Culture

How Confidence in the Government Boosted Status Shopping during COVID-19: A Cross-cultural Study

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Abstract

Status consumption is driven by external (i.e., signaling wealth) and internal motivations (i.e., self-reward). The pandemic disrupted both motivations. Seeking status may not be a priority for consumers when they are focused on staying safe during the pandemic. In this regard, we believe a consumer's feeling of optimism could be a critical psychological factor leading to status shopping above and beyond the general preference and tendency. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of optimism, spurred by one’s confidence in the government’s management of the pandemic, on status shopping intentions through a two country-comparison (the U.S. and S. Korea). A total of 658 U.S. and Korean participants responded to the online survey between May 28th to June 5th, 2020. The results support that Koreans (vs. Americans) exhibited a higher status shopping intention because their confidence in the government boosted optimism beyond their general status shopping tendency.

Keywords: status shopping, optimism, consumer confidence, covid-19

How to Cite:

Im, H. & Kim, N. L., (2022) “How Confidence in the Government Boosted Status Shopping during COVID-19: A Cross-cultural Study”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 78(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.13316