Consumers’ Views of Feng Shui: Antecedents and Behavioral Consequences

Abstract

Consumers have three views about Feng Shui: instrumental, spiritual, and minimalist. According to the instrumental view, Feng Shui arrangements can affect luck and fortune. The spiritual view treats Feng Shui as part of one's spiritual life and cultural identification. The minimalist view dismisses Feng Shui as superstition. We developed psychometric scales for measuring these three views and the intention to make Feng Shui–related purchase, and conducted two studies to establish the reliability and validity of these scales. The participants in Study 1 were 331 university students; 180 working adults were the participants in Study 2. These three views of Feng Shui have different antecedents. Their effects on the intention to make Feng Shui–related purchase are also different. The effect of the instrumental view is positive and the strongest, but that of the spiritual view and the minimalist view is weakly positive and negative, respectively. The marketing implications of these findings are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Priming Attitudes toward Feng Shui

“…The spiritual view is positively correlated with Dutcher, Finley, Luloff, and Johnson's (2007) construct of connectivity with nature. It, too, has a positive impact on the intention to practice Feng Shui, but the impact is less strong than that of the instrumental view (Luk et al, 2010).…”

“…Those who criticized the former chief executive of ASTRI for his spending on Feng Shui might espouse this view (e.g., Vines, 2007). Luk et al (2010) have found that the adoption of this view by Chinese people is positively correlated with the adoption of a Western religion (e.g., Christian denominations, including Catholicism) and negatively correlated with the adoption of an Oriental religion (e.g., Taoism or Buddhism). Therefore, this view is likely to have been brought to the Chinese from the West, and is thus relatively new compared to the instrumental and spiritual views.…”

“…While some may believe that Feng Shui is useful, others see it as an art. Building on the works of Stokol (1990) and Tsang (2004), Luk et al (2010) proposed that there are three views commonly held about Feng Shui: the instrumental view, the spiritual view, and the minimalist view. The instrumental view of Feng Shui is the belief that practicing Feng Shui can improve luck, health, wealth and interpersonal relationships.…”

“…The instrumental view of Feng Shui is the belief that practicing Feng Shui can improve luck, health, wealth and interpersonal relationships. People who hold the instrumental view are more likely to make causal attributions to external factors (Luk et al, 2010), reflecting a perceived lack of personal control over events. This view has a strong positive effect on the intention to practice Feng Shui and make use of Feng Shui to improve luck, health, wealth and interpersonal relationships (Luk et al, 2010).…”

“…Yet, the scientific inquiry into views about Feng Shui is only just beginning. Luk et al (2010) proposed a tripartite model of views about Feng Shui. They developed a psychometric scale for measuring these views and identified some of the dispositional determinants, including "internal locus of control," "external locus of control in chance," "external locus of control in powerful others," and "connectivity with nature."…”