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C hinese are more loss averse than B ritish
Author(s) -
Guo Tieyuan,
Spina Roy
Publication year - 2016
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.12129
Subject(s) - regulatory focus theory , promotion (chess) , loss aversion , focus (optics) , reference price , psychology , focus group , social psychology , marketing , microeconomics , economics , business , law , political science , physics , optics , politics , creativity
This research investigates how culture might influence loss aversion. C hinese were expected to be more loss averse than B ritish because of cultural differences in regulatory focus. Study 1 reveals that compared with B ritish participants, C hinese participants were less likely to give up gifts they had received in exchange for new gifts. In Study 2, C hinese and B ritish participants imagined buying a computer which either had a high specification and a high price tag (high reference), or a basic specification and a low price tag (low reference). Participants were informed that the (reference) computer was unavailable, and they had to choose between two available computers, which were both cheaper and less powerful than the high reference computer, and more expensive and more powerful than the low reference computer. The results reveal that the difference in price tag between the two available computers had a bigger impact on C hinese buying decisions than on B ritish buying decisions when it was viewed as a loss. Furthermore, both promotion focus and prevention focus mediated the influence of culture on buying decisions in the low reference condition. No cross‐cultural difference was found in the high reference condition.