Presentation Title
Identity Signaling and Conversational Taboos
Panel Name
Identity Politics in the Workplace and in the Courts of the Land and Public Opinion
Location
Lecture Centre Concourse
Start Date
3-5-2019 3:00 PM
End Date
3-5-2019 5:00 PM
Presentation Type
Poster Session
Academic Major
Business, Business Administration
Abstract
People talk about many things, but there are things they are uncomfortable talking about/are not socially acceptable to talk about. For example, wealth, religion, politics, are all socially unacceptable to talk about, but are still things that people want to communicate or want to learn about others. The purpose is to determine whether people will use products as signals to communicate these taboo topics to other people. We do this by examining whether people are more likely to wear products that communicate these taboo topics when they know that they will be unable to talk with others about them.
We test this in a scenario study. In both of the scenarios, it is postulated that participants are newcomers of a college fraternity. In the first scenario, participants were asked how they are going to act in a fraternity party for newcomers where they must talk. In the second scenario, participants were asked how they are going to act in a fraternity party for newcomers where they must not talk at all. Any member who breaches the rules would be penalized severely. After reading each scenario, every participant was asked to answer a questionnaire assessing how likely they would be to wear products that communicated their views on a variety of taboo topics.
Select Where This Work Originated From
Independent Study
Award
Presidential Award
First Faculty Advisor
Hillary Wiener
First Advisor Email
hwiener@albany.edu
First Advisor Department
Marketing
The work you will be presenting can best be described as
Finished or mostly finished by conference date
Identity Signaling and Conversational Taboos
Lecture Centre Concourse
People talk about many things, but there are things they are uncomfortable talking about/are not socially acceptable to talk about. For example, wealth, religion, politics, are all socially unacceptable to talk about, but are still things that people want to communicate or want to learn about others. The purpose is to determine whether people will use products as signals to communicate these taboo topics to other people. We do this by examining whether people are more likely to wear products that communicate these taboo topics when they know that they will be unable to talk with others about them.
We test this in a scenario study. In both of the scenarios, it is postulated that participants are newcomers of a college fraternity. In the first scenario, participants were asked how they are going to act in a fraternity party for newcomers where they must talk. In the second scenario, participants were asked how they are going to act in a fraternity party for newcomers where they must not talk at all. Any member who breaches the rules would be penalized severely. After reading each scenario, every participant was asked to answer a questionnaire assessing how likely they would be to wear products that communicated their views on a variety of taboo topics.