IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v61y2017icp115-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When symbolism overtakes quality: Materialists consumers disregard product quality when faced with luxury brands

Author

Listed:
  • Audrin, Catherine
  • Brosch, Tobias
  • Chanal, Julien
  • Sander, David

Abstract

Consumers use extrinsic and intrinsic cues to set preferences and make purchase decisions. However, the extent to which luxury-related extrinsic cues determine consumer preferences and whether the relative weighting of extrinsic vs. intrinsic cues depends on consumers’ values is still unclear. We investigated how luxury vs. non-luxury brands affect consumer preferences, and how this impact is moderated by consumers’ materialistic values. Results from Experiment 1 showed that materialistic and non-materialistic participants similarly appreciated products with luxurious brands. However, compared with non-materialistic participants, materialistic participants devaluated products that were tagged as non-luxurious brands. In Experiment 2, we investigated how product quality interacts with brands and whether materialistic values moderated this interaction. Materialistic participants paid more attention to brand-related cues than to quality-related cues, whereas non-materialistic participants considered these cues similarly. Taken together, the results of these two studies suggest that materialism influences the way extrinsic (i.e., brand) and intrinsic (i.e., quality) information is combined during product evaluation. These results highlight the importance of materialism in consumer decision-making, especially in the context of luxury consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Audrin, Catherine & Brosch, Tobias & Chanal, Julien & Sander, David, 2017. "When symbolism overtakes quality: Materialists consumers disregard product quality when faced with luxury brands," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 115-123.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:61:y:2017:i:c:p:115-123
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2017.04.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487016301374
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joep.2017.04.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richins, Marsha L, 1994. "Special Possessions and the Expression of Material Values," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(3), pages 522-533, December.
    2. Gilles Laurent & B. Dubois, 1994. "Attitudes Towards the Concept of Luxury: an exploratory analysis," Post-Print hal-00829066, HAL.
    3. Bruno Godey & Daniele Pederzoli & Gaetano Aiello & Raffaele Donvito & Klaus-Peter Wiedmann, 2009. "An international perspective on luxury brand and country of origin effect," Post-Print hal-00565479, HAL.
    4. Anthony D. Miyazaki & Dhruv Grewal & Ronald C. Goodstein, 2005. "The Effect of Multiple Extrinsic Cues on Quality Perceptions: A Matter of Consistency," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 32(1), pages 146-153, June.
    5. Gil, Luciana A. & Kwon, Kyoung-Nan & Good, Linda K. & Johnson, Lester W., 2012. "Impact of self on attitudes toward luxury brands among teens," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 1425-1433.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aurora Kamberi, 2021. "Albanian National Museums: How to Overcome the Digital Gap Towards a Better National Heritage Promotion," European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 6, ejms_v6_i.
    2. Durana Pavol & Kliestikova Jana & Kovacova Maria, 2019. "The Quality of Brand Products: Expected Attributes vs. Perceived Reality," Economics and Culture, Sciendo, vol. 16(1), pages 98-107, June.
    3. Bahri-Ammari, Nedra & Coulibaly, Daouda & Ben Mimoun, Mohamed Slim, 2020. "The bandwagon luxury consumption in Tunisian case: The roles of independent and interdependent self concept," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ostovan, Nima & Khalili Nasr, Arash, 2022. "The manifestation of luxury value dimensions in brand engagement in self-concept," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Klaus Heine & Glyn Atwal & Jiaxun He, 2019. "Managing country-of-origin affiliations for luxury brand-building in China," Post-Print hal-02312231, HAL.
    3. Bakir, Aysen & Gentina, Elodie & de Araújo Gil, Luciana, 2020. "What shapes adolescents’ attitudes toward luxury brands? The role of self-worth, self-construal, gender and national culture," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    4. Sharma, Amalesh & Soni, Mauli & Borah, Sourav Bikash & Haque, Tanjum, 2022. "From silos to synergies: A systematic review of luxury in marketing research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 893-907.
    5. Gurzki, Hannes & Woisetschläger, David M., 2017. "Mapping the luxury research landscape: A bibliometric citation analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 147-166.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14326 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Shahid, Shadma & Paul, Justin, 2021. "Intrinsic motivation of luxury consumers in an emerging market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    8. Gentina, Elodie & Shrum, L.J. & Lowrey, Tina M., 2016. "Teen attitudes toward luxury fashion brands from a social identity perspective: A cross-cultural study of French and U.S. teenagers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 5785-5792.
    9. Gong Sun & Wangshuai Wang & Zhiming Cheng & Jie Li & Junhua Chen, 2017. "The Intermediate Linkage Between Materialism and Luxury Consumption: Evidence from the Emerging Market of China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 475-487, May.
    10. Loussaïef, Leïla & Ulrich, Isabelle & Damay, Coralie, 2019. "How does access to luxury fashion challenge self-identity? Exploring women's practices of joint and non-ownership," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 263-272.
    11. Hector Gonzalez-Jimenez, 2017. "The self-concept life cycle and brand perceptions: An interdisciplinary perspective," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 7(1), pages 67-84, June.
    12. Lim, Weng Marc & Phang, Cynthia Su Chen & Lim, Ai Ling, 2020. "The effects of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism on consumer behavior toward economical versus luxury product categories, goods versus services product types, and individual versus ," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    13. Chan, Wing Yin & To, Chester K.M. & Chu, Wai Ching, 2015. "Materialistic consumers who seek unique products: How does their need for status and their affective response facilitate the repurchase intention of luxury goods?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 1-10.
    14. Ajitha, S. & Sivakumar, V.J., 2017. "Understanding the effect of personal and social value on attitude and usage behavior of luxury cosmetic brands," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 103-113.
    15. Parguel, Béatrice & Delécolle, Thierry & Valette-Florence, Pierre, 2016. "How price display influences consumer luxury perceptions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 341-348.
    16. Schade, Michael & Hegner, Sabrina & Horstmann, Florian & Brinkmann, Nora, 2016. "The impact of attitude functions on luxury brand consumption: An age-based group comparison," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 314-322.
    17. Béatrice Parguel & Thierry Delécolle & Pierre Valette-Florence, 2014. "Effect of price display on brand luxury perceptions," Post-Print hal-01644820, HAL.
    18. Chao-Ming Yang, 2020. "Influences of Product Involvement and Symbolic Consumption Cues in Advertisements on Consumer Attitudes," International Journal of Marketing Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(2), pages 1-15, March.
    19. Marianela Denegri & María Baeza & Natalia Salinas-Oñate & Verónica Peñaloza & Horacio Miranda & Ligia Orellana, 2014. "Materialism in Pedagogy Students in Chile," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(2), pages 505-521, June.
    20. Li, Hui & Xu, Yunjie & Huang, Lihua, 2021. "When less is more? The contingent effect of product supply limitation in the release of new electronic products," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    21. Stathopoulou, Anastasia & Balabanis, George, 2019. "The effect of cultural value orientation on consumers' perceptions of luxury value and proclivity for luxury consumption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 298-312.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:61:y:2017:i:c:p:115-123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.