Psychological Science ›› 2014, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (6): 1461-1466.

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A Study of Money Priming on the Customers’ Need for Uniqueness

  

  • Received:2013-11-05 Revised:2014-04-10 Online:2014-11-20 Published:2014-11-20

金钱概念对消费者独特性需求的影响研究

赵建彬   

  1. 华中科技大学
  • 通讯作者: 赵建彬

Abstract: The individual's behavior can be the money for the ultimate goal. If one gets lots of money, he/she can get everything that he/she wants or needs, and can have more material and non-material objects. Socio-economic studies have shown that economic stress can cause individual depression, poor physical condition or low sense of control, but if one has lots of money will improve the results of control, protect the individual don't live in unfortunate or unforeseen something, therefore, lack of money will make life worse, and have the money will make life better (Vohs et al., 2006, 2008). But in addition to being exchange media and store of value, money can symbolize different forms of resources, such as security, confidence, freedom, power, and social resource, money can only exist as a concept. Money priming will influence the individual's thinking, behaviors, choices and preferences. However, most of these studies focuse on the interpersonal or social behavior, and money priming researches in the consumer area are still relatively scarce. Therefore, the present study takes consumption as research background, money priming allows individuals to become independent, freedom, and will also affect consumption choice, will change individual social distance and affect its need for uniqueness, and the study will use three experiments to test hypotheses. The purpose of the experiment 1 is to study the influence of money priming on the needs of anticonformity, participants are randomly assigned to one of two conditions (money priming vs. control) in a between-subject design. Money priming reference Mogilner & Aaker(2009) method. After money priming, participants are asked to select one keychain which you like best between Allier and Eiliar brand, and inform that the proportion of Allier brand selected in the previous experiments is higher than Ellier brand. The results show that money priming has influenced needs of anticonformity, and more people choose the choice of Ellier brand, and the unique choices are excluded by the impact of emotion, product performance, evaluation of difficulty and income. Experiment 2 tested the moderating role of meaning of money, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (large money group vs. little money group vs. Control group) in a between-subject design. Money priming reference Hansen et al.,(2013) method, and innovative options to reflect the unique needs of individual, the experimental material is two mugs(one is unique shape, another is the ordinary shape). Compare to the little money priming group, large money priming group have more innovative choice(69.44%[50/72], p<0.05), but data analysis shows that there are not differences between the control group and little money priming group ( p> 0.05). Experiment 3 tested the mediating role of social distance. Money priming reference Hansen et al.,(2013) method, and innovative options to reflect the unique needs of individual, the experimental material is two biscuits of different shapes(one is unique shape, another is the ordinary shape). The results show that money priming will stimulate individual social distance, and social distance lead individuals to seek unique products, more innovative options.

Key words: money concept, need for uniqueness, social distance

摘要: 本研究探讨了金钱概念对消费者独特性需求的影响。通过三个实验,实验1研究表明启动金钱概念的消费者在进行产品选择时反从众需求更强烈;实验2研究表明金钱的丰富程度会调节金钱概念对消费者创新性选择的影响,金钱富有启动组选择独特性产品的比例要显著高于金钱缺乏启动组和控制组;实验3研究表明金钱概念对消费者独特性需求的影响是通过社交距离的中介作用完成的,启动金钱概念的消费者会感知到更远的社交距离,进而产生更强烈的独特性需求。

关键词: 金钱概念,独特性需求,社交距离