SOCIAL VALUES IN CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY: KEY DETERMINANTS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, EUGENE, OR, USA
Social science researchers in a variety of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, information science, and consumer behavior, have continuously investigated social values and emphasized their importance (Cheng & Fleischmann, 2010). Therefore, values tend to be defined in different ways based on the context. However, the previous literature across the disciplines collectively argues that a social value in this sense is a direct motivation that determines people’s actual behaviors (e.g., Kahle, 1983; Rokeach, 1973). In psychology, for example, Rokeach defines a human value as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence” (p. 5). This definition has a thread of connection with the illustration of values in sociology research that “… values are not the same as ideals, norms, desired objects, or espoused beliefs about the ‘good’, but are, instead, operating criteria for action …” (Hutcheon, 1972, p. 184). Rokeach argues that the concept of social values is one of the most important constructs in social science, because it leads people to determine their behaviors, explaining that values play critical roles as “determinants of virtually all kinds of behavior that could be called social behavior or social action, attitudes and ideology, evaluations, moral judgments and justifications of self to others, and attempts to influence others” (p. 5). Although Maslow (1954) interchangeably used the term of values with people’s needs, on the other hand, he also insists that people behave based on their values, and the values depend on different situations they may face (i.e., physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization). With this view in mind, because of the important roles of social values in determining human behaviors, consumer behavior researchers have also made meaningful efforts to discover the antecedents and the consequences of social values, in order to better understand consumer behavior, over the past several decades.
Holbrook (1987) suggests that the fundamental purpose of consumer research is to study consumer behavior, which encompasses a wide range of consumption (i.e., acquisition, usage, and disposition of products). “Products” within Holbrook’s definition of consumer behavior includes “goods, services, ideas, events, or any other entities that can be acquired, used, or disposed of in ways that potentially provide value” (p. 128). Furthermore, “social value” is considered as a type of experience that appears when consumers’ needs and wants are satisfied, or their goals are achieved from consumption. In other words, the fundamental subject for consumer research is to understand the processes and the consequences of “consummation,” which is attained by achieving goals, fulfilling needs, and satisfying wants (Holbrook, 1987).
In the context of consumer behavior, social values reflect people’s primary goals in their lives, which encourage people to make particular decisions (e.g., brand/product purchase decisions). Although not every single purchase decision may be based fully on cognitive considerations of values, Kahle and Xie (2008) suggest that consumer values can often demonstrate why consumers engage in particular behaviors (e.g., brand and product choices, and propensity to consume) that might not be explained by consumers’ demographic information. In particular, values can effectively segment consumer groups by capturing the motivations that encourage consumers’ different brand/product choice patterns, because the expectations of consumers for a product, in terms of specific features, distribution channels, pricing strategies, and/or the communication methods, may vary based on their values (Cho, Kwon, Gentry, Jun, & Kropp, 1999). Therefore, not only academic researchers investigate social values, but also practitioners working for for-profit organizations have expended meaningful efforts to understand existing and potential consumers’ values, in order for effective segmentation (Huber, Herrmann, & Morgan, 2001; Kropp, Lavack, & Silvera, 2005) and understanding of consumers’ motivations. With this context in mind, the main objective of this chapter is to integrate the findings from previous research on social values in the context of consumer behavior. In order to provide various aspects and perspectives of social values in consumer research, the current chapter mainly discusses: (1) the underlying theories explaining social values; (2) the empirical measurements used in value research; and (3) the application of List of Value (LOV) (Kahle, 1983) and other measurement scale items in consumer literature.
Theoretical Background of Social Values
As briefly explained, values contain more quality information than mere demographics and lifestyles descriptors in predicting consumer behavior (Gurel-Atay, Xie, Chen, & Kahle, 2010; Kahle, 1983, 1996; Kahle, Poulos, & Sukhdial, 1988; Rokeach, 1973). Although demographics and lifestyles may be helpful to understand the different important values among people in some degrees (Kahle & Valette-Florence, 2012; Mager & Kahle, 1995), values are more direct indicators of consumer behavior (e.g., Homer & Kahle, 1988; Kahle, 1980, 1983, 1996; Kahle, Kulka, & Klingel, 1980; Weeks & Kahle, 1990). Based on a traditional (stereotypical) perspective, for instance, it is known that women are more likely to dedicate themselves to taking care of their children, rather than men, in general. However, it does not necessarily mean that every single man is less likely to take care of his children than women, and vice versa. The challenge is to understand how we can explain the unexpected behaviors that some men (or women) employ, when researchers and practitioners try to anticipate consumers’ behaviors based solely on the conventional expectations depending on mere demographics (e.g., gender roles). One partial answer would be “different values” among the people who are in an equivalent group of demographics (e.g., gender, education levels, ethnicity, and income levels). According to Kahle (1983, 1996), people’s behaviors are more accurately predictable utilizing nine different scales of LOV (i.e., being well-respected, security, sense of belonging, warm relationships with others, self-fulfillment, self-respect, and sense of accomplishment), rather than mere demographic information. To be specific, people who have a primary value of sense of belonging may be more engaged in taking care of their children and family, rather than ones who endorse self-fulfillment in the first place, even if all of them share demographic similarity in terms of such demographic variables as gender, education, and wealth.
Since Maslow (1943, 1954) suggested a needs-based hierarchy model, values have been actively investigated, and Maslow’s theory has become a cornerstone of value studies across different disciplines in social science. The hierarchy model suggested by Maslow is quite similar to motivation theory (Murray, 1951), which is formed based on needs. According to Maslow’s theory, human values are developmentally (hierarchically) transformed based on the situation, which results in different behaviors. To be specific, people endorse safety values, only if physiological values are fulfilled, and they may endorse the values of belongingness when they feel safe enough in their lives. The value of self-actualization, which is on the top of the Maslow hierarchy, can eventually be endorsed when all other values (i.e., physiological, safety, belongingness, and esteem) are satisfied at some levels. That is, to pursue more sophisticated values, the values in former stages are required to be fulfilled. A number of researchers collectively claim the difficulties of Maslow’s theory in empirical measurement. For example, Values and Lifestyle Segmentation (VALS) (Mitchell, 1983), Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) (Rokeach, 1973), and LOV (Kahle, 1983) scales have been developed, in order to provide empirical evidence of consumer values, some calling into question Maslow’s hierarchical construct (e.g., Kahle, Homer, O’Brien, & Boush, 1997). However, the meanings of values, needs, and goals are somewhat ambiguous, and the concepts have been interchangeably used in the earlier studies on this topic, even though Kahle and Xie (2008) later clarified the relationship between values and goals, that values should be distinguished from goals, because goals are more explicit objectives, aspirations, and ends. Therefore, the lack of clarity among the three relevant concepts often yields confusions in research.
In addition to the clarity issue, Kahle (1996) asserts that one of the most distinctive features of values is abstraction and complexity. Values are a sort of social cognition that encourages people to make certain behavioral decisions in life. The social cognition requires cognitive consistency in which human values form and transform to let people adapt themselves to the social environments (Rokeach, 1973). Because of the abstract and complex nature of the value concept, however, value researchers often assert that human values should be considered as a system, in which situational (external) factors interact with those values (Homer & Kahle, 1988; Kahle, 1980, 1983, 1996; Kahle, Beatty, & Homer, 1986; Weeks & Kahle, 1990). For example, people may not be able to know whether their values in a lower stage are fulfilled. In addition, a consumer’s situational stages may vary, depending on different contexts, which results in having various values based on types of decision-making activities, and the time point in which the decision is made. In order to predict consumer behavior properly, with this concern in mind, several researchers point out the importance of understanding value systems as a whole, rather than separately considering individual values (e.g., Kahle, 1983; Kahle, Homer, O’Brien, & Boush, 1997; Kahle et al., 1980; Rokeach, 1973). To illustrate the theoretical construct of these assertions, the theories of reasoned action and social adaptation are reviewed and discussed in this section. Based on the two theories, the linkage of values-attitudes-behaviors and the changes in social values are also discussed.
Theory of Reasoned Action
Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) have developed the concept of reasoned action based on information integration theory (Anderson, 1971). Although Anderson’s information integration theory focuses on predicting people’s attitudes, reasoned action focuses more on the procedures of the creation of behavioral intentions. Furthermore, conflict situations influencing different behavioral intentions are described by reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). For example, it describes how people’s consideration of conflicting situations, in which both different situations can motivate people to do something providing some reasons, influence the creation of particular actions and decision-making processes. To be specific, a reasoned action is derived from two elements: personal attitudes and social norms (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Although personal attitudes are often formed based on an individual situation with the factors of personal traits, social norms may vary across different cultures. Therefore, personal behaviors are motivated and/or restricted by the culture in which people reside as well as individual differences. The theory of reasoned action is also closely related to functional theory of attitudes (e.g., Katz, 1960; Kelman, 1974) that describes the utility of functions in attitude changes, which is well describing consumer’s value pursuit (e.g., Kahle, Kambara, & Rose, 1996). Initially, although functional theory tends to solely focus on utility as a determinant of attitudes, rather than values, later studies utilized functional theory in addition to other relevant theories (e.g., social adaptation) in order to explain the effects of consumer values (e.g., Kahle, Kambara, & Rose, 1996; Sheth, Newman, & Gross, 1991b).
Social Adaptation Theory
Social adaptation theory has developed reasoned action elaborating and focusing more on social values in addition to personal motivations of attitude formation (Kahle, 1983, 1984; Kahle et al., 1980). Homer and Kahle (1988) claim that a value is one of the most abstract forms of social cognition, and the abstract feature contributes to the creation of attitudes and behaviors. Thus, “values are similar to attitudes in that both are adaptation abstractions that emerge continuously from the assimilation, accommodation, organization, and integration of environmental information in order to promote interchanges with the environment favorable to the preservation of optimal functioning” (Homer & Kahle, p. 638). The theory of social adaptation (Kahle, 1983; Kahle, Kulka, & Klingel, 1980) is established based on the hierarchy of values (Maslow, 1954), attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Sheth, Newman, & Gross, 1991a), and theory of reasoned action (e.g., Katz, 1960; Kelman, 1974). Value formation occurs based on experiences in daily life interacting with environments (Kahle, 1996).
In this respect, Piagetian theory (Piaget, 1952) supports social adaptation. According to Piagetian theory, life experiences are accumulated interacting with a person’s current values, capability in accepting new information, and the environment in order to adjust and to develop the current cognitive structure (Kahle, 1996). For this reason, social values are developed, adjusted, and changed corresponding to the experiences based on social adaptation and Piagetian theory. Because people persistently adjust their behavior and themselves to be a part of the society, social adaptation explains how value changes based on cultural differences. In social psychology, for example, the characteristics of people’s behavior distinctively vary, based on the cultural differences (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism). Thus, a number of value researchers have conducted cross-cultural research in order to compare the value creation and its consequences among different cultures.
Value Chains: Values-Attitudes-Behavior Linkage
“Why do consumers buy specific products/brands?” is a fundamental research question in consumer research and the decision-making procedure is explained by value chains (Batra, Homer, & Kahle, 2001; Kahle & Xie, 2008). Consumer researchers have made tremendous efforts, and utilized various approaches to find the answer for this question in the different consumer contexts. Particularly, a number of consumer researchers pay attention to the importance of “value chain” in order to better understand consumer decision-making processes unveiling the determinants of different consumer behaviors in different situations based on a thorough consideration of both situational and personal factors. Kahle (1996) also suggests that value chains help researchers not only to understand consumers’ particular purchase decision-making, but also to investigate their propensity to consume in general. To be specific, value chains provide researchers with the opportunities to find answers for “why” questions in consumer research (e.g., Homer & Kahle, 1988; Kahle, 1983, 1996). For example, consumers who endorse sense of accomplishment as a primary value, may want to, and focus primarily on, find ways to improve themselves at work. In turn, they may tend to invest more for relevant technologies than others, in order to perform better in their professions, while they may be less likely to spend money and time for travel with their family and friends. On the other hand, people who endorse warm relationships with others may tend to be more satisfied when they invest their resources to spend more time with friends and family. Based on the evidence of values-attitudes-behavior linkages in consumer literature, Kahle (1996) claims that value chains contribute to to the improvement of the effectiveness of communications, such as advertising by targeting a particular segment of consumers considering consumer values, thus allowing marketing practitioners and consumer researchers to better understand consumer decision-making processes (Reynolds & Gutman, 1988; Reynolds & Phillips, 2008; Valette-Florence & Rapacchi, 1991).
Measurements of Value Structure and Applications of LOV
As an effort to provide empirical evidence of social values, several measurement materials have been established and utilized including VALS (Mitchell, 1983), Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) (Rokeach, 1973), and LOV (Kahle, 1983). Because of the importance and the abstraction of value systems, providing accurate empirical evidence is essential. Thus, the specific characteristics of each measure need to be interpreted clearly, in order for researchers to select measurement materials appropriately for their own studies. We compare LOV with those other measurement instruments based on the perspective of consumer research.
Values and Lifestyle Segmentation (VALS)
With the support of SRI International, the VALS scale, which consists of 34 demographic and attitudinal questions, has been developed by Mitchell (1983). As a result, subjects are categorized into eight different groups based on their lifestyles, including the group of innovator, thinker, believer, achiever, striver, experiencer, maker, and survivor. Thinker and believer items are about personal beliefs in terms of politics and economics, while those of achiever and striver describe the involvement of work. Furthermore, experience and maker items ask about the degree of self-expression, and the survivor group reflects the people who have only little resources, whereas innovators have sufficient resources to be prepared for the future. Although VALS has been designed and utilized to investigate the fundamental characteristics of US consumers, some drawbacks were found. To be specific, the scale items were established based heavily on demographic questions. Thus, the items are designed as nominal scale, which might be problematic in some occasions. Furthermore, the items tend to be culturally biased (Kahle, 1996). Therefore, VALS has been revised in those flaws to establish VALS II. However, the secrecy problem of its methods, which may violate the scientific standard in utilizing private information, still remains (Kahle & Kahle, 2009). In turn, the VALS II has been rarely utilized in academic research (Kahle & Xie, 2008). In addition, commercial organizations may also not want to utilize this measure in order to preserve their own competitive advantages, since the value measure has been designed based heavily on mere demographics, rather than focusing on capturing individual differences (Kahle, 1996).
Rokeach Value Survey (RVS)
Across a variety of disciplines in social science (e.g., psychology, sociology, and marketing), the RVS is a popular measure for values. This measurement instrument consists of 36 values, which are divided by 18 terminal values and 18 instrumental values, based on an ordinal scale (Rokeach, 1973). To be more specific, terminal values (e.g., wisdom and salvation) are comprised of the values that people pursue as life goals, and instrumental values (e.g., love and forgiveness) are more likely to be certain behaviors to achieve the terminal values. The subjects participating in the research adopting RVS are asked to rank each type of value from 1 to 18. With this challenging task in mind, value researchers (e.g., Beatty et al., 1985; Feather & Peay, 1975; Johnston, 1995) have tried to modify the number of questions in the instrument, pointing out that the capacity of short-term memory among normal people cannot accurately rank 18 questions in a certain order. However, the RVS itself continues to be used in its un-modified form. Gibbins and Walker (1993) had suspicions on the validity of the RVS, because the criteria used to reduce the number of items down to 36 were not transparent. In addition, Beatty et al. (1985) and Kahle (1996) suggest that the RVS results are often inconsistent, when it is compared to LOV results.
List of Values (LOV)
As an effort to reduce abstraction and to examine empirically the antecedents and consequences of values, Kahle (1983) and others have used a value scale based on theory of reasoned action, social adaptation theory, and the hierarchy of values, attitudes, and behavior, called LOV. As an empirical measurement tool, LOV has become widely applied in consumer research (e.g., Limon, Kahle, & Orth, 2009) with its benefits. As a set of behavioral indicators, LOV consists of nine different values (i.e., self-fulfillment, self-respect, sense of accomplishment, security, sense of belonging, warm relationship with others, fun and enjoyment in life, and excitement), which are sometimes categorized by three dimensions, including internal, external, and fun and enjoyment values. Particularly, one of the advantages of LOV is that it reflects the distinction between internal and external values, which elaborate inter-, and intra-personal relations in terms of value fulfillment (Bearden & Netemeyer, 1999). A number of cross-cultural consumer studies have relied on LOV.
Applications. LOV has been thoroughly validated, because it has been utilized by numerous consumer behavior studies in different contexts. Limon et al. (2009), for example, investigate the effects of product package designs on consumer brand choice as well as the moderating roles of cross-cultural values based on different product types recruiting subjects from different cultures (i.e., German, German-Turkish, and Turkish). As a type of antecedent of a specific brand choice, on the other hand, Orth and Kahle (2008) investigate interpersonal variations in consumer susceptibility in the context of commercial communications. Furthermore, Madrigal and Kahle (1994) examine the different patterns of vacation activities categorizing internal versus external values based on personal differences in value systems. In addition, some studies directly compare and contrast the values among different cultures/regions to understand the uniqueness of different consumer groups. For example, Kahle, Beatty, and Homer (1986) compare the consumer values between Norway and the US, and Muller, Kahle, and Chéron (1992) examined the social values of Canadian baby boomers compared to the values from the US. Moreover, Beatty, Kahle, and Homer (1991), and Beatty, Kahle, Utsey, and Keown (1993) measured personal values using LOV, in order to predict gift-giving behavior across different cultures (i.e., United States vs. Asian culture) and genders. Also, Kahle, Rose, and Shoham (2000) examined cross-national consumer psychographics using the internal and external features of LOV. In addition, Minton, Kahle, and Kim (2015) explored the effects of values in predicting people’s religious motives and sustainable behaviors. To provide empirical evidence for value change, Kahle, Poulos, and Sukhdial (1988) investigated social trends using LOV and argue that people’s values are closely and inevitably connected to individual behavior, society, and social change. Recruiting 2,235 subjects across the US, furthermore, Gurel-Atay et al. (2010) also conducted a study using the same instrument, in order to compare the results from Kahle et al. (1988). As a result, Gurel-Atay et al. found a great increase in self-respect, but sense of belonging has decreased, compared to Kahle et al. (1988; Kahle, 1983) among the US samples.
Conclusions
In this chapter, the studies of social values in the consumer context have been reviewed, in order to understand: (1) theoretical illustration of the antecedents/consequences of social values; (2) measurement instruments of social values provided by consumer literature in variety topics; and (3) the application of LOV (Kahle, 1983) and other measurement scale items in consumer literature. Although a great number of studies have examined consumer values, continuous efforts to better understand values are still demanded, because of the abstract and complex characteristics of values. Furthermore, the evidence that explains the changes of consumer values has been found. With this in mind, we suggest that consumer behavior researchers and practitioners should keep tracking value changes, as well as making efforts to unveil, and to illuminate the secrets of value system in various contexts.
Future Research
We have assumed that values guide the formation of attitudes and thus provide input into the theory of reasoned action formulae. But what generates values? Rokeach (1973) showed that a simple cognitive dissonance experience could fundamentally alter values and their consequential behaviors. But are there other aspects of socialization that guide behaviors? One line of inquiry we have pursued with some success implies that religion infuses some people with social values (Minton & Kahle, 2014; Minton, Kahle, Tan, & Tambayah, 2016).
How do values change over the life span? We suspect that stable life values do not form until the later teen years, but how variable are values thereafter? We have found evidence both for stability (Stockard, Carpenter, & Kahle, 2014) and change (Tan, Tambayah, and Kahle, 2015).
One especially important subtopic worthy of exploration is the possibility of situated value identities. In one recent study (Marshall, Na, Son, & Kahle, in preparation) we found that bilingual respondents gave identified different values as most important depending on whether they answered in English or Chinese. Focus group responses convinced us that the difference was that the same people adhere to different values in different contexts. Your core values may differ as the loving parent of a 3-year-old versus the foreman at a struggling-for-profit business.
Another research direction we suggest is to investigate how consumers deal with conflicting situations based on multiple primary values. As people have different roles based on different social expectations, the primary value of people may vary. For example, a person may perceive taking care of his family as a father, while promotion at work is a dominant value as a professional. Because of the restriction of time and limited resources, people may be forced to determine the most primary value among the many important values depending on different roles expected in various situations. With these conflicts in social roles in mind, it would be worth investigating consumer choices based on conflicting situations.
In order to better understand consumers’ online behavior, in addition, we need to investigate how social values influence consumer digital decision-making processes. Since the effects of social media on consumer choice and behavior is no longer new, we need to clarify the effects of social media on the relationships between social values and consequent behaviors. For instance, social media may be more influential in prompt decision-making online, while values may play a key role in online decision-making processes when sufficient time is allowed. Furthermore, social media may influence people’s values, which may distort outcome behaviors, since people tend to make efforts to adapt themselves to the social environment (Lee & Kahle, 2016). Thus, online environment may have the same effects on the value creation, based on social adaptation theory.
Another intriguing set of questions is whether and how certain environmental stimuli trigger specific values (Orth & Kahle, 2008). What exactly activates value-oriented processing? Is it an emotion-laden scene? Do certain words trigger values differentially? Or certain social groups? Do life-events trigger change?
Given the importance of social values in consumer processes, these questions and many others deserve our attention as we try to understand how consumers form decisions that shape their images, ideals, and lifestyles.
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