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The purpose of this paper is to explore how consumers’ socialization influences soft drink consumption behavior in Pakistan. Since consumer socialization has long been considered but it is important to understand whether the extent of consumer socialization in terms of soft drink consumption influences consumer behavior by taking into consideration consumer cohorts.

The quantitative research is based on consumer survey method by using Likert scale questionnaire. Convenience sampling technique with a sample size of 637 is used. Data are analyzed by using cronbach α, ANOVA, correlation and multiple regressions.

Overall, the findings maintain the impact of consumer socialization on soft drink consumption. Such influence of consumer socialization through social media, cultural groups and social groups encourages soft drink socialization behavior. Additionally there is also an evidence of mediating role of consumer generational behavior in soft drink consumption.

The results of this paper extend knowledge of how consumer socialization affects soft drink consumption behavior and provide important insights into how consumer cohorts should be targeted. The Chosen research approach is a limitation of the study.

The results are of value to academic researchers, soft drink industry practitioners in a way that it will help them to portray marketing and advertising activities by taking into consideration consumer cohorts behavior.

This paper addresses an untapped issue on how cohorts socialization at different social setting impact on consumer soft drink consumption behavior.

This paper fulfills a recognized need to study soft drink socialization in terms of cohort’s behavior.

The increased income and modernity have greatly impacted Chinese consumers’ attitudes and purchasing behavior, making them more sophisticated than ever before. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationship among social stratification, materialism, post-materialism, and consumption values contributing uniquely to understanding Chinese consumers in the context of drastic economic and social changes.

Survey method was used to test the proposed model and answer the research questions. The data were collected in Shanghai, the largest city on the eastern coast of China. A multi-stage random sampling strategy was employed to acquire a representative sample of the population in the city. A total of 2,910 completed questionnaires were used for data analysis.

The results show that objective social status has a negative effect on post-materialism, whereas subjective social status has a positive effect. Social status does not seem to have a significant effect on materialism. Post-materialism also has a strong positive effect on the consumption orientations of emotional value and social value.

China was chosen as the research context in this study. As a booming emerging market, China provides an intriguing platform to examine social stratification and materialism. At the macro level, China is developing a new social structure due to the drastic social and economic changes. At the individual consumer level, as China moves further into a market-oriented economy, traditional Chinese values have changed rapidly. Western consumption values and phenomena such as overspending and conspicuous consumption have begun to take hold in China, especially among young people. It is critical for business managers to understand the shift of consumption values among Chinese in order to successfully capture this market.

A cursory review of past literature reveals that researchers have examined materialism primarily along two avenues: one puts materialism within a macro framework involving political interest or civic engagement (e.g. Davis et al., 1999; Inglehart, 1990); the other one takes a micro perspective exploring the impact of materialism on consumer attitudes and behavior (e.g. Park and Rabolt, 2009; Xiao and Kim, 2009). However, little research has been conducted linking the two approaches. The present study intends to examine the interrelationship among social stratification, materialism, post-materialism, and consumption values. Hopefully, it will shed some light on the connection between macro environment and micro consumer behavior. Furthermore, the current research provides evidences for the emerging transformation to a post-materialistic marketplace.

This paper aims to propose the lens of social practice theory (SPT) as a means of deepening insights into childhood consumer culture.

The data comprise four qualitative interviews and ten focus groups with 58 8-13 year olds in six diverse schools across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Transcripts were coded with NVIVO10. Analysis was guided by the three elements of SPT: materials, meaning and competence.

Branded technology products and clothes consistently combined with both the socially sanctioned objective of achieving and maintaining a place in the peer hierarchy and also the three skills the authors have labelled “social consumption recognition”, “social consumption performance” and “social consumption communication” in regular, predictable ways to produce an ordered and, thus, reproducible nexus of actions. Analysis of the inter-relationship between these elements showed that children’s consumption is a specific practice, embedded in their everyday routines. Consumption is also linked inextricably to social position; children’s variable performance of it links with their degree of social acceptance and popularity.

Although the study included a broad cross-section of school catchment areas, they cannot be said to represent all British children. Nonetheless, SPT provides an alternative theoretical perspective on children’s consumption by shifting the focus away from the child, the social context or even the products, thus ceasing to privilege the notion that consumption is something external to children that they learn to be socialised into; or to consciously use for their own symbolic or other purposes; or that they have to be protected from.

Consumption practice is deeply embedded in children’s relationships and is inextricably linked to their well-being. Policies seeking to tackle any single element of the practice, such as media literacy training, are only likely to have limited effectiveness. This research implies that responsible marketing measures need to concentrate on the links between all the elements.

This SPT analysis of children’s consumption makes three contributions. First, it provides a much-needed new theoretical perspective beyond the dominant but limited “consumer socialisation” research paradigm that confines analysis of children’s consumption to the functioning of their individual cognitive capacity. Second, it suggests new research methodologies for understanding the interaction between children and the commercial world. Third, it offers a different approach to policymakers tasked with the controversial issue of regulating marketing to children.

In this essay, two purposes are of importance. One is to frame anti consumption as a social marketing issue on micro and macro levels. The second is to set forth dance as a persuasive element in anti consumption social marketing strategy, which heretofore has been under utilized and under theorized.

This essay draws from relevant existing literature in social marketing and builds and extends dance theory in television ads to conceptualize dance as a viable consumer culture aesthetic in anti consumption social marketing campaigns.

Effectively employing dance images in anti consumption social marketing campaigns may contribute to redesigning of the self-image and identity of consumers. Moreover, through linkages of positive behaviors to dance celebrations and rituals, aligned with an overall social marketing campaign, dance may facilitate reduction of negative consumption behaviors.

Social marketers’ strategic success in high involvement behavior change depends in part on the target audience’s favorable response to message processing. The social marketing field encompasses a variety of such behaviors that if changed, improves both society as a whole, and the lives of individuals.

There are three aspects of value and originality in this contribution. They include forwarding anti consumption as a social marketing issue in consumer culture; theorizing dance as a somato-visceral and kinesthetic approach to anti consumption social marketing behavior change; and demonstrating dance as a positive persuasive element that can reside within the boundaries of social marketing ethics.

Expenditures on beauty, fitness and body shaping by females have increased significantly in recent years. Most previous studies examined this from the psychological perspective of self-acceptance and self-liking. However, this phenomenon may also have social implications. This study aims to provide a profound understanding of the social environment for female professionals as well as actionable insights for the government and social institutions.

A research model was developed based on impression management and social identity theories incorporating impression management motives, impression construction consumption and social identity. A survey study of 419 Chinese female professionals was conducted to test the research model.

This study surveyed 419 Chinese female professionals and found that impression management motives significantly drove female professionals to spend on their faces and bodies for impression construction, which in turn contributed to the enhancement of their social identities in three dimensions: relational identity, public identity and collective identity.

In a male-dominated society, it has become a norm that females should be cautious about their facial appearance and body shape. Females are often forced to consume to attain physical attractiveness and to construct a favorable social image. This study shows that consumption for impression construction has become a frequently used strategy for impression management and identifies key areas of societal concern.

Unprecedented environmental crises threaten the world, and most environmental problems are closely associated with human behaviour. At the same time, social exclusion and loneliness occur widely, influencing consumers' product preferences and choices. Hence, this study aimed to explore the impact of social exclusion on green consumption and its underlying mechanisms.

The paper opted for an empirical study with different research designs and green consumption measures. This pilot study investigated the relationship between social exclusion and green consumption by examining the frequency of green consumption behaviours in the past. Study 1 established a causal link between these two variables by manipulating social exclusion in a controlled experiment and assessed green product preferences. Study 2 further generalised the results of the secondary data analysis from the World Values Survey (WVS).

Overall, the research study provides convergent evidence that chronically or transiently excluded consumers are less likely to implement green consumption than their counterparts who do not feel socially excluded; this effect is partially mediated by a reduced sense of control and willingness to sacrifice for society after social exclusion.

Based on social exclusion theory and considering the unique characteristics of green consumption, this study enriches research in the fields of social exclusion and green consumption, revealing the negative effect of social exclusion on green consumption and the dual mediators in this relationship.

Despite extensive study into various aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the effect on consumer behaviour is less explored. A growing amount of research is concerned with the phenomenon that CSR has a minor effect on actual purchases although CSR practices enhance consumers’ purchase intentions. This is documented as the CSR-consumption paradox and is yet to be resolved. The purpose of this paper is to further understand this paradox.

Questionnaires were administered face-to-face to consumers in Birmingham. These questionnaires concern consumer behaviour in relation to CSR practices of 21 popular apparel companies in the UK.

Results suggest that consumers’ pro-social priority is significantly related to pro-social consumption and that consumers’ awareness of CSR practices is insignificantly associated with their purchase behaviour. The pro-social consumption does not differ significantly among different demographic groups.

To explore the external motivational factors in consumers’ decision making will be a potential research direction in future.

The empirical results provide implications for UK apparel marketers and policy makers to engage and motivate socially responsible consumers so as to reap strategic rewards for their CSR efforts.

This paper contributes to the knowledge of socially responsible consumption and how it is affected by CSR.

This paper aims to investigate the mechanisms through which social media news consumption across different platforms leads to opinion polarization in society. To this end, the authors draw from cultivation theory to examine whether social media news consumption imparts a mainstreaming or resonance effect. Media consumption imparts a mainstreaming effect if frequent users, regardless of their social identity, develop homogenous attitudes about issues, whereas resonance is at play if there is a differing cultivation effect on various social groups depending on their relatability of life experiences.

The authors conduct the study in the developing context of India, using a population survey dataset from 2019. Regression-based mediation and moderation analyses were carried out to test the hypotheses.

The findings reveal that resonance is the most prominent mechanism through which social media news consumption cultivates opinion polarization, contrary to the mainstreaming effect imparted by television. Further, WhatsApp use was found to strengthen the polarizing effect of overall social media news consumption, while YouTube use weakened the cultivation of polarization.

The paper unearths how social media news consumption influences the opinion polarization of various social groups differently. The authors also find the differential effect of specific platform use. These findings have the potential to inform policymakers and developers about how to mitigate the detrimental effects of platform-based political persuasion.

This study offers significant contributions. First, the authors explain social media-induced polarization using the novel theoretical lens of cultivation. Second, the authors find that social media and television news consumption differ in their polarizing effects. Third, the authors find that while WhatsApp use amplifies the polarizing effect of social media news consumption, YouTube use weakens it.

Materialism among the younger generation has become a hot topic among parents, educators, marketers and policy makers, especially in Macao, a city where the influx of tourists and the expanding gaming facilities bring the potential threat of materialism and the erosion of traditional family values. This study aims to develop a model using age, sex, social comparison of consumption with friends, attention to advertising, and self‐esteem to predict young people's materialistic values.

A probability sampling of 667 elementary and secondary school students aged 8 to 17 in Macao was conducted.

Results show that social comparison of consumption with friends was the most important factor in predicting respondents' endorsement of materialistic values, followed by self‐esteem.

All the constructs are measured by self‐reporting. Some respondents may give socially desirable answers.

Parents and educators should be aware of young people's engagement in social comparison of consumption. They should discourage children and adolescents from comparing possessions with friends. Regulating young consumers' exposure to advertising would not be successful in discouraging materialism.

This is the first study that examines materialistic values of both children and adolescents using the same scale and survey methodology in Chinese society. Also, this is the first study reported on materialism in Macao.

Using identity theory, this paper aims to explore differences in socially responsible signaling behavior based on the salience of a personal or social identity.

Structural equation modeling was used to study the relationship among identity commitment, salience, and signaling behavior.

Findings revealed personal identity salience mediated the relationship between socially responsible commitment and socially responsible social-signaling consumption behavior.

The results of the study suggest that Millennials engage in socially responsible activities as a result of a salient personal identity. Millennials use socially responsible behavior to signal their benevolence to themselves and others.

This is the first research that has examined the relationship between Millennials’ socially responsible consumption behavior and a salient personal or social identity.