This
research utilizes implementation of classic methods for systematic data
collection using the medium of the Internet to investigate the idea of culture
as a shared cognitive semantic structure. We used the material domain of
automobile manufacturer brand names to investigate our intuition that a shared
understanding exists within the American culture and is pervasive across a
diversity of demographic groups. Semantic structure information for 48
automobile manufacturer brand names was obtained using two association tasks
(free-list and pile-sort) for a sample of 927 English-speaking United States
residents recruited from online sources. Using this data, we estimate the
shared structure of perceived similarity among automobile brands within the
sampled population, and investigate the extent to which this structure reflects
a cultural consensus, which is shared across demographic groups. Employing multidimensional scaling methods,
we explore the properties of this structure and provide our
interpretation in terms of known brand attributes. Via an additional
instrument, we also measure subjects' tendency to
infer that novel information regarding one brand will be causally relevant for
assessing the properties of other brands. We use this data to test the
hypothesis that closely associated brands are seen as causally relevant, net of
objective factors such as ownership by the same firm.
Major
findings include the following: (i) a comparison of semantic structures on the
semantic domain of automobile brand names among subjects shows strong consensus
with little variation across demographic groups, (ii) the different elicitation
methods give strong convergent results, (iii) the detectable properties in
determining semantic structure are region of origin and perceived brand
luxuriousness, and (iv) the semantic structure of automobile brand names shows
weak correlation between closely associated brands and causal relevancy.
These
results show that knowledge of the domain of automobile manufacturer brand
names is representative of a systemic pattern with significant cultural
investment, and
that administration of cognitive association methods via an Internet-based instrument
is appropriate for measuring these less intuitive domains and are adequate for
producing large and diverse samples across vast geographic distances.
Namanh, H (2020). Shared Semantic Structures for Automobile Brands among U.S. Residents. Afribary.com: Retrieved January 24, 2021, from https://afribary.com/works/shared-semantic-structures-for-automobile-brands-among-u-s-residents
Hoang, Namanh. "Shared Semantic Structures for Automobile Brands among U.S. Residents" Afribary.com. Afribary.com, 18 Dec. 2020, https://afribary.com/works/shared-semantic-structures-for-automobile-brands-among-u-s-residents . Accessed 24 Jan. 2021.
Hoang, Namanh. "Shared Semantic Structures for Automobile Brands among U.S. Residents". Afribary.com, Afribary.com, 18 Dec. 2020. Web. 24 Jan. 2021. < https://afribary.com/works/shared-semantic-structures-for-automobile-brands-among-u-s-residents >.
Hoang, Namanh. "Shared Semantic Structures for Automobile Brands among U.S. Residents" Afribary.com (2020). Accessed January 24, 2021. https://afribary.com/works/shared-semantic-structures-for-automobile-brands-among-u-s-residents