Associations between protestant work ethic and multilevel marketing participation and financial outcomes.

Multilevel marketing (MLM) involvement can adversely affect consumer wellbeing. We examine how individual beliefs about work predict participation and financial losses in MLMs. As MLMs are presented to the marketplace as low-barrier opportunities to start one's own business, we suggest that this may speak directly to people who strongly endorse Protestant work ethic (PWE), making them more inclined toward MLM participation, and financial outcomes associated with that participation.

Perceiving less but wasting more: The relationship between perceived resource scarcity and consumer food waste.

Consumers' food-related behaviors often culminate in significant food waste. Surprisingly however, limited attention has been given to psychological reasons why this occurs. Across four studies, this research suggests that, because perceived resource scarcity activates a resource acquisition goal, under conditions where product scarcity is not present it leads consumers to engage in inaccurate over-acquisition of resources (i.

The association between political identity centrality and cancelling proclivity.

Augmented by the rise of social media, contemporary culture has increasingly witnessed the phenomenon of "cancellation" - that is, a brand's swift and public fall from grace, catalyzed through digital platforms like Twitter and, in turn, traditional media. We are the first to examine individual difference predictors of cancelling proclivity. We explore the relationship between a novel individual difference, political identity centrality (the extent to which one's political identity [e.

Policy stringency and the spread of COVID-19: The moderating role of culture and its implications on first responses.

There has been a noticeable variance between countries in the growth rate of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Researchers attempted to understand this variance from two primary perspectives: the policies implemented to curb the spread of the virus [1] and the cross-country cultural differences [2]. However, little research to date has looked at the joint effects of policy responses and national culture.

Economic hardship, ontological insecurity, and household food waste.

The experience of a downward change in one's financial situation is so common that most consumers will experience it during their lifetime, and this prevalence has been compounded by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Limited research, however, has examined the impact of economic hardship on consumers' food-related behavior. Using a sample of Canadians and Americans (n = 519; M = 38.

Effects of perceived scarcity on COVID-19 consumer stimulus spending: The roles of ontological insecurity and mutability in predicting prosocial outcomes.

In 2021, the United States government provided a third economic impact payment (EIP) for those designated as experiencing greater need due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a particular focus on scarcity and ontological insecurity, we collected time-separated data prior to, and following, the third EIP to examine how these variables shape consumer allocation of stimulus funds. We find that scarcity is positively associated with feelings of ontological insecurity, which, interestingly, correlates to a allocation of stimulus funds toward charitable giving.

Identity salience moderates the effect of social dominance orientation on COVID-19 'rule bending'.

Amidst the economic, political, and social turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, contrasting responses to government mandated and recommended mitigation strategies have posed many challenges for governments as they seek to persuade individuals to adhere to prevention guidelines. Much research has subsequently examined the tendency of individuals to either follow (or not) such guidelines, and yet a 'grey area' also exists wherein many rules are subject to individual interpretation. In a large study of Canadians (N = 1032, M = 34.

Trait self-construal, inclusion of others in the self and self-control predict stay-at-home adherence during COVID-19.

To combat the global COVID-19 crisis, governments and health organizations rely on collective cooperation among every ordinary individual to adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such physical distancing which includes, as examined in our study, staying at home. Thus, we ask the question: do individual differences in how individuals see themselves as connected to or separated from others (i.e.

The impact of masculinity stress on preferences and willingness-to-pay for red meat.

This work explores the effects of masculinity stress-distress arising from a perceived discrepancy with male gender norms-on red meat consumption, which has potentially substantial individual, collective, and ecological consequences. Across three studies, we demonstrate a positive indirect effect of masculinity stress on red meat consumption. This occurs through beliefs that meat consumption can augment masculinity-an effect which is moderated by one's self-assessed traditional masculinity (study 1).