Doctoral dissertation in Business Administration WHY WOMEN DESIRE CONSPICUOUS LUXURY ROMANTIC GIFTS? -THE MEDIATING ROLE OF “BEING LOVED” SOCIAL COMPARISON- Department of Business Administration, Major in Marketing Tran Thi Tuyet Supervised by Professor Choi, Jinmyung August, 2018 Graduate School of Daegu University WHY WOMEN DESIRE CONSPICUOUS LUXURY ROMANTIC GIFTS? -THE MEDIATING ROLE OF “BEING LOVED” SOCIAL COMPARISON- In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration Department of Business Administration, Major in Marketing Tran Thi Tuyet Supervised by Professor Choi, Jinmyung Confirming Tran Thi Tuyet’s doctoral dissertation in Business Administration August, 2018 Chairman of Screening ________________ (Signature) Member of Screening __________________(Signature) Member of Screening _________________ (Signature) Member of Screening _________________ (Signature) Member of Screening _________________ (Signature) Graduate School of Daegu University TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Purpose and method of study. Women’s desire for romantic gifts. Evolutionary psychology of women’s desire.
Intrasexual competition and women’s desire for romantic gifts. Mate retention and women’s desire for luxury romantic gifts. “Being loved” social comparison. 20 2) Result and discussion.
30 2) Result and discussion. 54 2) Result and discussion. Implications and Conclusion. Limitations and Future Directions.
95 - ii - LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Manipulation check for feeling closeness, luxury goods, and scenario quality. Descriptive statistics for “being loved” perception. Tests of Between-Subjects Effects.
“Being loved” comparison elicited by three conditions. Luxury goods evaluation between two conditions. Rotated Component Matrix of product items. Conspicuous and inconspicuous luxury goods construct reliability.
Rotated component matrix of luxury cosmetics. (in)Conspicuous luxury cosmetics construct reliability. Descriptive statistics for “being loved” comparison. Descriptive statistics for women’s conspicuous goods desire.
Descriptive statistics for women’s inconspicuous goods desire. Descriptive statistics for women’s conspicuous cosmetics desire. Descriptive statistics for women’s inconspicuous cosmetics desire. Regression results of simple mediation (a).
Regression results of simple mediation (b). Regression results of simple mediation (c). Regression results of simple mediation (d). Descriptive statistics for “being loved” comparison.
Descriptive statistics for women’s conspicuous goods desire. Regression results of simple mediation (e). Descriptive statistics for women’s conspicuous goods desire (b). Descriptive statistics for women’s inconspicuous goods desire.
Descriptive statistics for women’s conspicuous goods buying. Descriptive statistics for women’s inconspicuous goods buying. Regression results of simple mediation (f). Regression results of simple mediation (g).
Regression results of simple mediation (h). Regression results of simple mediation (i). 77 - iv - LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Effect of comparison target’s luxury romantic gift on “Being loved” perception.
Effect of luxury gift on “being loved” comparison. Effect of luxury gift on women’s conspicuous goods desire. Mediated model for effect of luxury gift on women’s conspicuous goods desire via “being loved” comparison. Effect of competitiveness of social network on “being loved” comparison.
Effect of competitiveness of social network on women’s conspicuous goods desire (a). Mediated model for effect of competitiveness of social network on women’s conspicuous goods desire via “being loved” comparison (a). Effect of competitiveness of social network on women’s conspicuous goods desire (b). Mediated model for effect of competitiveness of social network on women’s conspicuous goods desire via “being loved” comparison (b).
71 -v- Why Women Desire Conspicuous Luxury Romantic Gifts? -The Mediating Role of Being Loved Social Comparison- Tran Thi Tuyet Department of Business Administration Graduate School, Daegu University Gyeongbuk Korea Supervised by Professor Choi, Jinmyung (Abstract) Can close friends’ luxury romantic gifts (from romantic partners) affect other women’s consumption of luxury goods? This study examines whether a woman’s luxury gift affects her same-sex close friends’ desire for luxury gifts. Besides, “being loved” social comparison (e., my friend seems to be more loved than I am) is a psychological mechanism that makes women compare their relationship to others’. Experiment 1 shows that a close friend (vs. stranger) who get a luxury (vs.
non-luxury) gift from her romantic partner will trigger other women to make “being loved” social comparison. Experiment 2 finds that women expose to their friends’ luxury (vs. non- luxury) gifts will desire conspicuous (vs. inconspicuous) luxury gifts via “being loved” social comparison mindset.
Finally, a survey shows that women in a higher competitive social network (frequency of exposing to friend with luxury gifts) also have a higher desire for luxury romantic gifts. These results contribute to a better understanding of women’s desire for luxury romantic gifts. It also illustrates that that evolutionary psychological approaches can be useful for understanding consumer behavior. Keywords: women’s desire, “being loved” comparison, luxury goods, evolutionary psychology - vi - I.
Research motivation Humans are a sexually dimorphic species, meaning that each sex behaves differently than does the other in many ways. For example, men and women act differently in risk-taking (Byrnes, Miller, & Schafer, 1999), in aggression (Bettencourt & Miller, 1996; Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, & Peltonen, 1988; Salmivalli & Kaukiainen, 2004), in depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001; Nolen-Hoeksema & Girgus, 1994) or in displaying blatant benevolence behavior (Griskevicius et al. Moreover, in marketing, marketers also use gender as an essential segmentation because men and women are different from consuming products. For example, men and women are different from responding to price, advertising, social influence while shopping or purchasing and reacting with internet advertising or in displaying loyalty to brand (Audrain-Pontevia & Vanhuele, 2016; Garbarino & Strahilevitz, 2004; Kurt, Inman, & Argo, 2011; McMahan, Hovland, & McMillan, 2013; Melnyk, Osselaer, & Bijmolt, 2009).
Thus, it seems that men and women are psychologically different. Men and women are also different in gift-giving behavior. According to Sherry and McGrath (1989), gift giving is “work of women." As compared to men, women offered more gifts than they received (Caplow, 1982; Fischer & Arnold, 1990), they paid more on average (Rucker et al., 1991) and were more satisfied with their gift selection (Fischer & Arnold, 1990). However, these findings have confined to contexts other than romantic relationships (such as gift giving during Christmas).
In a romantic relationship, it has been found that it is men and not women that play a more significant role in gift giving in the context of courtship (Saad & Gill, 2003). Gift giving could have evolved as a distinctly male courtship strategy (Saad & -1- Gill, 2003). According to Trivers’ (1972) parental investment theory and Buss’s (1989) mate preferences, men are less investing sex, men prefer sexual variety for increasing reproductive success, whereas women are high investing sex, their preference is generous men with resources. Therefore, men use gifts as a strategy to advance their fitness outcomes because men believe that gifts can be exchanged for sexual favors (Belk & Coon, 1993).
Stating a differently, men are tactical for offering gifts to a romantic partner and will stop offering gifts once a woman confesses her love (Belk & Coon, 1993). In courtship context, men’s motivations (functions) in offering gifts to female partners seem to be obvious, while women’s motivations (functions) in receiving gifts from male partners remain unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate women’s motivation in receiving gifts under dating context. For men, gift giving can serve as adaptive tactics in the courtship context.
For women, there is a reason to believe that women’s motivations to get gifts from romantic partners (romantic gift) might serve as an adaptive function which is beneficial for them and their offspring's survival strategy. It is because by seeing the number of money men spend on a romantic gift, women can make inferences on how much men desire (love) them and men commit to her. The more a man is willing to invest his resources in a relationship, the more commitment he makes, and thus the less he will leave the relationship (Buss, 1988) (mate retention strategy). Moreover, receiving a romantic gift can help a woman to boast how much her romantic partner commits to her.
Thus, obtaining a romantic gift might help to ward off potential rivals (intrasexual competition) (discuss later). If these arguments are correct, women are not merely passive in receiving gifts (e., men give gifts and women receive). They might be active in receiving gifts (asking or requesting for gifts). By examining adaptive functions of women’s receiving gifts from a romantic partner, we can understand -2- the nature of women’s desire and its functions.
As stated in Nguyen’s (2014) thesis, men and women have a distinct desire in a romantic relationship “a man desires a woman as the object of his desire, whereas a woman desires to be the target object a man desires” (Nguyen, 2014, p. Although Nguyen (2014) has proposed gendered desire, she has not studied adaptive functions of women’s desire. Hence, this study will further examine adaptive functions of women’s desire. Interestingly, there has been a growing interest in consumer desire.
Because "desire is the motivating force behind much of contemporary consumption" (Belk, Ger, & Askegaard, 2003, p. Although desire is a fundamental force in explaining people consuming behavior, there is limited understanding of consumer desire and its functions. Thus, this study aims to explore the function of desire under evolutionary psychology perspective, which, in turn, helps to understand consumer desire. Purpose and method of study This study aims to explain “why do women desire gifts from their romantic partner?” under the perspective of evolutionary psychology.
A woman desires to identify whether or not she is a target object a man desires may function to help a woman to ward off one’s same-sex rivals (intrasexual competition) and to avoid being abandoned from male partners (mate retention) which, in turn, influences women consumer decisions. This study will use two experimental studies and one survey to test our hypotheses. It predicted that under being loved social comparison mindset, women are more likely to desire conspicuous luxury goods (not inconspicuous luxury goods) when their same-sex friends get a romantic gift or when they are in the high competitiveness of social network. Women’s desire for romantic gifts A gift is defined as goods or services voluntarily provided to other person or group through some ritual presentation (Belk, 1979).
Gifts can include both the tangible and intangible. It can also be material and nonmaterial gifts. Nonmaterial gifts involve helping the other person when they are stressed for time, lending a car, and so on (Belk & Coon, 1991). Gift giving is one of the processes that integrate a society (Sherry, 1983).
Regarding romantic gift giving, dating gifts, different from general product consumption, are typically highly motivated (Faure & Mick, 1993). They are mainly used as a token of love and are used to express the feelings of love and commitment toward others (Belk & Coon, 1993; Goodwin, Smith, & Spiggle, 1990; Schiffman & Cohn, 2009). Therefore, they are nonessential and are not purchased based on needs. Men and women are different in gift-giving behavior.
Social structural theory can explain the sex differences. The social structural theory emphasizes that culture is the primary factor of gender differences with little effect of biology (size, strength, lactation, and childbearing). According to this theory, men and women occupy different social roles. Thus they tend to be different (Eagly, 1995).
For instance, women are assigned to a housekeeper role, they are responsible for buying, choosing, and preparing for gifts, and thus they are a gift giver (Sherry & McGrath, 1989). On the other hand, men are a gift receiver. Nonetheless, Saad and Gill (2003) found that these roles of men and women are not correct in romantic relationships. Thus, social structure theory has limited contributions in explaining sex differences in gift-giving behavior.
In a romantic relationship, although Belk and Coon (1993) found that men, not women, offer a gift to romantic partners as it helps men to celebrate the -4- relationship or to establish, strengthen, maintain a social relationship, and by giving a gift to a woman, a man shows his commitment to her. However, this behavior will change depending on the stages of a romantic relationship.