Journal of Consumer Affairs最新文献

This study examines how parents exert productive and repressive power in influencing their children's gender socialization through consumption. We interviewed 20 parents responsible for educating 36 children to investigate their challenges when confronted with their children's consumption demands that deviate from gender-appropriate norms. Under a queer feminist poststructuralist perspective, our results reveal the conflicts between parents and their children and between mothers and fathers when making consumption decisions that affect gender socialization. Our findings contribute to the consumer socialization literature by recognizing how gender norms influence parents' decisions about their children's consumption. We also shed light on the deployment of productive and repressive power tactics by parents in shaping their children's gender identity toward an “ideal” norm.

This article is an edited version of the 2023 Esther Peterson Consumer Policy Forum lecture delivered at the American Council on Consumer Interests annual conference in May 2023. It uses the car title loan product to illustrate the information necessary to improve the credit market for vulnerable consumers. It provides ideas for research that would inform work to reform consumer loans secured by ownership of a vehicle.

Rhoda Karpatkin, the first female executive director of Consumers Union, died on August 5, 2023. Ms. Karpatkin's dedication to improving consumer well-being began early in her career. After graduating from Yale Law School, she practiced law for 20 years, specializing in consumer and education law. Subsequently, she served in a variety of roles in which she championed civil, labor, women's, and consumer rights. Most prominent among these was her leadership at Consumers Union, which rates and compares products with the support of grants, donations, and subscriptions, and publishes Consumer Reports.

As executive director of Consumers Union, Ms. Karpatkin raised the funds to build the National Testing and Research Center in Yonkers, NY, and an automobile testing track in Connecticut. Under Ms. Karpatkin's leadership, the organization also added to its roster of publications and services, including Consumer Reports Online, and more than doubled subscriptions to Consumer Reports. She also served two terms as president of the International Organization of Consumers Unions (now Consumers International), where she monitored the policies of international corporations.

Ms. Karpatkin remained active in later life. She served as a member of the President's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations, the Committee on Trade and Environmental Policy, and the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue. She was on various boards and advisory boards, including the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division. Ms. Karpatkin was an advocate for a single-payer health care system, under which one public authority provides and pays for health care.

In 2005, the American Council on Consumer Interests (ACCI) established the Rhoda Karpatkin Consumer International Award to honor her pioneering work on behalf of consumers throughout the world. Recipients are those who have made significant contributions to consumer welfare on the international stage, are recognized as consumer leaders, and are members of ACCI or Consumers International.

Her challenge to consumer organizations was to put these issues on their agenda, get involved in the policy-making process, and to define and strengthen the linkage between their organizations and the people affected by these issues.

Rhoda Karpatkin's career will continue to serve as an inspiration for those who seek to advance and preserve the rights of consumers, workers, and women.

An individual might have a net worth of $10,000 and believe they are in great shape financially, while another individual might have $100,000 and feel otherwise. Could personality explain this disparity between perception and reality of their financial situation? This study answers this research question using data from the 2018 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Findings from this study show that conscientious and extraverted consumers believe they are doing better than they are. Conversely, consumers who exhibit traits relating to neuroticism, openness to experience, and agreeableness think their financial situation is worse than it is. These findings have implications for consumers, professional advisors, and policymakers.

Although data breaches are common, limited knowledge exists regarding consumer sentiments towards them and the personal actions taken following a breach. First, we explore trends using a database chronicling 14 years of breaches. Then, guided by Social Contract Theory, our study analyzes a secondary dataset of survey responses from 890 affected consumers to understand perceptions of breaches, including attitudes towards businesses, expected actions businesses take following a breach, and protective actions. The integration of Social Contract Theory with Privacy Calculus Theory and Protection Motivation Theory in the study of data breaches provides a lens to examine how context-specific attributes impact consumer actions following a breach. Our findings show that data breaches are frequent, vary across industries, and consumer attitudes and actions vary by data type compromised.

Research on consumer empowerment has evolved to reflect its requirements over time. This study aimed to trace consumer empowerment research trends through a systematic review of 245 abstracts from two esteemed journals in the field of consumer studies, namely, International Journal of Consumer Studies and Journal of Consumer Affairs. Reference network analysis revealed that research on consumer empowerment has been mainly focused on finance and education. Topic modeling revealed the following six topics: financial literacy education, school education, information competency, dietary behavior/nutrition, financial management competency, and empowerment in the market. Hot topics included financial literacy education and dietary behavior/nutrition, whereas school education was a cold topic. This study provides insights into consumer empowerment research trends and directions for future research.

Our work investigates the extent to which the politicization of health science may have impacted consumers' vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic. This inter-disciplinary, multi-method manuscript reports the results of three empirical investigations designed to examine how the consumers' political leanings and the sources they rely on for information might influence their decisions to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. We explore how radically opposing viewpoints regarding the pandemic may have eroded public trust in government institutions and health science during the months leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In addition, we examine how consumers with opposing political leanings may be differentially influenced by promotional messages that represent the two dominant contrasting viewpoints regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, we find that low vaccine-hesitant Trump voters can be successfully targeted for pro-vaccination interventions using highly credible spokespeople, perceived to have high levels of expertise and trustworthiness.

Healthcare costs continue to rise considerably in the United States; one proposed solution is to give consumers more choices regarding their healthcare decisions. Recent legislation has the aim of making healthcare pricing more transparent and providing consumers with an increased understanding of costs. This article offers a research agenda for studying healthcare price transparency and provides an overview of several potential implications for consumers. The authors review the recent legislation and its intended impact on consumer shopping in the healthcare market. Research propositions are focused on healthcare as a unique decision context, the power and peril of price information, the emerging healthcare information market, and individual differences in consumers. The authors also illustrate some of these issues with a price transparency dataset. Opportunities for future research and implications for marketing, healthcare providers, and policymakers are offered.