The Effect of Upward Social Comparison on Status Consumption—— Based on the Moderating Effect of Implicit Personality、Power Distance Belief and Comparison Target

The Effect of Upward Social Comparison on Status Consumption—— Based on the Moderating Effect of Implicit Personality、Power Distance Belief and Comparison Target


Author:JIN Xiao-tong HUANG Er-Shuai, XU Wei Journal:Management Review Date:2020(11)

AbstractThis article starts from the perspective of consumer psychology, studies the relationship between upward social comparison and status consumption. Beside this, this article discusses the boundary conditions of upward social comparison and status consumption from three aspects: individual factors, cultural factors and situational factors. This article designes three experiments to test the relationship between upward social comparison and status consumption. Experiment 1 verified that upward social comparisons have a positive effect on status consumption. Experiment 1 verified that implicit personality plays a moderating role in the effect of upward social on status consumption. That is, compared with incremental theorist, entity theorist has more inclined to status consumption after making upward social comparisons. Experiment 2 verifies the moderating role of power distance belief in the effect of upward comparison to status consumption. That is, individual power distance belief strengthens the influence of upward social comparison on status consumption. Experiment 3 validated themoderating role of the comparison target in the effect of upward social comparison to status of consumption. That is, when upward social comparison with the relevant target (vs. non-relevant target) is performed, the individual has more inclined to status consumption.

Key words: upward social comparison, status consumption, implicit personality, power distance belief, comparison target

 

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