IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jacres/doi10.1086-706509.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Mere Exposure to Beauty-Related Words Promote Prosocial Behavior? Exploring the Mental Association between Beauty and Prosociality

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaojing Yang
  • Xiaoyan Deng
  • Amita Bhadauria

Abstract

Drawing from research on prosocial behavior, aesthetics, and conceptual metaphor, we posit and find that simply exposing consumers to beauty-related words activates the concept of prosociality (study 1), improves their prosocial tendency in general (study 2), and lowers their evaluations and purchase intentions of products with corporate social responsibility issues (but has no effect on products without such issues) (study 3). Our research contributes to the existing literature by establishing the mental association between verbal beauty primes (activated by mere exposure to beauty-related words) and prosociality. Additionally, by identifying exposure to beauty-related words as a situational antecedent of prosocial tendency, we suggest that verbal beauty primes may be used as an effective strategy to enhance consumers’ prosocial behavior. These findings have implications for both nonprofit and for-profit marketers.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaojing Yang & Xiaoyan Deng & Amita Bhadauria, 2020. "Does Mere Exposure to Beauty-Related Words Promote Prosocial Behavior? Exploring the Mental Association between Beauty and Prosociality," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(1), pages 106-116.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/706509
    DOI: 10.1086/706509
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/706509
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/706509
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/706509?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/706509. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JACR .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.