How consumers pay influences how they feel about a transaction. In particular, paying by card has been argued to have an effect on the perception of cost; making it less salient and painful. We propose and show that payment method also influences how consumers feel about the acquired good. Specifically we focus on effects of the payment method on psychological ownership, i.e. the perception of an object as "mine". We propose that cash payment results in stronger psychological ownership because it influences the extent of perceived investment in an object. We provide evidence for the proposed effect from field and laboratory settings. Results of a longitudinal exit-survey and an experiment show that cash payers report higher levels of immediate psychological ownership than card payers. However, this effect seems to depend on the meanings associated with a payment method. Asian students (who associate credit card payment with investment and debt) do not exhibit this effect. Moreover the initial boost in psychological ownership seems to be comparably shortlived. Whilst those paying in cash experience no further increase in psychological ownership over time, those paying by card do. (author's abstract)

Very few studies have examined information sentiment and explored other factors that contribute to health information dissemination and sharing. In particular, there is a lack of studies that performed these combined analyses in the modern social network environment during the disease outbreaks, such as with zika, ebola, SARS, or COVID-19. This study aimed to fill the gap in the literature by investigating what drives social media users to widely disseminate health-related information during a pandemic. Diffusion of innovation theory and theory of planned behavior were the basis of the theoretical approach utilized to answer the research questions. The two theories identified antecedents of sharing online health information. Data was collected through an online survey distributed to students in a higher education institution in the United States of America. The study revealed the extent of the relationships between the four major factors derived from the previous literature—attitudes toward sharing, beliefs toward source, peer influence, and information sentiment—and the behavioral intention to share information. The results would support the information science literature by offering and testing a new model that identifies the factors that affect users' intentions to share health information in the social network environment. This study will further the understanding and application of health information behavior research.

Nonprofit organizations are dependent on donations and volunteers to remain operational. Most rely on persuasive communications to inform, educate, and convince recipients of their messaging to respond in order to raise funds and generate volunteers. Though the marketing and psychology literature has examined charitable giving and volunteerism, the effectiveness of persuasive messages to affect philanthropy, gift-giving, and fundraising is a gap in the cause marketing literature (Dann et al. 2007). Because consumers rarely enter a situation without preexisting attitudes or beliefs, it is expected that individuals exposed to an advertisement by a nonprofit organization will look for ways to compare the messages within the ad to their own beliefs and attitudes. Two theories help explain the processing that takes place in relation to attitudes, beliefs, and persuasive communications – elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The research presented here combines these theories to answer questions regarding behavioral intention related to donating and volunteering when individuals are exposed to certain persuasive messages from a nonprofit organization. Results show that one’s involvement with the advertisement combines with one’s attitude toward donating to help determine propensity to donate and the amount of the donation. However, this is dependent upon the message in the ad. When messages indicate that others are supportive of the cause, donations increase when one is more involved with the ad and is generally agreeable to donating. But these messages have the opposite effect when one is not involved with the ad – donations decrease when the message indicates others support the cause. And when messages indicate that even a minimal donation is possible, the attitude driver has no effect on donation behavior. However, when involvement is low, one’s age plays a role in driving individuals toward action, with older people more driven to give when exposed to supportive messages under low involvement conditions than younger groups. For individuals who tend to rely on referents for their own actions, differing messages in advertisements have little effect whether they are involved with the ad or not. That is, in most cases, only their involvement with the ad seems to be the real indicator of behavior. That said, the message that indicates that minimum giving is acceptable seems to affect donations, as individuals more prone to seek referent input rely on this message to help direct behavior, but not volunteerism. But, the cues were more readily adopted by those who were not highly involved. This research contributes to the field of cause marketing in several ways. First, it exposed involvement with the advertisement as the primary driver for behavioral intention in a nonprofit context over one’s preexisting attitudes and beliefs. Second, it identified varying response patterns that individuals have to specific advertising messages based on their level of involvement and strength of those beliefs and attitudes. Third, it augmented the integrated ELM-TPB theoretical model by demonstrating that attitude toward the ad can play a role in consumer decision making. Fourth, it identified age as a factor in behavioral intention related to nonprofit organizations in two specific instances: 1) when attitude and involvement combine for older individuals exposed to normative messages, and 2) when subjective norms and involvement combine for younger individuals exposed to messages that legitimize minimal effort. And fifth, it uncovered implications for managers to develop strategic messages that can increase target audience involvement and positively affect donations and volunteerism.

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Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study business clients’ technology acceptance of e-commerce within business-to-business in the work wear sector. In specific, develop and test a framework in order to analyze the antecedents of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use behind business clients’ behavioral intention to the usage of e-commerce. Problem: There is not sufficient research regarding industries and companies that are categorized as laggards (Del Aguila-Obra & Padilla-Melendez, 2006), and furthermore regarding clients’ technology acceptance in a business-to-business context (Doherty & Ellis-Chadwick, 2010). Actors within the work wear sector conduct their businesses in the most traditional way, with physical stores (Ekberg, Fraenkel, Gustavsson, Hamsten & Hedin, 2014). The question is whether this traditional way remain due to skepticism among the business clients’ and their level of technology acceptance. Method: A proposed framework is developed by the authors, adapted from Technology Acceptance Model (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000) and Diffusion of Innovation Theory (Rogers, 1983). This framework is tested through quantitative research, and more specific a questionnaire. Subsequently, the empirical data gathering is assembled, analyzed and concluded into a final proposed framework.  Findings: The final proposed framework incorporates antecedents from the proposed framework, but also new influences that are identified in the empirical findings as relevant. These influences are Age, Gender, Experience and Compliance. Further, the antecedents presented in the final proposed framework are the following: Subjective norm/Opinion leaders, Job relevance/Compatibility, Output quality, Result demonstrability/Observability and Trialability.

The process of persuasion, the changing of a person’s attitudes, has often been applied to health communications designed to promote healthy behavior. Manipulation of aspects of the persuasive message can influence persuasion and the likelihood of attitude change. For a long time, the existing persuasion research had yet to examine how different types of message framing and intervention targets directly and in interaction with one another act as predictors of health attitude change. Therefore, this thesis addressed this lapse using an online survey to assess participants’ attitude towards the health issue of hypertension after reading a health message. This health message was manipulated in how it framed the problems of high blood pressure and how it prescribed changes in behavior to have healthy blood pressure levels. It was hypothesized that negative message framing, the interrogative verb mood and a facilitation target would have greater influence over attitude and behavioral intention compared to their alternatives. The same pattern of results was expected for elaboration save for the hypothesis that an inhibition intervention target would result in greater elaboration than a facilitation target. This thesis may further the field of psychology’s understanding of persuasion as well as help create a better informed and healthier society.

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the structure and antecedents of travelers' behavioral intentions. Understanding travelers' behavioral intentions is an important goal of both destination marketing organizations and host destinations. However, little research has contributed to the theoretical development in this area, and the lack of a solid theoretical framework has negatively influenced the validity of existing research. Thus, this study attempted to explain travelers' behavioral intentions, using a model which was developed based on existing human behavior theories: the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior. Another major objective of the current study was to test the validity of the proposed model. Based on the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior, a conceptual framework was established to explain travelers' behavior intention in a tourism context. Attitude was conceptualized as destination image which is a two-dimensional construct including cognitive and affective components. Subjective norms were conceptualized as the combination of normative beliefs and motivation to comply. Perceived behavioral control was conceptualized as constraints which is a three-dimensional construct including intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural components. An online panel survey was launched in September 2008 to collect data. Respondents were specially asked their perceived image about Texas, what were the barriers preventing them from traveling to Texas, and how their reference groups affected their travel decision to Texas. Totally, 1,448 completed surveys were received and utilized for analysis which included both visitors and non-visitors. The data analysis procedures included six major steps, from descriptive analysis and preliminary data analysis, to model and hypothesis testing. To do so, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 16.0 (SPSS) and Amos 16.0 were utilized. The structural relationships between all variables were tested with using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results of the study showed that destination image and subjective norm positively impacted behavioral intentions while constraints negatively affected behavioral intentions. Hence, this research provides important direction for the development of a more comprehensive theoretical framework to explain travelers' behavioral intentions, and presented a step toward offering practical as well as theoretical implications for future research.

The research was conducted by stratified random sampling. A structural questionnaire on the basis of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is designed as study instrument for data collection in this research aimed to study the influential factors on the lifelong learning (LLL) behavioral intention of nursing staff and the satisfaction with LLL passport. Seven hundreds and fifty questionnaires were distributed and 451 copies returned, which made up 60.13% of returning rate. Among the returned questionnaires, 433 were effective samples and returning rate of returning samples was 57.73%. Collected data were computed by SPSS/PC10.0. Computing results shown that average age of subjects was 30.7 and average working seniority of them was 9 years. Research results indicated that there was a positive attitude (with 70.44% of support) towards LLL behavioral intention and 65.75% of overall satisfaction of the implementation of LLL passport. Results also found that, among all of the factors, the participants¡¦ age, working seniority, number of children, job position, educational background, attitude towards LLL, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm of environmental support including support from administrators, overcoming obstacles from family, support from colleagues and families, and backup from working shift table and manpower positively correlated with their LLL behavioral intention(p<.01). Nevertheless, attribute of working unit was found to have negative correlation with LLL behavioral intention(p<.01). While participants¡¦ job position, educational background, attitude towards LLL, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm of environmental support consisting of support from nursing unit and administrators, overcoming obstacles from family, and support from colleagues and families indicated positive correlations with satisfaction with LLL passport(p<.01), attribute of working unit revealed negative correlation(p<.01). The above results have verified and echoed Ajzen¡¦s (1985) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The theory was to evaluate one¡¦s behavioral intention based on one¡¦s attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm. In this study, the perceived behavioral control has the highest influence (84.19%). In addition, there was a positive correlation between nursing staff¡¦s LLL behavioral intention and their satisfaction with LLL passport. Furthermore, by using regression analysis, the results shown that factors such as ¡§support from colleagues and families¡¨, ¡§support from nursing unit and administrators¡¨, and ¡§backup from working shift table and manpower¡¨ could be used as predictors to LLL internal behavioral intention and satisfaction with LLL passport. The overall prediction variance of these three factors reached 34% and ¡§support from colleagues and families¡¨ was the highest (29.5%) among all. In conclusion, except factor of personal characteristics, if working shift and manpower factors could be overcome when nursing staffs are participating in LLL activities, and meanwhile with support of colleagues, families, and administrators, the LLL behavioral intention and satisfaction with LLL passport could be enhanced. The researcher suggested that the results of this study could be used by pertinent units and nursing administrators to build a sound human resources system, establish a learning organization, propel incessant professional development, and help promote nursing staff¡¦s professional accomplishments and competition.

The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine receiver variables involved in strategic communications and to look specifically at the use of graphic images in strategic communication materials. It argues that any complete, general model of persuasion effects will include both goal compatibility and emotional determinants. It argues that some influential theories used in strategic communications scholarship, including the situational theory of publics and the elaboration likelihood model, are incomplete because they have omitted these variables. This study also tests variables related to willingness to communicate, behavioral intention, and attitude towards the organization. These variables are drawn from prominent, well-tested theories in strategic communications, and used to begin building a new model of the effects of messages featuring graphic images.

In 2016 Cyprus received 3,2 million international tourists. The island is considered as the 40th most popular destination in the world, while if counted per capita of local population Cyprus has a 6th place worldwide. There are some 200,000 tourists from Sweden travelling to the island annually. Swedish citizens, in a similar fashion with the rest of Nordic countries enjoy a similar consumer behavior and high purchasing power. Understanding how Swedish tourists perceive image of Cyprus helps to nuance the view of visitors coming from Nordic countries onto the destination. The visit experience plays an important role to reduce the destination image stereotyping, which caused by different information sources that may lead to a change in destination image after visitation. Positive destination image leads to satisfaction and revisit intentions. This thesis investigates in detail how Swedish’ tourists perceive the destination images during their visit on Cyprus. The researcher followed semi-structured qualitative research method with the use of in-depth interviews to collect empirical data with respondents who have visited Cyprus. Destination image theory is utilized to support the theoretical ground for the thesis, while a textual content analysis was used as a tool for analyzing the interviews. Adopting the qualitative research approach provided the opportunity to capture the holistic components of Cyprus destination images while Cyprus touristic’ attributes were identified and ranked based on their functionality and psychological dimensions. Conducting this research provided the researcher the chance to test the theoretical destination image formation and the interrelationship among the destination image different components. Cyprus images after visiting the destination differ from the pre-visit stage as images were modified after visiting the destination. Swedish tourists upon their visit perceived the images of Cyprus in positive and negative ways. Cyprus Tourism Organization can benefit Cyprus by considering the negative notions found in this research and try to solve these problems or minimize their effects as possible.