The intent of this thesis is to explore the effects and influencers of skin tone on consumer perception. Firstly we conducted a primary study to test the effects of skin tone on service provider quality. The results showed that while skin tone had little effect, gender and ethnicity were more indicative. Therefore our study seeks to re-test the relationship between skin tone and consumer service perception as well as the effects of ethnicity and tipping behavior, and if a consumer’s cultural identity strength plays a role in consumer perception. We examined the differences across ethnicities i.e. White, Hispanic, and African American. Specifically we were interested in any potential differences across skin tone (light skinned vs. dark skinned) within African American and Hispanic service providers. Firstly we sought out stock images that portrayed easily identifiable ethnicities. We exposed the respondents to those images in which we asked them to identify the ethnicity of the image as a manipulation check for ethnicity. In the actual study, all respondents were given the same service scenario with the image of one of the ten (White, light or dark skinned Hispanic, light or dark skinned African American, male or female) stock photos. Respondents were asked to rate the service quality, satisfaction, and tip amount. The data was analyzed as a 2 way independent-groups design.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:honorstheses1990-2015-2617 |
| Date | 01 May 2014 |
| Creators | Sablon, Kelcey |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | HIM 1990-2015 |
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