Destigmatising the stigma: Understanding the impact of message framing on Chinese consumers' guilt and attitude associated with overspending behaviour

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A C A D E M I C P A P E R

Destigmatising the stigma: Understanding the impact of message framing on Chinese consumers' guilt and attitude associated with overspending behaviour

Wuqiu Fan

¹

| Hanchun Zhong

^1,2

| Anding Zhu

³

1School of Foreign Languages, Central South University, Changsha, China

2School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China

3School of Management and E-Business, Contemporary Business and Trade Research Center, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China

Correspondence

Anding Zhu, School of Management and E-Business, Contemporary Business and Trade Research Center, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China.

Email: [email protected]

Funding information

China Scholarship Council, Grant/Award Number: 201908330555; Humanities and Social Science Project sponsored by the Ministry of Education of PRC, Grant/Award Number: 18YJC740151; National Key R&D Program of China, Grant/Award Number:

2017YFF0209000; National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Number:

71971198; National Social Science Foundation of PRC, Grant/Award Number: 16BYY023;

Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, Grant/Award Numbers:

LY18G010004, LGF19G010003; Social Science Project sponsored by Hangzhou Municipality, Grant/Award Number: Z20JC063

Abstract

Overspending has been a largely stigmatised consumer behaviour in traditional Chi- nese culture. However, social and economic development in recent decades has induced the rise of Chinese consumerism and changes in public attitudes towards overspending. Focusing on overspending stigmas

Gouwukuang

(GWK) and

Duoshoudang

(DSD) and stigma-relevant attitudes, the present study investigates the effect of perceived stigma on consumers' attitude towards overspending through the mediating effect of anticipated consumer guilt. The moderating role of message fram- ing in this relationship is also examined. Results of two analyses indicate that (a) between the two stigmas, DSD is less stigmatising and preferred in comparison to GWK in social interaction and self-identification; (b) participants' perception of the stigma associated with overspending predicts their anticipation of guilt associated with this behaviour, which in turn predicts negative attitude towards overspending;

(c) message framing moderates the relationship between perceived stigma and antici- pated guilt, and hence facilitates destigmatisation of the traditionally stigmatised behaviour of overspending. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

1 | I N T R O D U C T I O N

Overspending is traditionally perceived as negative consumer behaviour, as is inconsistent with frugality, a traditional value in the Confu- cian cultural sphere (Yau & Davies, 2015). Despite the dominance of materialist consumer culture, frugality is still a core value of American history (Witkowski, 2010). In addition, sufficiency strategy encourages consumers towards simple and minimalist lives for sustainable and pro-environmental purposes (Roiland, 2016). From a psychological perspective, overspending behaviour is understood as a result of inef- fective emotional regulation or dysfunctional self-control (Donnelly, Ksendzova, & Howell, 2013; Kivetz & Simonson, 2002). Overspending

consumers are usually stereotyped as easily tempted (Bau- meister, 2002), impulsive (Darrat, Darrat, & Amyx, 2016), materialistic and irrational (Harnish & Bridges, 2015), and hedonic hunting (de Witt Huberts, Evers, & de Ridder, 2014). Furthermore, addiction to overspending is clinically diagnosed as a pathological disorder (Dell'Osso, Allen, Altamura, & Buoli, 2008; Faber & O'Guinn, 1992).

In China, habitual, impulsive, and compulsive overspending behaviours were formerly stigmatised asGouwukuang¹(shortened as GWK hereinafter). China suffered a prolonged period of material scar- city before the reform and opening up. Following the frugal culture, the social label of GWK has had a strong negative connotation, and subject people to feelings of most people stigmatised as GWK are

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subject to feelings of shame, guilt, and regret for their improper spending behaviours. Thus, people should be cautious when addressing others as GWK or joking about the term, due to its insulting and offensive implications. With the recent prevalence of e- commerce, Chinese cyber citizens coined a termDuoshoudang²(shortened as DSD hereinafter), referring to compulsive-prone or impulsive- prone consumers who are so regretful that they ought to have chopped their hands off for failing to resist the temptation of online shopping and spending far more than they can afford.

With an attempt to copy the success of U.S. Cyber Monday, Alibaba Group, one of China's e-commerce giants, has hosted Singles' Day Shopping Festival (shortened as SDSF hereinafter) annually since 2009. On 11 November, 2018, the overall gross merchandise volume (GMV) during a single 24-hr sales period reached a record high of RMB 213.5 billion (approximately US$ 30.8 billion) by processing more than 1 billion delivery orders for 230 regions worldwide.³This event has globally become the most influential and largest online promotional campaign. However, consumers in such festive atmospheres are often found to behave more impulsively (Chen & Yao, 2018).

Studies indicate that approximately 40% of all online expenditures are impulse purchases (Verhagen & Dolen, 2011).

The use of the term DSD to indicate consumers' self-punishment and regret for impulsive overspending first emerged on Weibo.com, one of the China's biggest social media platforms, on 25 November, 2009, two weeks after the first SDSF. The term DSD had been rapidly spreading on social media and was listed among the top 10 cyber buzzwords in 2015. GWK and DSD are two labels with the same ref- erent, that is, the overspending behaviour. However, it is noteworthy that Chinese mass media now exhibit more tolerance of overspending behaviour by using the term DSD, which is less stigmatising and tends to replace the more stereotyped and discriminative term GWK. There- fore, it is of great significance to probe into the underlying mechanism of the public attitude shift via framing changes in mass media. Extant research has revealed that advertising and media framing heavily influence consumers' decision-making (e.g., Humphreys, 2010; Prayag

& Soscia, 2016). However, there is a dearth of literature on the impact of media re-framing of stigmas on attitudinal shifts towards consumerism, especially in the Chinese context. This article, therefore, aims to shed light on this domain. Noticing recent shifts in China's mainstream media framings about overspending behaviour, this article holds that such shifts contribute to the mitigation of consumers' guilt for overspending. Moreover, they help to naturalise China's value transition from frugality to consumerism as well. Practically, an elabo- ration on the relationship among overspending stigmas, message framing, consumer guilt and attitude may help to arouse the awareness of businesses when seeking opportunities and designing marketing strategies in emerging countries like China.

The rest of the article is organized as follows. In Section 2, we review basic theories of overspending behaviour, consumer guilt, stigmatisation and destigmatisation, and media framing, followed by hypotheses development and research framework presentation. In Section 3, a public opinion survey is conducted to verify Chinese people's understanding of DSD and GWK. In Section 4, the hypotheses in

the research framework are tested using a self-reported questionnaire study. Finally, conclusions, theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations are discussed in Sections 5 and 6.

2 | T H E O R E T I C A L B A C K G R O U N D A N D H Y P O T H E S E S D E V E L O P M E N T

2.1 | Overspending behaviour

Overspending is buying more goods and services than actually required or spending more money than one can afford (Schor, 1999).

Rook (1987) proposed that consumers are likely to be driven by sud- den and powerful urges to buy immediately or spend excessively.

Such urges are usually generated by external incentives such as coupons, discounts, advertisements, flash sales, and sales promotions.

(Badgaiyan & Verma, 2015). Consumers are prone to buying impulsively and allowing themselves guilty pleasures since temptation increases their perception of hedonic values (de Witt Huberts et al., 2014). The accessibility of credit cards shifts consumers' atten- tion from how much they can actually afford to how much they can spend by the swipe of a card, thus delaying the pain of overspending (Lo & Harvey, 2011). Furthermore, consumers are more likely to make impulsive decisions when purchasing online or with smartphones (Chen & Yao, 2018). Consumers addicted to overspending are known as compulsive shoppers. Some compulsive consumers overspend to release negative moods like anxiety and escapism (Darrat et al., 2016).

Studies attribute non-pathological compulsive spending to consumers' lack of self-control or self-regulation (Baumeister, 2002; Kivetz & Sim- onson, 2002), while in a clinical setting, compulsive shopping is patho- logically treated as a mental disorder (Faber & O'Guinn, 1992) or clinical addiction (Dell'Osso et al., 2008).

2.2 | Guilt and consumer guilt

Guilt is a feeling derived from an individual's violation of internal moral or ethical standards (Burnett & Lunsford, 1994; Freedman, Wallingtong, & Bless, 1967). In the field of consumption, consumer guilt refers to a negative emotion resulting from consumer practices that go against the consumers' internal and interpersonal standards and social norms (Burnett & Lunsford, 1994; Dahl, Honea, & Man- chanda, 2003; Sotiropoulos & d'Astous, 2012) and that may lead to a lowering of self-esteem (Burnett & Lunsford, 1994). Similar to shame, it is the self-regulation response associated with consumers' misbe- haviors like impulse buying (Yi & Baumgartner, 2011) and overdrinking (Agrawal & Duhackek, 2010).

Extant researches linked consumer guilt to the painful experience of regret, remorse, self-blame, and self-punishment (Dahl et al., 2003;

Huhmann & Brotherton, 1997), leading guilt-laden individuals to take responsibility by making amends (Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Mur- alidharan and Sheehan (2018) revealed that high perception of guilt motivates female shoppers to bring reusable grocery bags. Newman

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and Trump (2017) found that consumers with high moral identity tend to connect with ethical brands due to their guilty feelings. Similarly, Chen and Moosmayer (2020) suggested that guilt appeals can stimu- late ethical consumption in Confucian culture and is most effective when conforming to the Confucianliprinciple. On the other side, consumers' guilty feeling will be reduced in certain situations, such as high-fit charitable initiatives (Baghi & Antonetti, 2017).

2.3 | Theory of stigma and Destigmatisation

Stigma is defined as a“deeply discrediting”attribute that identifies an individual with undesirable stereotypes (Goffman, 1963:p. 15; Jacoby, Snape, & Baker, 2005; Link & Phelan, 2001). The bearer of a stigma is more likely to be reduced from a whole, normal person to a tainted, discounted individual (Goffman, 1963:p. 3) and is subject to discrimination and status loss (Jacoby et al., 2005; Link & Phelan, 2001).

According to Goffman (1963), attributes likely to be stigmatised include physiological deformities, racial, national, and religious identi- ties, and character blemishes. However, the attributes defined as stigmatic differ over time and place (Goffman, 1963; Jacoby et al., 2005).

Something considered deviant in one society could be normal within the social norms of another (Jacoby et al., 2005). Likewise, something labelled as a stigma at a particular time may be destigmatised in another.

The stigmatisation or destigmatisation of a consumer practice is more about losing or gaining its social legitimacy. A consumer practice is deemed legitimate when it is consistent with the normative, cognitive and regulatory structures of a society (Humphreys, 2010). Extant studies reveal that public understanding of the legitimacy of certain consumer practices may vary alongside institutional, cultural, and ideological changes. Some deviant consumption practices once reg- arded as marginal and stigmatic may be destigmatised and become natural and legitimate consumer behaviours, or vice versa. For example, wearing corsets, a normative female dressing code in the 19th century, lost its popularity in the 20th century as health risks of wearing corsets emerged and women began to enter the work force (Steele, 2001). On the other hand, wearing jeans, buying tobacco and luxury brands, once symbols of violent motorcycle gangs (Davis, 1989), behaviours of“regulated citizens” (McLeod, Wakefiled, Chapman, &

Smith, 2009) and “affluent consumers” (Roper & Caruana, 2013), respectively, have now become normal consumption choices of the general public. Similar processes of destigmatisation are also found in casino gambling in the United States in the period between 1980 and 2007 (Humphreys, 2010).

2.4 | The framing theory

From a sociological perspective, a frame refers to “words, image, phrases, and presentation styles” (Druckman, 2001, p. 227) that a speaker uses when conveying information about an issue or event to an audience (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). Framing involves a process

of selection and salience, that is,“to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpreta- tion, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described”(Entman, 1993, p. 52). Similarly, in the discussion of consumer practice, there is no essential“market”or“consumer”, because these objects are constituted in various ways and different types of discourse (Fitchett & Caruana, 2015). They are active media through which agents are constructed and around which they are oriented towards certain kinds of practices and behaviours (Fitchett &

Caruana, 2015). Therefore, the frame provides context in how it

“defines problems, diagnoses causes, makes moral judgments, and suggests remedies”(Potter, 2012, p. 78).

Extant studies on the discursive framing of consumer practices are of two types. The first, mostly conducted through analyses of consumer discourse elicited in interviews, reveals how they verbally stigmatise or destigmatise their consumption, like fashion (Thompson

& Haytko, 1997), luxury brands (Roper & Caruana, 2013), convenience food (Halkier, 2017), and so forth. The second types analyses how mass media, as gatekeepers in the construction of meaning systems (McCracken, 1986), shape public attitudes or opinions associated with certain consumer behaviours through implicit ways of representation and framing. For example, the impact of framing is studied through investigating how different discursive representations in the media reflect the changed identity of consumers as smokers (McLeod et al., 2009), or the gaining legitimacy of casino gambling (Humphreys, 2010). Specifically, Humphrey's (2010) historic analysis of semantic categories associated with casino gambling demonstrates how casino gambling moved from a stigmatised activity of filth and poverty to a more legitimate one with entertainment, excitement, and wealth.

2.5 | Hypotheses development 2.5.1 | Perceived stigma

Research on stigma largely pertains to diseases, mental illness, or physical defects. Previous research suggests that besides feeling internal self-stigma, individuals also perceive external public stigma. Public stigma involves negative beliefs and negative emotional and behavioural responses held by the general population (Corrigan & Wat- son, 2002). It may lead to the formation of stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination (Corrigan, 2004) against those “abnormal” social groups. Perceived stigma, therefore, is the awareness of public stigma, or the way individuals perceive themselves as being stigmatised and feel discriminated against by others. Psychiatric literature reveals that individuals who perceive public stigma tend to form negative attitudes towards their stigmatised attributes, which results in diminished self- esteem, self-efficacy, perceived social worth (Corrigan & Wat- son, 2002) and declined intention for counselling or help-seeking (Vogel, Wade, & Hackler, 2007). In consumer behaviour study, individuals' perception of public stigma can lead to negative attitude towards

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stigmatised consumer misbehaviours like redeeming coupons (Argo &

Main, 2008) and overeating high calorie foods (Major, Hunger, Bun- yan, & Miller, 2014).

Compulsive buyers, having“a chronic, repetitive purchasing that is difficult to stop and that ultimately results in harmful economic, psychological and societal consequences” (Faber & O'Guinn, 1992;

O'Guinn & Faber, 1989), are usually perceived as addictive, excessive, habitual, abusive, and with adjunctive behaviours and impulse control disorders (O'Guinn & Faber, 1989). Anxiety, biological dysfunctional (Valence, d'Astous, & Fortier, 1988), and other negative stereotypes associate compulsive buyers with stigmas like“shopaholic”or“shopping mania”. In the present study, GWK and DSD are two similar Chi- nese labels referring to people with compulsive shopping inclinations.

The traditional Chinese culture of frugality strongly opposes excessive purchasing and spending. Thus, we expect that even though most overspending consumers do not actually have compulsive buying disorders, they tend to manage their identity by holding negative attitude towards overspending behaviour, which may help prevent them from being shunned by society and significant others. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:

H1:The higher the level of perception of public stigma associated with overspending, the more negative attitude a consumer will hold towards overspending behaviour.

2.5.2 | The mediating effect of anticipated guilt

Research shows that consumer guilt is largely related to impulse buying (Puri, 1996; Rook, 1987), compulsive buying (O'Guinn &

Faber, 1989), and overspending (Pirisi, 1995). Tangney and Dearing (2002) state that guilt involves a negative appraisal of a specific behaviour rather than the global self, so it is a mostly adaptive emotion. Therefore, guilt-laden consumers experiencing feelings of remorse, regret, self-blame, and self-punishment (Dahl et al., 2003) are motivated to confess and apologize (Tangney & Dearing, 2002) and make reparative actions by making promises or plans to reduce future overspending behaviours (Dahl et al., 2003; Tangney &

Dearing, 2002).

In consumer and marketing study, consumers' anticipated guilt is often used as an important construct to explain certain consumer behaviours. Steenhaut and Kenhove (2006) revealed the mediating role of anticipated guilt between consumers' ethical beliefs and purchasing intentions. Elgaaied (2012) found that anticipated guilt influences consumers' pro-environmental behaviours more directly and totally mediates the relationship between environmental concern and intention to buy recycled products. Moreover, consumers' anticipated guilt, as Burnett and Lunsford (1994) pointed out, can be a tool of per- suasion by marketers to motivate consumers to buy products and can simultaneously serve as an effective presentation method to enact public policies and prevalent social ideologies. In the discussion of overspending, consumers are likely to anticipate guilty feelings if they overspend. So they may regulate subsequent behaviour knowing such behaviour is perceived deviant from traditional social norms and is

often socially stigmatised (Rook, 1987). Therefore, assuming that the relationship between perceived stigma and attitude towards overspending behaviour can be mediated by consumers' anticipation of guilt, we propose as follows:

H2:The higher the level of perception of public stigma associated with overspending, the more guilt a consumer will anticipate.

H3: The more guilt a consumer anticipates, the more negative attitude he or she will hold towards overspending behaviour.

2.5.3 | The moderating effect of message framing

Mass media use tactics to shape public opinion through message framings, such as framing news items, emphasising specific values and facts, and endowing them with greater apparent applicability to make related judgments (Entman, 1993). In the context of overspending, message framing means focusing on certain effects that are closely related to consumers' understanding. Consumers' normative evaluation of the appropriateness of impulse buying behaviour influences an individual's trait impulsiveness (Rook & Fisher, 1995). In other words, consumers may act on their overspending inclination if they believe that buying too much or too frequently is socially acceptable, and they will refrain from the impulsivity if they find it socially unacceptable.

Mass media play a vital role in the construction of meaning of social issues (McCracken, 1986) that may shape the audience's understand- ings of what is acceptable and unacceptable in a particular social situation through specific framing approaches.

Empirical studies have revealed that the same problem, when framed differently, can shift audience's preferences, choices, and decisions (e.g., Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). In the context of consumer behaviour, message framings—with emphasis on positive versus negative (e.g., Previte, Russell-Bennett, & Parkinson, 2015), gain versus loss (e.g., Gamliel, 2010), promotion versus prevention (e.g., Ku &

Hung, 2019) aspects of the same consumption situation—may have different impacts on consumer decisions or choices. Consumers, upon exposure to messages from the media, will establish frames in their mind. If they are persuaded, their media-induced behaviours are moderated by the message framings. Grewal, Gotlieb, and Mar- morstein (1994) find that the relationship between the price of a product and consumers' perception of performance risk is moderated by the way the advertised message is framed. In an empirical study, Ku and Hung (2019) compared the effects of two different price framings (i.e., a per-person price and an aggregate price) on consumers' choice of a group meal and found that participants were more sensi- tive and reactive to promotion-focused messages (i.e., per-person price framing) and more inclined to accept the group meal offer after exposure to a per-person price framing. In the consumption culture scenario, Previte et al. (2015) argue that positively framed value prop- ositions that evoke happiness for alcohol consumers help promote safer drinking culture in Australia.

To investigate the extent to which message framings take effect on consumers' attitude towards overspending behaviour, we propose the following hypothesis:

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H4:Message framing (DSD framing) moderates the effect of consumers' perceived stigma on anticipated guilt for overspending behaviour.

A conceptual model is proposed in Figure 1 to illustrate the anticipated relationship among the main constructs and the four hypotheses.

3 | S T U D Y 1

Before testing hypotheses H1, H2, H3, and H4, a public opinion survey was conducted to verify (a) whether respondents generally accepted both terms as social labels about overspending behaviours and (b) whether they exhibited different attitudes towards the two terms.

3.1 | Sampling

The public opinion survey was conducted via www.wjx.cn, a leading third-party online survey company in China. In all, 456 questionnaires were generated from individual consumers in China. After strict screening and examination by one business professor, 31 questionnaires, which were either incomplete or from the same IP address, were excluded and 425 valid questionnaires (valid-return rate is 93.2%) were obtained for further data analysis. Among respondents, 47% were male while 53% were female; 32% were ages 18–25, 20%

were ages 26–32, 21% were ages 33–40, 23% were ages 41–55, and 3% were over the age of 55. With regards to the occupation, 33%

were students, 59% were employed or self-employed, 3% were unemployed, and 5% were retired; and 27% had received secondary education or below, 58% had attended college and university, and 15% had completed masters' programs or above.

3.2 | Procedure and measuring

To verify whether respondents acknowledged that GWK and DSD were social labels attached to people with overspending behaviour, we developed three survey statements: “I think that both GWK and DSD are social labels referring to a group of people”;“I think that both

GWK and DSD refer to consumers with overspending behaviour”; and“I think that DSD is an alternative term to GWK”. We used the 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to examine the extent to which participants agreed that GWK and DSD are the same social labels referring to consumers with overspending behaviours.

Second, we investigated respondents' attitudes towards GWK and DSD from three dimensions, namely, which term is perceived as more stigmatic, which term is preferably used in social interactions, and which term is preferred for respondents' self-identification. Each dimension was developed into two statements, one soliciting respondents' attitudes towards GWK, and the other, DSD. The statements are “I think that [GWK/DSD] is a stigma referring to consumers with overspending behaviours”; “I think that calling my relatives or friends [GWK/DSD] will not offend them”;“I prefer to call myself [GWK/DSD] on social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo”. We used the 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to measure their response options.

3.3 | Results

The results of respondents' understanding of the two terms are listed in Table 1. Nearly 60% of respondents agreed that DSD and GWK are social labels referring to a group of people (mean = 3.600,SD= 1.178);

more than 60% of the respondents agreed that both terms refer to consumers with overspending behaviour (mean = 3.626,SD= 1.173), and more than 60% of the respondents agreed that DSD is an alternative term to GWK (mean = 3.638,SD= 1.158). So, it can be inferred that a majority of respondents accept that GWK and DSD are similar labels (or stigmas) referring to consumers with overspending behaviour. We test the reliability of internal consistency of the first three statements on SPSS 22. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.774.

As suggested by Nunnally & Bernstein (1994), the threshold level for Cronbach's alpha coefficient is 0.7. Therefore, the survey statements are reliable.

Respondents' attitudes towards GWK and DSD were compared through independent samplet-test performed on SPSS 22. The results indicated significant differences between respondents' attitudes towards GWK and DSD. Specifically, compared with GWK (mean = 2.659, SD = 1.193), respondents perceived DSD

Perceived Stigma

Anticipated Guilt Message Framing

H4

H2 H3

Attitude towards Overspending

H1

F I G U R E 1 Conceptual model of the research

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(mean = 2.468,SD= 1.002) to be less stigmatic (t= 2.522,p= .012).

Meanwhile, significant difference is also found between respondents' usage of GWK and DSD in labelling their relatives and friends (t = −3.104, p = .002). They prefer to use DSD (mean = 2.758, SD= 1.057) rather than GWK (mean = 2.539,SD= 0.997). Finally, there is significant difference between respondents' usage of GWK and DSD in describing themselves on social media platforms (t=−3.727,p= .000), where they preferred to identify themselves as DSD (mean = 2.875,SD = 0.972) rather than GWK (mean = 2.640, SD= 0.866).

Based on these survey results, it can be concluded that GWK and DSD, two terms believed to be alternative social labels attached to overspending individuals, arouse vastly different responses among the Chinese people, with the latter being less stigmatic and more prefera- ble. After years of memetic spreading of the term DSD on the Internet and its discursive framing in mainstream media, DSD has successfully been disassociated from its original stigmatic connotation relating to overspending and has transformed into a relatively positive social label. On the contrary, GWK has gradually lost its favour among today's consumers who prefer to identify themselves as DSD if they have overspending inclination.

4 | S T U D Y 2

Study 2 aimed at confirming the research model and had two key objectives. First, we investigated the relationship among perceived stigma, anticipated guilt and attitude towards overspending (H1, H2, and H3). Second, we examined the moderating effect of message framing (DSD) on the relationship between perceived stigma and anticipated guilt (H4).

4.1 | Sampling

We entrusted a third-party online survey company to contact Chinese online shoppers by SMS or email requesting their participation in an online survey on attitudes towards overspending during Alibaba's SDSF. A monetary incentive was offered to encourage participation, and 341 participants responded to the survey. After strict screening by a business professor, 72 were excluded on account of incomplete information or belonging to the same IP address, and a valid sample of

269 participants was generated for the experiment. Of those who responded to demographic questions, 41.6% identified as male, 58.4%

as female; in terms of age, 1.85% were below 18, 28.25% between ages 19 and 25, 38.66% between ages 26 and 32, 23.79% between ages 33 and 40, 7.06% between ages 41 and 55, and 0.37% were above the age of 56. In terms of status of employment, 13.38% of respondents were students, 80.67% were employed, 5.58% self- employed, and 0.37% unemployed, and 75.46% had received university education with bachelor's degrees, 8.92% held master's degree or above, 11.9% had completed junior college education, and 3.72%

attained secondary education or less. The monthly disposable income for 55.76% of the respondents is between RMB 5,001–15,000, 34.94% earned less than RMB 5,000, and 9.29% earned over RMB 15,000. The sample thus reflected an overall diversity of Chinese online consumers.

4.2 | Procedure

Following a brief introduction of the survey's purpose and assurance of anonymity and confidentiality, each participant was administered a five-part survey questionnaire with instructions on how to complete it. The demographic information of the participants was solicited by 12 multiple-choice questions on gender, age, income, employment status, and online shopping experiences. Participants' perception of the public stigma associated with overspending was subsequently assessed. Participants were then assigned to the DSD news framing. After reading the news stimulus, they were required to complete a questionnaire that measured their attitude towards the message framing and anticipated feelings of guilt. Finally, participants' attitude towards overspending was measured by soliciting responses to four evaluative questions concerning overspending during SDSF.

4.3 | Stimuli development

The stimulus was one-paragraph news extract adapted fromthe Peo- ple's Daily describing how Chinese people's lives are impacted by online shopping festivals. The news extract of the positive DSD framing (328 Chinese characters) started with the story of a DSD, a young Beijing citizen who enjoyed the convenience of online shopping on T A B L E 1 Respondents' understanding of GWK and DSD (N = 425)

Items Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

DSD and GWK are social labels.

(mean = 3.600;SD= 1.178)

110 (25.88%)

139 (32.71%)

101 (23.76%)

46 (10.82%)

29 (6.83%) DSD and GWK refer to consumers with overspending

behaviours.

(mean = 3.626;SD= 1.173)

111 (26.12%)

148 (34.82%)

89 (20.94%)

50 (11.76%)

27 (6.36%)

DSD is the alternative term to GWK. (mean = 3.638;

SD= 1.158)

113 (26.59%)

145 (34.12%)

89 (20.94%)

56 (13.18%)

22 (5.17%)

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Taobao's platform. Indulging in buying nearly everything from daily necessities to travelling services, she admitted that her preoccupation with online shopping brought her a sense of satisfaction and

“improved well-being”. At the end of the paragraph, the news article credited Alibaba's sales record in 2018 to DSDs' contribution. The original stimulus text and translated versions are included in the Appendix.

4.4 | Instruments

Six items were designed to assess participants' perceived stigma associated with overspending behaviour. This measure was based on the perceived stigma scale used by Britt, Greene-Shortridge, Brink, Nguyen, and Rath (2008) to assess the perceived stigma associated with seeking psychological treatment. To facilitate understanding, the item questions were adapted to the context of the SDSF. Participants were required to use a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to answer questions like “If I overspend in the SDSF, it would be too embarrassing/it would harm my reputation”).

Higher scores indicated higher level of stigma perceived by the participants.

Participants' emotional responses to stimuli were measured by a four-item scale modified from the Attitude towards the Ad Scale (Holbrook & Batra, 1987). Participants were asked to answer questions like“Do you like this news extract”,“Do you think this news extract is good or bad”. Item responses were measured on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (extremely bad) to 5 (extremely good). Higher scores reflected more positive attitudes and endorsement of the news framing.

The intensity of guilt anticipated by participants after exposure to the message framing was assessed by seven items, which were a sub- scale from the Measures of Emotional Responses (Roseman, Wiest, &

Swartz, 1994) to measure anticipated guilt. To comply with the DSD framing, the items were rephrased in the questionnaire (e.g.,If I were called“DSD”for overspending,I would think that I were in the wrong).

Responses were on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Higher scores indicated higher level of overspending guilt anticipated by participants.

At last, participants' attitudes towards overspending during the SDSF were measured by four items modified from measure of Atti- tude towards the Brand (Holbrook & Batra, 1987). Participants were asked to rate between a continuum of semantically contrasting adjec- tives, for example, I think overspending during SDSF is (unpleasant… pleasant). Item responses were measured on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (unpleasant) to 5 (pleasant). Higher scores reflect more positive attitude towards overspending.

To elicit participants' spontaneous responses, all measures originally designed in English were translated into Chinese. The translated Chinese questionnaire was double-checked by two language profes- sors proficient in Chinese and English to ensure that the content and meanings were the same as the English measures.

4.5 | Data analysis

Our analysis followed the two-step approach of SEM. The first step was to test the reliability and validity of the constructs (i.e., measurement model). The second step involves an examination of the relationship among the constructs (i.e., structural model).

4.5.1 | Measurement model

First, we tested each construct for internal consistency or composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE). As suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981), the threshold levels for AVE and CR should be 0.5 and 0.7, respectively. The threshold level for Cronbach's alpha is 0.7 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Table 2 reports the purified scales of perceived stigma, anticipated guilt, attitude towards overspending, and message framing (DSD), with one or more items excluded from the constructs. In these scales, the composite reliability of each construct was above 0.84, AVE was higher than 0.58, and Cronbach's alpha was above 0.76. Therefore, all values of item load- ings, AVE, CR, and Cronbach's alpha are considered satisfactory.

The discriminant validity determines whether a construct is different from other constructs. In order to evaluate the discriminant validity, we evaluate the discriminant validity by comparing correlations among constructs and the square root of the AVE of the constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). As reported in Table 3, the square roots of AVE were all higher than their correlations with the constructs. Thus, the convergent and discriminant validity of all constructs in the model demonstrate a satisfactory fit.

4.5.2 | Structural model and hypotheses test results

We tested the structural model on Stata and found that the overall fit indices for the model are acceptable as they are within the commonly accepted values (χ2-statistic = 265, NFI = 0.78, SRMR = 0.08, GOF= 0.399). The testing results of Hypothesis 1–3 are illustrated in Figure 2.

To confirm the relationship among perceived stigma, anticipated guilt, and attitude towards overspending, linear regression analysis was performed and the results are reported in Figure 2. H1 aimed to test whether consumers' attitude towards overspending was directly affected by their perception of stigma. Data results did not support this hypothesis as there was no significant evidence that higher-level of perception of public stigma associated with overspending could predict negative attitude towards overspending behaviour (b=−0.104,p> .05). However, as was indicated in Figure 2, perceived stigma had a significantly positive effect on anticipated guilt (b= 0.600,p< .001), and anticipated guilt had a significantly nega- tively effect on attitude towards overspending (b=−0.367,p< .001).

Therefore, H2 and H3 were accepted. These results indicate that

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consumers' perception of stigma does not necessarily predict their negative attitude towards overspending. However, their relationship can be mediated by consumers' feeling of guilt resulting from overspending. Therefore, the mediating effect of anticipated guilt on consumers' attitude towards overspending was confirmed.

H4 aimed to test the moderating effect of destigmatised DSD framing on consumers' anticipated guilt feeling. To this end, a series

of hierarchical regression analyses controlling for age and occupation were performed. First, to avoid multiple collinearity problems, independent variables and moderating variable were centralized, and scores of all the variables were described in Table 4. Then, we split respondents into two groups using a factor score for perception of destigmatised framing. Specifically, we used the Anderson-Rubin factor score function provided by Stata to synthesize the three-item T A B L E 2 Description of measures and statistics summary for scales

Construct/items Factor loading AVE CR α

Attitude towards overspending (ATO) – 0.584 0.849 0.765

Overspending is unpleasant…pleasant. 0.754

Overspending is harmful…beneficial. 0.712

Overspending is uninteresting…interesting. 0.764

Overspending is bad…good. 0.823

Anticipated guilt (AG) – 0.610 0.862 0.788

If I overspend,I would think I was in the wrong. 0.820 If I overspend,I would think I should not have done what I did. 0.811 If I overspend,I feel like undoing what I have done. 0.754

If I overspend,I want to be forgiven. 0.737

Message framing (DSD) – 0.701 0.875 0.786

This news extract is negative…positive. 0.740

This news extract is bad…good. 0.898

This news extract is unfavourable…favourable. 0.866

Perceived stigma (PS) – 0.635 0.874 0.808

If I overspend,it would be too embarrassing. 0.814 If I overspend,it would harm my reputation. 0.834 If I overspend,my peers might treat me differently. 0.800 If I overspend,my peers would blame me for the problem. 0.737

T A B L E 3 Description of the discriminant validity of the constructs

DSD PS AG ATO

Message framing (DSD) 0.838⁺

Perceived stigma (PS) −0.327 0.797⁺

Anticipated guilt (AG) −0.326 0.601 0.781⁺

Attitude towards overspending (ATO) 0.421 −0.284 −0.368 0.764⁺ Note:Numbers in bold with“⁺”signs are the square roots of the AVE.

F I G U R E 2 Structural model test and hypothesis test results

(**p< .05; ***p< .001)

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variable of perception of the destigmatised DSD framing into a one- dimensional standardized score with zero mean and unit variance.

Thus, participants with factor scores below zero were assigned to the group with low-level perception of destigmatised DSD framing, and those with the factor scores above zero were assigned to the group with high-level perception of the destigmatised DSD framing. The independent variable, moderating variable, and interaction term were entered into the model. As suggested by Cohen, Cohen, West, and Aiken (2003), if the interaction term was significant, it could be deter- mined that the moderating effect exists. Table 5 summarises results of the hierarchical regression analysis for the moderating effect of destigmatised DSD framing on anticipated guilt. The interaction term between perceived stigma and perception of destigmatised DSD framing were statistically significant (t=−5.06,p= .000), indicating that participants' perception of the destigmatised DSD framing had a moderating effect. Thus, H4 was supported.

To understand the negative sign in the moderating effect, we plotted the regression lines in Figure 3. The two groups with high and low perception of the destigmatised DSD framing were plotted by a solid line and a dash line respectively. As shown in Figure 3, for every unit increase in perceived stigma, the increase in anticipated guilt is larger among participants with higher perception of the destigmatised DSD framing than those with lower perception.

Moreover, when the participants' perceived stigma surpasses 2, the group with higher perception of the destigmatised DSD framing

anticipate significantly less guilt than the group with lower perception. This means that participants with higher perception of the destigmatised DSD framing had consistently less intensity of consumer guilt at the same level of perception of stigma. This suggests that more destigmatised message framing can be useful in mitigating participants' consumer guilt anticipated in their overspending behaivours.

5 | C O N C L U S I O N & I M P L I C A T I O N S

The present study, by focusing on stigmas associated with overspending, investigated the effects of public stigma on consumers' attitude towards overspending through the mediating effect of consumer guilt and examined the moderating role of destigmatised media framing in this relationship. Major findings and their theoretical implications are discussed as follows.

First, respondents have significantly different attitude towards the two labels of GWK and DSD. Most respondents are found to have identification with DSD, indicating that they tend to endorse a label with less stigmatizing effect. GWK is deeply rooted in China's traditional culture of frugality, and its discriminative connotation has long been imprinted on the public. Therefore, it is not easy to disassociate the term from its stereotyped meaning and stigmatic connotation. In contrast, the neologism DSD is interpreted by readers as a

T A B L E 4 Description of the scores

of the variables Variables Mean SD Lowest Highest

Anticipated guilt (AG) 3.736 0.777 1.4 5

Perceived stigma (PS) 3.789 0.794 1.167 5

Perception of DSD framing (DSD) 2.614 0.747 1 4.75

Age 1.58 0.491 1 2

Occupation 1.93 0.447 1 4

T A B L E 5 Results of the hierarchical

regression analysis for H4 Standardized coefficient t-score p-value

Perceived stigma 3.82 4.84 .000

Perception of DSD framing −1 −8.7 .000

Interaction term −1.41 −5.06 .000

Constant term −1.55 −4.67 .000

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5

AnticipatedGuilt

Perceived Stigma High-level Perception of DSD framing

Low-level Perception of DSD framing

F I G U R E 3 Moderating role of DSD framing on the interaction between perceived stigma and anticipated guilt (H4)

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comparatively better term in facilitating public acceptance and reformulating attitudes towards overspending behaviour.

Second, our study suggests that perception of stigma cannot directly lead to consumers' negative attitude towards overspending behaviour. However, this relationship can be mediated by consumers' anticipated guilt. That means, perception of public stigma associated with overspending leads to consumers' anticipated guilt, which, in turn, predicts their negative attitude towards overspending misbehaviour. Consumer guilt is found to be a separate mediator of the relationship, which indicates a salient conceptualisation that public stigma takes effect on attitude on the condition that these negative opinions and criticisms are internalised by consumers. The findings support Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to understand attitude towards overspending behaviour. This theory proposes that behaviour intentions are directly associated with an individual's attitude towards that behaviour and, in turn, the attitude builds on one's behavioural beliefs and evaluations of behavioural outcomes (e.

g., If I overspend, my peers might treat me differently). Consistent with TPB, our empirical study suggests that attitude is significantly correlated with the perception of public stigma and the intensity of guilt stemming from one's experience. The findings validate Link, Cullen, Struening, Shrout, and Dohrenwend's (1989) modified labelling theory, which asserts that societal perceptions of devaluation and discrimination against people with mental illness may lead to negative consequences for self-esteem. Our findings support the idea that perceived prejudice associated with misbehaviour can be internalised, which can lead to decreased self-esteem and increased intensity of consumer guilt. However, our study applies the modified labelling theory to consumer behaviour study by providing empirical evidence and further posits that lowering of self-esteem and rise of guilt can significantly impact the formation of the attitude towards consumer behaviour. In reference to the study on stigma and behavioural attitudes, there is no dearth of literature (e.g., Corrigan, 2004; Corrigan & Wat- son, 2002; Vogel et al., 2007) probing into the relationship between perception of stigma associated with mental or physiological problems and the formation of attitude towards behaviours like health care, treatment, counselling seeking. Vogel et al.'s (2007) empirical study on counselling seeking revealed self-stigma as a mediator in the relationship between public stigma and attitude towards seeking help for psychological and interpersonal concerns. Their study highlighted the mechanism that external stigma (i.e., from society, or important others) should first be recognised and then take effect on the stigma bearer's self-esteem and identity before it can ultimately influence attitudes about seeking counselling. Our study is a pioneer in terms of extending the research on stigma and health-related counselling behaviour to consumer behaviour. The models used proved the similar psychological path that public discrimination can impact consumers' attitude towards overspending when the stigma is made known to consumers and generates feelings of guilt and regret. This finding also lends another perspective to the study on consumer guilt by con- necting its antecedents (stigma resulted from deviation of frugality norm) and its consequences (forming negative attitude towards overspending behaviour).

Third, our study revealed media framing as a moderator in the mediated relationship among perceived stigma, anticipated guilt, and attitude towards overspending. An indirect effect of media framing on attitude towards overspending via consumers' anticipated guilt was more significant when there was a high-level perception of destigmatised DSD framing. Therefore, message framings that destigmatised overspending are more effective in mitigating consumer guilt, which in turn, leads to increased positive attitude towards overspending. These findings are in line with studies that investigate the effect of message framing on consumers' emotions and attitudes. In an empirical study, Prayag and Soscia (2016) examine the effectiveness of advertisement framing in reducing Chinese tourists' anticipated guilt for buying a luxury vacation, and demonstrate that the more effective an advertisement is in mitigating anticipated guilt, the more likely it is to shape tourists' positive attitude towards the advertisement and the luxury vacation being promoted. Cucchiara, Kwon, and Ha (2015) found that compared with negative message framings, positive message framings were more effective in persuading consumers into buying organic foods. By extending such findings to mainstream yet under-explored discussions of consumer behaviours like overspending—which are culturally-based and difficult to evaluate— this study confirms the superior performance of destigmatised media framing (i.e., highlighting benefits of being an overspender without mentioning the associated losses), because such media stories successfully mitigate guilty feelings and stigma arising from their overspending behaviour. Similar to Cucchiara et al.'s (2015) findings that consumer involvement in purchase decisions can further impact the performance of message framings (i.e., the less involved the consumers are in the purchasing decision, the more likely they are to be persuaded by positively framed messages), our study also found that consumers' perception levels can affect the performance of destigmatised framing. Specifically, higher-level perception of destigmatised framing better alleviates consumers' guilt and regret, and helps shape positive attitude towards overspending. Unlike previous studies investigating the effectiveness of message framings of specific consumer behaviours (e.g., purchasing organic seafood, buying a luxury vacation service)—which were largely conducted for business promotional purposes—our study focuses on the media framing of overspending targeted at the naturalisation of the originally deviant and stigmatic consumer behaviour. To our knowledge, there are only a handful of studies exploring how news stories in the mass media facilitate the destigmatisation of a stigmatised consumer behaviour and shape public attitude towards it. Therefore, this study sheds light on studies of consumer behavioural stigmas and the role of message framings in the mass media.

Our study also has two practical implications. With respect to mass communication, the results of our study demonstrate that discourses characterising different frames about overspending can been found in China's mass media in the past decades. As China's social value system transitioned from advocating frugality and savings to a consumerist society where overspending was no longer stigmatised and discriminated, mainstream media likethe People's Dailyresponded actively to such changes by constructing overspending as an integral

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ritual of China's online shopping festivity that brings people hedonic experience and sense of well-being. By representing and relaying such changes to the public, these media framings, as Potter (2012) p. 190 asserted, tell people the theme or meaning of their behaviour, trigger new evaluative and judgmental processes, and over time, alter their existing attitudes. Furthermore, it should be noted that the DSD framing in the mainstream media was originally built on the social media discourses of Chinese consumers who spontaneously coined the term DSD to express their guilty pleasure for buying or spending too much during SDSF. The discursive intertextuality formulated in the mainstream media tactfully addresses consumers' negative emotions resulting from the perception of the overspending stigma, relieves them of their guilt feelings, and encourages them to make more purchasing decisions. Researchers have discussed and explored ways to shape public attitudes towards consumer practice through mass communication (e.g., Halkier, 2017; Humphreys, 2010). The present study suggests that, in addition to promptly setting the tone and relaying the signal of the social norm changes to the public, mass media, especially mainstream media, should take advantage of social media to address the individual consumer's concern about negative perceptions of themselves associated with overspending. Despite its importance, changing public attitude towards consumerism remains challenging.

Therefore, the mass media must take the lead to effectively relieve consumers' negative perceptions of themselves for being overspenders.

Second, this study also offers managerial implications for marketers and retailers designing communication strategies and seeking target customers in emerging markets like China. With regards to message characteristics, when promoting goods and services, retailers and marketers should avoid using promotion messages that may trigger stigmatising effect among consumers. Messages highlighting material and spiritual well-being gained through purchasing activities would help reduce consumers' guilt for buying or spending more than expected, thus shaping positive attitude towards overspending and enhancing purchasing intentions. In terms of consumer characteristics, marketers should also be cautious when targeting consumers of different ages and professions and with different levels of perceptions of framed messages. It is imperative for marketers to design and imple- ment communication strategies targeting different demographic communities, which would hopefully increase the competitiveness of business in emerging markets.

6 | L I M I T A T I O N & F U T U R E R E S E A R C H

The present study, noting the soar of GMV of SDSF and the memetic spread of DSD discourses on media platforms, focuses on the destigmatisation of overspending in China's media discourses and the impacts of such message framing on Chinese consumers' attitude towards overspending. However, several limitations of our study must be acknowledged. First, it should be admitted that the moderating effects of message framing discussed herein are based on an experiment that focused on a single stimulus within one group. In future

research, it would be worthwhile to compare the effects of DSD media framing with other comparatively stigmatic framings (e.g., GWK framing) to contribute to the literature on framing effect using binary categories (e.g., negative vs. positive, stigmatising and destigmatising).

Second, we investigated the destigmatised DSD framing based on a general group of online shoppers in China without expounding on individual differences. To gain more practicable implications for over- seas marketers, our future research will particularly explore how message framings with different emotional valences impact consumer groups divided by age, profession, income, education background, and so forth. Third, DSD framing used in our study as stimulus was retrieved fromthe People's Daily, a leading Chinese mainstream media.

In China, the People's Daily is the country's major propaganda that reflects and shapes public opinion. The article reported in this news- paper not only projects the discourse used on the social media, but also represents the advocated ideology of a society and shapes public opinions towards consumption. In fact, neologisms like DSD first appeared on social media platforms, online communities, or vis-à-vis conversations, where they occur more frequently than in official newspapers. Therefore, in future studies, larger corpora of social media discourses will be built to further verify the present study's findings. Finally, to elicit genuine responses from participants, part of the consumer behaviour survey in our study is contextualized in Alibaba's SDSF from which DSD arose as a phenomenal Internet meme. However, it should be noted that in reality, overspending occurs not only in the context of online shopping festivals, but also in physical brick-and-mortar store environments. Therefore, the findings of the present study will be further verified and compared with sur- veys contextualized in other purchasing scenarios.

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

We'd like to appreciate the anonymous reviewers for their construc- tive comments. This study was supported by National Social Science Foundation of PRC (No. 16BYY023), Humanities and Social Science Project sponsored by the Ministry of Education of PRC (No.

18YJC740151), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.

71971198), National Key R&D Program of China (No.

2017YFF0209000), China Scholarship Council (No. 201908330555), Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (No. LY18G010004, LGF19G010003), and Social Science Foundation of Hangzhou Munici- pality (No. Z20JC063).

O R C I D

Wuqiu Fan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6159-9753 Hanchun Zhong https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7730-4550 Anding Zhu https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8162-6213

E N D N O T E S

1Gouwukuang(购物狂): refers to shopping mania or shopaholics (accessed from https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B4%AD%E7%89%A9%E7%

8B%82/84797?fr=aladdin.)

2Duoshoudang(剁手党): literally translated from Chinese ashand-chopped party, with a similar meaning to GWK (accessed from https://baike.

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baidu.com/item/%E5%89%81%E6%89%8B%E5%85%9A/3753182?fr=

aladdin).

3Alibaba Group News https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/news/article?

news=p181112. Retrieved on Dec. 8, 2018.

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A U T H O R B I O G R A P H I E S

Wuqiu Fanis a professor of linguistics at School of Foreign Lan- guages, Central South University. He completed PhD of applied linguistics at Shanghai Jiaotong University, P. R. China. His main research interests are linguistics and discourse study. As a research team leader, he focuses on applying linguistic approaches to the studies of various disciplines, such as business and politics.