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NTU Management Review Vol. 32 No. 2 Aug. 2022

group) × 2 (cause acuteness: sudden disaster vs. ongoing tragedy) × 2 (self-construal:
interdependent vs. independent) between-subjects design to conduct three experiments.
Study 1 employs a non-profit context in which a charitable organization sponsors the
donation opportunity. In terms of victim number, we present the single, identified victim

in a story depicting a suffering person. We also present the group of victims in a story
describing a number of unidentified and disadvantaged people need help. As for cause
acuteness, we choose earthquakes as the sudden disaster, and poverty as the ongoing

tragedy. We measure self-construal via a 12-item 7-point Likert scale from Gudykunst
and Lee (2003), with six items for independent self-construal and another six items for
interdependent self-construal. Attitude toward the charity campaign and WTP serve as the
dependent measures.
Study 2 focuses on the context of cause-related marketing, in which the charitable

campaign is initiated by a fictitious company and a thermos bottle is selected as the selling
product. For the manipulation of victim numbers, we present a visual image with one
single victim sitting on a bench and another image with five victims sitting on a bench.

We choose a gas explosion as the sudden disaster, and cancer as the ongoing tragedy. We
manipulate self-construal via a priming task asking participants to read a short article on
life values. Dependent measures include attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the cause-
related marketing campaign, and purchase intention.
In Study 3, we select 2020 Beirut Explosion as the sudden disaster, and Lebanese

Civil War (1975-1990) as the ongoing tragedy. Again, we manipulate self-construal via a
priming task. Specifically, participants complete an online personality questionnaire and
receive predetermined feedback about the implication of their score for their personality.

Participants are then classified as either “focus on themselves only” (independent self-
construal) or “focus on interpersonal relationships” (interdependent self-construal),
regardless of their responses. The following serve as dependent measures: attitude toward
the ad, attitude toward the cause-related marketing campaign, and the monetary amount of
the donation. The mediator of guilt is also assessed.

The results from the three experiments show consistent patterns. When a sudden
disaster is presented, people with an interdependent self-construal feel more positively
toward a story depicting a group of victims, while people with an independent self-

construal feel more positively toward a story depicting a single victim. Nevertheless,

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