Seminar （Dept. of Marketing）

Theme： “Fast fashion = fast food?” How fashion consumption signals low self-control

Speaker：Ke Zhang（张可）（Shanghai University）

Time：2021-06-17 10:00

Address：Room 1007, Mingde Business Building

Language：Chinese/English

Abstract：

Despite the widely criticized environmental impacts, the fashion industry continues to grow due to the rise of fast fashion, which relies on cheap materials, mass production, and short-lived garment use. The present research documents a negative consequence of fashion consumption at an individual level. While individuals consume fashion to communicate positive identity to others, ironically, they risk being perceived as lacking in their self-control ability. Specifically, results from ten studies suggest that this negative inference is driven by the perceived associations between three fundamental characteristics of fashion consumption (i.e., impulsive purchase driven by external cues, short consumption cycle, homogeneous benefits) and the manifestations of low self-control. Furthermore, our studies also demonstrate that this negative association can have implications for gift giving, job allocation, and searching behavior. Our research advances basic knowledge on fashion consumption and informs research on self-control perceptions, while also providing potential solutions to marketers and consumers to counter this negative inference.

Short biography：

Ke Zhang is an Assistant Professor at SILC Business School, Shanghai University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong and M.A. / B.S. from Peking University. His research centers around the mental processes influencing human judgment and decision making. Specifically, he focuses on consumers' social perception, causal reasoning, and quantitative judgment. He was awarded Shanghai Chenguang Scholar and Shanghai Pujiang Scholar. His research articles appear in Journal of Consumer Research, Psychological Science, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, and Annals of Tourism Research.