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Unintended effects of algorithmic transparency: The mere prospect of an explanation can foster the illusion of understanding how an algorithm works Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-03-17 Massimiliano Ostinelli, Andrea Bonezzi, Monika Lisjak
This research shows that merely believing that one can access an explanation of how an algorithm works can foster an illusory sense of understanding the algorithm, even when people do not actually access and read the explanation. This effect occurs because the belief that one can access an explanation provides a feeling of empowerment that fosters an illusory sense of understanding. In turn, this illusory
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Historizing the present: Research agenda and implications for consumer behavior Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Dafna Goor, Anat Keinan, Nailya Ordabayeva
This paper conceptualizes the phenomenon of historizing the present, defined as emphasizing the historical significance of present events and treating the present from the perspective of history. The authors identify four modes of historizing the present (emphasizing that: (1) the present will shape history; (2) the present is a unique moment in history; (3) the present will be remembered in history;
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Friendship fallout and bailout backlash: The psychology of borrowing and lending Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Ashley N. Angulo, Noah J. Goldstein, Michael I. Norton
Six studies explore the psychology of borrowing and lending. Across two different contexts—friends lending to friends and taxpayers bailing out businesses—lenders are angrier with borrowers who specifically make hedonic (as opposed to utilitarian) purchases with loaned money. This anger is pronounced enough that lenders' negative feelings toward borrowers who made past hedonic (vs. utilitarian) purchases
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A review of touch research in consumer psychology Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Aradhna Krishna, Andrea Webb Luangrath, Joann Peck
This article details the theoretical foundation of haptics in consumer research. We structure the review using a continuum from proximal touch-based interactions to increasingly distal interactions through devices, imagery, or language use. We begin with a focus on product/object touch in marketing highlighting touch for haptic information, touch for haptic pleasure, and touch for nonhaptic functional
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Avoiding embarrassment online: Response to and inferences about chatbots when purchases activate self-presentation concerns Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Jianna Jin, Jesse Walker, Rebecca Walker Reczek
We explore how self-presentation concerns and the desire to avoid embarrassment impact two distinct types of interactions consumers have with chatbots: interactions when a chatbot's identity is (1) not disclosed and therefore ambiguous or (2) disclosed. We propose that consumers feel less embarrassed with a chatbot than a human service agent in purchase contexts where self-presentation concerns are
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When do photos on products hurt or help consumption? How magical thinking shapes consumer reactions to photo-integrated products Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Freeman Wu, Adriana Samper, Andrea C. Morales, Gavan J. Fitzsimons
Consumers and companies frequently integrate products with lifelike photographs of people, animals, and other entities. However, consumer responses to such products are relatively unknown. Drawing on magical thinking and moral psychology, we propose that, due to a photograph's lifelike resemblance to its referent, consumers believe that photo-integrated products embody the depicted entity's underlying
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The different roads not taken: Considering diverse foregone alternatives motivates future goal persistence Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Hye-young Kim, Oleg Urminsky
Decisions are rarely made in isolation. Instead, deliberation often occurs in the context of prior related choices. This article finds that goal-inconsistent foregone alternatives, options that were previously considered but not chosen, shape how consumers subsequently pursue their goals. Going beyond previous research on foregone alternatives and consumer satisfaction, the current research suggests
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The anticipated regret of a lost opportunity: When adding a second-period incentive reduces the appeal of a one-period promotion Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Yuanyuan (Jamie) Li, Chris Janiszewski, Yuanyuan Liu
Economic theory assumes that an improvement in the financial benefit of a promotional offer should increase the appeal of the offer (e.g., $25 incentive >$20 incentive). Four studies show that this assumption does not always hold. A two-period promotion (e.g., $20 off a purchase today plus $5 off a purchase made next month) is valued less than a one-period promotion (e.g., $20 off a purchase today)
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More the merrier: Effects of plural brand names on perceived entitativity and brand attitude Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-12 Tanvi Gupta, Shirley (Shuo) Chen, Smaraki Mohanty
This research finds evidence for a plural name advantage on brand attitude. Six studies, including two archival datasets with real market brands and four experiments using fictitious brands, show that brands with plural names (e.g., Dunkin' Donuts) are associated with more favorable brand attitude than brands with singular names (e.g., Dunkin' Donut). This plural brand name advantage is driven by perceptions
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Man up! The mental health-feminine stereotype and its effect on the adoption of mental health apps Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Jaewoo Lee, Remi Trudel
Mental illnesses are among the most frequent health conditions worldwide, affecting both men and women. However, we find that men are more likely than women to avoid adopting mobile apps that are designed to promote users' mental health. Building on previous research that men are often more motivated than women to behave in gender-congruent ways, we suggest that there exists a mental health-feminine
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The over-diversification effect: Enhancement in perceived heterogeneity of multiple (vs. single)-others' preferences Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Ritesh Saini, Dian Wang, Haipeng (Allan) Chen
Consumers often make decisions for multiple-others when they do not know each one's true preferences. Under such circumstances, we demonstrate perceptions of enhanced preference heterogeneity for multiple-others, relative to the perceived preference of single-others. As a result, choices for multiple-others are more diversified than those for single-others. We attribute this effect to the perceived
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Consumption sacrifice Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Ximena Garcia-Rada, Tami Kim, Peggy J. Liu
Much marketing research focuses on what individual consumers need or want for consumption and how they satisfy these needs or wants themselves. However, consumers often give up money, time, or preferences to help others address their consumption needs and wants across the customer journey. The authors introduce the unifying construct of “consumption sacrifice,” defined as the willing and intentional
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An integrative theory of resource discrepancies Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Christopher Cannon, Kelly Goldsmith, Caroline Roux
A great deal of work in consumer psychology has been devoted to understanding how individuals manage resource discrepancies. This includes tangible resources – such as money, food, and products – as well as intangible resources – such as time, skills, and social relationships. Resource discrepancies can either be positive – as in the case of having substantial wealth – or negative – as in the case
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JCP: The next mile Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 David B. Wooten, Rajesh Bagchi, Aparna Labroo
We are honored to serve as Editors of the Journal of Consumer Psychology (JCP), accepting the baton from Lauren Block, Jennifer Argo, and Tom Kramer and continuing down the path of excellence that they and their predecessors have forged for the journal. Prior editors sought to define the journal's scope (e.g., Block et al., 2020; Wyer & Shavitt, 2002), improve its operational efficiency (e.g., Maheswaran
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How rejected recommendations shape recommenders' future product intentions Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-12-02 Matthew J. Hall, Jamie D. Hyodo, Kirk Kristofferson
When a consumer (a recommender) recommends a product to another consumer (a recommendee), it is not uncommon to learn whether the recommendee chose the recommended option (i.e., accepted the recommendation) or a different option (i.e., rejected the recommendation). Our research examines how rejected recommendations affect recommenders' subsequent intentions toward the originally recommended product
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Trying too hard or not hard enough: How effort shapes status Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Nathan B. Warren, Caleb Warren
Is trying to earn status effective or self-defeating? We show that whether effort increases or decreases admiration and respect (i.e., status) depends on how the person is trying to earn status. Groups evaluate people along multiple status dimensions (e.g., wealth, coolness). Each dimension is associated with a different ideology, or set of beliefs, that ascribe status to behaviors that contribute
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Reconsidering the path for neural and physiological methods in consumer psychology Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-11-21 John A. Clithero, Uma R. Karmarkar, Gideon Nave, Hilke Plassmann
Recent decades have witnessed a burst of neuroscience research investigating mental and physiological processes central to consumer behavior, including sensory perception, memory, and decision making. Nonetheless, few publications that include neural and physiological measures, or develop conceptual frameworks around neuroscience principles, have been published in consumer psychology. It is clear that
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The moral superiority of temporal (vs. social) comparisons Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-11-13 Sokiente W. Dagogo-Jack
Brands often encourage consumers to compare themselves to two types of standards: other people (i.e., social comparisons) and their own past (i.e., temporal comparisons). Although research has drawn many parallels between these two self-comparisons, relatively little work has examined how they diverge. Moreover, existing research on their differences focuses on individuals engaging in—rather than brands
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Snyre for your nasal congestion: Using phonesthemes to imbue non-word brand names with meaning Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-11-10 Stacey Brennan, Jasmina Ilicic, Shai Danziger
A brand name is a fundamental component of a brand's identity. This research introduces a novel linguistic tool for brand name creation: phonesthemes—sound and spelling letter clusters that are associated with one dominant meaning. For instance, sn, one of over 140 phonesthemes in English, consistently appears in words related to the nose or breathing (sneeze, sniff, snort). Six experiments reveal
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Commentaries on “Reconsidering the path for neural and physiological methods in consumer psychology” Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 J. Wesley Hutchinson, Martin Reimann, Brian Knutson, Joel Huber
The initial version of the article by Clithero, Karmarkar, Nave, and Plassmann (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2024) was critiqued by open comments from a small group of scholars. Their suggestions encouraged the authors to clarify challenging relationships between brain processes and emotions, beliefs, and actions. The revision expanded fMRI and EEG to include measures of vision, facial expression
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So bad it's good: When and why consumers prefer bad options Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-11-05 Evan Weingarten, Amit Bhattacharjee, Patti Williams
The assumption that consumers prefer better quality options over worse ones seems almost definitional. However, a variety of marketplace examples suggest that consumers sometimes choose content that is “so bad it's good,” such as Tommy Wiseau's The Room or Rebecca Black's “Friday,” over apparently better alternatives (e.g., those of mediocre quality). In 12 preregistered studies (N = 5393) across several
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When cash costs you: The pain of holding coins over banknotes Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-11-05 Jay Zenkić, Nicole L. Mead, Kobe Millet
We hypothesize that the physical characteristics of cash lead to differences in “pain of holding” which influences spending. In one field study (rural India) and two controlled experiments (N = 1710), we tested that hypothesis by endowing people with coins or equivalently valued banknotes and measuring their pain of holding and spending. Holding denomination constant (e.g., $1 coins vs. $1 banknotes)
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Chatbots and mental health: Insights into the safety of generative AI Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp, Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp, Stefano Puntoni
Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers. Due to the “black box” nature of the algorithms, it is impossible to predict in advance how these conversations will unfold. Behavioral research provides little insight into potential safety issues emerging from the current rapid deployment of this technology at scale. We begin to address this urgent question by focusing
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The making of Homo Honoratus: From omission to commission Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-10-20 Michael Hallsworth, John A. List, Robert D. Metcalfe, Kristian Rotaru, Ivo Vlaev
This study investigates how people's tendency to avoid action, known as “omission bias,” influences their financial decisions, specifically in the context of debt repayment to the UK government. Using a randomized controlled trial, we communicated with individuals who owed money, employing two distinct message framings. The omission-framed message suggested that nonresponse was seen as inadvertent
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Presenting time-series data as absolute versus relative changes impacts judgments and choices Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-10-16 Geoff Tomaino, Daniel J. Walters
We examined how different ways of presenting time-series data affect consumer judgments and behaviors. Specifically, we compared the use of absolute terms (e.g., actual dollar change) versus relative terms (e.g., annual percentage change) in charts. Our findings revealed that absolute charts tend to have a more positive visual slope than relative charts, leading consumers to extrapolate these trends
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Consumer insights from text analysis Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Grant Packard, Sarah G. Moore, Jonah Berger
Language, whether spoken or written, is fundamental to the consumer experience. It is how consumers express their thoughts, articulate choices, negotiate with others, and receive information about products or services. And it is how marketers deliver persuasion attempts, make apologies, and build relationships with consumers. Language has also long been a powerful research tool. Scholars have used
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Let's speculate about it: When and why consumers want to discuss mystery products Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-09-24 Aleksandra Kovacheva, Hillary J. D. Wiener
Research suggests that mystery products can be appealing to consumers and can motivate interest and purchase. In this paper, we examine a different benefit of these offerings—their effect on driving conversation. We propose that such products can prompt a conversation due to their ability to motivate joint speculation, or the process of thinking about possible resolutions of the uncertainty with others
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Mind over minutes: The effect of task duration consideration on task delay Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-09-20 Libby YoungJin Chun, Christophe Lembregts, Bram Van den Bergh
Would highlighting that a customer review can be completed in 3 min influence a customer's decision to either promptly submit their review or delay it, with the potential risk of forgetting it altogether? Despite the popular approach of using task duration to mitigate task delay, the empirical support for this method is scant. This study investigates the effect of considering task duration (i.e., how
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How duration of storage affects food waste behavior Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-09-20 Vivian (Jieru) Xie, Rajesh Bagchi
We investigate how duration of storage affects food waste behavior. We propose and demonstrate a negative impact of duration of storage: even when two packaged food products are otherwise identical (i.e., same manufacturing/expiration dates, not expired, and unopened), the product that has been stored for a longer duration under current ownership is more likely to be wasted and is likely to be wasted
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Can rounding up price discounts reduce sales? Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Subhash Jha, Abhijit Biswas, Abhijit Guha, Dinesh Gauri
Some retailers round up price discounts, such as displaying a 7.7% discount as an 8% discount. In such instances, lay beliefs would suggest that displaying an 8% discount (vs. a 7.7% discount) would increase purchase intentions. In this research report, however, we show that displaying a rounded-up, higher-value discount (8%) versus a more precise but lower-value discount (7.7%) reduces purchase intentions
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Product-facilitated conversations: When does starting a conversation by mentioning a product lead to better conversational outcomes? Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Hillary J. D. Wiener, James R. Bettman, Mary Frances Luce
This paper examines product-facilitated conversations. In three studies, we show that the products consumers publicly display influence how other consumers start conversations with them and how enjoyable and self-disclosing these conversations are. Study 1 is an experiment in the field that shows that product-facilitated conversations are deeper and more enjoyable than non-product-facilitated ones
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Climate action now: How to fuel a social movement Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Lama Lteif, Gia Nardini, Tracy Rank-Christman, Lauren Block, Melissa G. Bublitz, Jesse R. Catlin, Samantha N. N. Cross, Anne Hamby, Laura A. Peracchio
Our research develops a framework that explores how to fuel the climate movement by accelerating grassroots, community-based climate action. Drawing on insights from consumer psychology, our framework identifies the psychological mechanisms that encourage and motivate people, both individually and collectively, to take climate action, thereby contributing to our understanding of how to advance social
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Reversing the denomination effect in tipping contexts Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-08-30 Jay Zenkić, Jing Lei, Kobe Millet, Jeff D. Rotman
American consumers tip $36bn annually, predominantly using small sums of cash. Yet, little is known about how the denominations of cash affect tipping behavior. In contrast to existing findings on the spending of different denominations (i.e., the denomination effect), we posit that consumers are less likely to tip smaller (vs. larger) denominations (e.g., $1 in 4 × 25¢ coins vs. a $1 banknote) to
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MindMiner: Uncovering linguistic markers of mind perception as a new lens to understand consumer–smart object relationships Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Jochen Hartmann, Anouk Bergner, Christian Hildebrand
Prior research revealed a striking heterogeneity of how consumers view smart objects, from seeing them as helpful partners to merely a useful tool. We draw on mind perception theory to assess whether the attribution of mental states to smart objects reveals differences in consumer–smart object relationships and device usage. We train a language model to unobtrusively predict mind perception in smart
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Commentaries on “Beyond statistical significance: Five principles for the new era of data analysis and reporting” Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-26 Norbert Schwarz, Fritz Strack, Andrew Gelman, Stijn M. J. van Osselaer, Joel Huber
Three commentaries below provide different perspectives on data analysis and reporting. They generally focus on how the quality of the measures and manipulations determines the value of the analysis. Norbert Schwarz and Fritz Strack's comment is less on the right statistic and more on “sloppy reasoning, gaps between theoretical concepts and their operationalizations, and blissful ignorance of the situated
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The effect of subjectivity and objectivity in online reviews: A convolutional neural network approach Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Sang Kyu Park, Taikgun Song, Aner Sela
User reviews are now an essential source of information for consumers, exerting strong influence on purchase decisions. Broadly speaking, reviews rated by consumers as more helpful exert a greater influence downstream. The current research examines how the linguistic characteristics of a review affect its helpfulness score. Using a convolutional neural network (CNN), this research analyzes the linguistic
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Beyond statistical significance: Five principles for the new era of data analysis and reporting Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-24 Michel Wedel, David Gal
A crisis of confidence in research findings in consumer psychology and other academic disciplines has led to various proposals to abandon, replace, strengthen, or supplement the null hypothesis significance testing paradigm. The proliferation of such proposals, and their often-conflicting recommendations, can increase confusion among researchers. We aim to bring some clarity by proposing five simple
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Speedy activists: How firm response time to sociopolitical events influences consumer behavior Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-24 Jimin Nam, Maya Balakrishnan, Julian De Freitas, Alison Wood Brooks
Organizations face growing pressure from their consumers and stakeholders to take public stances on sociopolitical issues. However, many are hesitant to do so lest they make missteps, promises they cannot keep, appear inauthentic, or alienate consumers, employees, or other stakeholders. Here we investigate consumers' impressions of firms that respond quickly or slowly to sociopolitical events. Using
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PassivePy: A tool to automatically identify passive voice in big text data Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Amir Sepehri, Mitra Sadat Mirshafiee, David M. Markowitz
The academic study of grammatical voice (e.g., active and passive voice) has a long history in the social sciences. It has been examined in relation to psychological distance, attribution, credibility, and deception. Most evaluations of passive voice are experimental or small-scale field studies, however, and perhaps one reason for its lack of adoption is the difficulty associated with obtaining valid
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But it was supposed to be healthy! How expected and actual nutritional value affect the content and linguistic characteristics of online reviews for food products Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-09 Yiru Wang, Xun Xu, Christina A. Kuchmaner, Ran Xu
Consumers are choosing to purchase food products from retailers through online channels rather than brick-and-mortar channels. While online reviews play a crucial role in influencing online purchases, scant work has examined how consumers write reviews for food products. We argue that the nutritional value of the food is a key aspect of product performance and apply expectation-disconfirmation theory
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How construal–regulatory mode fit increases social media sharing Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-06 Thuy Pham, Felix Septianto, Frank Mathmann, Hyun Seung Jin, E. Tory Higgins
How can social media managers engage consumers to share posts with others? Extending regulatory mode theory, we demonstrate that high construal levels enable the integration of regulatory mode complementarity orientations, resulting in engagement and shares. Regulatory mode complementarity refers to the combination of high assessment (i.e., the motivation to “be right” by critically evaluating options)
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Perceived corruption reduces algorithm aversion Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Noah Castelo
Scholarship on when and why humans are willing to rely on algorithms rather than other humans has made substantial progress in recent years, although virtually all such research is based on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) research participants. This limits efforts to understand the cultural generalizability of attitudes toward algorithms. In this paper, I study algorithm
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How communication mediums shape the message Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-07-01 Demi Oba, Jonah Berger
Communication is an integral part of everyday life. Consumers chat with friends, search for information, and complain to customer service. Salespeople pitch products, employees answer questions, and market researchers ask them. But communication does not occur in a vacuum. Modalities (e.g., speaking or writing), channels (e.g., text, phone call, or email), and devices (e.g., smartphone or computer)
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Consumers prefer natural medicines more when treating psychological than physical conditions Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-06-24 Tianyi Li, David Gal
Consumers generally prefer natural to synthetic drugs, a phenomenon known as the “natural preference.” Through six experiments and one archival study, the current research shows that while consumers have a general preference for natural drugs over synthetic drugs, this preference is stronger when the goal is to treat psychological rather than physical conditions. Process evidence indicates an important
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Time moving or ego moving? How time metaphors influence perceived temporal distance Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-06-14 Xiaobing Xu, Miaolei Jia, Rong Chen
Consumers often use spatial metaphors to describe time. Through six studies, the present research demonstrates that time metaphors influence consumers' perceptions of the temporal distance to future events. Specifically, an ego-moving metaphor, which characterizes the movement of the self across a timeline from present to future, leads consumers to perceive a target event as more temporally distant
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Through rose-tinted glasses: How inducing and resolving curiosity makes consumers less skeptical and improves their product evaluations Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-06-12 Verena Hüttl-Maack, Tara M. Sedghi, Jana M. Daume
Research indicates that in general, curiosity leads to more intense processing of an advertisement, which might result in a more skeptical response toward a persuasive message. However, we propose the opposite and argue that a process of evoking curiosity toward a stimulus in the first step (with the creation of an information gap) and resolving it in the second step creates a positive affective experience
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Expressing passion for luxury enhances perceived authenticity Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-06-10 SungJin Jung, Charlene Chen, Andy Yap
Consumers are often viewed unfavorably when using luxury products. They are seen as seeking status and managing impressions, and therefore judged as inauthentic. How can luxury consumers alleviate these negative social consequences? Our pilot studies suggest that although many consumers are passionate about luxury products and brands, they avoid sharing this passion with others because they fear being
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Getting political: The value-protective effects of expressed outgroup outrage on self-brand connection Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-05-23 M. Saeid Kermani, Theodore J. Noseworthy, Peter R. Darke
Brands are increasingly engaging in social marketing campaigns that take stances on important social issues. Such campaigns can garner considerable awareness and effectively encourage consumers to purchase the focal brand. However, they can also outrage other consumer segments who disapprove of the brand's social stance. While social campaigns that outrage consumer groups would normally be undesirable
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The influence of non-physicality of goods on disparities in seller–buyer valuations: A meta-analysis Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Peter Nguyen, Xin (Shane) Wang
Technological innovation is shaping products and markets to appeal to consumer enduring needs. Given the rise in non-physicality of products and consumers' increasing participation in peer-to-peer markets, this research examines the relationship between non-physicality of goods and disparities in seller–buyer valuations, a critical component of market inefficiencies. In a meta-analysis of 598 observations
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On the political right, the customer is always right: Political ideology, entitlement, and complaining Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Steven Shepherd, Hesam Teymouri Athar, Sahel Zaboli
Across three preregistered studies and five supplementary datasets, we predicted and found that conservatives were more inclined to complain than liberals due to conservative consumers feeling a greater sense of entitlement. This research contributes to the literature by introducing consumer entitlement as a novel explanation for ideological differences in consumer behavior, and by building on previous
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Working hard for money decreases risk tolerance Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-05-19 Christopher J. Bechler, Samina Lutfeali, Szu-chi Huang, Joshua I. Morris
This research examines how the effort that consumers exert to earn money affects their risk tolerance. We theorize and find that working harder—that is, more effortful earning—increases perceived ownership and valuation of earnings, and thus aversion to losing them, resulting in lower risk tolerance, even when risk is associated with better expected outcomes. Documenting this causal negative effort–risk
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Identifying nostalgia in text: The development and validation of the nostalgia dictionary Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-05-10 Jia Chen, Kristin Layous, Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides
Nostalgia is a prevalent emotion that confers psychological benefits and influences consumer behavior. We developed and validated the 98-word Nostalgia Dictionary to automatize the assessment of nostalgicity in narratives (e.g., customer reviews, social media). First, we created an initial wordlist by identifying the most frequently used words in nostalgia narratives and by relying on the nostalgia
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The Metaverse: A new digital frontier for consumer behavior Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-26 Rhonda Hadi, Shiri Melumad, Eric S. Park
This work offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the Metaverse, focusing on its potential implications for consumer behavior. We begin by proposing a conceptualization of the Metaverse as being uniquely defined by the convergence of five key elements—it is digitally mediated, spatial, immersive, shared, and operates in real-time. We then discuss how these components might collectively alter our
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Already here: Metaverse in touch and sound Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Stefano Puntoni
This commentary questions two common assumptions underlying discussions of how digital technology can enrich the consumer experience. First, broad conceptualizations tend to accommodate augmented reality and virtual reality under a single metaverse umbrella. This commentary draws attention to differences between the two and to the present-day prevalence of augmented reality experiences. Second, discussions
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The digital frontier as a liminal space Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Russell Belk
Hadi et al. (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 34, 2023) have created a masterful and wide-sweeping review of the consumer behavior literature on the Metaverse. They envision our encounter with the Metaverse as a consumer journey. In this commentary, I highlight some of their unique contributions and suggest additional insights that emerge when we view the digital frontier as a liminal place betwixt
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Mental accounting of product returns Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Chang-Yuan Lee, Carey K. Morewedge
Product returns incur a substantial financial loss for retailers. We demonstrate how, when, and why cross-selling during the product returns process can reduce this loss in revenue. We find consumers more readily spend money refunded from product returns than unspent money. We theorize that this refund effect occurs because consumers psychologically realize the loss of money when purchasing products
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A meta-analysis on the effects of just-below versus round prices Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-19 Eve Sarah Troll, Julius Frankenbach, Malte Friese, David D. Loschelder
Marketers' proclivity for just-below prices (e.g., $9.99) is rooted in an expected higher demand than for round prices ($10.00). The literature, however, lacks a comprehensive assessment of when and how price endings matter. Three mechanisms might explain price-ending effects on consumers' purchase decisions: just-below prices (1) improve price perceptions, but (2) impair perceived product quality
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Algorithms propagate gender bias in the marketplace—with consumers’ cooperation Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-12 Shelly Rathee, Sachin Banker, Arul Mishra, Himanshu Mishra
Recent research shows that algorithms learn societal biases from large text corpora. We examine the marketplace-relevant consequences of such bias for consumers. Based on billions of documents from online text corpora, we first demonstrate that from gender biases embedded in language, algorithms learn to associate women with more negative consumer psychographic attributes than men (e.g., associating
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A desire to create shared memories increases consumers' willingness to sacrifice experience quality for togetherness Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-09 Ximena Garcia-Rada, Michael I. Norton, Rebecca K. Ratner
This work examines the trade-offs that consumers in relationships make between the overall quality of an activity (i.e., experience quality) and the ability to share the activity in physical proximity to a relationship partner (i.e., togetherness). A pilot study and five experiments demonstrate that consumers value togetherness (vs. experience quality) relatively more when they share the experience
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Materialism and life satisfaction relations between and within people over time: Results of a three-wave longitudinal study Journal of Consumer Psychology (IF 4.551) Pub Date : 2023-04-04 Esther D. T. Jaspers, Mario Pandelaere, Rik G. M. Pieters, L. J. Shrum
The negative association between materialism and life satisfaction is well-documented, but it is unclear what the directionality of the association is. To address this issue, we (a) conducted a three-wave longitudinal study (N = 6551) over 3 years and examined the bidirectional relations between life satisfaction and materialism as a composite measure and with each of its three facets (happiness, success