evidence that there is a positive relationship between the small self and materialism. Meaning that an increase in the small self leads to an increase in materialism and a decrease in the small self leads to a decrease in materialism.
Mediation analysis
So far, we found no direct relationship between scenario elicited awe and our dependent variables, WTB and materialism. However, it could be the case that the relationship between scenario elicited awe and the dependent variables is mediated through the small self. To test for this, model 4, of the SPSS PROCESS tool by Andrew F. Hayes (2013) was used.
Willingness to buy
The mediation model was used to test whether awe influences the willingness to buy of material goods via the small self. Two tests were conducted, one to test the influence of scenario elicited awe on the WTB of luxury products via the small self and one to test the influence of scenario elicited awe on the WTB of non-luxury products via the small self. Results for the mediation analyses that tested the influence of scenario elicited awe on WTB of the five different product categories via the small self can be found in appendix C.3 The mediation analysis for luxury products, with a 95% confidence
interval (1000 bootstrap samples), showed that the indirect effect of awe through the small self did include zero (-0,4262 to 0,1815). This suggest that the relationship between awe and willingness to buy of luxury products is not mediated by the small self. The second mediation analysis for non-luxury products, with a 95% confidence interval (1000 bootstrap samples), showed that the indirect effect of awe through the small self did include zero (-0,4032 to 0,1764). This suggest that the relationship between awe and willingness to buy of non-luxury products is also not mediated by the
3 Results for any of the five product categories were not significant, indicating the there is no indirect effect of
33 small self. Therefore, we can say that the relationship between scenario elicited awe and WTB of material goods is not mediated by the small self. Therefore, hypothesis 3(a), is rejected.
Materialism
Furthermore, another mediation analysis was conducted to test whether the effects of awe on materialism can be explained by the small self. To test whether the relationship between scenario elicited awe and materialism is mediated by the small self, the pre-MVS measure is used as covariate. This is done to control for initial materialism states of the respondents. This mediation analyses with a 95% confidence interval (1000 bootstrap sample) showed that the indirect effect of awe through the small self did not include zero (0,0150 to 0,2260). This suggests that the effect of awe on materialism is mediated by the small self as was expected. However, through the partial correlation test we found that an increase in the small self would lead to an increase in materialism. We expected that an increase in the small self would lead to a decrease in materialism. Therefore, hypothesis 3(b), could not be confirmed.
Thus, based on above results, we can conclude that there is no significant evidence that the relationship between awe and willingness to buy of material goods is mediated by the small self. However, there is significant evidence that the relationship between awe and materialism is mediated by the small self. Meaning that awe leads to an increase in the small self which leads to an increase in materialism.
Moderation analysis
Willingness to buy
Furthermore, it is tested whether the relationship between awe and WTB of luxury and WTB of non-luxury products is moderated by enduring product involvement (EI) in any of the five products categories. To conduct a moderation analysis, model 1, of the SPSS PROCESS tool by Andrew F. Hayes (2013) was used. Results for this moderation analysis can be found in Appendix D (luxury products) and appendix E (non-luxury products). From the results, we can conclude that this
34
Materialism
To see whether the relationship between awe and materialism is moderated by enduring product involvement (EI) in any of the five product categories another moderation analysis is performed. The pre-MVS measure is used as a covariate to control for the initial materialism state of the respondents. The results of this moderation analysis can be found in table 2. From this table, we can conclude that this, moderation analysis with a 95% confidence interval (1000 bootstrap sample), shows no
significant effect for EI in laptops, mobile phones, sunglasses and shower foam as moderators. Therefore, hypothesis 4(b), is partly rejected. However, there is a significant effect for EI in watches as a moderator. Thus, hypothesis 4(b), is also partly accepted. When looking at the conditional effect of EI in watches there is a significant positive effect, p = .03. Meaning, that for people that are highly involved in watches, awe will lead to higher levels of materialism. A graph of this relationship is shown in figure 3. This is in line with hypothesis four where it is expected that high levels of
involvement will leads to high levels of materialism. Thus, these results show that hypothesis 4(b) is confirmed but only for high enduring involvement in watches.
Figure 3 | Graph showing how the relationship between awe and materialism is moderated by high EI in watches.
Furthermore, we were also interested to see whether the average enduring involvement score for all five product categories moderated the relationship between awe and materialism. To see whether the total EI score for all five product categories has a moderating effect a new variable was computed by taking the average of the EI for all five product categories.4
4 When performing a reliability analysis, it showed that when removing the items EI in laptops and EI in watches
35 When looking at table 2, it can be concluded that there is no significant effect for average EI as a moderator. This, however, was expected since four out of the five tested product categories did not show significant effects as a moderator.
Table 2 | Results of moderation analysis to see whether the relationship between awe and materialism is moderated by EI in any of the five product categories
Moderator β SE p LLCI ULCI
AvEI* Laptops .0689 .1009 .1870 -.1451 .7244
Condition (awe vs pride) -.0411 .1234 .7403 -.2888 .2066 Interaction effect (Condition x AvEIlaptops) -.1846 .1968 .3528 -.5796 .2105
AvEI mobile phones .1192 .0971 .2253 -.0758 .3141
Condition (awe vs pride) -.0116 .1263 .9272 -.2651 .2419 Interaction effect (Condition x AvEImobilephones) -.1852 .1921 .3395 -.5709 .2004
AvEI watches .0079 .0410 .8483 -.0745 .0903
Condition (awe vs pride) -.0401 .1181 .7357 -.2773 .1971 Interaction effect (Condition x AvEIwatches) -.2348 .0813 .0057 -.3980 -.0717
AvEI sunglasses .0357 .0640 .5801 -.0929 .1642
Condition (awe vs pride) -.0329 .1274 .7971 -.2888 .2229 Interaction effect (Condition x AvEIsunglasses) -.0233 .1166 .8423 -.2575 .2109
AvEI shower foam -.0035 .0518 .9459 -.1076 .1005
Condition (awe vs pride) -.0346 .1255 .7840 -.2866 .2174 Interaction effect (Condition x AvEIShowerfoam) .0124 .1120 .9123 -.2124 .2372
Average EI .0638 .0855 .4590 -.1079 .2355
Condition (awe vs pride) -.0414 .1224 .7364 -.2870 .2042 Interaction effect (Condition x Average EI) -.2585 .1731 .1416 -.6061 .0891
* AvEI stands for average enduring product involvement.
36
DISCUSSION
Given the common use of awe-eliciting stimuli in marketing practices, this research was performed to gain a better understanding of the downstream effects of awe on consumer behavior. More
specifically, it was research whether awe has an influence on willingness to buy of material goods and on materialism. It was further looked at how the small self and enduring product involvement
influenced this relationship. The results that were found tell us many different things.
Findings
The most important finding, which adds new insights to existing literature, considers the mediation effect in which it was found that awe leads to higher materialism via the small self. This implies that people who are exposed to awe experience more materialism because the small self within them is triggered. This contradicts our expectation that awe leads to lower materialism via the small self. It also contradicts existing literature that suggest that awe could lead to lower materialism (Rudd et al. 2011). A possible explanation for why awe leads to higher materialism via the small self could be that through the research design used in this thesis the small self evoked fear. This because feeling small could be experienced as unpleasant for people and as a reaction they may want to cope with this by buying material goods. However, when testing for this through a correlation analysis no significant relationship was found. When looking at the relationship between awe and WTB of material goods we found no significant evidence that this relationship is mediated by the small self.
Secondly, when looking at the relationship between the small self and materialism we found a significant positive relationship between the small self and materialism. Meaning that an increase in the small self leads to an increase in materialism and a decrease in the small self leads to a decrease in materialism. However, it was expected that an increase in the small self would lead to a decrease in materialism. To find the opposite is surprising as the characteristics of the small self such as
37 Thirdly, it is found that awe leads to the small self. This finding is consistent with the finding of Joye & Bolderdijk (2015) who found that awe leads to the small self. It is also in line with the finding of Piff et al. (2015) who found that awe can lead to a decrease of the individual self. Furthermore, this finding relates to the statement of Keltner & Haidt (2003) who attribute these feelings of smallness to the vastness aspect of awe.
Fourthly, no direct relationship between scenario elicited awe and WTB of both luxury and non-luxury products was found. Thus, there is no direct effect of the independent variable awe on the dependent variable WTB of material goods. Also, no direct relationship between scenario elicited awe and materialism was found, thus there is no direct effect of awe on materialism. This is in contrast with the study of Rudd et al. (2011) where they found that people that were exposed to awe prefer more
experiential goods over material goods. A possible explanation for this difference in findings is the way we elicited awe. Because, in this research awe is elicited through a recall condition, while in the work of Rudd et al. (2011) awe is elicited through an awe-eliciting commercial which may lead to a more vivid awe experience.
38 Furthermore, high scores of self symbolization lead to high enduring product involvement which leads to high levels of materialism. In sum, because of the concepts of gift-giving and self-symbolization that are associated with watches, it could be that high EI in watches moderates the relationship between awe and materialism. Note however, that this significant finding for high involvement in watches could also be a coincidence caused by noise. We have also looked at the moderation analysis of the average EI in all five product categories on the relationship between awe and materialism but no significant moderation effect was discovered here.
Finally, when looking at the moderation effect of EI in all five product categories on the relationship between awe and the WTB of both luxury and non-luxury products no significant moderation effects were found. Also, when looking at the moderating effect of the average EI for both the luxury and the non-luxury products, no significant effects were found. Thus, EI in laptops, watches, mobile phones, sunglasses and shower foam does not moderate the relationship between awe and willingness to buy of material goods.
Potential limitations & suggestions for further research
39 Another important limitation of this study is that during this research, self-transcendence and the small self are treated as the same concept. Therefore, in the survey the smallness index is used to measure this concept. However, the smallness index only covers items like “I felt the presence of something greater then myself” and “I felt small or insignificant” while self-transcendence covers more than this smallness feeling alone. Self-transcendence is also about ego-transcendence, self-forgetfulness, benevolence and universalism. These items are not captured by the smallness index and this could be the cause for the unexpected results of this research. For further research, it is suggested to work with a separate self-transcendence scale.
Another limitation of this study is that awe was induced by asking the respondents to write about a recent awe experience. However, research (Chirico et al., 2017, p.2) states that “personal narratives recalled emotions can be drastically different from those actually felt during the original event”. This means that personal stories might not elicit the same awe emotion that was felt during the authentic experience. This limitation is important since awe is a complex emotion existing of several sub-elements. Using videos and images to elicit awe is already a better technique as this offers a high degree of control when used in the lab. However, videos and images prove to elicit low intensity feelings of awe. A better technique for further research might be to stimulate awe via the use of virtual reality (VR) glasses as Chirico et al. (2017) found that using VR stimulates high intensity feelings of awe.
40
Potential practical implications
41
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