Surprisingly little research has explored the role of grit in consumer psychology. My dissertation addresses this gap by examining how grit influences consumer psychology, particularly focusing on uncovering the underlying mechanism between grit and consumer behaviors and exploring beliefs and attitudes on grit. Toward this goal, Essay 1 identifies the links between grit, a promotion regulatory focus, and variety seeking, while Essay 2 explores the role of consumers' political ideology on each facet of grit and moral consumer choices. In Essay 1, I propose that grit influences variety seeking, partially explained through a promotion regulatory focus. Three pilot studies, a main effects field study, and four experiments are used to empirically support links from grit to increased variety seeking, mediated by a promotion focus, and moderated by goal relevance. Essay 2 focuses on the influence of political ideology on grittiness. Multiple studies are used to test the proposed framework using various designs (surveys and experiments) and analysis techniques (e.g., SEM, ANOVA, and PROCESS), finding that unique types of grit, relative to consumers' political ideology, can significantly enhance or diminish intentions to make moral consumer choices. Together, this dissertation examines the important construct of grit in marketing and extends the current understanding of grit (e.g., dimensionality; promotion-focus). The essays offer robust evidence through field studies, consequential decisions, and various samples.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-13T14:10:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Neusa dos Santos.pdf: 7968484 bytes, checksum: 3f6dd25f243a8a612c8ba10513001cef (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-30 / The increasing advance of religious consumption in Brazil has contributed to the growth in the number of pilgrimages to sanctuaries in search of response to human aspirations. This progress, to a certain extent, contributes to the moral consumption of faith through religious symbols and virtuous acts, which promote the satisfactory meeting in resolution of the personal needs of the pilgrims in their quest for good life . The studies of reception, combined with an interrelation between communication, consumption and religion, were taken as foundations, based on authors such as Baccega, Carranza, Aristotle, Chauí, Slater, Martin-Barbero, Douglas & Isherwood, Martino, Ricoeur and Hook. The research has its corpus composed by the narratives of pilgrims to the Sanctuary of Santa Paulina in Vigolo, Nova Trento (SC), about the practices of moral consumption of faith, using the qualitative research method. The aim was to get closer to the object, to enable the analysis of moral consumption processes of faith through the virtues lived by the saint and persuade by the pilgrims, as well as the socio-cultural context and the non-mediatic communication present in this object. The analysis of theories of narrative was used as methodology applied to the corpus of the research. / O crescente avanço do consumo religioso no Brasil vem contribuindo para o aumento do número de peregrinações a santuários como busca de resposta aos anseios humanos. Tal avanço, em certa medida, colabora para o consumo moral da fé por meio de símbolos religiosos e atos virtuosos, que promovem o encontro satisfatório na resolução das necessidades pessoais dos peregrinos em sua busca pela vida boa . Foram tomados como fundamentos os estudos de recepção aliados à interligação entre comunicação, consumo e religião, com base em autores como Baccega, Carranza, Aristóteles, Chauí, Slater, Martín-Barbero, Douglas & Isherwood, Martino, Ricouer e Gancho. A pesquisa tem como corpus as narrativas dos peregrinos do Santuário de Santa Paulina, em Vígolo, Nova Trento (SC), sobre as práticas do consumo moral da fé, utilizando o método de pesquisa qualitativa. Objetivou-se a aproximação com o objeto, para possibilitar a análise dos processos de consumo moral da fé por meio das virtudes vividas pela santa e buscadas pelos peregrinos, bem como do contexto sociocultural e da comunicação não midiática presente neste objeto. Como metodologia aplicada ao corpus da pesquisa, foi utilizada a análise das teorias das narrativas.