• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.193-222
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• 2010

This questionnaire study examined the processes linking complexity of self-construal to self-positivity conceptualized as taking multiple perspectives, self-acceptance and self-regulation that, in turn, affect psychological well-being among people with an experience of life-crisis during adulthood due to physical disability or divorce. Data were drawn from 359 adult Koreans residing in Seoul metropolitan area, including the physically disabled, the divorced, and their counterparts without a life-crisis experience during adulthood for comparison. On average, the life-crisis experience group(LEG) had a higher independent selfconstrual and a lower interdependent self-construal than the comparison group(CG). As predicted, complexity of self-construal contributed to taking multiple perspectives that helps searching for meaning, and this, in turn, was found to foster self-acceptance and self-regulation. Through these variables except self-regulation, complex self-construal contributed to psychological well-being as manifested by a higher level of positive emotion and a lower level of depression. As expected, while taking multiple perspectives fostered positive emotion both directly and indirectly through self-acceptance among LEG and CG, only in LEG it directly reduced depression. The comparative approach employed in this study enabled to discern that taking multiple perspectives promotes psychological well-being in LEG by contributing to both meaning making and positive attitude, whereas it promotes psychological well-being in CG primarily by fostering positive attitude. Finally implications for this study were discussed and directions for future research were suggested.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.36
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• pp.423-462
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• 2006

This thesis explores the relationship between self-construal and online communication pattern. The Internet has changed human-to human communication. This study was to analyze how the self-construal was appeared and what relationship self-construal had with several variables: the motivation of the on-line community member, the on-line community's character, the communication behavior, the level of relationship between on-line community members- in on-line communities. The data was collected through the on-line survey research(N=79) and off-line survey research(N=255). The results lead us to conclude that the self-construals in on-line communities reflect two factors, which is similar to the off-line community. Nevertheless, self-construals in on-line communities are more complicated. In addition, uniqueness of self-construals which is the tendency to express the self and think connection with others critical is the important factor in on-line communities' communication. It is also central that the impact of self-construals on communication behavior is significant. I think this study was a small touch to explore cyber communication applying to self-consturals. And I hope this small touch would spread out and help to understand human communication as well as cyber communication.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.23-37
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• 2012

Individuals often make their judgments on the basis of the ease or difficulty with which information comes to mind (for reviews, see Greifeneder, Bless, and Pham 2010; Schwarz 1998, 2004). Recent research, however, has documented that variables known to determine the degree of cognitive resources invested in information processing such as personal relevance (Grayson and Schwarz 1999; Rothman and Schwarz 1998), accuracy motivation (Aarts and Dijksterhuis 1999), and processing capacity (Menon and Raghubir 2003) can affect the extent to which individuals draw on metacognitive difficulty in making their judgments. The primary aim of this research is thus to investigate whether individuals with substantial cognitive resources or those with lack of cognitive resources are more likely to draw on metacognitive difficulty when making their product evaluations. The findings from two laboratory experiments indicate that individuals who perceive a greater level of fit between their self-regulatory orientation and temporal construal (Experiment 1), and between their self-construal and the type of product benefit appeal (Experiment 2) are more likely than those who perceive the lack of such fit to evaluate a target product less positively after thinking of many rather than a few positive reasons. The findings provide supporting evidence for the two-stage backward inference process involved with the effect of metacognitive difficulty on consumer judgments in that consumer judgments based on metacognitive difficulty may require greater cognitive resources than those based on the content of information generated. Also, the current research documents further empirical evidence for the relationship between self-regulatory orientation-construal level fit and cognitive resources such that perceived regulatory-construal level fit can increase consumer willingness to invest cognitive resources into their judgment tasks. Last, the findings can help marketers differentiate purchase situations where asking consumers to think of many positive benefits from purchase situations where asking consumers to think of a few key benefits is relatively more beneficial.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.211-225
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• 2019

In recent years, consumers emphasize the various sensory experiences in the process of shopping rather than the practical value of shopping results. In order to satisfy consumers' diverse needs, retailers transform their offline stores into experiential spaces to encourage consumers to experience diverse and enjoyable experiences. This study divided the sub-factors of customer experience into hedonic experiences, functional experiences, and social interaction experiences, and investigated the effect of sub - factors of customer experience on consumers' enjoyment and intention to stay in off-line store. In addition, it is assumed that there will be a difference in the influence of three levels of customer experience on enjoyment according to the consumer's self-construal levels. As a result of this study, all of the hypotheses were supported except hypothesis 1 that the customer's hedonic experience has a positive effect on pleasure. In addition, as a result of verifying the moderating effect of self-construal levels, the self-construal level of consumers has no significant effect on the path of hedonic experiences on pleasure, but significant moderating effects of self-construal levels were identified in the pathways of functional and social interactive experiences on pleasure. The results of this study will be helpful in identifying and utilizing differentiated experience marketing strategies in the off-line stores that only offline channels can have in the fierce competition due to the diversification of distribution channels.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.207-225
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• 2016

This study investigated a conceptual framework of fashion consumers' purchase decision-making styles related to behavioral typology of personality. In response to critiques on fragmented and varied use of personality measurements, this study selectively tested and verified an alternative typological model of Enneagram value systems and self-construal levels that could explain the fashion consumers' typological propensities in purchase decision-making. One hundred-item measurement scale for the fashion consumers' purchase decision-making styles was developed based on the extensive literature. Three groups of fashion major students, a total of 107 participants, who respectively participated in 2-hour-long Enneagrams seminars from spring 2013 to fall 2014, were asked to re-sentence the question items to clearly reflect their Enneagram personality to make purchase decisions. Participants described their propensities in their own words about the most comfortable state during the 5-step processes of the purchase decision making process. The revised scale was distributed to 423 participants in January 2016, and the results verified the group differences in various styles in the process of purchase decision-making corresponding to the typological variables discussed in Enneagram. The correlation between Enneagram core values embodied by fashion consumers during the stages of purchase decision-making in extensive levels of self-construal were verified in the context of their fashion decision making. This study found the possibility of the typological approach toward Enneagram types of personality to be applicable to explain and predict peculiar facets of fashion consumers' purchase decision-making styles.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.555-568
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• 2018

This study has expanded the existing studies on the characteristics of consumers using the personal level of cultural dimensions and self-construal. As Korean are becoming more individualistic and independent, we have focused on consumer independence in self-construal. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of consumer independence on consumers' attitudes and purchase intention toward consensus claim in ads. We hypothesized that individuals with higher in independence are more likely to show negative attitudes and the purchase intention towards the ads focused on consensus claim. Two experiments revealed that consumers higher in independence, depicting consensus claim in ads reduces consumers' attitudes and purchase intention. Based on the results, we suggest that for individuals higher in independence, consensus claims in product advertisement are less effective advertising strategy which ultimately lower consumers' purchase intentions. Important theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.171-197
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• 2023

The traditional Korean society has been classified as an Eastern collectivist culture, but in the flow of globalization and digitalization along with the post-Cold War era of the 1970s, Western individualistic culture and values quickly permeated the Korean younger generation. Since rapid changes occurred within a short period of time, there may be differences in cultural self-construal between generations living in the same era. Due to this, psychological problems related to emotional expression and suppression may appear differently depending on generations. Therefore, in the current study, 1,000 Korean adult men and women from their 20s to 60s were investigated for their level of independent and interdependent self-construal, alexithymia, ambivalence over emotional expression(AEE) and emotional suppression(ES). Then the relationship between the variables(self-construal and alexithymia,) and the mediating process of AEE and ES were examined. The generation of participants were divided into the industrialization cohort (birth year < 1970) and the digitalization cohort (birth year starting from 1970). Using the PROCESS macro(Hayes, 2022), we tested a serial mediation model of AEE and ES between the relative independent self-construal(RIS) and alexithymia. The results indicate that the level of alexithymia increases by the serial increase of AEE and ES when RIS decreases. Next, we examined a moderation effect of generatione on the mediation process of AEE and ES, and found that generation moderates the relationship between ES and alexithymia. That is, the effect of ES on alexithymia is significant for the digitalization cohort, while it is not significant for the industrialization cohort. The current results imply that emotion regulation strategies of Koreans have been differently developed according to prevailing cultural values in each generation, and that the negative influence of emotion suppression could be different according to the cultural background of each generation.

• Korean Journal of Artificial Intelligence
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2020

In this paper, it is to identify the effects of differences in interpretation levels depending on the type of brand association and the brain psychological distance on the evaluation of the product of that brand through two experiments. To test our hypotheses empirically, we conducted online survey. We addressed the hypotheses involving the general and relative impact of actual and ideal self-congruence on emotional brand attachment (H1) and explored the effect of product involvement as the moderating variable (H1-1 and H1-2). The goal of this research was to validate the results from involving our basic model and to explore the impact of two additional moderating variables (self-esteem and public self-consciousness: H2). We followed the same procedure. This finding is theoretical to the extent of the interpretation level theory in brand association research by applying the interpretation level theory to the brand association, and provides the meaning that, in practice, it is necessary to utilize the message of different types of brain psychological distance depending on the brand association characteristics that the brand has in defining the brand. In particular, it was confirmed that functional brand associations and symbolic brand annals have representational harmonization, respectively, depending on the low and high levels of interpretation levels.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.89-102
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• 2020

Consumers purchase gifts for themselves and for others. This research examined whether one's preferred purchase type (material or experiential) would depend on the gift recipient (self or others). A total of 200 participants took part in online studies via Amazon Mechanical-Turk. Based on the construal-level theory, people will focus on concrete product attributes for psychologically close objects; however, for psychologically distant objects, people will concentrate on abstract product attributes. Study 1 demonstrated that participants preferred material over experiential purchases in self-gifting situations, while they preferred experiential compared to material gifts for others. In Study 2, it was found that individual differences in emotional disconnection moderated the effect of gift recipient on preferred gift type. Specifically, the differences in preferred gift type increased as one's emotional disconnection level increased. The results of this research have theoretical implications in terms of extending construal-level theory to gift-purchasing behaviors. Furthermore, this research has practical implications for marketers and advertisers. Limitations and possible future research directions were also discussed.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.155-166
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• 2021

Objectives: Driven by a growth of single-person households and individualized lifestyles, solo dining in restaurants is an increasingly recognizable trend. However, a research gap exists in the comparison of solo and group diners' menu-decision making processes. Based on the self-control dilemma and the temporal construal theory as a theoretical framework, this study compared the ordering intentions of solo vs. group diners with healthy vs. indulgent (less healthy) entrées. The mediating role of consumption orientation and the moderating role of amount of menu nutrition information were further explored to understand the mechanism and a boundary condition. Methods: A scenario-based online survey was developed using a 2 (dining social context: solo vs. with others) × 3 (amount of menu nutrition information: no nutrition information vs. calories vs. calories/fat/sodium), between-subjects, experimental design. Consumers' level of nutrition involvement was controlled. A nationwide survey data (n = 224) were collected from a crowdsourcing platform in the U.S. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance, independent t-test, univariate analysis of covariance, and moderated mediation analyses. Results: Findings reveal that solo (vs. group) diners have less (vs. more) intentions to order indulgent menu items due to a more utilitarian (vs. more hedonic) consumption orientation in restaurant dining. Findings also show that solo (vs. group) diners have more (vs. less) intentions to order healthy menu items when the restaurant menu presented nutrition information including calories, fat, and sodium. Conclusions: The findings contribute to the literature of foodservice management, healthy eating, and consumer behavior by revealing a mechanism and an external stimuli of solo vs. group diners' healthy menu-decision making process in restaurants. Furthermore, the findings provide restauranteurs and health professionals with insights into the positive and negative impacts of menu nutrition labelling on consumers' menu-decisions.