124 M. Lam, W. Liu, C.K. To / Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 2-3 (2011) 124-136 Putting Assumed Emotion in Fashion Brand Literacy: Understanding Brand-Identity Relationship in the Interdependent Asian Context ： Man-lok Lam* 1) , Wing-sun Liu 2) , Chester Kin-Man To 3) Abstract Over the past decade, consumer researchers have been inter- ested in understanding symbolic relationship between consumers and brands, especially on identity construction (Elliott and Wattanasuwan, 1998; Escalas and Bettman, 2005; Kirmani, 2009) and its implications on brand management (Arvidsson, 2005; Holt, 2002; 2004). Following a cultural-psychological view to study how culture shapes brand-identity relationship, Eckhardt (2000) addresses that little attention have been paid to understand consumer behavior within interdependent cultures when compare with the prolific account of western literatures that reported the consumption behavior with an independent self- construal. This paper strives to address this absence through research- ing how a group of Chinese youngsters internalize their cul- tural values with a sense of assumed emotion and developed local specific brand literacy towards fashion brands’ perception and consumption. Following Bengtsson and Firat (2006)’s con- cept of brand literacy, this interpretative research aims to ex- tend our current understanding of symbolic brand consumption and brand-identity relationship in particular to the inter- dependent Asian context. The literature review discusses pre- vious studies on brand symbolism in formulating brand-identity relationship and how social psychological understanding of in- terdependent construal of self can be applied to consumer researches. The cultural characteristics of Chinese consumers are also discussed with reference to previous indigenous con- sumer researches on symbolic brand consumption. As part of a greater project on fashion and brand con- sumption experience among young Chinese in Guangzhou, 18 Chinese volunteers aged around 20 are recruited from local universities and colleges and become the main research informants. The fieldwork is conducted in Guangzhou. In-depth interviews and participant observations are the main data col- lection method. Triangulation analysis technique has been adopted to review and cross-check data collected. 1) * Corresponding author: Graduate Research Student, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, E-mail: magnum_lam@hotmail.com, Tel: +852 9662 0133 2) Lecturer, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, E-mail: tcliuws@inet.polyu.edu.hk, Tel: +852 2766 6444 3) Assistant Professor, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, E-mail: tcliuws@inet.polyu.edu. hk, Tel: +852 2766 6533 Ⓒ 2011 KAMS. All rights reserved. Our findings and discussions demonstrate different di- mensions of assumed emotion (Hu, 1949) among the Chinese youngsters in structuring their brand literacy. We discuss how cultural concern towards their social identities, including as stu- dents, sons/daughters, friends, and changing identities expected in the future, may significantly impact the youngsters’ fashion and brand value, perception and consumption. Through sym- bolic consumption, the Chinese youngsters depict a sense of culturally specific fashion and brand knowledge as demon- strated in their fashion choice, taste and consumption, in a way that is culturally appropriate in fitting themselves in a complex social network. Guided by this sense of assumed emotion, Chinese youngsters adopt the signs and meanings em- bedded in brand names and its associated symbols to engage in the different social situations within their cultural setting. This has resulted in a different construct of brand literacy within the interdependent cultural context. An emergent theme is also found as there is a major difference in fashion brands perceptions and choices between the urbanities (i.e. Guangzhou localities) and peripheries (i.e. outsiders) because of a cultural difference in constructing their cosmopolitan identities (Thompson and Tambyah, 1999). To conclude, this study has contributed to our understanding of brand-identity relationship in the interdependent Asian context. Consumers in the eastern cultures tend to be subjected to integrate a larger socio-cultural context than maintaining in- dividualistic pleasures as in western cultures. A greater concern of understanding the assumed emotion and how consumers as- serted their social identities with symbolic fashion and brand consumption would be a key to understand the consumption cultures with interdependent self-construal. Keywords: Interdependent self-construal, Chinese consumers, Brand literacy, Assumed emotion, Qualitative consumer re- search ， ， (Elliott and Wattanasuwan, 1998; Escalas and Bettman, 2005; Kirmani, 2009) (Arvidsson, 2005; Holt, 2002; 2004)。 ， Eckhardt (2000) 。 ， ， 。