La distance psychologique est omniprésente dans l’esprit du consommateur et influence ses attitudes et son comportement envers les produits hédoniques. Cependant, des contradictions sont présentes dans la littérature quant à la direction (positive ou négative) des effets de la distance psychologique sur les réponses du consommateur envers les produits hédoniques. En effet, certaines recherches avancent que l’augmentation de la distance psychologique influence positivement les réponses du consommateur envers les produits hédoniques. Alors que d’autres suggèrent l’effet inverse. L’objectif de cette recherche est de réconcilier ces contradictions en examinant sous quelles conditions la distance peut avoir un effet positif ou négatif. Nous proposons que le degré de proéminence du besoin de justification (non saillant vs saillant) du consommateur au moment où il évalue le produit hédonique modère ses effets et constitue une condition sous laquelle la distance psychologique peut avoir un effet positif ou négatif sur les réponses du consommateur envers les produits hédoniques. Trois expérimentations ont été conduites pour le test de nos hypothèses. Les deux premières suggèrent qu’en condition de besoin de justification non saillant, l’augmentation de la distance psychologique a une influence négative sur les réponses attitudinales et comportementales du consommateur envers les produits hédoniques. La troisième expérimentation, quant à elle, propose qu’en condition de besoin de justification saillant, l’augmentation de la distance psychologique a un effet positif sur la réponse comportementale du consommateur envers le produit hédonique. / Psychological distance is pervasive in the consumer’s mind and impacts their attitude and behavior toward hedonic products. However, the literature is inconsistent regarding the direction of the effects of psychological distance on consumer’s responses toward hedonic products. In fact, one part of the research suggests that increasing psychological distance positively impacts consumer’s responses toward hedonic products. Whereas another part of the literature proposes the opposite effect. The aim of this research is to reconcile this inconsistency by examining under which conditions psychological distance can have positive or negative effect. We suggest that the degree of prominence of need to justify (non-salient vs salient), which a consumer experiments during the evaluation of hedonic products, moderates the effect of psychological distance and constitutes the condition under which psychological distance can have a positive or a negative impact on consumer’s responses toward hedonic products. In order to test our research hypotheses, we carried out three experiments. The first two experiments show that in the condition of a non-salient need to justify, the increase of psychological distance has a negative impact on consumer’s responses toward hedonic products. The third experiment suggests that in the condition of a salient need to justify, the increase of psychological distance has a positive impact on consumer’s response toward hedonic products.

This thesis was concerned with the branch of Cooperate Social Responsibility known as Cause-Related Marketing, and focused on the moderating effects of cultural orientation and message framing on CRM advertisement effectiveness. The well-established individualist/collectivist cultural domain was employed through application to Taiwanese and Canadian cultural contexts. With regards to framing, differences between altruistically and egoistically framed messages were explored. It was hypothesized that members of collectivist societies would have increased positive attitudes and purchase intentions towards altruistically framed messages, while members of individualistic societies would have more favorable attitudes towards egoistically framed messages. The primary rationale cited was cultural congruency between the participants and the messages. An experimental design was performed, making use of real world style simulated print advertisement copies, as well as pre and post exposure questionnaires. Overall, the two-way interaction between cultural orientation and message framing was upheld, albeit with interesting and notable secondary results. Although the collectivist orientation was correlated with higher altruistic tendencies and as a result higher overall attitudes towards the CRM advertisements presented, this did not translate into higher overall purchase intentions. Potential reasons discussed included the relatively hedonic nature of the product used in the experiment, which could explain the higher overall purchase intentions of the individualistically oriented participants, based on affect-based complementary theory. As well, the increased level of past exposure to and familiarity with CRM campaigns of the individualist group was considered as a possible covariate factor. This was the first study to explicitly relate CRM advertisement attitude to a crosscultural framework through message framing, thereby offering significant theoretical contributions to the social marketing literature. Managerial implications have been stressed throughout, with the findings of clear relevance to the marketer interested in launching CRM campaigns internationally.