Lynn R. Kahle (born 1950) is an American consumer psychologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business. From 2018 to 2020 he taught at the Lubin School of Business, Pace University in New York as a visiting scholar and professor.
Life Kahle grew up in Hillsboro, Oregon, in the Portland metro area and graduated from Concordia College (later Concordia University) in Portland. He then graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, with a master's degree. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and subsequently worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. Kahle joined the University of Oregon in 1983 as a professor teaching in the College of Business. In 1990, he made an unsuccessful run to serve in the Oregon House of Representatives to represent District 43 as a Democrat.
He was the Academic Director of the Applied Information Management (AIM) program at the University of Oregon. He previously served as President of the Society for Consumer Psychology, which he represented on the American Psychological Association (APA) Council of Representatives from 2014 to 2019. He chaired the APA Membership Board in 2019.
Kahle developed the List of ValuesKahle, Lynn R. (1986). "The Nine Nations of North America and the Value Basis of Geographic Segmentation," Journal of Marketing, 50 (April), 37-47 and has subsequently conducted research on values and lifestyles.Kahle, Lynn R., and Pierre Valette-Florence (2012). Marketplace Lifestyles in an Age of Social Media: Theory and Method. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. He performed as founding academic director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center and has done extensive research in sports marketing.Kahle, Lynn R., and Angeline Close, Eds. (2011). Consumer Behavior Knowledge for Effective Sports and Event Marketing. New York: Psychology Press / Routledge / Taylor & Francis. He has also studied consumption and sustainability,Kahle, Lynn R., and Eda Gurel-Atay, Eds. (2014). Communicating Sustainability for the Green Economy. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. as well as consumption and religion.Minton, Elizabeth, and Lynn R. Kahle (2014). Belief Systems, Religion, and Behavioral Economics: Marketing in Multicultural Environments. New York, NY: Business Expert Press. 160 pages. . He served as Editor in Chief for the APA Handbook of Consumer Psychology.Kahle, Lynn R., Lowrey, Tina, and Huber, Joel (Eds.). (2022). APA Handbook of Consumer Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Work Kahle has contributed to many concepts in consumer psychology, including: the match-up hypothesis,Herr, Paul M. and Kang, Yong-Soon (2006). "Beauty and the Beholder: Toward an Integrative Model of Communication Source Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, 1 June, 123-130. the role-relaxed consumer,Little, Patrick and Zuckerman, Marvin. (1986). "Personality and curiosity about morbid and sexual events," Personality and Individual Differences, 7(1), 49-56. the role of social values in consumption,Baumgartner, Hnas, and Rik Pieetrs (2008). "Goal-directed consumer behavior," in Curtis P. Haugvedt, Paul M. Herr, and Frank R. Kardes, Eds. Handbook of Consumer Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 367-394. attitude-behavior consistency,Bentler, Peter M., Flay, Brian R., Stacy, Alan W. (Jan, 1994). "Attitudes and health behavior in diverse populations: Drunk driving, alcohol use, binge eating, marijuana use, and cigarette use," Health Psychology, 13(1), 73-85.Kahle, Lynn R. and John J. Berman (1979). "Attitudes Cause Behavior: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 315-321. consumer thought processes,Kahle, Kevin E., and Lynn R. Kahle (2006). "Sports Celebrities’ Image: A Critical Evaluation of the Utility of Q Scores." In Lynn R. Kahle and C. H. Kim, Eds. Creating Images and the Psychology of Marketing Communication. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 191-200.Daghfous, Naoufel, Petrof, John V., Pons, Frank (1999). "Values and adoption of innovations: a cross-cultural study," Journal of Consumer Marketing, 16(4), 314-331.Eisert, Debra C. and Lynn R. Kahle (1986), "The Development of Social Attributions: An Integration of Probability and Logic," Human Development, 29, 61-81. lifestyle marketing,Valette-Florence, Pierre, Meenahagn, Tony, & Lynn R. Kahle, Lynn R. (2022). Lifestyle and Sport: Emulation Marketing. In Kahle, Lynn R., Lowrey, Tina, and Huber, Joel (Eds.). (2022). APA Handbook of Consumer Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp.233-263. stimulus condition self-selection,Robert Hogan, John Johnson, Stephen Briggs (1997). "Handbook of Personality Psychology," Academic Press. social mediaLucia A. Reisch, John Thogersen (2015). "Handbook of Research on Sustainable Consumption," Edward Elgar Publishing.Reynolds, Thomas J., Olson, Jerry C. (2001). "Understanding Consumer Decision Making: The Means-End Approach to Marketing and Advertising Strategy." Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mahwah, NJ. and sports fandom.Sports Marketing (2014). Human Kinetics, 4th ed.Kahle, Lynn R., Kenneth M. Kambara, and Gregory M. Rose (1996). "A Functional Model of Fan Attendance Motivations for College Football," Sport Marketing Quarterly, 5(Dec.), 51-60.
Kahle developed Social Adaptation theory,Kahle, Lynn R. and Pamela M. Homer (1985). "Physical Attractiveness of the Celebrity Endorser: A Social Adaptation Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, 11 (March), 954-961.Kahle, Lynn R. (1984). Attitudes and Social Adaptation: A Person- Situation Interaction Approach. Oxford, U.K.: Pergamon Press. which maintains that people's cognitive life facilitates their functioning in their social environments.Kahle, Lynn R. (1980). "Stimulus Condition Self-Selection by Males in the Interaction of Locus of Control and Skill-Chance Situations," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 50-56. Communications is most effective when it emphasizes connections to a person's values, attitudes, and lifestyles. Sports marketing, for example, most deeply influences people whose lifestyle emphasizes sports. In social adaptation theory people actively attend to messages that inform their values. Values shape attitudes, which in turn guide behaviors. Social media have encouraged clustering of and interactions among people who share lifestyles and values.Minton, Elizabeth, Christopher Lee, Ulrich Orth, C. H. Kim, and Lynn R. Kahle (2012). "Sustainable Marketing and Social Media: A Cross-Country Analysis of Motives for Sustainable Behaviors," Journal of Advertising, 41(4), 71-87. This theory has influenced work in marketing communication,Shimp, Terence A. (2010). "Advertising, Promotion, and other aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications." Eighth Edition. South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, OH. global marketing,Hennessey, Jeannet. (2001). "Global Marketing Strategies." Fifth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York. sports marketing,Mullin, Bernard J., Hardy, Stephen, Sutton, William. (2014). "Sports Marketing." Fourth Edition. retailing, and consumer behaviour.Solomon, Michael R. (2013). "Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being." 10th Edition. Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ. .
List of values Kahle's most widely adopted contribution to the field is the List of Values (LOV), a measurement instrument he introduced in 1983 as a parsimonious alternative to existing value scales for use in consumer research. The LOV comprises nine terminal social values self-respect, excitement, warm relationships with others, self-fulfillment, being well-respected, fun and enjoyment of life, security, sense of belonging, and sense of accomplishment drawn from earlier work by Milton Rokeach and Abraham Maslow but streamlined specifically for marketing and consumer psychology applications. A comparative study published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 1986 found that the LOV was in the public domain and related more closely to consumer behavior than the competing Values and Lifestyles|Values and Life Style (VALS) typology.
Subsequent research applied the LOV across multiple national contexts, including longitudinal tracking of social values in the United States from 1976 to 2017, and cross-cultural studies in Norway, Asia, and elsewhere. The instrument has been applied in research on sports fandom, sustainability, retail, gift-giving behavior, and religious values, and has been described by scholars as a widely used scale for the measurement of values in consumer behavior contexts.
APA handbook In 2022, Kahle served as Editor-in-Chief of the APA Handbook of Consumer Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, with Tina M. Lowrey of HEC Paris and Joel Huber of Duke University serving as Associate Editors. The 33-chapter reference volume provides a comprehensive survey of the field, including historical background and coverage of core and emerging literature across areas such as consumer cognition, affect, communication, demographic and psychographic characteristics, and post-purchase behavior. The handbook draws on contributions from a wide range of scholars in consumer psychology and is designed as a library reference work aimed at researchers, practitioners, and graduate students.
Personal life Kahle was married to pediatric psychologist Dr. Debra Eisert, a clinical professor at Oregon Health & Science University who specialised in the developmental assessment of children, for approximately four decades. The two occasionally collaborated on research, including work on social attribution and child development published in the journal Human Development. Eisert died of multiple myeloma in June 2017. They had two sons, Kevin and Kurtus.
Awards and honors Kahle has won numerous awards. This include: Engelhardt, Jim. (Jan/Feb, 2015). "UO Business: The Magazine." Lundquist College of Business, Eugene, OR.
The American Marketing Association Lifetime Achievement Award for the Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group. The Stotlar Award from the Sport Marketing Association, for lifetime contributions to education in sports business. The Distinguished Career Contributions to the Scientific Understanding of Sports Business from the American Marketing Association Sports Special Interest Group. The Thomas C. Stewart Distinguished Professor Award from the University of Oregon, awarded in 2014. The Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, received in 2018.
Bibliography
Selected Publications Kahle, Lynn R., Lowrey, Tina, and Huber, Joel (Eds.). (2022). APA Handbook of Consumer Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Kahle, Lynn R., and Eda Gurel-Atay, Eds. (2014). Communicating Sustainability for the Green Economy. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Minton, Elizabeth, and Lynn R. Kahle (2014). Belief Systems, Religion, and Behavioral Economics: Marketing in Multicultural Environments. New York, NY: Business Expert Press. 160 pages. . Stockard, Jean, Gaylene Carpenter, and Lynn R. Kahle (2014). "Continuity and Change in Values in Midlife: Testing the Age Stability Hypothesis," Experimental Aging Research, 40, 1-21. Gurel-Atay, Eda, Guang-Xin Xie, Johnny Chen, and Lynn R. Kahle (2010). "Changes in Social Values in the United States, 1976-2007." Journal of Advertising Research, 50(1), 57–67. Kahle, Lynn R., Raymond Liu, Gregory M. Rose, and Woo-Sung Kim (2000). "Dialectical Thinking in Consumer Decision Making." Journal of Consumer Psychology, 9(1), 53-58 Homer, Pamela M. and Lynn R. Kahle (1988). "A Structural Equation Test of the Value-Attitude-Behavior Hierarchy," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(April), 638–646. Kahle, Lynn R., Ed. (1983). Social Values and Social Change: Adaptation to Life in America. New York: Praeger. Gurel-Atay & Kahle (2019), "Consumer Social Values" Routledge.
References