In the last lesson, you've learned about how motivation can influence consumer’s decision. Specifically, you have learned Mainland Chinese consumers’ craze for luxury brands may be related to their subscription to the belief in lay elitism. In this lesson, we will discuss another cultural factor, namely, the cultural conception of agency, and its effects on one’s choice for consumer goods. As mentioned in the last lesson, Mainland Chinese consumers don’t necessarily choose according to what they like. Soon I will show you a video presentation of a controlled experiment, which demonstrates Chinese consumers may make their choice not entirely based on their own preferences. Suppose you are presented with a number of pens. Most of them are of the same color and one of them is of different color. You can choose and take home one of the pens for free. Which pen would you choose? When put in this situation, only 30% of the Chinese participants in this experiment chose the minority color pen. More importantly, they did so not because they liked the majority color pen more. When we switched the majority color to the minority color, the percentage of participants choosing the minority color pen remained approximately the same. Let’s take a look at this clip now. Choosing what we prefer is a widely accepted notion in North American culture. However, in Chinese culture, consumers do not always choose what they like. So, if Chinese do not always choose according to what they prefer, do they choose randomly? If not, what is the basis for their choice? Krishna Savani is a professor at the Nanyang Business School His research showed that the link between consumer preference and choice is not always strong. That is, some people do not always choose what they like most. For example, in his study, he found that for North Americans, the link between preference and choice is stronger. But for Indians, this link is considerably weaker. Professor Savani attributed this disparity to the differences in the conception of agency across the two cultures. Models of agency are implicit frameworks of ideas and practices about “how to be a good person.” Models of agency guide actions; they reflect descriptive, prescriptive, and normative understanding of how and why people act. Professor Savani believes that Asians are more likely to endorse the Model of Conjoint Agency, while North Americans are more likely to endorse the Disjoint Agency Model. For people who subscribe to the Disjoint Agency Model, they believe that actions are freely chosen according to personal preference, goals, intentions, and motives. People’s actions are independent from those of others. As a consequence, people’s actions are expressions of their own individual preferences. On the contrary, people who subscribe to the Conjoint Agency Model value social responsiveness. They prefer actions that are responsive to social obligations, situational demands, social norms and role expectations. Accordingly, their preferences, goals and intentions are accountable to others. Expression of preferences in action is not emphasized in the Conjoint Agency Model. The greater popularity of the Conjoint Agency Model in Asian societies may explain the greater inconsistency between preference and choice there. However, as shown in Professor Savani’s more recent studies, many Americans know that others may not like people who selfishly think of their own personal preferences only when they make choices. Nonetheless, Asian consumers care more about following others’ opinions than do American consumers. We can increase consumers’ social awareness by reminding them of the social norms or by making them feel that they are being watched by others. Socially aware Asian consumers are likely to make choices solely based on other’s preferences. In contrast, socially aware American consumers continue to make choices based on their own personal preferences. In this lesson, we demonstrated that the culture can influence one’s belief about agency. Conjoint Agency beliefs are more prevalent in Chinese culture, and Chinese consumers are less likely to make choices based on their preferences primarily. Asian consumers are more concerned about other people’s expectations. When they become more aware of the presence of others, they are less likely to make choices based on their own personal preferences. When a product is introduced to a new market, a common practice is to assess the potential market share by surveying consumers’ wants and preferences. In China, this is also important, but probably not sufficient. To accurately project a product’s market share in China, aside from measuring consumers’ personal preferences, you should also know how consumers expect their significant others would view these purchases. Do consumers think that their choices are considered socially appropriate by others? Knowledge of personal preferences and social perceptions are of equal importance in predicting Chinese consumers’ choices. In the next segment, you will watch an interview with Professor Savani. In the interview, he will talk about how his research on preference and choice helps to understand Chinese consumers. Let’s watch the interview now.
