認知實體性在社會學中已經是一個廣泛討論的概念，意謂著個人對群體成員一致性、協調性程度的認知，然而尚未有學者將此概念運用在家族品牌的分群中。因此，本研究檢視了實體性八個指標（互動、重要性、結果、目標、相似性、存續期間、大小、可透性）運用在家族品牌分類上的適切性。 本研究選取十五個世界前百大品牌作為研究標的，並收集學生與工作樣本共六十一份。研究結果顯示，不論在學生或工作樣本中，集群分析的結果皆顯示三群為最適合的集群個數，集群間差異較大且較能解釋。 其中，學生樣本的集群分析結果是顯著的，依照互動、目標、相似性、大小四項指標可以畫分為三群，且這三個集群的實體性有顯著的差異，以緊密型家族品牌的實體性為最高、其次為一般型家族品牌、鬆散型家族品牌。 / The concept about perceived entitativity is an established area in social cognition which means the degree of a collection of persons are perceived as being bonded together in a coherent unit. However, this concept has not yet been implemented to family brand evaluations. This research is to examine the applicability of using the eight entitativity measures (interaction, importance, outcomes, goals, similarity, duration, size and permeability) to analysis the differences of family brands. Fifteen family brands are selected from Businessweek’s 100 top global brands 2006 and sixty-one valid samples are collected. The research shows three-cluster solution is the most stable solution and also the most interpretable in both student and job sample. According to the differences of interaction, goals, similarity and size, family brands can be divided to three clusters in student sample and the entitativity ratings of the clusters is significant. The intimacy family brands is the highest in entitativity, followed by general family brands and loose family brands.

abstract: Recommendations made by expert groups are pervasive throughout various life domains. Yet not all recommendations--or expert groups--are equally persuasive. This research aims to identify factors that influence the persuasiveness of recommendations. More specifically, this study examined the effects of decisional cohesion (the amount of agreement among the experts in support of the recommendation), framing (whether the message is framed as a loss or gain), and the domain of the recommendation (health vs. financial) on the persuasiveness of the recommendation. The participants consisted of 1,981 undergraduates from Arizona State University. The participants read a vignette including information about the expert group making a recommendation--which varied the amount of expert agreement for the recommendation--and the recommendation, which was framed as either a gain or loss. Participants then responded to questions about the persuasiveness of the recommendation. In this study, there was a linear main effect of decisional cohesion such that the greater the decisional cohesion of the expert group the more persuasive their recommendation. In addition, there was a main effect of domain such that the health recommendation was more persuasive than the financial recommendation. Contrary to predictions, there was no observed interaction between the amount of decisional cohesion and the framing of the recommendation nor was there a main effect of framing. Further analyses show support for a mediation effect indicating that high levels of decisional cohesion increased the perceived entitativity of the expert group--the degree to which the group was perceived as a unified, cohesive group¬--which increased the recommendation's persuasiveness. An implication of this research is that policy makers could increase the persuasiveness of their recommendations by promoting recommendations that are unanimously supported by their experts or at least show higher levels of decisional cohesion. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2013

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Companies increasingly believe that sponsorship, and in particular sport sponsorship, can help them achieve their respective strategic objectives. Achieving sales objectives are especially important in the context of sport sponsorship, given that managers are under increasing pressure to justify their sponsorship expenditure, and that over two-thirds of all sponsorships are directed towards sports properties. However, isolating a sponsorship s contribution to a company s sales figures is difficult to accomplish, and even if this were possible, understanding the mechanisms behind consumers behavioural responses to that respective sponsorship would still constitute a challenge. Hence, understanding consumers behavioural purchase intentions, and what drives these intentions within sponsorship contexts, is of paramount importance. That said, little is known about what drives consumers purchase intentions in sponsorship settings. A greater understanding of consumers behavioural intentions within concurrent sponsorship settings is necessary. Concurrent sponsorships involve multiple brands sponsoring a property at the same time. As such, they are a more realistic and common sponsorship context than simple sponsor-sponsee dyads are. It is important to examine concurrent sponsorships because a collective is formed when multiple sponsors are involved. In turn, social psychology highlights that a collective is characterised by the degree to which its a priori members are perceived as a group. Groups are perceived qualitatively differently to dyads, and can also be perceived differently to the sum of their respective constituent parts. Moreover, the extent to which people perceive a collective as a group can impact upon their subsequent evaluations of that group and that group s actions. Consequently, consumers evaluations of a sponsee s concurrent sponsors and the sponsee itself may be affected by how concurrent sponsorships are perceived, which in turn may affect consumers behavioural intentions. Hence, it is imperative that concurrent sponsorship contexts are investigated. That said, there is scant literature investigating concurrent sponsorships, with sponsorship research historically focussing on sponsor-sponsee dyadic settings. This thesis contributes to our understanding of concurrent sponsorship settings of major sporting events by examining how people s perceptions of concurrent sponsors entitativity influence both their purchase intentions towards a focal concurrent sponsor and their sponsee equity evaluations. An online questionnaire, utilising sponsorship vignettes (scenarios) as part of a factorial survey design, was sent to respondents of a mid-sized UK-based university. Scenarios were used to manipulate respondents into perceiving two concurrent sponsorship settings: a concurrent official providers sponsorship setting and a concurrent official financers sponsorship setting. Hypotheses were tested through Lisrel 8.71 where confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were performed. The results in both sponsorship contexts (concurrent official providers and concurrent official financers ) appear to be very similar. Specifically, the results suggest that people s entitativity perceptions are positively related to their sponsee equity evaluations, which in turn are positively associated with people s purchase intentions. Entitativity is also positively associated with consumers intentions to purchase from a concurrent sponsor but only when consumers attribute high levels of sincerity towards that sponsor. The one significant difference between the two sponsorship types (official providers and official financers) in the study concerns how sincerity affects the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship. People s attributions of sincerity moderate the relationship between entitativity and sponsee equity in the official provider concurrent sponsorship context, such that the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship becomes stronger. However, people s attributions of sponsor sincerity do not affect the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship in the official financer concurrent sponsorship context. A post-hoc examination of repondents entitativity ratings also suggests people perceive official providers as being significantly more entitative than they do official financers. This study makes a number of contributions to both theory and management practice. For example, the study demonstrates how the entitativity concept, found within social psychology, can be applied to concurrent sponsorship settings, such that people s behavioural intentions towards a sponsee and a concurrent sponsor, are influenced by their concurrent sponsor entitativity perceptions. Following this, concurrent sponsors and sponsee rights holders should consider how sponsors can foster people s entitativity perceptions whilst at the same time communicate sincere motives for their respective sponsee sponsorships, as sincerity perceptions are important too. This would not only help the sponsee s rights holder by increasing sponsee equity but the results also suggest that people are more likely to purchase from a concurrent sponsor. That said, this may lead to further difficulties between sponsors and sponsees rights holders. For example, sponsees rights holders may be perceived as needing sponsorships as opposed to being able to command them, which in turn could lead to difficult sponsorship negotiations between rights holders and potential sponsors. Second, the business and marketing acumens of sponsees rights holders are generally regarded to be lower than that of sponsors . In fact, sponsors often act independently of sponsees rights holders when making sponsorship leveraging decisions and investments, and this is partly because sponsees rights holders are not proactive enough in working with the sponsors. Therefore, if sponsees rights holders do not have the capabilities to help sponsors foster entitative and sincere sponsorship contexts, sponsors may be unwilling to renew their sponsorship deals or even set up their own events.

High voluntary attrition threatens the future of downsizing organizations. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how employee layoff announcements reduces the perception of organizational commitment to experienced, skilled workers in central Wisconsin. The conceptual framework integrated stress response theories including Cannon's cognitive activation theory of stress. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 20 journeyman level artisans who had witnessed the layoff process within 50 miles of Wausau Wisconsin. These interviews were analyzed via the modified van Kaam method to code, cluster, and group the findings into significant themes. Nine themes emerged from the analyses suggesting layoff implementation strategies might reduce voluntary employee attrition. Among these 9 themes, job insecurity and mental and emotional stressors were the most prominent. A third theme, employee entitativity, defined as when members of a group share similar attributes and seen more readily as a distinct entity than as individuals, also emerged. These themes may be associated with employee voluntary attrition. Improving employee understanding of the layoff process might increase employee trust in leadership decisions, reduce voluntary attrition, increase knowledge retention, and improve organizational economic success. Employees who are equipped to endure the layoff process may suffer less stress, conceivably reducing the likelihood of drug, alcohol, and family abuse and their related social stressors.

Due to the cultural preoccupation with romantic love and marriage, little is known about single people (i.e., singles) except that they tend to be stigmatized and to exhibit worse well-being relative to married people. However, these conclusions are largely based on research which has centered the experiences of married people, not singles. Consequently, it remains unclear to what extent singles are actually suffering––that is, to what extent they feel like members of a stigmatized group, as well as to what extent the absence of a romantic bond is responsible for singles’ relatively poorer well-being. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is twofold: 1) to determine the extent to which singles feel as though they belong to a stigmatized group, and 2) to determine the extent to which singles’ interpersonal relationships may buffer their sense of belonging and well-being. Given the negative cultural attitudes towards singles, I expect that most singles will have a relatively low level of group belonging. Yet, at the same time, I expect that some singles will still be able to meet their belongingness needs through their close interpersonal relationships (i.e., friendships), and that these bonds may support their well-being during singlehood. Consequently, I propose that, on average, singles may exhibit poorer well-being compared to married people, not necessarily because they lack a sense of interpersonal belonging but because they lack a sense of group belonging. Obtaining a more accurate account of singles’ experiences of stigmatization and well-being is essential for identifying the factors that lead to both vulnerability and resiliency in this population. By centering singles’ experiences and applying a belongingness perspective, my research will illuminate multiple pathways to well-being. / Graduate / 2021-07-01

Cognitive epistemic systems are reasoning structures that promote an individual's categorization of group members through processes known as cognitive epistemic essentialist entitativity (EEE). The propensity of these processes to become stagnant is known to lead to stereotyping and prejudiced behaviors when individuals are presented with ambiguous information about outgroup members. Educational materials about the contributions, cultural patterns, and social customs of ethnic and cultural groups can reduce stereotyping and prejudiced behaviors. However, whether being presented this material through multicultural psychosocial education in a formal setting is an effective strategy to influence the malleability of EEE processes has not been addressed as a means to shift xenophobic and prejudice discourse. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to determine whether malleability of EEE processes resulted from the presentation of multicultural psychosocial educational material in a college classroom. The epistemic need for closure theory, intergroup contact theory, and essentialist theory of race provided the framework for the study. The Essentialist Entitativity Scale was used to compare the malleability of EEE processes of 67 college students who completed an 8-week course based on multicultural psychosocial educational material and 67 college students who did not. An ANCOVA analysis of pre- and posttest data revealed that students who received the culturally rich educational material reported significantly greater malleability of EEE processes than those who did not. Findings may be used to inform educators, educational leaders, and social activists about the malleability of EEE processes, and may provide a strategy to reduce racism, stereotyping, xenophobia, and prejudice.

This dissertation investigates the roles of facial cues in consumer behavior. Specifically, the research examines the effect of facial structural resemblance, facial expressions, and other perceptual cues—in both individual and group settings—on consumer judgment and decision-making. Essay 1 examines the influence of facial resemblance on consumers* product purchase likelihood. This effect is moderated by consumers* mental construal, such that the effect of increased facial resemblance on product purchase likelihood occurs among consumers with high-level construals but not among those with low-level construals. Results of three experimental studies show that increased facial resemblance among team members enhances the perceived entitativity of the group, which in turn leads to more favorable intention of purchasing the product offered by the group. Essay 2 investigates the differential effects of recipients* group entitativity on two types of donation (time vs. money). Through three studies, the research demonstrates that high (versus low) group entitativity among the recipients increases donation of time but decreases donation of money. Such differential effects on donation of time versus money are driven by consumers* emotional or cognitive well-being associated with time or money donations. In essay 3, the effect of smile intensity on customer behavior is shown to be moderated by power and salience of ulterior motive. When employees* ulterior motive is not salient to customers, low-power customers evaluate the employee with intensified smiles more favorably compared to high-power customers. In contrast, when ulterior motive is made salient, high-power rather than low-power customers react more positively to smile intensity. Results show that the interactive effects between smile, power, and ulterior motive are driven by customers* warmth and competence perceptions. Collectively, this dissertation focuses on consumers* face-based judgments of individuals and teams, and investigates how such facial cues might influence consumers* attitude, purchase intention, and prosocial behavior.