Through three studies, we investigated the impact of consumers’ global versus local identities on the evaluation of global products (products with the same specifications and packaging for consumers from around the world) versus local products (products with specifications and packaging tailored for local markets). The results show that consumers with an accessible global identity prefer a global (more than a local) product and consumers with an accessible local identity prefer a local (more than a global) product. Of note, this effect was reversed, either by an explicit instruction about accessible identities being nondiagnostic (study 1) or implicitly by inducing a differentiative (vs. integrative) processing mode (study 2).

Could power distance, which is the extent that inequality is expected and accepted, explain why some countries and consumers are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior, including donations of both money and time? This research proposes that higher power distance results in weaker perceptions of responsibility to aid others, which decreases charitable behavior. Both correlational and causal evidence is provided in a series of five studies that examine country-level power distance as well as individual and temporarily salient power distance belief. Consistent with the mediating role of perceived responsibility, results reveal that uncontrollable needs and communal relationship norms are boundary conditions that overcome the negative effect of power distance on charitable behavior. These results explain differences in charitable giving across cultures and provide implications for nonprofit organizations soliciting donations.

The authors propose that power distance belief (PDB) (i.e., accepting and expecting power disparity) influences impulsive buying beyond other related cultural dimensions, such as individualism–collectivism. This research supports an associative account that links PDB and impulsive buying as a manifestation of self-control, such that those with high PDB display less impulsive buying. Furthermore, this effect manifests for vice products but not for virtue products. The authors also find that restraint from temptations can occur automatically for people who have repeated practice (i.e., chronically high PDBs). Taken together, these results imply that products should be differentially positioned as vice or virtue products in accordance with consumers’ PDBs.

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Three studies investigated the impact of self-construal on impulsive consumption. Independents exhibited more impulsive consumption tendencies than did interdependents. A chronically accessible independent self-construal was positively associated with country-level beer consumption (study 1a) and state-level problem alcohol consumption (study 1b). Experimentally primed independents reported more positive attitudes toward immediate beer consumption than did interdependents, and this effect was mediated by state impulsivity. Peer presence increased impulsive consumption tendencies for independents but decreased them for interdependents (studies 2 and 3). The moderating effect of self-construal was linked to greater motivation to suppress impulsive tendencies for interdependents than for independents (study 3). (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..