Reactions to Nonconformity Imagery in Advertising among Chinese and Japanese Consumers: The Effect of Personal and National Cultural Tightness

초록

Previous research has documented a positive effect of nonconformity on the inference of higher status in Western cultures. In Western culture, nonconformity is associated with high status, which is attributed to competence and autonomy. The present research extends research on nonconformity and status perception to the East Asian context by investigating how cultural tightness-the degree to which social norms are strict and deviance from norms is intolerable-at the personal level and national level jointly affects the evaluation of advertisements featuring nonconformity in two East Asian nations: Japan and China. Based on recent studies showing perceived level of tightness being higher in Japan than in China, we posit that consumers' evaluations of nonconformity in advertisements may differ between Japan and China, despite the two countries sometimes being grouped into a homogenous "East Asian" culture. Through four studies, we showed that Chinese consumers with low personal tightness had favorable attitudes toward ads portraying nonconformity and perceived products in these ads as having high status, whereas Chinese consumers with high personal tightness showed favorable attitudes toward ads portraying conformity. In contrast, Japanese consumers showed relatively harsher judgments for nonconforming behavior than Chinese consumers.

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