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“Cultural Differences in Consumer Impatience,” Haipeng Chen, Sharon Ng, and Akshay R. Rao, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. XLII (August 2005), 291-301.
In their study, the authors address theories that posit that cultural differences in perception of the value of the future affect the demand for immediate consumption. They propose that differences in the perception of goals fulfilled by immediate consumption further affect valuation of immediate consumption and that the cultural identity contributes to the impact of the goals expressed in messages. These issues are relevant to the marketing themes of distribution and customer service as well as to promotion. The article draws on behavioral psychology, regulatory theory, and behavioral decision making theory.
Consumer impatience is analogized to discounting the future. One who applies a high discount rate to a future outcome can be said to value the present more than the future. In the consumer this translates into desire for quick service and delivery of products, greater preference for options that pay off quickly and the willingness to pay premiums for immediate satisfaction.
In conducting their research, the authors reviewed literature on time discounting in general as well as cross-cultural differences in time discounting. They found that studies on time discounting were subject to variations in the discount rate, time delays, and magnitude of outcomes. As a result, cross-cultural differences cannot be isolated in these studies. Significant studies on cultural differences in general have established that Asian peoples are typically are more focused on the future than the present while Western cultures are more focused on the present. These focuses are seen in differences in life styles, religion, rates of change in the society, etc. These differences led to
“H1: Western-oriented people place a higher value on immediate consumption and thus display more impatience than Eastern-oriented people.”
Literature and studies on the context of messages was also reviewed. Loss aversion theory and a corollary that people pay more attention to negative information led to
“H2: A message that emphasizes the inability to engage in consumption as a loss yields more impatience than does a message that emphasizes the ability to engage in consumption as a gain.”
Regulatory theory literature describes promotion and prevention as self-regulatory goals or motivations for action. Promotion is achievement of desirable outcomes while prevention is avoidance of undesirable outcomes. These two goals have been linked in prior studies to cultural differences. Promotion is consistent with a Western independent self-view while prevention is consistent with an Eastern interdependent self-view. Additional studies have demonstrated that messages can be framed to effectively appeal to whichever self view is more relevant. As a result, it may be that where the message is framed in a manner which is congruent with the dominant cultural self-view it is more persuasive or formally,
“H3: For promotion-focused (prevention-focused) Westerners (Easterners), a message that emphasizes the consumption opportunity as fulfilling a promotion (prevention) goal elicits more impatience that does a message that emphasizes the consumption opportunity as fulfilling a prevention (promotion) goal.”
Loss aversion theory is also explored with regard to the message framing. Using the same cultural differences leads to
“H4: For promotion-focused (prevention-focused) Westerners (Easterners), a message that emphasizes a promotion loss (prevention loss) rather than a promotion gain (prevention gain) has a greater impact on impatience than does a message which
emphasizes a prevention loss (promotion loss) rather than a prevention gain (promotion gain.)”
The various hypotheses can be paraphrased less formally as follows. Westerners value immediate consumption more than Easterners. Easterners become more impatient when they are faced with a delay in receipt of a product while Westerners impatience arises from delays in receipt of the benefits of the product. These differences arise from cultural outlooks with regard to the future and with regard to the place of the individual within the culture.
To test their hypotheses, the authors designed a study using “bicultural” participants. Based on other studies in multiculturalism, they used 149 students at a major university in Singapore, asserting that most Singaporeans retain strong ties to their native culture even though strongly exposed to Western culture. Visual tools were used to create either a Western or Eastern bias in the test subjects who were then surveyed on their reactions to questions designed to test the hypotheses. Finally, the bias was tested to determine if the visual tools effectively created the desired bias.
The first study tested impatience levels by assessing willingness to pay premiums for speedy delivery. Students were randomly assigned to one of eight groups of sixteen to twenty-two. Four groups were given visual stimuli to evoke a Western response and four groups were given visual stimuli to evoke an Eastern response. They were then exposed to situations designed to test their willingness to pay more to achieve promotion or prevention goals or avoid promotion or prevention losses.
The cultural stimuli were found to be effective. The participants maintained the desired focus.
The study results found statistically significant evidence that interaction exists between cultural orientation, level of