Year

2020

Season

Spring

Paper Type

Master's Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

NACO controlled Corporate Body

University of North Florida. Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Paul Fuglestad

Second Advisor

Dr. Christopher Leone

Department Chair

Dr. Lori Lange

Abstract

Acquisitive self-monitors are motivated by gaining social standing (getting ahead, standing out), whereas protective self-monitors are driven by avoiding social disapproval (getting along, blending in; Wolfe et al., 1986). Extending prior research on these orientations and their associations with consumer attitudes and behaviors, participants in Studies 1a (MTurk; N = 156) and 1b (undergraduates; N = 143) completed the Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974) and various consumer scales. In these two studies, regression results revealed support for the hypotheses that protective self-monitoring was related to communal consumerism, socially-conscious consumerism, frugality, and conspicuous consumption, whereas agentic consumerism and self-interested values were related to acquisitive self-monitoring. Study 2 (MTurk; N = 275) used experimental manipulation of advertisements to examine differential ad appeals tailored to protective, acquisitive, and low self-monitoring (bivariate model). Moderation analyses showed protective self-monitoring to be a significant predictor of protective ad preference, whereas no specific ad preferences were found with acquisitive self-monitoring. Overall, results suggest that associations of self-monitoring and consumer behaviors are driven by protective self-monitoring rather than acquisitive self-monitoring. Implications (e.g., market research), limitations (e.g., ad strength, convenience samples), and future directions (e.g., examining multivariate appeals for low self-monitoring) are discussed.

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