• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.111-116
• /
• 2016

Purpose - A lot of preceeding studies have focused on the pains that might be felt in spending money, that is an important role in getting psychological safety. Money and social resources can be all for consumers, and they are likely to form a substituting relationship with one another. Being motivated by the idea that spending money for others can come with joy if one's objective is accomplished by social support, this paper aimed to explore the mediating role of the perceived money importance and gratitude in the relationship between social support and pleasure in spending for other-gift. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - In this empirical study, the experimental group is expected to receive social support while the control group is composed of those who are usually indulged in reminiscences of their sweethearts. From the college students, 160 experiment participants were selected and 80 participants of them were assigned to control group as well as to experimental group respectively at random. Empirical study for each of the two groups was performed respectively by means of questionnaire survey. Experimental group data and control group data were combined together to be used for testing hypotheses. Linear structural equation model in Amos was used to verify the hypotheses, and Bootstrap was also used to examine whether there were the mediating roles of the perceived money importance and gratitude or not. Results - From the empirical study, following conclusions could be drawn: First, social support of others makes one perceive the importance of money less; Second, social support of others makes one perceive gratitude to others; Third, less perceived importance of money and gratitude to others can make one feel pleasure in spending for other-gift; and Fourth, less perceived importance of money and gratitude to others can partially mediate the effect of social support from others on the pleasure in spending for other-gift. Conclusions - The outcomes of this study might offer theoretic and managerial implications as follow: Even though many hitherto studies have asserted that spending money usually comes with pains, this study discovered that social support might reduce perceived the importance of money but make others feel gratitude and, thus, one would feel joy in spending money to buy gift for others, and made a contribution to the progress of the theory of pleasure in spending for other-gift. This paper also made contributions toward the development of emotion marketing theory by showing that the effect of social support on the pleasure in spending for other-gift could be partially mediated by the perceived the importance of money and gratitude to others. Based on the above conclusions, it may be affirmed that marketers should help consumers perceive the importance of money less, and help feel gratitude to others by pointing up the support of others to consumers in an attempt to accelerate spending for other-gift.