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The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between cognitive age and the adoption of defensive ageing consumption activities and its effect on life satisfaction in an Asian context. The relationship between the antecedent variables of chronological age, biological age and transitional life events and cognitive age is examined.

Survey method. The study was conducted in Malaysia, an Asian country that is characterized as collectivistic. Data collection method used is convenience sampling method, using a sample of adults aged 40 years or older based on previous research. Measures used include cognitive age developed by Barak and Schiffman and validated by Wilkes. Life stage transitional events include a list of ten major life events that respondents experienced in the past 12 months. Biological changes are summated index of the number of biological changes (e.g. lengthy hospitalization or rehabilitation, hearing impairment) adopted from Mathur and Moschis. Defensive ageing consumption activities include skin care products, health supplements, beauty treatment and exercising, that are commonly adopted to fight ageing.

The paper finds that in the context of an Asian country, consumers view themselves to be several younger than their chronological age, consistent with past research. Biological changes, transitional life events and chronological age had a significant positive relationship with cognitive age, consistent with the findings of past research. To the extent that cognitive age was found to be positively related to transitional life events, regression analysis showed that life event was not a predictor of cognitive age, further contributing to the inconclusive evidence regarding the effect of life events on cognitive age. Research results supported the negative relationship between cognitive age and anti‐ageing consumption behaviour.

Study of this nature will help to shape marketers' approach to attract older consumers. Marketers should shift their focus away from regarding older consumers as old since older consumers tend to view themselves as younger than their chronological age. An understanding of how consumers perceive themselves in terms of their cognitive age is useful for segmentation. Knowing how older adults view “age” is useful for communication strategies.

This paper examines the effect of cognitive age on defensive ageing consumption activities in an Asian country, a collectivist society. The defensive consumption strategies included in this study were a range of products were commonly known but not tested. It extends the research by looking at the effect of defensive ageing consumption activities on life satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dual influence of traditional Chinese and national Singaporean cultural values on the attitude towards skin beauty and the purchase intention relating to skin care cosmetics among Chinese Singaporean women. It aims is to investigate how ethnic and national cultures might interact to influence the attitude towards skin beauty and hence the willingness to buy skin care products.

A survey of 370 Chinese Singaporean women was conducted to test the proposed links. The study adopts an empirical approach using structural equation modelling.

Both traditional Chinese and national Singaporean cultural values impact the attitude of Chinese Singaporean women towards skin beauty and their willingness to buy skin care cosmetics. The components of the traditional Chinese values (Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism) and national Singaporean values were found to have differing impact on the attitude towards skin beauty and the purchase intention of skin care cosmetics among Singaporean women. Confucianism was found to have a very strong impact on skin fairness and whitening, national Singaporeans' values were found to have a strong impact on skin anti‐ageing, and Buddhist values were found to have moderate impact on attitude towards skin smoothness and skin fairness and on the willingness to buy skin smoothening and skin whitening cosmetics.

Even though the sample can be considered large, given the number of variables in the model, it would be wise to rely on a larger sample. In addition, the research was about specific cosmetics products, namely those related to skin care. It is judicious to extend the analysis to other categories and types of products. For expatriate ethnic groups, it is recommended that marketers think about the interaction between their traditional values and the values of the host country, as these have dual effects on their attitudes and hence on their buying intention. The interaction between these values is not static across products. It varies in size and combination across types of attitudes and products.

Traditional ethnic and national cultural values have differing impact in terms of significance and size on the attitude towards face beauty. Hence, marketing actions such as positioning and advertising should be customized accordingly, to target at these values in an attempt to influence attitude, and hence purchase behavior. Attitude plays a mediating role between cultural values and purchase intention. Influencing consumers' willingness to buy involves influencing their attitudes.

Few works have surveyed the dual influence of national and ethnic values on a specific ethnic subgroup in Asia. To the authors' knowledge, there no previous research has been conducted for Singapore. This paper demonstrates that it is important for the marketer to take into account Singaporeans' national and ethnic values while marketing to them.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cultural differences in female consumers’ motivation to purchase appearance-enhancing products, particularly anti-aging creams.

This study uses a qualitative research design to collect the data. Focus group discussions were used. The participants were selected from Thai and Australian females, 25-45 years old in Melbourne representing the most frequent users of anti-aging products.

The results indicated variations among participants in their motivation to seek a better appearance. The motivation ranged from a combination of striving to achieve an ideal self and a high level of social acceptability through maintaining youthful appearance and improving on the perceived declining youthful appearance. Using anti-aging products turned out to be a means for taking care of oneself, achieving better social acceptability and improving self-image. These key motivations are inspired by the individual’s social condition and from the reactions they receive from others. These motivations are shared by all participants, but within different cultural perspectives.

The main limitation is in relation to the true expression of attitudes by respondents, particularly in regard to the discussion of privately held beliefs about self-image, social acceptability and personal appearance. Additionally, the variations between cultural perceptions are only indicative of real differences between collectivist and individualistic cultures.

Managers can adopt a cultural framework for understanding their consumers’ motivations to enhance their appearance, formulate more accurately their marketing strategy and activate and satisfy their consumers’ demand and better inform their new product developments.

The analysis explains and compares the differences and similarities in female consumers’ motivations for anti-aging product consumption of two fundamentally different cultural value systems.

In this paper we present preliminary findings from a study of the social, ethical and cultural aspects of ageing science and medicine. The paper draws on a collaborative, ongoing project between life scientists and sociologists, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) New Dynamics of Ageing Programme1 and the ESRC Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics2. The sociological element of this project involves participant observation and interviews with expert scientists who specialise in ageing and age‐related diseases, both in the UK and the US, as well as interviews with sceptics of ageing science and medicine. There has been much critique of how ageing science is anti‐ageing, reinforcing the ageism prevalent in Western culture. Our specific objective in this paper is to suggest how biogerontology can contribute to the social inclusion of older people, particularly in relation to health care. We discuss how agesim is endemic to some aspects of health care, and go on to show how the ways that biogerontology is reconceptualising what it is to age, and to be old, can help reinclude ageing and the aged in health‐care education, policy and practice.