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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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