KOREASCHOLAR

While conspicuous consumption received much attention from marketing scholars, the focus has largely been on what motivates consumers to engage in these types of behaviors rather than on what prevents conspicuous consumption. Yet, psychological research shows that the individuals who purchase conspicuous products may suffer low subjective well-being overall because there are never-ending discrepancies between the actual and ideal self. Simply put, excessive conspicuous consumption can be detrimental for the consumers’ well-being. Accordingly, from the perspective of cause-related marketing, it is equally important (if not more) to understand how such behaviors can be discouraged. Informed by the literature on the self-concept, selfcongruence, and psychological distance, our study addresses this issue by establishing a novel psychological mechanism that discourages consumers to engage in conspicuous behaviors. Specifically, we establish that: Because self-transformation motivation induces individuals to pursue their ideal-self, this will lead them to seek conspicuous products that reflect an ideal-self. On the contrary, because selfexpression motivation induces individuals to pursue their actual-self, this will lead them to seek non-conspicuous products that more closely represent their actual-self. This research provides important insights for cause related marketing campaigns that want to help people to control the purchase of conspicuous products.

• Sungeun (Ange) Kim(Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)
• Jungkeun Kim(Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)
• Roger Marshall(Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)
• Yuri Seo(University of Auckland, New Zealand)