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open access
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Consumers frequently use emoticons when engaging on social media platforms. Emoticons serve as communication tools that help individuals effectively express their opinions and emotions. In response, companies have increasingly adopted emoticons on their brand fan pages as a means to strengthen relationships with consumers. However, despite the widespread and varied use of emoticons by companies, academic attention to this topic remains limited. This study investigates the effects of emoticon usage on corporate brand fan pages, with a particular focus on the moderating roles of product type and brand trust. The results of Study 1 revealed that the positive impact of emoticons was stronger for hedonic products than for utilitarian products, due to an increase in consumers’ perceived hedonic value of the brand fan page. In Study 2, the role of brand trust was examined. The findings showed that the positive effect of emoticons was significant only when brand trust was high for utilitarian products, and when brand trust was low for hedonic products. Based on these findings, the study offers academic and managerial implications regarding the strategic and appropriate use of emoticons in brand communication.
This study examines how chatbot communication style (social-oriented vs. task-oriented) influences consumers’ unethical behavioral intentions through the sequential mediating roles of perceived humanness, parasocial interaction, and anticipatory moral disengagement. Furthermore, the moderating effect of Machiavellianism on this pathway is explored. A between-subjects online experiment was conducted using a hotel reservation scenario, in which participants interacted with a chatbot and then responded to a payment error situation. This study found that social-oriented chatbots enhanced perceived humanness, which in turn led to higher parasocial interaction and reduced anticipatory moral disengagement, ultimately leading to lower unethical behavioral intentions. Additionally, the indirect effect of moral disengagement on unethical behavior was heightened among individuals with higher levels of Machiavellianism.
As subscription-based access has become increasingly common, a wide range of products and services are offered through subscriptions. While consumers often respond favorably to subscription services, strong resistance is also observed. This study aims to identify the attributes of subscription services that lead to such divergent consumer responses and to explore the underlying psychological mechanisms. A 2 (product type: tangibility vs. intangibility) × 2 (subscription type: partial vs. full) between-subjects experimental design was adopted. The results revealed that while product type did not directly affect perceived control, it interacted with subscription type to influence perceived control. Participants reported lower perceived control when tangible products were offered under a partial subscription type (compared to full subscription type), whereas for intangible products, perceived control remained relatively unaffected by the subscription type. This perceived control sequentially influenced psychological ownership, perceived value, and subscription intention. However, the direct effect of product type on perceived value was found only in relation to economic value. This study contributes to understanding the differential consumer responses to subscription services by identifying key service attributes and highlighting the contexts in which perceived control and psychological ownership play a more or less significant role.
Humanoid AI, which combines generative AI with a physical robotic form, is emerging not only as a technological tool that assists human tasks but also as a new agent of interaction that facilitates psychological and social engagement. As these AI systems increasingly emulate human-like conversation, the scope of services they provide is also expanding. In line with this trend, consumers have begun to expect the nature and depth of conversation to vary depending on the type of humanoid AI. At the same time, concerns about personal information leakage during interactions with humanoid AI have also intensified. This study investigates how the degree of verbal embodiment exhibited by humanoid AI during communication influences consumer evaluations. Furthermore, it explores whether this effect varies depending on consumers’ perceived sensitivity to personal information. To test these relationships, a 2 (Type of Humanoid AI: Assistant-type vs. Companion-type) × 2 (Verbal Embodiment: Turn-taking vs. Grounding) × 2 (Privacy Concern: High vs. Low) experimental design was employed. The results show that consumers generally respond more positively under the grounding condition, but this effect diminishes when interacting with assistant-type AI. Additionally, consumers with high personal information sensitivity evaluated grounding with companion-type AI—intended for emotional exchange—less favorably. Based on these findings, the study offers both theoretical and practical implications.
Currently, plenty of parents view appearance management as a self-discipline essential for the success of their children, leading to increasing spending on high-cost cosmetic medical procedures, and their children start the procedures in upper elementary school. This study examines how rising parental pressure on appearance affects adolescents’ appearance-related self-esteem, considering the mediating role of body shame and the moderating role of mindful self-care. Based on online survey data from 400 South Korean middle and high school students, the findings revealed that parental appearance pressure significantly lowers the appearance self-esteem of their adolescent children, and that this effect is fully mediated by the children’s body shame. Mindful self-care of the adolescent children was found to partially buffer the negative impact of their body shame on appearance-related self-esteem, though it did not significantly influence the entire pathway. These results suggest that appearance-focused parenting may negatively influence adolescents’ identity development, while mindful self-care may offer a partial emotional regulatory resource in mitigating these effects.
This study aims to investigate the influence of consumers’ anthropomorphic tendency and age group on their brand impression perception and examine the sequential effects of warmth and competence in their brand perception on their brand attitude and brand purchase intention. To obtain the goal, an online experiment using warmth and competence advertising appeals of hypothetical corporate brand was conducted with men and women in their 20s (n = 222) and 65 years of age or older (n = 221). The results are as follows. First, participants’ age group (20s vs. 65 years of age or older) positively influenced their perceived warmth impression about the brand in warmth advertising appeal exposure condition. Second, participants’anthropomorphic tendency and age group had a positive effect on their perceived competence impression about the brand separately in competence advertising appeal exposure condition. Third, participants’ perceived warmth impression about the brand had a direct positive influence on their brand attitude and an indirect positive effect on their brand purchase intention via their brand attitude in warmth advertising appeal exposure condition (full mediation effect of brand attitude). Lastly, participants’ perceived competence impression about the brand had a direct positive impact on both their brand attitude and brand purchase intention and an indirect positive effect on their brand purchase intention via their brand attitude in competence advertising appeal exposure condition (partial mediation effect of brand attitude). These findings are expected to help expand our understanding about psychological mechanism underlying consumers’ perception of brand impression.
This study is an experimental investigation that examined the causal effects of gratitude, one of the core constructs of positive psychology, on trust and well-being through the development of a gratitude-based program. The study operationalized gratitude by newly conceptualizing its components and developing a measurement scale to assess these components. Empirical findings confirmed that gratitude significantly influenced both trust and well-being. Based on these findings, a gratitude enhancement program grounded in the LG Model of gratitude was developed. Specifically, the gratitude model conceptualizes gratitude through three dimensions: innate tendencies (gratitude disposition), acquired tendencies (gratitude experience), and practical tendencies (gratitude expression). The program, based on the “Empty-Fill-Share” model, consisted of eight group coaching sessions, incorporating processes of letting go of negativity, cultivating positivity, and sharing gratitude. Twenty-two participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental group (n = 11), which participated in the program, or a control group (n = 11), which did not. Pre- and post-tests were conducted to compare differences in gratitude, trust, and well-being between groups. The results indicated that: (1) participation in the gratitude program increased overall gratitude levels, including gratitude disposition, gratitude experience, and gratitude expression; (2) the program enhanced overall trust, including self-trust, interpersonal trust, and organizational trust; and (3) the program improved overall well-being, including physical and mental health, interpersonal relationships, positive experiences, and positive practices. These findings suggest that the newly developed standardized gratitude program is effective not only in enhancing gratitude but also in improving trust and well-being, indicating its potential positive effects on various psychological variables. However, as gratitude behaviors may be influenced by various psychological factors such as demographic characteristics, values, and perspectives, further studies are needed to enhance the generalizability of these findings.
