Chinese consumer behavior: The effects of content, process, and language

This article focuses on the psychology of Chinese consumer behaviour. It reviews the 'content' of Chinese culture and its implications for consumer behaviour, focusing on the norms, beliefs, and values that Chinese cultural representatives are likely to hold and the conditions in which they are likely to be applied. Although some of the discussion in this article necessarily duplicates material presented in more detail elsewhere, it provides a framework for conceptualizing much of the current research on consumer behaviour. It further examines a factor that influences both the content and processing of information that consumers are likely to encounter, namely, the language in which information is received and communicated. Although the work reviewed here was largely conducted on Chinese individuals, the study also draws upon data obtained from other East Asian societies that are likely to be similar in terms of the characteristics being considered.