When pride meets envy: Is social superiority portrayal in luxury advertising perceived as prestige or arrogance?

Billy Sung · Ian Phau

41 citations0/0 files storedPsychology and Marketing

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification Consumer Retail Behavior Studies Emotions and Moral Behavior

Abstract

Abstract This paper draws on the theoretical underpinnings of envy and pride in examining the effectiveness of social superiority portrayal in luxury advertising. Across two studies, benign (malicious) envy led consumers to perceive social superiority portrayal as an expression of authentic (hubristic) pride and, in turn, increased (reduced) luxury perception and positive brand attitude. These findings were replicated for both dispositional (Study 1 and 2) and state feeling of envy (Study 2), regardless of whether envy was self‐reported or manipulated. These findings were found to be consistent in a comparison between luxury and premium brands. Taken together, this paper is the first to examine: (a) consumer responses toward social superiority portrayal in luxury advertising, (b) the interactive effect of envy and pride perceptions on luxury perception and brand attitude, and (c) the effectiveness of using social superiority portrayal as an advertising strategy for luxury and premium brands.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 41 citations exist upstream.

References

2004Measuring perceptions of brand luxury 2000The Match-Up Hypothesis: Physical Attractiveness, Expertise, and the Role of Fit on Brand Attitude, Purchase Intent and Brand Beliefs 2007The psychological structure of pride: A tale of two facets.2009Value‐based segmentation of luxury consumption behavior 2012Two ways to the top: Evidence that dominance and prestige are distinct yet viable avenues to social rank and influence.2009Co-creating value for luxury brands 2007Comprehending envy.2010Pride, personality, and the evolutionary foundations of human social status

Cited by

2025Masstige Consumption: A Motivation-Desire-Outcome Framework with Implications for Luxury Brand Management 2023Beauty and the brands: the interplay of celebrity attractiveness, brand envy, and social comparison in shaping masstige brand passion in hospitality 2021Constructing generational identity through counterfeit luxury consumption 2023From devil to angel: How being envied for luxury brand social media word of mouth discourages counterfeit purchases 2024The pursuit of the ideal self: An investigation of the relationship of authenticity and ideal self‐congruence

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.