Exploring Attitudes and Affiliation Intentions toward Consumers Who Engage in Socially Shared Superstitious Behaviors: A Study of Students in the East and the West

Wang, Di; Oppewal, Harmen; Thomas, Dominic

doi:10.1002/mar.20687

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Social norms and impression management can be expected to play a role in how consumers engage with superstition-related products. This is because generally in modern society superstitious beliefs are discouraged and socially negatively valued in that superstitiousness tends to be associated with a lack of education (Aarnio and Lindeman, 2005) and incompetence (Wang et al, 2014). Thus, people tend to engage in superstitious behaviours privately, for example, by keeping a talisman under their clothing for good luck or by putting an amulet underneath their pillow to avoid bad luck.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipated embarrassment due to social presence withholds consumers from purchasing products that feature a lucky charm

Wang

Oppewal

Thomas

2017

EJM

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Purpose Several studies have shown that superstitious beliefs, such as beliefs in “lucky” product attributes, influence consumer purchase behaviour. Still, little is known about how social influence, in particular mere social presence, impacts consumer superstition-related purchase decisions. Drawing on impression management theory, this paper aims to investigate the effect of social presence on consumer purchase decisions of products featuring lucky charms including the role of anticipated embarrassment as a mediator of the social presence effect. Design/methodology/approach In three studies, participants select products that feature or do not feature a lucky charm. They make these selections under varying conditions of social presence, as induced by the shopping setting in the scenario or through the use of confederates or fellow participants observing them make a real product selection. Participants are students from Australia and China. Findings The studies show that social presence makes consumers less likely to select products that feature a lucky charm. This suppressing effect is mediated by the consumers’ anticipated embarrassment. Research limitations/implications The study investigates the effect of social presence but does not investigate different parameters of social presence such as the number of people present and their familiarity. The study investigates effects for purchase settings but does not include effects of usage and neither does it look into differences across product types or lucky charm types. Practical implications Marketers should be careful to not make lucky charms too publicly salient. Online settings are more suitable than mortar-and-brick settings for selling products featuring a lucky charm. Originality/value The present research is the first to investigate consumer purchase behaviour for a product featuring a lucky charm. It is also the first to investigate the impact of social influence on superstition-based decision-making.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipated embarrassment due to social presence withholds consumers from purchasing products that feature a lucky charm

Wang

Oppewal

Thomas

2017

EJM

Self Cite

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“…Lower propensity to be bothered by an unlucky floor/room assignment for the Western cohort should be understood not solely as Western guests being inherently less superstitious but also as a strategy of minimize negative social judgement. Existing studies consistently show that people behaving superstitiously are seen by others as uneducated, irrational, and incompetent, resulting in lower affiliative intentions towards such persons (Case et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2014). Unlike the Chinese culture with its built-in luck-enhancing rituals, the Western cultures might be not as accommodating to superstitiousness, from a Table 6 Summary of Support for Hypothesis Tests.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Matute et al (2015) argue that, along with personal beliefs and pseudoscience, there is a growing worldwide tendency to trust these heuristics. Yet while there is an increasing reliance on superstitions in decision-making, those not holding these superstitions exhibit a negative attitude and lower affiliation intentions towards others holding socially-shared superstitious behaviors (Wang et al, 2014). Wang et al (2014) find students from the East are more superstitious than students from the West.…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet while there is an increasing reliance on superstitions in decision-making, those not holding these superstitions exhibit a negative attitude and lower affiliation intentions towards others holding socially-shared superstitious behaviors (Wang et al, 2014). Wang et al (2014) find students from the East are more superstitious than students from the West. The lesson for marketers is to take into account the superstitions, especially those related to products and services and the marketing of the same.…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are hotel guests bothered by unlucky floor or room assignments?

Pratt

Kirillova

2019

International Journal of Hospitality Management

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Superstitious beliefs can guide individuals' decision-making and change behavior. Different cultures believe that some numbers are 'lucky' and other numbers are 'unlucky'. This can have significant business implications. There is little academic research into how these numerology superstitions impact the hotel sector. We conduct a quantitative survey among Chinese and Western hotel guests to determine the extent to which these guests are influenced by numerological superstitions in their hotel floor and hotel room numbering. Socio-demographic, psychographic and situational characteristics are used as explanatory variables. The results show that the Chinese were more likely to engage in superstitious behavior when it comes to feeling uncomfortable and seeking a change from an unlucky hotel floor and room number than Western guests. For the Western cohort, internal (demographic and psychographic) determinants of superstitious behavior are more significant, whereas, in the Chinese cohort, both internal and external (situation, or trip-specific) determinants influence superstitious behavior. Block, 2008). Irrational beliefs continue to influence people when they travel. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll in 2007 found that about one in 11 (9%) Americans would be sufficiently bothered by a hotel assigning them to a room on the 13th floor to seek a change of room with another 4% being

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“…Yet, calls for cross-cultural attitude-based research on consumers' superstitious beliefs continue (Block and Kramer, 2009;Wang, Oppewal and Thomas, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intrinsic Religiosity and Attitude toward Finales as Precursors of Superstitious Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

Sierra¹,

Hyman²,

Lee³

et al. 2017

AJBR

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Leaning on the theoretical tenets of experiential consumption and attitude process literatures, this cross-cultural research uses path analysis to examine antecedents and consequences of superstitious beliefs. For the Korean data, attitude toward finales fully mediates the relationship between intrinsic religiosity and superstitious beliefs. For the U.S. data, intrinsic religiosity has no effect on either attitude toward finales or superstitious beliefs. For both samples, (1) attitude toward finales has a positive effect on suspension of disbelief, and (2) attitude toward zodiac signs and zodiac sign expertise relate positively to superstitious beliefs. This research adds to the religiosity and superstition literatures by exploring carefully selected yet under-researched antecedents and consequences of consumers' superstitious beliefs. The mediation effect for Korean respondents and model differences between the Korean and U.S. respondent sets provide novel empirical results.

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Exploring Attitudes and Affiliation Intentions toward Consumers Who Engage in Socially Shared Superstitious Behaviors: A Study of Students in the East and the West

Cited by 7 publications

References 60 publications

Anticipated embarrassment due to social presence withholds consumers from purchasing products that feature a lucky charm

Anticipated embarrassment due to social presence withholds consumers from purchasing products that feature a lucky charm

Are hotel guests bothered by unlucky floor or room assignments?

Intrinsic Religiosity and Attitude toward Finales as Precursors of Superstitious Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

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