The Effects of Types of Envy and Self Construal Level on Indulgence

부러움의 유형과 자아해석의 고저수준에 따른 탐닉적 소비성향의 차이

Purpose - When indulging in hedonic items is construed as wasteful and evokes anticipated regret or guilt, consumers are more likely to seek reasons to justify their indulgence. Justification requirement for spending on indulgences over necessities could lead to the places of their finding the ways that mitigate the anticipated regret and guilt. However the previous research focusing on consumers' own great effort leading to positive outcomes has not given much attention to other's outcomes induced from his or her little or no efforts, by which consumers could feel envy. The guilt associated with consumers' indulgence could vary according to envy type felt according to their evaluation about other's outcomes and their self construal level. Current research explored the envy type's effects on consumers' spending on hedonic products, and moderation effects of self construal level on the envy type's effects. Research design, data, and methodology - 2(envy type: benign versus malicious) × 2(self construal level: high versus low) between-subjects design was employed. Data for empirical analysis were from 173 undergraduate participants. ANOVA was used to verify hypotheses. Results - The tendency of choosing utilitarian product versus hedonic product was moderated by the envy type. The participants who felt benign envy were more likely to choose utilitarian product versus hedonic product than those who felt malicious envy were. And the tendency of benign envy-felt participants' choosing hedonic versus utilitarian product was more weakened to those with lower-level self construal than to those with higher-level self construal. However the tendency of malicious envy-felt participants' choosing hedonic versus utilitarian product was not moderated by the self construal level. Conclusions - This research could advance the theory related to indulgent hedonic consumption by exploring the effects of self construal level and envy type on hedonic indulgence. In view of the results from current study, marketers should make efforts of communicating and selling utilitarian products to persuade consumers with lower-level construal when they feel benign envy to others. And they should conduct marketing acts for hedonic products to persuade consumers when they feel malicious envy to others.