“Instantaneously Hotter: The Dynamic Revision of Beauty Assessment Standards,” a research paper co-authored by Carey Business School Assistant Professor Haiyang Yang, was awarded the Franco Nicosia Best Competitive Paper Award by the Association for Consumer Research.
The ACR is the leading academic organization for behavioral research in marketing, their mission being to advance consumer research and facilitate the exchange of scholarly information among members of academia, industry, and government worldwide.
The paper shows that beauty is an instantaneously and dynamically constructed notion. The researchers found that study participants automatically modified their beauty assessment standards when they were exposed to others’ aesthetic views, even if those views differed from their own. Participants’ subsequent judgments of beauty converged toward the average taste, although previously they did not know others’ evaluations of those targets and their judgments were anonymous and free from social pressure. Without prior exposures to others’ aesthetic views, however, participants did not converge towards the average taste. These findings thus demonstrate a micro-level mechanism of how shifts in aesthetic views occur at the macro, societal level.
The paper, written by Yang along with Leonard Lee of the National University of Singapore, was selected from 545 competitive paper submissions to the 2014 conference of the Association for Consumer Research.
Haiyang Yang, PhD (Marketing, INSEAD), joined the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2013. He is an Assistant Professor in the Research Track with expertise in the areas of marketing and decision making. His other publication include: “Pursuing Attainment versus Maintenance Goals: The Interplay of Self-Construal and Goal Type on Consumer Motivation,” “Unconscious Creativity: When can Unconscious Thought Outperform Conscious Thought,” “The Hot-Cold Decision Triangle: A Framework for Healthier Choices,” and “For Whom is Parting from Possessions More Painful: Cultural Differences in the Endowment Effect.”