EXPRESS: Culture-mixing consumption and well-being: A mixed-methods approach

Research on culture mixing has largely examined evaluative responses to culturally hybrid offerings, leaving their broader psychological consequences underexplored. Drawing on cultural semiotics, this research develops and tests a meaning-based framework linking culture-mixing consumption to consumer well-being through three pathways: self-expression, self-expansion, and pragmatic ease. Study 1, an in-depth interview study conducted in China, provides qualitative grounding for the framework. Study 2, a cross-national survey across China and the U.S., confirms all three pathways and reveals that concerns about cultural respect selectively amplify the self-expression pathway in China but not in the U.S. Study 3, an experiment manipulating culture-mixing exposure across five product categories, provides experimental evidence consistent with the proposed mediation pathways. Study 4 additionally manipulates concerns about cultural respect to test the proposed moderation experimentally. Together, these findings extend culture-mixing research beyond evaluative outcomes, establish cultural semiotics as a mechanism-generating framework, and offer actionable guidance for globally differentiated marketing strategy.