<p> Although it is well established that people are motivated to maintain a positive self-image, choice researchers have largely ignored how this desire impacts what consumers choose. The current research investigates the notion that people's choices can serve as a signal that affects their beliefs about themselves. I explore a self-signaling framework to make unique predictions in two important substantive domains: prosocial giving and forfeiture choice. </p><p> The first essay shows that consumers are more likely to give to a charity when the donation appeal mentions a hedonic product. This occurs because the presence of a hedonic product changes the self-attributions, or self-signaling utility, associated with the choice to donate. I demonstrate the effect with real choice and field experiments, and provide evidence that the increase in donation rates occurs because the choice not to donate is a stronger signal of selfishness in the context of a hedonic product.</p><p> The second essay looks at forfeiture choices and finds that the structure of the self-concept can determine whether or not people give up an unused good. I develop a conceptual framework based on a known aspect of the self (self-concept clarity) to predict that when consumers are less clear about their self-concept they are more likely to self-signal. Four experiments show that people are more likely to keep an informative good or service they do not use (e.g. keep paying for a digital magazine subscription they do not read) when they are unclear about their self-concept.</p><p> Taken together these findings enrich our understanding of the role of self-signaling in choice, enhance our knowledge of how people use choice to manage their self-image, and link the behavioral findings of self-signaling in marketing to an established literature on self in psychology. The results have implications for choice theorists interested in understanding self-image motives and for marketing practitioners interested in understanding choice. </p>

<p> This research describes psychological values as they appear in social commerce related online marketing campaigns. Values are studied by their functional roles, which is what they do, rather than what they are (Gouveia, Milfont, &amp; Guerra, 2014). According to the functional theory of values, values guide actions and express needs. Marketing campaigns and values are explored because both marketing and values seek to guide actions and express needs. Exploring this calls for a qualitative study using content analysis. This research conducts two content analysis studies to verify accuracy. The first uses an open coding method, and the second uses a qualitative deductive analysis approach. The results retrieved throughout both studies use different word codes, but when listed together indicate that insightfulness, knowledge, and social support show the highest frequency and co-occurrence. Both studies also show that digitoral marketing campaigns rely much more on thriving needs than survival needs. Both studies confirmed, however, that survival needs are mostly expressed through displays of power, obedience, personal stability, and survival.</p><p>