Consumption of masstige brands has emerged as an important research domain. This study investigates the key determinants, mediators, and consequences of masstige brands as they impact the willingness ...to pay a premium price. Following a pre-test with experts, we identified several brands belonging to masstige categories. Based on a sample of 1249 U.S. respondents, the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the proposed conceptual model. The findings reveal that ideal self-congruence, brand tribalism, inconspicuousness, and brand engagement are key determinants of willingness to pay a premium price through the mediating effect of brand equity and brand happiness. This study’s contribution to the literature is critical because it helps better understand the relevant factors underlying the emerging domain of masstige consumption. The theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are also discussed.
We argue that because of a long history of intergroup conflict and competition, humans evolved to be tribal creatures. Tribalism is not inherently bad, but it can lead to ideological thinking and ...sacred values that distort cognitive processing of putatively objective information in ways that affirm and strengthen the views and well-being of one's ingroup (and that increase one's own standing within one's ingroup). Because of this shared evolutionary history of intergroup conflict, liberals and conservatives likely share the same underlying tribal psychology, which creates the potential for ideologically distorted information processing. Over the past several decades, social scientists have sedulously documented various tribal and ideological psychological tendencies on the political right, and more recent work has documented similar tendencies on the political left. We contend that these tribal tendencies and propensities can lead to ideologically distorted information processing in any group. And this ideological epistemology can become especially problematic for the pursuit of the truth when groups are ideologically homogenous and hold sacred values that might be contradicted by empirical inquiry. Evidence suggests that these conditions might hold for modern social science; therefore, we conclude by exploring potential ideologically driven distortions in the social sciences.
Against the background of recent methodological debates pitting ethnography against interviewing, this paper offers a defense of the latter and argues for methodological pluralism and pragmatism and ...against methodological tribalism. Drawing on our own work and on other sources, we discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of interviewing. We argue that concern over whether attitudes correspond to behavior is an overly narrow and misguided question. Instead we offer that we should instead consider what interviewing and other data gathering techniques are best suited for. In our own work, we suggest, we have used somewhat unusual interviewing techniques to reveal how institutional systems and the construction of social categories, boundaries, and status hierarchies organize social experience. We also point to new methodological challenges, particularly concerning the incorporation of historical and institutional dimensions into interview-based studies. We finally describe fruitful directions for future research, which may result in methodological advances while bringing together the strengths of various data collection techniques.
Proliferation of esport has created a complex landscape of participants, communities, organisations and investors. With alluring lucrative economic, social and political incentives, the crowded ...esport commons have become a site of rich resource for varied interests, yet also a locale of idea sharing, community production, and collective action. Notwithstanding advantageous outcomes for some stakeholders, esport has also become a space of turbulent tribal relations, exclusion, marginalisation, and inequalities. Such issues precipitate the need for closer examination of esport spaces, relations within these communities, and the underlying ideological and moral conditions thereof. Drawing on spatial theory, and utilising data from 16 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus groups (n = 65) with key esport stakeholders, this research explored current experiences of identity and esport community membership. Our investigation focussed on esport and explored the ideological grounding, current practices and tensions present within esport communities.
This article is an in-depth study of the roots, faces, and features of tribalism as it thrives in recent African history and experience during and after colonialism and Western missionary activities, ...as well as the contemporary state of African societies in general and in Nigeria in particular. The issue of ‘tribe’, ethnicity, and race are fundamental theological concerns in Africa. The paper significantly identifies and defines the roots, faces and features of tribalism in Africa. The four African primordial social factors of ethnicity, land, religion and culture that are foundational to the worldview, ethnicity and tribalism as built by African ancestors are identified and discussed. The African concept of kinship rooted in blood and the analysis of the effects of tribalism in the social, political, religious and economic spheres of contemporary Africa is highlighted here. The goal of this article is to be able to state concisely and clearly what are the roots, faces and features of tribalism in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. The methodology used in this study was the historical research method in which various relevant sources in literature were interrogated.
The complicated relationship between political tribalism, meritocracy, and human capital in Kuwait emerges as an important focus in the changing landscape of modern organizations. This paper ...carefully examines this complex relationship, demonstrating its significant implications for human capital management. Political tribalism, which is closely associated with power systems, has a noticeable impact on core human capital processes like hiring, training, and career advancement. In addition, the fundamental idea of a meritocracy promotes unbiased hiring practices by putting competence above affiliation. An in-depth understanding of the mediating role performed by human capital practices is necessary in order to effectively address complex political elements while firmly maintaining meritocratic values. The findings presented here apply to similar organizational situations other than Kuwait. The study provides firms with invaluable insights by revealing these complex links and encourages proactive actions to develop an open, equitable human capital strategy. It attempts to create an environment that encourages the development of human capital, the maintenance of a strong meritocratic system, and the effective mitigation of the negative effects of political tribalism.
The social media phenomenon known as #thedress, a photograph of a dress that appeared to be either blue and black or white and gold, has been called one of the most viral debates of the twenty-first ...century. While many scientific explanations have been offered to explain the image’s mysterious color ambiguity, this article analyzes #thedress as an example of a broader genre that I call viral ambiguity illusions, images or sounds that can be perceived in two or more ways, and which invite users to share their perception through likes, comments, and hashtags. Drawing on the social dimensions of aesthetic theory (especially beauty), I argue that viral ambiguity illusions satisfy a distinctly aesthetic desire to share our diverging perceptions with others at historically unprecedented scales, forming what I call aesthetic publics. Ultimately, this aesthetic understanding of viral ambiguity illusions can help nuance assumptions about the polarizing effects of social media.
Over the last 20 years, journalism scholars have criticized Western media for their reporting of Africa. Scott recently argued in this journal that this criticism has become taken for granted to the ...point of becoming a "myth". This article constitutes the first academic response to Scott and revisits empirically what we think we know best about Western media coverage of Africa. It identifies and assesses three claims about this coverage, namely that it systematically (1) refers to "darkness" and "tribalism"; (2) it presents Africa as a homogenous entity; and (3) that it relies predominantly on Western sources. The corpus includes 282 articles published across eight British and French newspapers (2007-2012). The textual analysis-complemented by interviews with correspondents-finds that the claims that coverage systematically refers to "tribalism" and "darkness", treats Africa as a country and relies pre-dominantly on Western voices are not empirically supported. Nonetheless, it reveals that processes of conflation are at stake, and that the framing of African voices is impacted by a linguistic bias linked to peculiar perceptions of African political leadership. The article concludes that the critical ethos of postcolonial critique is best served by transparent and nuanced interpretation of textual data.
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