Bridging the Culture Chasm: Ensuring that Consumers are Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

Abstract

This article pulls together streams of culture-related research found in information-processing and behavioral decision theory literature, and it complements them with a focus on motivations and goals. The authors propose a framework that suggests that (1) the treatment of culture is useful when it incorporates subcultures, including those defined by nationality, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and neighborhood or local surroundings; (2) goals are determined by both cultural background and situational forces; and (3) through its impact on goals, culture influences the inputs used to make a decision, the types of options preferred, and the timing of decisions. The authors highlight the implications of the framework for two policy domains: health and finances. They suggest that consumers’ goal orientations can provide a useful segmentation dimension, and they carve out specific tendencies that appear to vary across cultural contexts (e.g., satisficing, goal shifting, reactivity). A deeper consideration of consumer goals and the role of culture in individual decision making can inform policies aimed at improving the quality of consumers’ decisions and, ultimately, consumer welfare.

How Does Consumers' Financial Vulnerability Relate to Positive and Negative Financial Outcomes? The Mediating Role of Individual Psychological Characteristics

“…Joireman, Sprott, and Spangenberg () illustrate how individuals who score high on the consideration of future consequences scale allocate more of their money to financial options that maximize long‐term positive financial outcomes. Briley and Aaker () report that regulatory focus on promotion stimulates spending and hampers saving. Lynch and Zauberman () discuss how a present‐focused time preference (Frederick, Loewenstein, and O'Donoghue ) is associated with an underweighting of future benefits, and thus a tendency to overspend and undersave.…”

“…Consumer researchers do show an increasing interest in the area of consumer financial decision-making in general (Lynch 2011), and an emerging stream of research identifies how individual psychological characteristics relate to positive and negative financial outcomes. In this regard, regulatory focus (Briley and Aaker 2006), time preference (Lynch and Zauberman 2006), propensity to plan for money (Lynch et al 2010), PSO (Dholakia et al 2016), financial self-efficacy (Lown 2011), money management skills (Garðarsdóttir and Dittmar 2012), and individual differences in the consideration of future consequences (Joireman, Sprott, and Spangenberg 2005) are considered particularly relevant. Moreover, previous research supports the relevance of the individual risk factors of financial vulnerability as identified by the FCA (2015) and the CFPB (2013), such as high-debt levels (Wang 2010), being older or younger (Cui and Choudhury 2003;Griffiths and Harmon 2011;Moschis, Mosteller, and Fatt 2011), receiving welfare payments (Anderson, Strand, and Collins 2018;Litt et al 2000), suffering from physical disability (Kaufman-Scarborough and Childers 2009;Rinaldo 2012), or coping with bereavement (Gentry et al 1995).…”

Voices Unheard: The Psychology of Consumption in Poverty and Development

“…Communication is critical for promoting opportunity, facilitating empowerment, and enhancing security. These poverty reduction strategies may be ineffective in the absence of prior knowledge structures that enable poor consumers to acquire and use the promoted skills; to participate in political, social, and market processes; and to take actions to lower vulnerability to economic downturns, nature's vagaries, ill health, and adverse personal life events (c.f., Briley & Aaker, 2006). Experience with welfare programs as well as cost-benefit pragmatics suggest that the focus must be on helping the poor help themselves.…”

“…However, it is only fairly recently that the consumer psychology literature has reported research at its interface with sociology (e.g., the role of social networks in communication; Frenzen & Nakamoto, 1993) and cultural anthropology (e.g., the role of constructs such as individualism-collectivism and independence-interdependence in self-regulation and decision making; Aaker & Lee, 2001;Briley, Morris, & Simonson, 2000). As Briley and Aaker (2006) argue, culture and situation can work through their effects on goals to influence decision inputs, preference, and choice. They use this framework to assess policy actions addressing consumer health and financial decisions.…”

Understanding consumer psychology in working‐class contexts

“…With the exception of research explicitly examining the influence of national culture on behavior (e.g., Briley & Aaker, 2006; Riemer et al, 2015) much of consumer research is still grounded in only one model of the consumer—that of a middle‐class person with an independent self whose actions are choices driven by individual needs, goals, and preferences. Because mainstream American culture is saturated with the idea that independence is the right, good, and moral way to be, appealing to the independent self is a winning strategy for many products, services, experiences, and ideas.…”