Yongjun Sung

Yongjun Sung
Korea University | KU · School of Psychology

Professor

About

132
Publications
158,850
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7,363
Citations

Publications

Publications (132)
Article
While prior research has examined the relationship between narcissism and self-promoting behaviors on social media (e.g., posting selfies), little is known about the extent to which individuals' level of narcissism relates to how involved they are in other people's feedback (e.g., comments and "likes") received on their selfies, or how observant an...
Article
Photo sharing on various social networking sites (SNSs) has become an important part of the online social experience. SNS users utilize various types of pictures, particularly selfies (pictures one takes of oneself), to display their personalities, lifestyles, and preferences. In this study, we identified the motivations that drive selfie-posting b...
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Instagram, the rising photo-sharing social networking site, has gained an enormous amount of global popularity. This study examined the relationship between narcissism and Instagram users' self-promoting behavior. A total of 212 active Instagram users in Korea completed an online survey. The results showed that individuals higher in narcissism tend...
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This study's aim was to uncover psychological and social motives for using untact services and to explore the relationships between identified motivations and attitudinal and continuous behavioral intention variables. We conducted a survey with 328 untact service users, and used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to find underlying motiva...
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In the current era, interacting with Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an everyday activity. Understanding the interaction between humans and AI is of potential value because, in future, such interactions are expected to become more pervasive. Two studies—one survey and one experiment—were conducted to demonstrate positive effects of anthropo...
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Mothers are heavily engaged in social media, and mommy influencers have become key sources of information and targets for social comparison. This study investigates the psychological mechanisms by which mothers’ parental stress is affected by social comparison with mommy influencers. An online survey was conducted among South Korean millennial moth...
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This study investigated how human likeness (human-like vs. avatar-like) and agency (avatar vs. agent) interact to determine source credibility and the intention to interact with virtual influencers. The results revealed that human likeness significantly influenced three types of source credibility (attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise) an...
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When consumers become aware of their inconsistent ethical behavior, they experience ethical dissonance and attempt to rationalize their past misconduct through neutralization techniques. This article examines post-neutralization behavior: whether neutralization prompts participants who have refused to donate to one campaign to rectify their moral l...
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This study examines how being envious toward social media influencers (SMIs) relates to users' affective well-being. An online survey was conducted in which 305 U.S. participants viewed to 20 posts of an SMI and subsequently measured their affective well-being, envy, and inspiration toward the SMI, and self-esteem levels. The results revealed a dir...
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The Metaverse is an important virtual venue in people's daily lives. This study examined whether pro-environmental behaviors in the Metaverse with a self-customized avatar lead to licensing effects, thereby reducing pro-environmental intention in reality. In addition, the study examined the mediating effect of self-presence on the relationship betw...
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This study explores the effects of gender stereotypes on evaluating artificial intelligence (AI) recommendations. We predict that gender stereotypes will affect human-AI interactions, resulting in somewhat different persuasive effects of AI recommendations for utilitarian vs. hedonic products. We found that participants in the male AI agent conditi...
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Although consumers’ interests in sustainable consumption have increased as the importance of sustainability has been highlighted after the COVID-19 crisis, few consumers actually practice sustainable consumption. Since limited studies examined those factors impeding sustainable consumption, the present study aims to address constraints of sustainab...
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This study suggests that the goal orientation of metaphoric claims impacts the effects of metaphors in ads. Drawing on regulatory focus and information processing theories, we tested the moderating role of the regulatory focus of ad messages on the persuasiveness of their metaphors. In Experiment 1, we found that promotion-focused (vs. prevention-f...
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The development of novel technologies has increasingly complicated the issue of users' privacy. This study aimed to investigate the impact that the types of information as well as agents have on perceptions of privacy risks and concerns. The results showed that participants perceived privacy risk and were most concerned when they were asked to prov...
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Full-text available
Artificial intelligence (AI) plays various roles in our daily lives, such as personal assistant, salesperson, and virtual counselors; thus, it stands out in various fields as a recommendation agent. This study explored the effects of perceived similarity and psychological distance on the persuasion of AI recommendation agents through two experiment...
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Recent findings suggest that socially excluded individuals are motivated to pursue warmth. However, previous researches have examined warmth only at the physical level. The current research extended the notion of warmth to a metaphorical dimension and demonstrated the effect of social exclusion on preference for metaphorically warm products. In stu...
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This study examined the effects of chief executive officers’ (CEOs) self-disclosure on consumer–brand relationships and the moderating role of brand relationship norms. To test the proposed hypotheses, a 2 × 2 factorial design was implemented with self-disclosure (high vs. low) and relationship norms (exchange v. communal) as the between-subjects f...
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The present research investigates how visual metaphors (that differ in terms of complexity) and verbal messages (that vary in terms of explicitness of explaining the visual metaphors) interactively impact on consumers’ pleasure and ad appreciation. Across two studies, findings demonstrate that consumers experience a higher sense of pleasure and app...
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Materialism is known to be negatively related to consumers’ ethical behaviors, and prior research has often assumed that highly materialistic consumers do not behave ethically. This study challenges such conventional wisdom and investigated ways to motivate highly materialistic consumers to engage in ethical consumption behaviors by examining the m...
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This study aimed to investigate the effects of brand anthropomorphism on consumer-brand relationships in a social media marketing context. We hypothesized that anthropomorphism on a brand’s Facebook fan page can strengthen the relationships between brands and consumers by yielding both social presence and a positive inference regarding the brand’s...
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Full-text available
While previous co-branding research sheds light on the effects of perceived fit between partner brands, the findings have been limited to only two types of perceived fit: product category and brand image fit. This research suggests the importance of sensory fit and examines how it affects evaluations of co-branding. Three experiments were conducted...
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Despite the trend of leaving Facebook (#DeleteFacebook campaign), investigation on both the social and psychological factors affecting Facebook fatigue is limited. This study aims to explore the social and psychological antecedents of Facebook fatigue and identify the effects of the antecedents on overall Facebook fatigue. A total of 327 Facebook u...
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Full-text available
This study used a theoretical model from social psychological research on relationships, the investment model, to explain the engagement process. More specifically, the study examined how employee satisfaction with the relationship, quality of alternatives to the relationship (whether employees' most important needs can be met elsewhere), investmen...
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Full-text available
Artificial intelligence (AI) has had a huge impact on our lives. In this study, we suggest that when people interact with AI, they regard the AI as a social actor and apply interpersonal relationship norms. This study employed a 2 × 2 between-subjects design to identify the effects of an AI's relationship type and gender on a human's response to an...
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Full-text available
Despite the continued attention on the distinct behavioral and relational outcomes of narcissism and self-esteem, limited academic research has been devoted to investigating the influences of those individual differences upon behaviors of seeking and retaining a romantic relationship concurrently in the digital environment. The present study aimed...
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This study investigates how corporate character is shaped by organizational symmetrical communication and its effects on the quality of employee-organization relationships. Results of an online survey with 314 working adults in the United States showed that symmetrical internal communication plays an important role in defining the organization’s po...
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With the increasing popularity of image-based social networking applications (apps), such as Snapchat and Instagram, social media users express multifaceted aspects of their self-concept online, while remaining concerned about privacy issues. This study investigates the determinants behind the choice to use a social networking site (SNS) platform a...
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This research explored the impact of self-threat on two types of hope, distinguished by regulatory focus: prevention hope versus promotion hope. Two experimental studies were conducted. The results of Study 1 indicated that individuals are more likely to focus on prevention hope when their self-view is threatened. Additionally, the findings in Stud...
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This study employed an online survey (N = 310) to explore how viewers’ motivations for social TV participation influence their involvement in social TV activities, their program commitment, and network loyalty. Findings show that social infotainment and social companionship are the primary motivations of social TV participation. However, only socia...
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With the assumption that the distinctive effect of provincial norms (versus general norms) derives from a spatial distance between the actors and reference groups, the present research examined whether the effect of two types of descriptive norms on consumers' sustainable behaviors can be moderated by construal-level messages. Both a laboratory (St...
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Consumer-generated product reviews are a driving force behind online purchases; at the same time, unfavorable reviews can discourage interested online shoppers and eventually hurt the brand. The objective of this exploratory study was to analyze a diverse range of characteristics and the valence of online product reviews that would aid in respondin...
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Marketing scholars and consumer psychologists are turning their attention to the increasing proliferation of selfies. This study investigates a new type of electronic word-of-mouth, namely, selfies with brands/products (‘brand-selfies’), on social networking sites, and considers three factors as predictive of brand-selfie posting behaviour: narciss...
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The present study examined the relationship between the Big Five and the use of selfies to maintain online sociability and social connection. An online panel survey was conducted with 299 selfie posters. The findings suggest that the Big Five traits, except for extraversion, are significantly associated with the degree of concern about other's resp...
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In response to rising consumption effects on the environment, green advertisers have employed different tactics to advertise their unique products. Limited research has explored the impact of culturally congruent appeals in green advertising. A total of 118 (N) adults participated online to assess the influence of these appeals in a cross-cultural...
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Culture is a key issue in the development of marketing communications in international markets as cultures develop distinctive preferences for visual and verbal communications. The individualistic nature of American culture lends itself to a preference for simple, direct visual communication and low-context verbal communication. Koreans are expecte...
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The present research examined how individuals’ cultural orientations influenced the relationship between their construal level and temporal distance. There were two studies in this research. In study 1, the relationship between culture and construal level was examined through the Behavior Identification Form. In addition, the influence of culture o...
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Over the past few years, a notable trend has emerged in social networking sites (SNSs). With the growing popularity of image-based SNSs such as Instagram, users increasingly communicate and present themselves by posting photographs they take of themselves (“selfies”). As the phenomenon of selfies becomes widespread across a range of SNSs as a uniqu...
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Using its technological capabilities, Facebook has introduced customized and more relevant commercial messages for its growing number of advertisement-savvy users. We empirically examined the factors that influence the way in which users respond to Facebook-based advertising, using the perceived advertising values posited by Ducoffe's model and Fac...
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Extant research has examined the impact of social television on viewer behavior; however, little is known about how social TV strategies help the broadcasting industry develop relationships with the audience, increase and sustain viewer engagement. Building on the literature, this study surveyed a national sample of 300 U.S. TV viewers (18–49) to i...
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The objective of this study was to explore how young voters form attitudes through the socialization process (i.e., political information efficacy) and the factors that potentially shaped voting behavior in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Using political socialization as the theoretical framework, 363 respondents were surveyed the day after th...
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This study examines how psychological distance between a user and a Facebook page (Timeline vs. News Feed) impacts the effectiveness of advertising messages framed by two different construal levels (high- vs. low-level construal). Based on construal level theory, a 2 (Psychological distance: distant vs. proximal) × 2 (Message type: high-level vs. l...
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While Instagram, the rising photo-sharing social networking service, has received increasing attention from scholars and practitioners, little is known about the social and psychological factors that lead consumers to become fanatics of this app. To provide a baseline understanding of Instagram users, the current study aims to uncover the structura...
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With the real-time brand communications prevalent in Twitter, it has emerged as an increasingly important social technology that facilitates brand-focused electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) activities. The objective of the current research is to examine the factors which discriminate between Twitter brand followers’ decisions to engage in eWOM behavio...
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The importance of the mobile phone is evidenced by predictions that there will be 1.76 billion smartphone users worldwide at the start of 2015. A country that is spearheading this movement toward the digital era is India. To illustrate this, India is expected to surpass the United States in 2015 and record the second highest smartphone sales global...
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Due to its immediacy and efficiency, Twitter has recently emerged as a form of marketing communication tool that offers unique advantages for two-way communication between marketers and consumers. This study examines brand-following behavior on Twitter using the Ajzen’s model of theory of planned behavior (TPB). Results show that attitude toward br...
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In optimal distinctiveness theory, it is suggested that individuals pursue an optimally distinctive identity at the personal level when their collective identity no longer sustains the balance between need for assimilation and differentiation. We tested this assumption via 2 online experimental studies in the context of brand consumption. In Study...
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This research suggests that consumer emotional intelligence (CEI) is an important construct in explaining why some consumers react destructively to conflicts in consumer-brand relationships whereas others approach them constructively. The results of the study show that (1) when encountering transgressions in relationships with brands, consumers low...
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Both the marketing industry and academia have been paying more attention to the growth and potential of the luxury market. This research developed a theoretical framework for understanding the dimensions of luxury brand personality and a reliable and valid scale that measures these dimensions. When 30 luxury brands, ranging from fashion to automobi...
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Both the advertising industry and academia have given increasing attention to the importance of consumer relationship building on social networking sites. By surveying 400 brand followers on Twitter, this study provides a baseline understanding of both motivations and relationships between identified motivations and key consumer–brand relationship...
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Purpose – This paper aims to examine whether culture impacts the execution of financial services advertising (FSA). Specifically, this study investigates how cultural values are reflected in FSA by comparing magazine ads in the USA and Korea. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyzed the content of a total of 1,889 (USA = 1,486; Korea = 40...
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Twitter, the popular microblogging site, has received increasing attention as a unique communication tool that facilitates electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). To gain greater insight into this potential, this study investigates how consumers’ relationships with brands influence their engagement in retweeting brand messages on Twitter. Data from a surv...
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While existing literature describes strong brand relationships along several dimensions, this research sheds light on the identity perspective of consumer–brand relationships through the lens of brand identity fusion. Specifically, this research examines the effect of brand identity fusion on consumers’ responses to different brand transgressions....
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The present research examines how brand personality and regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) interplay in affecting advertising message persuasiveness. In Experiment 1, the moderating role of brand personality with respect to regulatory focus is tested. The results show that a promotion‐framed advertising message is more persuasive for a fic...
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Full-text available
This explorative research investigates the impact of visual elements in advertising, especially dominant colors, on brand personality. An experimental study was conducted to suggest the links between colors (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black; Munsell, 1966) and the five brand personality dimensions (Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Soph...
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This research investigates how an individual's self-construal and self-regulatory focus interplay in determining advertising message persuasiveness. In Experiment 1, we examine the moderating role of an individual's chronically accessible self-construal with respect to regulatory focus. The results show that individuals with a dominant independent...
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Given the increasing popularity of nation branding across the globe, brand management at the symbolic level is a critical component of a nation's brand management program. By surveying a US sample of 304 college students, the current study identified a total of five primary antecedents of nation brand personality: government competences, people/eve...
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This study investigates how, in a virtual store environment, an avatar-mediated interaction with a salesperson and a peer consumer influences a consumer's shopping experience and brand evaluation. The study examines the effects of a consumer's interaction with the salesperson and peer consumer avatars and how these interactions affect the consumer'...
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With the rapid growth of smartphone and smartphone application users, mobile apps have attracted an increasing amount of attention as an engaging platform for marketing communication. A content analysis of 106 branded apps of global brands found that most global brands incorporate into their apps important engagement attributes that this study exam...
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The present research examines the moderating roles of self-construal and brand commitment in brand-situation congruity effects in persuasion. Self-construal refers to how individuals perceive themselves in the context of relationships with others (Singelis, 1994). Individuals with independent self-construal, who emphasize autonomy and assertiveness...
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This research examines the effects of situational cues in consumers' brand evaluation; more importantly, this relationship is explored across the US and Korean cultures. The findings suggest that consumers prefer brands with personality traits that are congruent with the social situations. Furthermore, as predicted, this brand-situation congruity,...
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Although online product reviews have emerged as an influential source of information, little is known about the persuasive impact of self-regulatory goals on the processing of information in the reviews. This research examines how consumers differently evaluate consumer-generated product reviews framed by promotion goals versus prevention goals dep...
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Although many scholars and researchers have contributed to the sizeable literature on the relationship between advertising and society, few have examined economic circumstances as a meaningful force shaping advertising. This study provides the empirical evidence that changes in economic conditions, the recession in particular, can transform adverti...
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Although previous literature in co-branding sheds light on the effects of perceived between-partner fit on consumer evaluation of co-branded products, the scope of findings has been limited to the functional fit only, and the importance of symbolic fit has been largely ignored. By conceptualizing perceived fit in two different ways – functional ver...

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