Professor Zhou Rongrong from HKUST Gave Lecture in WHU

On May 6, Professor Zhou Rongrong from the Department of Marketing of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) gave an academic lecture entitled “the Effect of Construal Level on Consumers' Wait Duration Judgment” for students and faculty of the School of Economics and Management.

Professor Zhou Rongrong said that in order to obtain certain products and services, consumers are often required to wait, and consumers’ perception of the wait duration may vary. Previous studies mainly focused on the impact of situational factors on people’s perception of wait duration, whereas Professor Zhou Rongrong believes that construal level (abstract vs. concrete) of the consumers will affect their waiting experience. By default, people tend to use subjective feelings to judge the length of waiting time. Consumers with low construal level generally have shorter perception of waiting time, but when subjective feeling is inaccessible or difficult to diagnose, it will trigger the method of spirit mark for consumers with low construal level to judge their wait time, thus lengthening the perception of waiting time. Then, Professor Zhou verified the above-mentioned hypothesis with 5 experiments.