Donation campaigns that have an unsuccessful start often trigger negative social information in the social and mass media (e.g., “few others have donated so far”). Little research exists to shed ...light on the effects of such information in the context of donations. Across three studies involving different causes and different channels of communication, we find harmful effects of negative social information on the willingness to donate among prevention-focused consumers but tendencies of positive effects for consumers with a promotion focus. We identify
response efficacy
as a mediator of the harmful effect for prevention-focused consumers. This finding suggests that social proof theory is not sufficient to explain the harmful effect of negative social information. Alternative mediators are tested and rejected. The findings imply that an effective strategy to avoid harmful effects of negative social information is to trigger a promotion focus in target group members and communicate facts about charity effectiveness.
Controversies arise over abortion, assisted dying and conscientious objection (CO) in healthcare. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between attitudes towards these bioethical ...dilemmas, and secularity and religiosity.
Data were drawn from a 2017 web-based survey of a representative sample of 1615 Norwegian adults. Latent moderated structural equations modelling was used to develop a model of the relationship between attitudes.
The resulting model indicates that support for abortion rights is associated with pro-secular attitudes and is a main "driver" for support for assisted dying and opposition to conscientious objection.
This finding should be regarded as a hypothesis which ought to be tested in other populations. If the relationship is robust and reproduced elsewhere, there are important consequences for CO advocates who would then have an interest in disentangling the debate about CO from abortion; and for health systems who ought to consider carefully how a sound policy on CO can safeguard both patient trust in the services and the moral integrity of professionals. It is suggested that if religiosity wanes and pro-secular and pro-abortion attitudes become more widespread, support for CO might decline, putting into question whether present policies of toleration of conscientious refusals will remain acceptable to the majority.
Norway's liberal abortion law allows for abortion on social indications, yet access to screening for fetal abnormalities is restricted. Norwegian regulation of, and public discourse about prenatal ...screening and diagnosis has been exceptional. In this study, we wanted to investigate whether the exceptional regulation is mirrored in public attitudes.
An electronic questionnaire with 11 propositions about prenatal screening and diagnosis was completed by 1617 Norwegian adults (response rate 8.5%).
A majority of respondents supports increased access to prenatal screening with ultrasound (60%) and/or full genome sequencing of fetal DNA (55%) available for all pregnant women. Significant minorities indicate, however, that a public offer of prenatal screening for all pregnant women would signal that people with Down syndrome are unwanted (46%) or could be criticized for contributing to a 'sorting society' (48%).
Results indicate deeper ambivalences and a cultural sensitivity to the ethical challenges of prenatal screening and subsequent abortions. The specific diagnosis of Down syndrome and the fear of becoming a 'sorting society' which sorts human life due to diagnoses, appear to play prominent roles in citizen deliberations. The low response rate means that a non-response bias cannot be excluded, yet reasons why results are still likely to be of value are discussed.
The objective of this article is to show the effects of the use of Free Association Technique on the elicitation of brand emotions and functional associations across a Western and an East Asian ...culture as well as to identify and test underlying mechanisms. The use of Western techniques for eliciting brand emotions may prove challenging for marketers in East Asian markets because of the different styles of thinking and feeling of consumers in the West versus East Asia. This investigation focuses on the role of visual context (individual vs social), in which brands are presented when eliciting brand associations in the West and in East Asia. The study shows that elicitation context significantly influences the type of brand emotions and functional associations across two distinct cultures: Norway and Thailand. Consumers’ self-construal and thinking style mediate the effects of culture, as interdependent self-construal and holistic thinking explain more context-dependent brand emotions generated by Thai than Norwegian consumers. This research has important implications for studying and managing brand associations and emotions across markets. The traditional view of brands as possessing abstract, stable associations, and emotions should be reconsidered in the East Asian cultural context. Marketing managers should adapt established Western elicitation techniques to the characteristics of East Asian consumers to increase their validity.
Consumers engage in self-production when they play an active role in the creation of end products, such as preparing a meal or assembling a piece of furniture. In three experimental studies of ...self-production involving a branded input product, the authors show that consumers' active engagement in the value creation process (preparing a meal) positively biases their evaluations of an outcome (a dish) and an input product (a dinner kit). A positive evaluation bias for the input product occurs despite increased self-attribution due to self-production. In support of an associative self-anchoring explanation and the notion of self-generated validity, self-producing consumers bias their sensory perceptions (e. g., perceived level of saltiness and spiciness) so that they match a positive evaluation of the outcome. Mediation analyses show that perceived self-integration (perceived link between self and outcome) partly mediates the positive effect of self-production on outcome evaluation. The authors conclude that branded input products may benefit from the evaluation bias caused by self-production.
•Four streams of research on servant leadership in marketing research.•Gaps and opportunities for future research on servant leadership in marketing.•Attitudinal and behavioral dimensions of servant ...leadership should be separated.•A new model of the effects of servant leadership on marketer creativity.
Leadership styles have profound effects on marketing outcomes. One style of leadership, which attracts increasing attention in general leadership research as well as in marketing, is servant leadership (SL). We present the first systematic literature review of the effects of SL on marketing outcomes, including publications in marketing-indexed journals over the past 52 years. Four streams of marketing research on SL-effects are identified. Analyses of relevant articles reveal important gaps in the literature and provide directions for future research. A major gap is the lack of studies on the effects of SL on marketing creativity. We suggest that SL is more conducive to creativity in marketing organizations than other common styles of leadership and develop a conceptual model for future research on SL-effects on marketer creativity.
In-depth understanding of brand associations is imperative to brand managers. However, the majority of associations are pre-conscious and non-verbal and therefore difficult to elicit. Few ...theory-based guidelines are found in the literature. Important characteristics of brand associations are discussed from the perspective of cognitive psychology and presented. On this basis, 4 challenges in qualitative elicitation of brand associations are identified: 1. gaining access to hidden associations, 2. helping respondents verbalise associations, 3. mitigating response censoring, and 4. validating reported associations. Seventeen practical guidelines are suggested for dealing with these challenges in elicitation interviews.
Two studies investigated the effects of charity advertising on perceptions of moral obligation to help others and gauged ad evaluation. This was done in cultures that were similar in individualism ...but differed in either masculinity (United States and Canada) or femininity (Denmark and Norway). Participants read appeals that solicited donations to charity by focusing on either egoistic or altruistic motives. In masculine cultures, men preferred the egoistic ad and women preferred the altruistic one. In feminine cultures, where women are agentic and men are allowed to be nurturing, the opposite was the case. Exposure to both types of ads activated a sense of personal obligation among men in feminine nations and women in masculine nations. However, their opposite-sex counterparts reacted against these ads. Implications of these findings for an understanding of culture and sex differences in advertising effectiveness are discussed.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to expand the notion of differentiation by developing and testing a typology of brand benefit differentiation.
Design/methodology/approach
Brand concept maps were ...used to identify three types of differentiation. The effects of the types of differentiation on benefit evaluation and brand attachment were tested in two follow-up studies using path analysis.
Findings
A comparison of the association maps of four international brands showed instances of all three types of benefit differentiation – categorical, graded and structural benefit differentiation. The tests of effects revealed that categorical benefit differentiation had negative effects, whereas structural and graded differentiation had positive effects on benefit evaluation and brand attachment, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that other types of benefit differentiation are more important than uniqueness. Future research should test the relevance and usefulness of the typology for other brands and consumer segments.
Practical implications
The new typology opens new opportunities for the differentiation of brands. Brand managers should avoid a myopic focus on uniqueness. Rather, they should analyze networks of benefit associations in detail for all three types of differentiation identified in this research and strengthen the level of structural and/or graded differentiation.
Originality/value
This research demonstrates, for the first time, the importance of two types of differentiation other than uniqueness. It also supports previous studies showing the negative effects of uniqueness on variables related to brand equity.
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