Do People Perceive Products Differently when Buying for Self Versus for Others? Malleable Brand Personality in Gifting
Keywords:
Brand Personality Malleability, Social Identity Theory, SelfGifting, Gifting Others, Brand Personality Dimensions
Abstract
According to social identity theory, people behave differently in a social context than when they are by themselves because of social identity salience. Like people, brand personality changes depending on situations and context. There is lack of research investigating identity salience within the context of gifting and its subsequent impact on the perceived brand personality of a gift in different gifting situations. This paper proposes that in gifting situations of others, a social identity is activated which leads to change in the perceived brand personality of the same product purchased for self-gifting. Within the Japanese context, the hypothesis states that the excitement of brand personality dimension is more prominent in self-gifting than in gifting others, while competence and sincerity brand personalities are more prominent in gifting others than in self-gifting scenarios. To test these hypotheses, thirty-six brand personality traits (Aaker et al., 2001) of eight brands were evaluated by 251 respondents in Japan. Factor analysis and multiple regression results support the main hypotheses. The paper concludes with managerial implications and future research directions.
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References
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13. Brewer, M.B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5), 475-482.
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29. Lotz, S.L., Shim, S., & Gehrt, K.C. (2003). A Study of Japanese Consumers’ Cognitive Hierarchies in Formal and Informal Gift-Giving Situation. Psychology and Marketing, 20(1), 59-85.
30. Luomala, H.T. & Laaksonen, M. (1999). “A qualitative exploration of mood-regulatory self-gift behaviors”, Journal of Economic Psychology, 20 (2), 147-182.
31. Malar, L., Krohmer, H., & Hoyer, W.D. (2011). Emotional Brand Attachment and Brand Personality: The Relative Importance of the Actual and the Ideal Self. Journal of Marketing, 75(4), 35-52.
32. Mierina, I. & Koroleva, I. (2015). Negotiating identities and friendships while living abroad: Experiences of Latvian migrants. European Scientific Journal.
33. Mick, D.G. & DeMoss, M. (1992). Furthering findings on self-gifts: Products, qualities, and socioeconomic correlates. Advances in Consumer Research, 19, 140-46.
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35. Neo Marketing Inc. (2017). Ranking of popular souvenirs. Retrieved October 5, 2020, from https://www.neo-m.jp/investigation/146/.
36. Phau, I. & Lau, K. (2000). Conceptualising brand personality: A review and research propositions. J Target Meas Anal Mark 9, 52–69. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jt.5740005
37. Reed, A. (2004). Activating the Self-Importance of Consumer Selves: Exploring Identity Salience Effects on Judgments, Journal of Consumer Research, 31(2), 286-295.
38. Scott, J. (1966). Factor Analysis and Regression. Econometrica, 34(3), 552-562.
39. Sherry, J. (1983). Gift Giving in Anthropological Perspective. Journal of Consumer Research, 10(2), 157-168. Sherry, J.F. Jr, McGrath, M.A. and Levy, S.J. (1995), “Monadic giving: anatomy of gifts to the self”, in Sherry, J.F. Jr (Ed.), Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior: An Anthropological Sourcebook, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 399-432.
40. Stata.com (n.d.). suset- Seemingly unrelated estimation. Retrieved September, 8, 2023 from https://www.stata.com/rsuest
41. Stryker, S. (2007). Identity Theory and Personality Theory: Mutual Relevance. Journal of Personality, 75(6), 1083-1102.
42. Sundar, A. & Noseworthy, T.J. (2016). Too Exciting to Fail, Too Sincere to Succeed: The Effects of Brand Personality on Sensory Disconfirmation. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(1), 44-67.
43. UCLA Statistical Methods and Data Analytics (n.d.). Comparing regression coefficients across groups using SUEST/STATA code fragments. Retrieved September 9, 2023 from stats.oarc.ula.edu/stata/code/comparing-regression-coefficients-across-groups-using-suest/.
44. Ward, C. & Broniarczyk, S. (2011). It’s Not Me, It’s You: How Gift Giving Creates Giver Identity Threat as a Function of Social Closeness 38(June). Journal of Consumer Research, 38(June), 164-181.
45. Ward, C. & Tran, T. (2008). Consumer Gifting Behaviors: One for You, One for Me? Service Marketing Quarterly, 29(2), 1-17.
46. Webster, M.M. & Ward, A.J.W. (2011). Personality and social context. Biological reviews 86 (4) 759-773.
47. Witkowski, T. & Yamamoto, Y. (1991). Omiyage Gift Purchasing by Japanese Travelers in the U.S. Advances in Consumer Research. 18, pp. 123-128. Association of Consumer Research.
48. Wolfinbarger, M.F. & Yale, L.J. (1993). Three motivations for interpersonal gift giving: Experiential, obligated and practical motivations. In NA- Advances in Consumer Research Volume 20, eds. Leigh McAlister and Michael L. Rothschild, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 520-526.
49. Yorkston, E., Nunes, J., & Matta, S. (2010). The Malleable Brand: The role of implicit theories in evaluating brand extensions. Journal of Marketing, 74(1), 80-93.
2. Aaker, J. (1999). The Malleable Self: The Role of Self-Expression in Persuasion”, Journal of Marketing Research, 36 (1), 45-57.
3. Aaker, D. (2016). Berkeley Haas Dean's Speaker Series - David Aaker: "The Power of Brand Personality". Accessed July 1, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOtSlDhwSdM
4. Aaker, J., Benet-Martinez, J., & Jordi, V. (2001). Consumption Symbols as Carriers of Culture: A Study of Japanese and Spanish Personality Constructs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(3), 482-508.
5. Atalay, S. & Meloy, M. (2006). When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. An examination of self-gifting behavior. Advances in Consumer Research Vol. 33, eds. Connie Pechmann and Linda Price, Duluth, MN. pp. 259-260.
6. Avis, M., Forbes, S., & Ferguson, S. (2013). The brand personality of rocks: A critical evaluation of a brand personality scale. Marketing Theory, 14(4), 451-475.
7. Azoulay, A. (2005). The malleable personality of brands: the winning facets. Proceedings of the 34th EMAC Colloquium, Milan, Italy.
8. Baskins, E., Wakslak, C., Trope, Y., & Novemsky, N. (2014). Why Feasibility Matters More to Gift Receivers than to Givers: A Construl-Level Approach to Gift Giving. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(1), 169-182.
9. Belk, R. (1979). Gift giving behaviour, Vol.2, Greenwich: JAI Press.
10. Belk, R. (1996). The Perfect Gift in Gift Giving: A Research Anthology, ed. Cele Otnes and Richard F. Beltramini, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 59-84.
11. Bokayev, B. (2013). Language, ethnic identity, and adaptation of ethnic migrants in post-soviet Kazakhstan. European Scientific Journal.
12. Borrero, M. V. R. (2014). Cuisine as a marker of cultural identity. A hermeneutic look at "Indian cuisine", a short story by trinidadian-Canadian writer ramabai espinet. European Scientific Journal.
13. Brewer, M.B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5), 475-482.
14. Burke, P.J. (1980). The Self: Measurement Requirements from an Interactionist Perspective. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43(1), 18-29.
15. Devlieger, I., Mayer, A., & Rosseel, Y. (2016). Hypothesis Testing Using Factor Score Regression: A Comparison of Four Methods. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 76(5), 741–770.
16. Dweck C.S., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1995). Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A word from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry, 6(4), 267-285.
17. Engelmann, J. (2019). Whom people gifted presents to in the last six months in Japan as of October 2018, by age group. Accessed March 15, 2020 from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1009159/japan-recent-gift-giving-recipient-by-age-group/
18. Forehand, M.R., Deshpande, R., & Reed, A. (2002). Identity Salience and the Influence of Differential Activation of the Social Self-Schema on Advertising Response. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(6), 1086.
19. Friedman, H. S. & Miller-Herringer, T. (1991). Nonverbal display of emotion in public and in private: Self-monitoring, personality, and expressive cues. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(5), 766–775.
20. Gupta, M., Parvathy, Givi, J., Dey, M., Baker, H. K., & Das, G. (2023). A bibliometric analysis on gift giving. Psychology & Marketing, 40, 629–642. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21785
21. Heath T.P. & Tynan, C. (2015). Accounts of self-gift giving: nature, context and emotions. European Journal of Marketing, 49(7/8), 1067-1086.
22. Hogg, M. A. & Abrams, D. (1993). Towards a single-process uncertainty-reduction model of social motivation in groups. In M. A. Hogg & D. Abrams (Eds.), Group motivation: Social psychological perspectives (p. 173–190). Harvester Wheatsheaf.
23. Hogg, M., Terry, D., & White, K. (1995). A Tale of Two Theories: A Critical Comparison of Identity Theory with Social Identity Theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 58(4), 255-269.
24. Irini, R., John, K., & Athina, C. (2015). Product Choice Attitude Formation: It is a Matter Of A Collective Or Personal Identity?. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 11(3). Retrieved from https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/5051.
25. Kanno, S. & Suzuki, S. (2019). Romantic Self-Gifts to the "Hidden True Self: Self-Gifting and Multiple Selves”. In R. W. Yuko Minowa, Gifts, Romance, and Consumer Culture. New York, USA: Routledge.
26. Kervyn, N., Fiske, S. T., & Malone, C. (2022). Social perception of brands: Warmth and competence define images of both brands and social groups. Consumer Psychology Review, 5(1), 51-68.
27. Khmil V.V. & Popovych, L.S. (2019). Philosophical and psychological dimension of social expectations of personality. Anthropological Measurements of Philosophical research, 16, 55-65.
28. Kusek, K. (2016). Every Day is a Singles' Day. Forbes.
29. Lotz, S.L., Shim, S., & Gehrt, K.C. (2003). A Study of Japanese Consumers’ Cognitive Hierarchies in Formal and Informal Gift-Giving Situation. Psychology and Marketing, 20(1), 59-85.
30. Luomala, H.T. & Laaksonen, M. (1999). “A qualitative exploration of mood-regulatory self-gift behaviors”, Journal of Economic Psychology, 20 (2), 147-182.
31. Malar, L., Krohmer, H., & Hoyer, W.D. (2011). Emotional Brand Attachment and Brand Personality: The Relative Importance of the Actual and the Ideal Self. Journal of Marketing, 75(4), 35-52.
32. Mierina, I. & Koroleva, I. (2015). Negotiating identities and friendships while living abroad: Experiences of Latvian migrants. European Scientific Journal.
33. Mick, D.G. & DeMoss, M. (1992). Furthering findings on self-gifts: Products, qualities, and socioeconomic correlates. Advances in Consumer Research, 19, 140-46.
34. Mick, D.G., DeMoss, M., & Faber, R.J. (1992), “A projective study of motivations and meanings of self-gifts: implications for retail management”, Journal of Retailing, 68 (2), 122-144.
35. Neo Marketing Inc. (2017). Ranking of popular souvenirs. Retrieved October 5, 2020, from https://www.neo-m.jp/investigation/146/.
36. Phau, I. & Lau, K. (2000). Conceptualising brand personality: A review and research propositions. J Target Meas Anal Mark 9, 52–69. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jt.5740005
37. Reed, A. (2004). Activating the Self-Importance of Consumer Selves: Exploring Identity Salience Effects on Judgments, Journal of Consumer Research, 31(2), 286-295.
38. Scott, J. (1966). Factor Analysis and Regression. Econometrica, 34(3), 552-562.
39. Sherry, J. (1983). Gift Giving in Anthropological Perspective. Journal of Consumer Research, 10(2), 157-168. Sherry, J.F. Jr, McGrath, M.A. and Levy, S.J. (1995), “Monadic giving: anatomy of gifts to the self”, in Sherry, J.F. Jr (Ed.), Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior: An Anthropological Sourcebook, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 399-432.
40. Stata.com (n.d.). suset- Seemingly unrelated estimation. Retrieved September, 8, 2023 from https://www.stata.com/rsuest
41. Stryker, S. (2007). Identity Theory and Personality Theory: Mutual Relevance. Journal of Personality, 75(6), 1083-1102.
42. Sundar, A. & Noseworthy, T.J. (2016). Too Exciting to Fail, Too Sincere to Succeed: The Effects of Brand Personality on Sensory Disconfirmation. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(1), 44-67.
43. UCLA Statistical Methods and Data Analytics (n.d.). Comparing regression coefficients across groups using SUEST/STATA code fragments. Retrieved September 9, 2023 from stats.oarc.ula.edu/stata/code/comparing-regression-coefficients-across-groups-using-suest/.
44. Ward, C. & Broniarczyk, S. (2011). It’s Not Me, It’s You: How Gift Giving Creates Giver Identity Threat as a Function of Social Closeness 38(June). Journal of Consumer Research, 38(June), 164-181.
45. Ward, C. & Tran, T. (2008). Consumer Gifting Behaviors: One for You, One for Me? Service Marketing Quarterly, 29(2), 1-17.
46. Webster, M.M. & Ward, A.J.W. (2011). Personality and social context. Biological reviews 86 (4) 759-773.
47. Witkowski, T. & Yamamoto, Y. (1991). Omiyage Gift Purchasing by Japanese Travelers in the U.S. Advances in Consumer Research. 18, pp. 123-128. Association of Consumer Research.
48. Wolfinbarger, M.F. & Yale, L.J. (1993). Three motivations for interpersonal gift giving: Experiential, obligated and practical motivations. In NA- Advances in Consumer Research Volume 20, eds. Leigh McAlister and Michael L. Rothschild, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 520-526.
49. Yorkston, E., Nunes, J., & Matta, S. (2010). The Malleable Brand: The role of implicit theories in evaluating brand extensions. Journal of Marketing, 74(1), 80-93.
Published
2023-10-31
How to Cite
Sussan, F., & Nakagawa, H. (2023). Do People Perceive Products Differently when Buying for Self Versus for Others? Malleable Brand Personality in Gifting. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 19(28), 27. https://doi.org/10.19044/esj.2023.v19n28p27
Section
ESJ Social Sciences
Copyright (c) 2023 Fiona Sussan, Hideyuki Nakagawa
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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