earticle

영어

The objective of this paper is to examine how MS influences consumer brand choice. This research will explore whether one’s brand preference is reversed when mortality is made salient. This study hypothesized that, when people are reminded of death, their brand choices will be polarized either to a more prototypical or to the most favored brands and self-esteem will moderate how MS affects the decision between prototypical and favorable brands. People with low self-esteem are prone to be defensive because they perceive that they have fewer and less accessible resources capable of affirming overall esteem. When mortality is made salient, low self-esteem individuals become more self-defensive and their increased self-protection motivates them to choose more prototypical brands which are perceived as standards or norms in the product categories. For people who are high in self-protection motivation during high MS conditions, brands that represent a category can function as a death-anxiety buffer by providing them with a meaningful, structured, and stable sense of reality. On the other hand, people with high self-esteem tend to be less defensive because they are confident in their own resource affirming self-esteem. For those who are high in self-esteem, high MS may intensify their efforts to bolster rather than defend self-esteem. Thus, their increased self-enhancing motivation drives them to select more favorable brands (vs. prototypical brands) because they believe that the brands bolster self-esteem. Through two experiments with Korean noodle and beverage brands, we confirmed the hypotheses above. Based upon the results, this study offers several implications.

한국어

이 연구의 목적은 죽음 현저성이 개인의 브랜드 선택에 미치는 영향을 연구하는 것이다. 이 연구에서는 죽음 현저성의 선행연구들을 기반으로 하여 다음과 같은 가설을 설정하였다. 첫째, 죽음 현저성이 높은 경우(죽은 현저성이 낮은 경우와 비교하여), 자존감이 높은 개인은 전형적인 브랜드 보다 자신이 선호하는 브랜드를 더 많이 선택할 것이다. 둘째, 죽음 현저성이 높은 경우(죽은 현저성이 낮은 경우와 비교하여), 자존감이 낮은 개인은 자신이 선호하는 브랜드보다 전형적인 브랜드를 더 많이 선택할 것이다. 이 연구는 라면과 탄산음료의 제품을 가지고 약 280명의 대학생들을 대상으로 두 차례에 걸쳐 실험연구를 실시하였다. 실험을 통해 설정된 가설들이 모두 지지된 것을 확인하였다. 마지막으로 이 결과를 바탕으로 몇 가지 시사점을 제시하였다.