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The devil wears P rada: Advertisements of luxury brands evoke feelings of social exclusion
Author(s) -
Jiang Ming,
Gao DingGuo,
Huang Ren,
DeWall C. Nathan,
Zhou Xinyue
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/ajsp.12069
Subject(s) - feeling , luxury goods , psychology , advertising , social exclusion , social psychology , business , economics , economic growth
Luxury goods symbolically represent social segregation and exclusion, thereby communicating superiority, exclusivity and distance. In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that exposure to luxury advertisements in C hinese samples activates mental representations similar to those of social exclusion. Participants were more likely to perceive being rejected by models in the luxury advertisements than models in the non‐luxury advertisements. Moreover, exposure to luxury advertisements increased participants' expectations of being rejected in a subsequent ambiguous social interaction. Finally, looking at luxury advertisements resulted in decreased life satisfaction, and this effect was more pronounced for participants with high rejection sensitivity than those with low rejection sensitivity. Overall, the results suggest that luxury advertisements evoke feelings of social exclusion in C hinese.