interdependent), Easterners (more interdependent) are more likely to use appearance enhancing products and tools to adhere to societal norms. Conformity and Self-discrepancy Having established our expectations about the influence of interdependence on the use of appearance-enhancing products and tools, we next delve deeper into the psychological mechanism underlying this effect. Specifically, we ask: How does interdependents’ need to conform to norms affect their pursuit of beauty? A stronger need to conform to normative ideals would invariably make norms more salient as it directs one’s attention to what is widely accepted socially (Savani et al. 2015; Torelli 2006). Thus, interdependents’ need to conform to norms would make beauty related ideals in the society salient in their mind. More importantly, CULTURE & BEAUTY 12 this salience of beauty related norms may heighten the perceived difference between the societal ideals of beauty and the assessment of their current state of beauty. This is consistent with prior research that showed that interdependents’ need to conform to societal norms may make the required ideal standards salient, thus heightening the perceived gap between the current state (actual) and the ideal standard (Lee, Aaker, and Gardner 2000), leading to selfdiscrepancy. Self-discrepancy, defined as the incongruity between how one perceives oneself and how one desires to view oneself (Higgins 1987), is a powerful driver of consumer behaviour (Mandel et al. 2017). In general, everyone strives to maintain stable self-views, and experiencing discrepancy in domains such as self-esteem (Crocker and Park 2004), intelligence, power, and belongingness in a social context (Lee and Shrum 2012) triggers a motivational urge to reduce that discrepancy. In the domain of beauty, the motivation to conform to societal norms may lead to heightened self-discrepancy between the ideal beauty standards revered by the society and how beautiful women perceive themselves to be. This may prompt consumers with a stronger interdependent self to use different ways and means to reduce this feeling of self-discrepancy, such as the usage of readily available appearance enhancement tools and products. Use of such products may help them believe that they are moving closer to the ideal standards of beauty, thus reducing the feeling of perceived self-discrepancy. Hence, we hypothesize the psychological mechanism underlying the effect as follows: H2a: Compared to Westerners (less interdependent), Easterners (more interdependent) will be more motivated to conform to social norms in the domain of beauty, leading to heightened self-discrepancy. H2b: Heightened self-discrepancy among Easterners (more interdependent) will result in a greater use of appearance enhancing tools and products. CULTURE & BEAUTY 13 Tightness and Looseness of Norms H1 and H2 predict that a stronger interdependent self-construal leads to greater motivation to conform to beauty related norms and subsequently, heightened self-discrepancy. From a societal point of view, this is not necessarily a desirable phenomenon as it could lead to a surge in objectification, pre-occupation with appearance, body and face shaming, and various other physical and psychological negative consequences (Kim, Young, and Keun 2014; Markey and Markey 2012). This begs the question: how can we reduce interdependents’ potentially harmful pursuit of beauty? We explore a boundary condition for the observed effect. Specifically, we investigate if interdependent consumers can be motivated to not adhere to social norms by changing the norm itself. In other words, what if policy makers could change what is considered normative? H1 argues that those high in interdependence are more likely to use appearanceenhancing products as they are motivated to adhere to social norms. However, social norms of behaviour can vary in strength and perceived to be tight or loose. Gelfand et al. (2011) differentiate between “tight” and “loose” cultures as those with strong social norms and demanding adherence (tight) vs. those with weak social norms and high tolerance for nonconforming behaviour (loose) (Gelfand, Nishii, and Raver 2006; Torelli and Rodas 2017). Applying this to the current research, situations or contexts with tight norms about physical appearance will drive greater adherence (and hence enhanced usage of appearance enhancing tools), compared to situations or contexts with loose norms of physical appearance. We posit that the extent to which interdependent consumers feel a strong pressure to adhere to beauty norms would influence their motivation to use beauty-enhancing products to bridge the idealactual beauty gap. As discussed, those high in interdependence have a