Exploring the mechanism of consumer purchase intention in a traditional culture based on the theory of planned behavior

There has been a growing interest among scholars and practitioners in cultural empowerment due to the importance of this subject. In this study, we aim to explore the connection between traditional cultural symbols and cultural identity, further estimating how two variables stimulate consumers' emotional value to generate consumers' purchase intention. Based on existing traditional cultural literature and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we first proposed a research framework and then empirically tested the relationship among traditional culture symbols, cultural identity, emotional value, and consumers' purchase intention. The survey data was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) and the following conclusions were drawn. First, the cognition of traditional cultural symbols and cultural identity has a direct and significant impact on the emotional value thereby, eliciting consumers' purchase intention. Second, traditional cultural symbols are directly and indirectly (i.e., through emotional value or cultural identity) positively associated with consumers' purchase intention, also cultural identity is directly and indirectly (i.e., through emotional value) associated with consumer purchase intention. Finally, emotional values mediate the indirect effect of traditional culture and cultural identity on purchase intention, and cultural identity plays a moderating role between traditional cultural symbols and consumers' purchase intention. Our findings help to expand the existing literature on consumer purchase intentions by rationally using traditional cultural symbols in the product design and suggesting relevant marketing strategies. The research results can provide valuable inspiration for promoting the sustainable development of the national tidal market and repeating consumers' purchasing intentions.

Healthy Eating Value Systems Among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participants: A Qualitative Study

OBJECTIVE

To understand how families receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) conceptualize healthy eating and its relationship to child development.

METHODS

This study is a secondary analysis of in-depth, in-home qualitative interviews. 30 caregivers with children between the ages of 4 and 10 years old participating in SNAP in Baltimore, MD, were asked about food purchasing resources and strategies. Two independent coders re-analyzed primary data using an iterative process to identify a priori themes related to caregivers' conceptualization of healthy eating and emergent themes related to the ways families use SNAP benefits. Themes were identified via content analysis and revised until consensus was reached.

RESULTS

Participants demonstrated knowledge of nutritious food groups, specific unhealthy nutrients, and the importance of food in managing chronic conditions. However, the importance of nutrition was balanced with the need for ready-made foods that children could safely prepare on their own, shelf stable goods, and low-cost foods. Emergent themes identified caregivers' views of health-related impacts of food beyond nutrition, including the role of food as: a parenting tool to support child socialization and development, a means of creating experiences unique to childhood, and a mechanism for promoting family cohesion.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests families receiving SNAP use benefits to best serve children's well-being while conceptualizing the child health benefits of food as extending beyond nutrition. Future policy interventions aimed at optimizing SNAP should address the potential for nutrition assistance to foster positive child social and emotional development among low-income families while meeting nutritional needs.

Development of Fertility, Social Status, and Social Trust of Farmers

Fertility, social status, and social trust are main social choice behaviors of Chinese farmers. This paper adopts the childbearing–value logic to establish a theoretical model of farmers’ childbearing–social status–social trust choices to examine the influence of farmers’ childbearing and social status on farmers’ social trust. The theoretical model showed that farmers will rationally choose the number of children to bear, emotional value, social value, economic value, social status, and social trust. The fertility of farmers’ children is actually a trade-off between quantity and value, and the fertility behavior affects social status through the direct mechanism of the number of children and the value of the adjustment mechanism, and together with the social status, through the direct mechanism, the adjustment mechanism of the number of children, the intermediate mechanism of social status, and the mixed adjustment mechanism. Asymmetry affects social trust equilibrium. Empirical research based on the CFPS (China Family Panel Studies) data in 2018 showed that farmers’ children quantity primarily inhibits, through the adjustment mechanism of children’s value–social status, social status and social trust; it exerts no direct impact or mediating effect on the social status. The economic value of children does not affect the social status, but it affects social trust through a positive child quantity adjustment mechanism, a negative social status mediation mechanism, and a negative mixed mediation mechanism. The social value of children affects social trust by the positive direct mechanism and the negative children quantity adjustment mechanism, as well as social trust by the negative direct mechanism, children quantity adjustment mechanism, children quantity–social status mixed adjustment mediating mechanism, and the positive social status–mediated mechanism. The emotional value of children affects the social status through the positive direct mechanism, as well as social trust through the positive direct mechanism, social status–mediated mechanism, and negative child quantity adjustment mechanism, and negative mixed mediation mechanism. Furthermore, social status positively impacts social trust rather than a symmetric transmission of the mediating effect of children’s value and the quantity adjustment effect of children’s value. However, no mediating effect of social trust was observed on children quantity. Social development leads to structural changes in the fertility value of farmers’ children, which makes farmers prefer their children’s social and economic value, exerting a complex impact on their own social status and social trust.

The Emotional Dimension of Value: A Proposal for Its Quantitative Measurement

The first goal of this paper is to develop a theoretical and practical framework which can help to measure the emotional value generated by organizations in quantitative terms. Its second goal is to use data obtained from the UCAN (Union of Food and Agriculture Cooperatives of Navarre) in Spain as a case study to illustrate the quantification of the emotional value generated, with a view to factoring that value into a social accounting system. Ever greater recognition of the social role of organizations in recent years has led to a need for a consistent definition of the concept of socio-emotional value, and for instruments that can be used to measure that value in terms of generic social accounting. Taking the current lack of standardization in such models and instruments, especially those that deal with emotional value as its starting point, the paper proposes a new instrument for measuring that value quantitatively in such a way as to overcome some of the limitations of earlier proposals. The underlying perspective is that the monetary values identified in market and non-market transactions do not accurately account for all the value generated for different stakeholders, and that adjustments are required through a correction factor applied to the value variables identified. The quantification of the socio-emotional value generated by an organization is seen as a more comprehensive indicator of its performance, given that it provides more information and takes into account the value generated for stakeholders as a whole in all dimensions.

Is It Possible to Monetarily Quantify the Emotional Value Transferred by Companies and Organizations? An Emotional Accounting Proposal

Social accounting focuses on value transactions between organizations and their stakeholders; both market ones, where the value perceived by the different stakeholders is identified, and non-markets ones, where transactions are monetized at their fair value. There was long awareness of an emotional value translation, linked to the transfer of different products, services, remunerations, and incentives, regardless of whether they were market or non-market. Yet that emotional value seemed to be anchored in the field of psychology and managed to elude economic science. This study seeks to identify emotional value with consumer surplus and, by extension, of the other stakeholders in a value transfer process. This proposal allows the emotional value to be anchored in the micro-economy and allows it to be objectively calculated using a regression involving three elements: the market price, the fair value interval, and a perceived satisfaction score by the different stakeholders in the form of significant sampling. The result obtained not only allows Social Accounting to be complemented with emotional value, but it also facilitates its incorporation in the strategy to optimize the emotional value. Furthermore, it enables a quantification of the perceived subjective utility, which opens up a research path where some possible lines are clearly identified.

Rapid detection of neutral faces associated with emotional value

Swift detection of faces with emotional meaning underlies fruitful social relationships. Although previous studies using a visual search paradigm have demonstrated rapid detection of emotional facial expressions, whether it is attributable to emotional/motivational significance remains to be clarified. We examined this issue by excluding the influence of visual factors on the rapid detection of faces with emotional meaning. First, participants were engaged in an associative learning task wherein neutral faces were associated with either monetary rewards, monetary punishments, or zero outcome in order for the neutral faces to acquire positive, negative, and no emotional value, respectively. Then, during the visual search task, the participants detected a target-neutral face associated with high reward or punishment from among newly presented neutral faces. In Experiment 1, neutral faces associated with high reward and punishment values were more rapidly detected than those without monetary outcomes. In Experiment 2, highly rewarded and highly punished neutral faces were more rapidly detected than neutral faces associated with low monetary reward/punishment. Analyses of ratings confirmed that the learned neutral faces acquired emotional value, and the reaction times were negatively related to arousal ratings. These results suggest that the emotional/motivational significance promotes the rapid detection of emotional faces.

Accounting for Emotional Value: A Review in Disability Organizations

The aim of this paper is to examine how disability organizations account for the emotional value they create for their stakeholders. Based on a review of the literature on emotional value measurement in third sector organizations working in the disability sector, we investigate to what extent emotional value is considered in their social accounting process and what type of value variables, indicators and proxies are used. The results reveal that the analysis of some quality of life domains provides appropriate evidence to represent the emotional value generated by these organizations but that there is a great dispersion in applied instruments and methodologies. The study improves the knowledge and understanding of existing approaches to capture the emotional component of social value creation and contributes to its standardization. Our analysis has implications for the management of disability organizations that can use social accounting to evaluate their performance and improve their effectiveness and efficiency, showing a more complete picture of the social value generated. Likewise, it can be an instrument to make the contribution and social benefits of these organizations visible in all their breadth, improving transparency and legitimacy.