The effects of optimal time of day on persuasion processes in older adults

Past research demonstrates that the majority of older adults (60 years and older) perform resource-demanding tasks better in the morning than in the afternoon or evening. The authors ask whether this time-of-day effect also impacts persuasion processes performed under relatively high involvement. The data show that the attitudes of older adults are more strongly affected by an easy-to-process criterion, picturerelatedness, at their non-optimal time of day (afternoon) and by a more-difficult-to-process criterion, argument strength, at their optimal time of day (morning). In contrast, the attitudes of younger adults are affected primarily by argument strength at both their optimal (afternoon) and non-optimal (morning) times of day. Process-level evidence that accords with these results is provided. The results accentuate the need for matching marketing communications to the processing styles and abilities of older adults. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/56012/1/20169_ftp.pd

Hate Studies in Business

This chapter describes a course called “Hate Studies in Business” which seeks to help students to recognize business cultures and practices that treat people as “others” and, in the process, inflict wounds that undermine the dignity of individuals and society. The course is taught by a team of business professors who lead the students in examining hate in the context of each instructor’s discipline. The course grew from a conscious effort among the faculty to develop a business curriculum that encourages moral development and prepares students for the many ways they will be challenged as they enter the workforce, including assaults on their own and others’ integrity. The chapter includes a discussion of the educational setting, an overview of the course content, the impact of the course on student attitudes toward pluralism and diversity, and a discussion of the lessons learned in the initial offering of the course.</jats:p

Beyond Poverty: Social Justice in a Global Marketplace

The social justice paradigm, developed in philosophy by John Rawls and others, reaches limits when confronted with diverse populations, unsound governments, and global markets. Its parameters are further limited by a traditional utilitarian approach to both industrial actors and consumer behaviors. Finally, by focusing too exclusively on poverty, as manifested in insufficient incomes or resources, the paradigm overlooks the oppressive role that gender, race, and religious prejudice play in keeping the poor subordinated. The authors suggest three ways in which marketing researchers could bring their unique expertise to the question of social justice in a global economy: by (1) reinventing the theoretical foundation laid down by thinkers such as Rawls, (2) documenting and evaluating emergent “feasible fixes” to achieve justice (e.g., the global resource dividend, cause-related marketing, Fair Trade, philanthrocapitalism), and (3) exploring the parameters of the consumption basket that would be minimally required to achieve human capabilities. </jats:p

Evaluation of age-related labels by senior citizens

The age-related labels third age, elderly, 501, senior, and retired were evaluated by a 401 sample. Results of a qualitative and quantitative study showed that the labels third age and elderly evoked predomi-nantly negative associations, and the evaluations of the latter three age-related labels were generally positive. Cognitive age did not appear to add explanatory power, but group membership did (being retired or not, perceiving oneself as a senior or not). Moreover, a sig-nificant interaction effect between group membership and age emerged. When people did not belong or did not perceive themselves to belong to a given age group, the evaluation of the related label became more negative when the respondents approached the age to be eligible for group membership. After becoming or accepting to become part of the group, evaluations of the label increased again. On the basis of these results, an alternative-stage model is proposed: sta-tus irrelevance, status rejection, status acceptance, and status cham-pionship. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. In most of the industrialized world, the population is aging fast, leaving marketers no choice but to address this shift in the demographic com-position of these important consumer markets (Leventhal, 1997; Moschis &amp; Mathur, 1997). Although senior citizens are indeed considered an inter-esting consumer group to a growing extent and are acknowledged to engage in much more activities than just watching television (Loroz