Lectures
Current Projects
- Kang, Esther and Arun Lakshmanan (2018), “Visual or Victual: Interactive Effects of Food- Related Thought Suppression and Media Subscription on the Consumption of Food and Media Content”.
- Abstract
This paper shows how suppressing thoughts pertaining to restricted foods—due to dietary restriction goals—can lead to backfire effects that manifest as increased visual consumption of food images. This paper also shows that accessibility of food images can have positive and negative effects on the visual consumption of food contingent upon consumers’ dietary goals. Finally, this paper outlines a process model that shows when and how easy access to food images online leads to better adherence to dietary goals (i.e., reduced eating). By doing so, this research provides a unique theoretical contribution to literature on consumers’ digital media consumption regarding dietary goals and the reciprocal effect of media availability upon food consumption.
- Abstract
CV
- Assistant Professor of Consumer Psychology and Behavior, University of Cologne, Germany
- Ph.D., Marketing (Minor: Social Psychology), State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
- M.A., Marketing, Ewha Womans University, South Korea
- B.S., Biology (Minor: Psychology), Ewha Womans University, South Korea
Selected Publications
- Kang, Esther and Arun Lakshmanan (in press), “Narcissism and Self- versus Other-Oriented Imagery in Charitable Giving,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(8) 1214-1277. doi: 10.1177/
- Abstract
Prior research documents extensively that high-narcissism individuals largely tend to be self-centered and often lack empathy. This research outlines the charitable appeal types that can activate empathic responses and other-centered behaviors from high-narcissism individuals. Across four studies, we show that donors who are higher in narcissism exhibit greater charitable intentions when appealed to via imagine-self charitable appeals (as opposed to imagine-recipient types of appeals). Imagine-self appeals enable high-narcissism donors to project themselves into the recipient’s situation and, in doing so, elicit greater empathy and, consequently, greater charity. This effect dissipates when projecting oneself is very difficult or impossible – such as with animal recipients or the other gender suffering a gender-specific ailment. We also explicate the underlying process role of self-focused imagination and empathy in heightening charitable outcomes from high-narcissism individuals.
- Abstract
- Kang, Esther and Arun Lakshmanan (2017), “Role of Executive Attention in Consumer Learning with Background Music,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27(1), 35–48, doi: 10.1016/j.jcps.2016.03.003.
- Abstract
his paper examines how the type of background music (vocal vs. instrumental) affects consumers' cognitive performance depending on individual differences in executive attention (i.e., working memory capacity). Across three experiments, we find that vocal music leads to poorer cognitive and attitudinal outcomes for consumers lower in working memory capacity but does not affect those higher in working memory capacity. However, short‐term habituation to background music helps mitigate this negative effect of vocal music on consumer ad recall. Finally, consumer performances on computing discount prices are also affected by music type depending upon whether prices are communicated in verbal or numeric form. Overall, this research lays out an executive‐attention based process mechanism explaining when and how background music shapes consumer learning and memory. The outlined theory enriches the literature on music effects as well as immediate‐term learning by explicating the role of selective attention in the processing of multi‐modal marketing stimuli.
- Abstract