The Impact Of Facial Expression On The Perceived Price Of Goods- The Mediation Effect Of Psychological Distance

The goal of advertising and marketing is to change the consumer’s preferences and behavior. In most cases, "smile can narrow the distance between people" is the criteria of marketing practice. Accumulating researches show that positive affect and facial expression will promote product evaluation, purchase propensity and satisfaction. However, Luxury goods’advertising and marketing does not comply with the "smiling" criteria. In most of luxury ads, models looks cold, with no emotion. Also, consumers often complain that they were ignored by sales staff at luxury retailers. Despite of luxury’s cold and detached service, consumers still believe that luxury is a symbol of high social status and wealth. We can not help but wonder whether the luxury brand deliberately set the gap with the general consumer goods or the general consumers.In this paper, based on the theory and research of facial expression, luxury and psychological distance, the theory of psychological distance is introduced to explain the mechanism. A total of 4 experiments were designed to explore the effect of facial expression stimuli on the perceived price of different types of goods and the mediating effect of psychological distance. Experiment 1 verifies the interaction effect of facial expression and product type on the perceived price of goods (H1). In Experiment 2, the effect of facial expression on four dimensions of psychological distance was verified, providing preliminary evidence of psychological distance as mediation (H2). Experiment 4 and experiment 3 verify the complete theoretical model (HI, H2 and H3). The results show that comparing to smile facial expressions, neutral facial expressions stimulate consumers for higher perceived price and willingness to pay of luxury, but for lower perceived price and willingness to pay of mass product. Particularly, psychological distance mediates the relationship between facial expression and the perceived price of goods.The current research analyses the different impact of facial expression on the perceived price of luxury and mass product, and enrich the theory of facial emotion and psychological distance. In the field of marketing practice, we suggest that creating the distance to receivers is the key of luxury advertising and marketing. By impressing consumers with negative facial expressions, they would be aware of the distance between luxury and mass product, and the distance between the upper class and common people, which will be benefit to shape luxury’s value.