IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jconrs/v50y2023i2p303-321..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Mate Screening Motive: How Women Use Luxury Consumption to Signal to Men

Author

Listed:
  • Qihui Chen
  • Yajin Wang
  • Nailya Ordabayeva
  • Bernd H Schmitt
  • Echo Wen Wan

Abstract

Previous research has found that for men, activating a mating motive increases luxury consumption as a way to attract a romantic partner. However, little is known about the role of luxury consumption in women’s romantic endeavors. The present research conceptualizes a mate screening motive, which explains how women use luxury consumption to romantically signal to men. Six studies and two follow-ups conducted in controlled and field settings show that the mate screening motive boosts women’s consumption of luxury goods as a way to signal their mating standards to men and thereby deter undesirable pursuers. The effect is diminished when mate screening is less necessary such as when external screening tools are available (e.g., screening filters on dating websites), the quality of potential mates is high, and the focus is on selecting a desirable partner rather than deterring undesirable pursuers. The findings have important implications for understanding how consumers use products and brands in romantic relationships and for designing marketing strategies and communication for luxury brands, commercial dating services, and dating apps. Our findings also provide insights for consumers on how to use brands and products as effective communication devices in romantic endeavors.

Suggested Citation

  • Qihui Chen & Yajin Wang & Nailya Ordabayeva & Bernd H Schmitt & Echo Wen Wan, 2023. "The Mate Screening Motive: How Women Use Luxury Consumption to Signal to Men," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 50(2), pages 303-321.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:50:y:2023:i:2:p:303-321.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jcr/ucac034
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Jonathan Hasford & Blair Kidwell & Virginie Lopez-Kidwell & Darren DahlEditor & Jaideep SenguptaAssociate Editor, 2018. "Happy Wife, Happy Life: Food Choices in Romantic Relationships," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(6), pages 1238-1256.
    2. Nailya Ordabayeva & Pierre Chandon, 2011. "Getting Ahead of the Joneses: When Equality Increases Conspicuous Consumption among Bottom-Tier Consumers," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(1), pages 27-41.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:oup:jecgeo:v:50:y:2023:i:2:p:303-321. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Eunkyung Lee & Yeosun Yoon, 2022. "Heading Up or Stuck Down Here? The Effect of Perceived Economic Mobility on Subjective Social Status and Brand Identification," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Park, Sehoon & Kim, Chaeyeong & Park, Jane, 2023. "How power distance belief, self-construal, and relationship norms impact conspicuous consumption," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. MacNeill Timothy & Vibert Amber, 2019. "Universal Basic Income and the Natural Environment: Theory and Policy," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, June.
    6. Ying’ai Piao & Meiru Li & Hongyuan Sun & Ying Yang, 2023. "Income Inequality, Household Debt, and Consumption Growth in the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-13, February.
    7. Kappes, Heather Barry & Campbell, Rebecca & Ivchenko, Andriy, 2023. "Scarcity and predictability of income over time: experimental games as a way to study consumption smoothing," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119423, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Donald R. Lehmann & Jeffrey R. Parker, 2017. "Disadoption," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 7(1), pages 36-51, June.
    9. Wu, Laurie & Lee, Christopher, 2016. "Limited Edition for Me and Best Seller for You: The Impact of Scarcity versus Popularity Cues on Self versus Other-Purchase Behavior," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 92(4), pages 486-499.
    10. Never, Babette & Albert, Jose Ramon & Fuhrmann, Hanna & Gsell, Sebastian & Jaramillo, Miguel & Kuhn, Sascha & Senadza, Bernardin, 2020. "Carbon consumption patterns of emerging middle classes," IDOS Discussion Papers 13/2020, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    11. Anat Keinan & Ran Kivetz & Oded Netzer, 2016. "The Functional Alibi," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 479-496.
    12. Floyd, Kristopher & Freling, Ryan & Alhoqail, Saad & Cho, Hyun Young & Freling, Traci, 2014. "How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 217-232.
    13. Leonardo Bargigli & Filippo Pietrini, 2023. "An agent based model of fads," Working Papers - Economics wp2023_01.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    14. Aaron M. Garvey & Simon J. Blanchard & Karen Page Winterich, 2017. "Turning unplanned overpayment into a status signal: how mentioning the price paid repairs satisfaction," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 71-83, March.
    15. Lembregts, Christophe & Pandelaere, Mario, 2014. ""A 20% income increase for everyone?": The effect of relative increases in income on perceived income inequality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 37-47.
    16. Di, Wenhua & Su, Yichen, 2024. "Conspicuous consumption: Vehicle purchases by non-prime consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 895-914.
    17. Jaspers, Esther, 2018. "Opening up on consumer materialism," Other publications TiSEM a21cb1c8-5af1-46cc-9ea0-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Yimin Huang & Junjun Cheng & Rongwei Chu, 2020. "Resilience and well‐being production among vulnerable consumers facing systematic constraints," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 1328-1354, December.
    19. Lee, Saerom & Bolton, Lisa E., 2020. "Mixed signals? Decoding luxury consumption in the workplace," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 331-345.
    20. Shao, Wei & Grace, Debra & Ross, Mitchell, 2019. "Investigating brand visibility in luxury consumption," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 357-370.
    21. Prandelli, Emanuela & Wang, Yajin & Weijo, Henri, 2024. "Luxury branding and the creator Economy: Emerging challenges and future avenues," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 455-467.

    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:oup:jconrs:v:50:y:2023:i:2:p:303-321.. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jcr .

    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.