消費者對罰款的反應: 跨文化的比較

Abstract

在現代經濟社會中，賣方對消費者罰款，是常會看到的現象。然而，學術文獻對罰款的探討相當有限，而且這些研究都以美國消費者為研究對象。目前並沒有文獻探討不同文化中的消費者，對罰款的反應如何?彼此是否有所不同?本研究以社會心理學裏個人主義/集體主義的論點，以實驗來探討跨文化消費者對罰款反應的異同。此研究利用網路，搜集台灣和美國消費者資料，台灣共有725份有效問卷，美國有640份有效問卷，分析結果支持大部份的假說。此研究主要的貢獻：一、此研究的結果，將對跨文化心理學和跨文化消費者行為領域有所貢獻，支持或不支持文化是動態的觀點，此觀點認為文化的某些面向是可以依情境而改變。二、此研究將對顯示消費者對罰款的公平認知和付款意願，將因文化而有所不同。

Penalty fees imposed on consumers by sellers are widespread in modern economies. Yet, there are only a limited number of studies concerning penalty fees in the literature. All of these studies were conducted with Americans as the subjects of the studies. Consumer responses to penalty in other cultures are currently not explored and are likely to be different from those in the U.S. Relying on research in social psychology explaining cultural differences in terms of individualism/collectivism distinction, this study employs experiments to examine consumers’response to penalty fees across cultures.Using internet, this study collected 725 and 600 effective responses from consumers in Taiwan and the U.S. respectively. The results of analysis supported most of the hypotheses in this work,This research contribute to the literature in several ways. First, the results contribute to our knowledge in cross-cultural psychology and cross-cultural consumer behavior, supporting the thesis that culture is dynamic and that aspects of culture can be situationally primed. Second, this work adds to the consumer behavior literature by showing cultural differences in the context of penalty fees.