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Article history:
Received 17 September 2010
Revised 29 November 2010
Available online 7 January 2011
Keywords:
Generic products
Priming
Self-evaluations
Self-worth
a b s t r a c t
People purchase generic products in an attempt to reduce costs. In this article, we showed that using generic
products primes a devalued sense of self-worth manifested by increasing the likelihood of lower self-evaluations.
In Experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to use generic or genuine computer peripherals to make
personal vitas for an upcoming recruitment orientation. Those using generic peripherals expected to earn a lower
salary per month than the participants using original peripherals. Experiment 2 showed that the effect of using
generic accessories extended to the context of interpersonal relations, inuencing how participants thought others
judged them in a get-acquainted task. Experiment 2 further demonstrated that the feelings of devalued self-worth
primed by using compatible mobile-phone batteries mediated the effect of generic products on self-estimated
attractiveness. Together these ndings suggested that, even incidentally used cheaper, generic products may
prime people for a lowered sense of self-worth, which would then produce disadvantageous self-evaluations.
2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction
People tend to use generic or equivalent products (e.g., replacement
batteries, aftermarket parts, printer ink, toner cartridge, etc.) for saving
money while trading off quality. Belk (1988) gathered a large body of
literature to support the thesis that consumers use possessions to
extend, expand, and strengthen their sense of self. The desired signals of
using generic products may be I am a savvy consumer. However, using
a cheaper generic product may also convey signals of having less wealth
or being cheap. We conducted two experimental studies examining
the effect of generic products on self-evaluations to ll a gap in the
research literature resulting from the exclusive use of a bidirectional
personthing framework (e.g., Ahuvia, 2005; Kleine, Kleine, &
Brunswick, 2009; Tian & Belk, 2005) to understand consumer behavior
since the notion of an extended self was rst posited (Belk, 1988).
In addition to discussing the role of self-expression in formation of
the extended self, Belk (1988) also used the personthingperson
framework to address the transformative impact of possessions on the
self. In principle, a person's (actual and desired) characteristics guide
the products he or she chooses (e.g., He & Mukherjee, 2007; Paulssen
& Bagozzi, 2005). Exploration of whether the opposite effect would
emerge, even with incidental products, represents an interesting area
for further research. Similar to other research exploring the inuence
of signaling conicts, such as those between public and private signals
(Kuran, 1995), this study examined whether using generic products
673
Experiment 2
In this experiment, we investigated the impact of generic products
in a social interaction context. We examined whether participants
using a mobile phone with a replacement battery would consider
themselves to be less attractive to a partner in a get-acquainted task
compared with control participants. One important change was made
in this experiment. We added a measure of self-worth, using a state
self-esteem questionnaire (which also included some bogus questions) to further examine the psychological mechanism behind this
effect, as self-worth was our proposed mediator.
Table 1
Participants' mean estimates and condence intervals for each condition in the two
experiments.
Experiment
Prime condition
Control condition
Dependent variable
Experiment 1
976 40
1071 43
Experiment 2
3.70 0.43
4.56 0.37
Experiment 2
2.71 0.22
3.28 0.20
Note. Condence intervals were set at 95%. Units of the dependent measure are
presented in parentheses. In Experiment 1, each study condition consisted of 37
participants, whereas each study condition in Experiment 2 consisted of 48 participants.
W.-B. Chiou, Y.-H. Chao / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47 (2011) 672675
Method
Participants
Ninety-six male students (mean age = 21.8 years, SD = 2.6) who
were not in a romantic relationship participated in the study. They
were recruited through yers posted on the Counseling Center board
at our university.
Materials and procedure
The study was described as the follow-up study of our previous
research on nding romantic partners (Wu & Chiou, 2009; Yang &
Chiou, 2010) for which the participants had been recruited. Each
participant was asked to complete a questionnaire concerning the
desirable characteristics of his ideal partner in terms of 16 conditions
(e.g., height, weight, major, smoking habits, drinking habits, religion,
astrological sign, blood type, appearance, personality, interests, travel
preferences, and cuisine preferences). We told participants that they
would engage in a get-acquainted task in which they could choose a
highly-matching subject as a target partner from the database of our
prior studies. They were further told that the main task was to
introduce themselves to the target partner within 5 min and that they
would receive professional suggestions about their self-introduction.
Unbeknownst to the participants, the target partner was a study
confederate. After the ostensible matching process, we provided each
participant with the phone number of the target partner and a mobile
phone (iPhone 3GS). Participants were randomly assigned to one of
two conditions, generic-accessory and genuine-accessory. In the two
experimental conditions, the mobile phone that was provided
contained a dead battery. In the generic-accessory condition, the
experimenter offered a compatible battery as a replacement and
explained that this battery was used for a cost-cutting reason. In the
genuine-accessory condition, the experimenter offered a genuine
battery as a replacement. After completing the self-introduction, each
participant was asked to indicate to what extent the target partner
would have been impressed by him on a 7-point scale (1 = least
attractive, 7 = very attractive). At the end of the experiment,
participants lled out a questionnaire, which contained demographics, evaluations of the communication quality of the mobile phone,
self-worth items, and a manipulation check that asked them to
estimate the retail price of the battery. At the end of the study,
participants were fully debriefed verbally.
In this experiment, self-worth was assessed with a ve-item scale,
adapted from Rosenberg (1965) that measured global self-esteem. For
the purpose of this research, the scale was modied to measure state
self-esteem by asking the respondents to reect on their current
feelings. Participants indicated their agreement with the following
items using a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree):
I feel that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with
others, I'm inclined to feel that I am a failure, On the whole, I am
satised with myself, I feel I do not have much to be proud of, and I
take a positive attitude toward myself. We recoded negatively
worded items to produce a single averaged score. The scale responses
proved to be internally consistent ( = 0.87). Higher scores on this
scale indicated higher levels of state self-esteem, and thus higher
levels of perceived self-worth.
Results
The manipulation was successful. The estimated retail price of the
battery was higher in the genuine-accessory condition (M = US
$46.04, SD = 12.50) than in the generic-accessory condition (M = US
$25.69, SD = 11.35), t(94) = 8.35, p b 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.70. As we
predicted, the generic accessory led to unfavorable evaluations of
one's interpersonal attractiveness: participants in the generic-accessory condition (M = 3.70, SD = 1.50) thought that the target partner
would consider them less attractive than did participants in the
genuine-accessory condition (M = 4.56, SD = 1.30), F(1, 94) = 9.06,
General discussion
People tend to utilize generic products because of cost-saving
concerns. We suspected, however, that people might simply overlook
the possible negative consequences of utilizing generic products. Our
studies showed that even incidentally used cheaper, generic products
have the ironic consequence of harming one's self-image via a sense of
worthlessness, inducing a devalued sense of self. These ndings
supplement the literature on behavioral priming (Wheeler et al., 2007)
and the extended self (Belk, 1988) by demonstrating the link between
cheaper, generic products and self-worth. The current data suggest
that the messages sent by products steeped in sign value may be
integrated into the self. The metaphor of the self that is primed with
generic products tends to highlight self-transformation, but to obscure
self-expression and intrapsychic identity as a smart or savvy
consumer. Future research should explore the complex relationship
between self-expression and self-transformation.
Although the current studies collectively point in the direction of
our hypothesized relationship between use of generic products and
self-evaluations, we acknowledge that each of our designs was limited
to a dichotomized independent variable. Our ndings depended on
the immediate effects of two conditions in a laboratory setting, and
the chronic effects of primes are not well understood. Based on the
evidence adduced in the present research, it remains unclear whether
individuals with lower dispositional self-worth are more likely to use
cheaper, generic products. Additional research is needed to determine
whether individuals with varying levels of self-worth differ in their
Self-worth
-0.57*(0.15)
1.31*(0.14)
Self-estimated
attractiveness
-0.87*(0.29)
675
Acknowledgments
This research was partially supported by the National Science
Council, Taiwan, ROC (Project No. NSC 95-2516-S-110-001-MY3). We
would like to thank the editor (Dr. Jim Sherman) and the anonymous
reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
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