Publications
Publications
- October 2020
- Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
Overcoming Resource Scarcity: Consumers' Response to Gifts Intending to Save Time and Money
By: Alice Lee-Yoon, Grant Donnelly and A.V. Whillans
Abstract
Consumers feel increasingly pressed for time and money. Gifts have the potential to reduce scarcity in recipients’ lives, yet little is known about how recipients perceive gifts given with the intention of saving them time or money. Across four studies (N=1,403), we demonstrate that the recipients of gifts intending to save money experience more negative self-conscious emotions and infer lower status position than recipients of gifts intending to save time. Recipients who report experiencing greater financial scarcity in their daily lives (who may benefit most from gifts intending to save them money), experience negative emotions to a greater extent and perceive an even lower status position than recipients who experience relatively little money scarcity. These findings are the first to directly evaluate the implications of receiving gifts seeking to address time and money scarcity and suggest that recipients may benefit more from gifts given with the intention to save time.
Keywords
Citation
Lee-Yoon, Alice, Grant Donnelly, and A.V. Whillans. "Overcoming Resource Scarcity: Consumers' Response to Gifts Intending to Save Time and Money." Special Issue on Scarcity and Consumer Decision Making. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 5, no. 4 (October 2020): 391–403.