Yetkin tüketici: Başarı hedefi teorisi ve tüketici değerlendirmeleri

Competence, which is the feeling of being efficacious towards an action, is an inherent human motive and is one of the most fundamental aspects that individuals look for when making social judgments. Being perceived as competent is also crucial for companies. Competence is a central factor that consumers search for when evaluating brands and is one of the main factors that determine consumers' purchase intentions. Even though competence is a core assessment element for consumers and is a central pillar for firms, research still has not looked into how consumers themselves view competence and how it may affect their behavior in the marketplace. In my dissertation I base my framework on achievement goal theory to understand how the way consumers construe competence would affect their evaluations. The first essay of my dissertation focuses on a context in which the construct of competence is most explicitly used: comparative advertising. In this essay, I focus on achievement goal theory's effect on determining the effectiveness of direct versus indirect comparative advertising claims. In my second essay, I investigate motivational determinants of consumers' tendency to engage in brand dilution by looking into the interplay of achievement goal theory and self-brand connection.