A series of controlled studies found that consumers counter-normatively prefer something nearly complete over something complete. We call this phenomenon the “one-away effect” because we find that when consumers are, for example, one stamp away from completing a punch card loyalty program, they value the card more than a completed card. This is because their valuation of the one-away card is influenced by their anticipation of merely completing the card, which generates its own utility, apart from the card’s end-reward (a free coffee). To wit, the prospective utility of performing the final action that fulfills completion increases consumers’ valuation of the one-away card. Our findings suggest that consumers are motivated to complete goals, tasks, and sets not only to obtain their end-rewards, but also because merely completing things is intrinsically motivating and can be a goal in and of itself. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the one-away effect, as well as the general notion of mere completion.
{"title":"The One-Away Effect: The Pursuit of Mere Completion","authors":"Bowen Ruan, Evan Polman, Robin J. Tanner","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad030","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 A series of controlled studies found that consumers counter-normatively prefer something nearly complete over something complete. We call this phenomenon the “one-away effect” because we find that when consumers are, for example, one stamp away from completing a punch card loyalty program, they value the card more than a completed card. This is because their valuation of the one-away card is influenced by their anticipation of merely completing the card, which generates its own utility, apart from the card’s end-reward (a free coffee). To wit, the prospective utility of performing the final action that fulfills completion increases consumers’ valuation of the one-away card. Our findings suggest that consumers are motivated to complete goals, tasks, and sets not only to obtain their end-rewards, but also because merely completing things is intrinsically motivating and can be a goal in and of itself. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the one-away effect, as well as the general notion of mere completion.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47711290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Every day, we learn about others’ decisions from various sources. We perceive some of these decisions as choices and others as rejections. Does the mere perception of another’s decision as a choice versus as a rejection influence our own behavior? Are we more likely to conform to another’s decision if we view it in one way or the other? The current research investigates the social influence of decision frames. Eight studies, including a field study conducted during a livestreaming event hosted by an influencer with over 1.5 million followers, find that people are more likely to conform to another’s decision if it is perceived as a rejection than if it is perceived as a choice. This effect happens because consumers are more likely to attribute another’s decision to product quality as opposed to personal preference, when consumers perceive another’s decision as a rejection than as a choice. The inference about quality versus personal preference in turn increases conformity. This research bridges the existing literatures on decision framing, social influence, and perceptions of quality and personal preference, and it offers important implications for marketers and influencers.
{"title":"Rejections Are More Contagious than Choices: How Another’s Decisions Shape Our Own","authors":"lana Xianglan Nan, Sang Kyu Park, Yang Yang","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Every day, we learn about others’ decisions from various sources. We perceive some of these decisions as choices and others as rejections. Does the mere perception of another’s decision as a choice versus as a rejection influence our own behavior? Are we more likely to conform to another’s decision if we view it in one way or the other? The current research investigates the social influence of decision frames. Eight studies, including a field study conducted during a livestreaming event hosted by an influencer with over 1.5 million followers, find that people are more likely to conform to another’s decision if it is perceived as a rejection than if it is perceived as a choice. This effect happens because consumers are more likely to attribute another’s decision to product quality as opposed to personal preference, when consumers perceive another’s decision as a rejection than as a choice. The inference about quality versus personal preference in turn increases conformity. This research bridges the existing literatures on decision framing, social influence, and perceptions of quality and personal preference, and it offers important implications for marketers and influencers.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44808927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social media offers brands the ability to gauge consumer reactions to marketing and brand crises. While social media listening has focused on aggregate patterns, consumers differ in how they react to a crisis faced by a particular brand. Analyzing consumer behavior for 39 brands pertaining to 77 brand crises through the lens of consumer posts on brands’ Facebook pages, we find that consumers’ prior online interactions with the brand and the nature of the brand crisis moderates the language they employ in their posts. Specifically, these factors affect the extent to which consumers express anger and the familiarity of their language. While consumers who have not engaged with the brand previously employ more familiar language and self-referencing following values-related crises compared to consumers who have interacted with the brand, these individuals express more anger after performance-related crises. In contrast, consumers who have previously interacted with the brand express more anger in the wake of values-related crises. We discuss the implications of our findings for brand managers using social media posts as a means of monitoring consumer perceptions.
{"title":"When Connection Turns to Anger: How Consumer-Brand Relationship and Crisis Type Moderate Language on Social Media","authors":"Buffy Mosley, David A. Schweidel, Kunpeng Zhang","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Social media offers brands the ability to gauge consumer reactions to marketing and brand crises. While social media listening has focused on aggregate patterns, consumers differ in how they react to a crisis faced by a particular brand. Analyzing consumer behavior for 39 brands pertaining to 77 brand crises through the lens of consumer posts on brands’ Facebook pages, we find that consumers’ prior online interactions with the brand and the nature of the brand crisis moderates the language they employ in their posts. Specifically, these factors affect the extent to which consumers express anger and the familiarity of their language. While consumers who have not engaged with the brand previously employ more familiar language and self-referencing following values-related crises compared to consumers who have interacted with the brand, these individuals express more anger after performance-related crises. In contrast, consumers who have previously interacted with the brand express more anger in the wake of values-related crises. We discuss the implications of our findings for brand managers using social media posts as a means of monitoring consumer perceptions.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44444986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Consumer research has focused on market-mediated efforts to memorialize the past, but this overshadows the issues that arise when consumers, as non-professionals, make the past consumable. Consumer-driven memorialization is defined as consumer engagement with traces of the past in memoryscapes of low market-mediation that creates a complex interplay of remembering and forgetting. Based on an ethnographic study of urban exploration, we theorize that consumer-driven memorialization comprises two practices of tracing and trace-making. Tracing involves consumer attempts to recover traces of the past, while trace-making involves consumer attempts to create traces for the future. Consumers enact multiple roles during consumer-driven memorialization: explorers experience the past, archaeologists materialize the past, artists aestheticize the past, and historians narrate the past. The theorization of consumer-driven memorialization offers three contributions. First, the dimensions of consumer-driven memorialization broaden understanding of what constitutes a consumable past in contexts of low market-mediation. Second, we explain how the ideological and material challenges that emerge in consumer-driven memorialization generate a complex interplay between remembering and forgetting. Third, we shed light on how consumer-driven memorialization is inscribed in space.
{"title":"Consumer-Driven Memorialization","authors":"Stephanie Anderson, Kathy Hamilton","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad025","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Consumer research has focused on market-mediated efforts to memorialize the past, but this overshadows the issues that arise when consumers, as non-professionals, make the past consumable. Consumer-driven memorialization is defined as consumer engagement with traces of the past in memoryscapes of low market-mediation that creates a complex interplay of remembering and forgetting. Based on an ethnographic study of urban exploration, we theorize that consumer-driven memorialization comprises two practices of tracing and trace-making. Tracing involves consumer attempts to recover traces of the past, while trace-making involves consumer attempts to create traces for the future. Consumers enact multiple roles during consumer-driven memorialization: explorers experience the past, archaeologists materialize the past, artists aestheticize the past, and historians narrate the past. The theorization of consumer-driven memorialization offers three contributions. First, the dimensions of consumer-driven memorialization broaden understanding of what constitutes a consumable past in contexts of low market-mediation. Second, we explain how the ideological and material challenges that emerge in consumer-driven memorialization generate a complex interplay between remembering and forgetting. Third, we shed light on how consumer-driven memorialization is inscribed in space.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49568157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Consumers are known to seek out and display conspicuous goods— items that are exclusive and signal wealth and high social standing. Though many factors can drive such conspicuous consumption, the present work looks at an unexplored element: whether consumers find themselves in a dominance versus prestige-based hierarchy. Dominance-based hierarchies encourage consumers to use threatening, assertive and manipulative behaviors to navigate the hierarchy. In contrast, prestige-based hierarchies encourage consumers to show their talent, skills and motivation to operate within the hierarchy. The present research reveals how these two main bases of hierarchy shape consumers’ consumption of conspicuous goods. Specifically, dominance, relative to prestige hierarchies, are proposed to foster greater social anxiety, which leads people to seek conspicuous goods as a means of psychological security. Consequently, dominance-based hierarchies are more likely to encourage conspicuous consumption relative to prestige-based hierarchies. Multiple experiments, which utilize real employees’ behaviors, experimental manipulations of hierarchy, as well as incentivize-compatible decisions, reveal that dominance-based hierarchies, relative to prestige-based hierarchies, increase consumers’ preference for conspicuous goods. Moreover, evidence for a psychological mechanism in the form of social anxiety is demonstrated via both mediation and moderation.
{"title":"Dominance versus Prestige Hierarchies: How Social Hierarchy Base Shapes Conspicuous Consumption","authors":"Perrine Desmichel, Derek D. Rucker","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad024","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Consumers are known to seek out and display conspicuous goods— items that are exclusive and signal wealth and high social standing. Though many factors can drive such conspicuous consumption, the present work looks at an unexplored element: whether consumers find themselves in a dominance versus prestige-based hierarchy. Dominance-based hierarchies encourage consumers to use threatening, assertive and manipulative behaviors to navigate the hierarchy. In contrast, prestige-based hierarchies encourage consumers to show their talent, skills and motivation to operate within the hierarchy. The present research reveals how these two main bases of hierarchy shape consumers’ consumption of conspicuous goods. Specifically, dominance, relative to prestige hierarchies, are proposed to foster greater social anxiety, which leads people to seek conspicuous goods as a means of psychological security. Consequently, dominance-based hierarchies are more likely to encourage conspicuous consumption relative to prestige-based hierarchies. Multiple experiments, which utilize real employees’ behaviors, experimental manipulations of hierarchy, as well as incentivize-compatible decisions, reveal that dominance-based hierarchies, relative to prestige-based hierarchies, increase consumers’ preference for conspicuous goods. Moreover, evidence for a psychological mechanism in the form of social anxiety is demonstrated via both mediation and moderation.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47829175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Countervailing discourses of cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation are fueling a tension between the ethnic consumer subject, who views the consumption of cultural difference as a valorized identity project, and the responsibilized consumer subject, who is tasked with considering the societal impacts of such consumption. Drawing on an extended qualitative investigation of international K-pop consumers, this study illustrates that this tension spurs consumers to pursue self-authorization—the reflexive reconfiguration of the self in relation to the social world—through which consumers grant themselves permission to continue consuming cultural difference. Four consumer self-authorization strategies are identified: reforming, restraining, recontextualizing, and rationalizing. Each strategy relies upon an amalgam of countervailing moral interpretations about acts of consuming difference, informing ideologies about the power relationships between cultures, and emergent subject positions that situate the consuming self in relation to others whose differences are packaged for consumption. Findings show notable conditions under which each self-authorization strategy is deployed, alongside consumers’ capacity to adjust and recombine different strategies as they navigate changing sociocultural and idiographic conditions. Overall, this study advances understanding of how consumers navigate the resurgent politics of marketized cultural diversity in an era of woke capitalism.
{"title":"Between Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation: Self-Authorizing the Consumption of Cultural Difference","authors":"A. Cruz, Yuri Seo, Daiane Scaraboto","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad022","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Countervailing discourses of cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation are fueling a tension between the ethnic consumer subject, who views the consumption of cultural difference as a valorized identity project, and the responsibilized consumer subject, who is tasked with considering the societal impacts of such consumption. Drawing on an extended qualitative investigation of international K-pop consumers, this study illustrates that this tension spurs consumers to pursue self-authorization—the reflexive reconfiguration of the self in relation to the social world—through which consumers grant themselves permission to continue consuming cultural difference. Four consumer self-authorization strategies are identified: reforming, restraining, recontextualizing, and rationalizing. Each strategy relies upon an amalgam of countervailing moral interpretations about acts of consuming difference, informing ideologies about the power relationships between cultures, and emergent subject positions that situate the consuming self in relation to others whose differences are packaged for consumption. Findings show notable conditions under which each self-authorization strategy is deployed, alongside consumers’ capacity to adjust and recombine different strategies as they navigate changing sociocultural and idiographic conditions. Overall, this study advances understanding of how consumers navigate the resurgent politics of marketized cultural diversity in an era of woke capitalism.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45659285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Noah Castelo, Johannes Boegershausen, Christian Hildebrand, Alexander P. Henkel
Many firms are beginning to replace customer service employees with bots, from humanoid service robots to digital chatbots. Using real human-bot interactions in lab and field settings, we study consumers’ evaluations of bot-provided service. We find that service evaluations are more negative when the service provider is a bot versus a human—even when the provided service is identical. This effect is explained by consumers’ belief that service automation is motivated by firm benefits (i.e., cutting costs) at the expense of customer benefits (such as service quality). The effect is eliminated when firms share the economic surplus derived from automation with consumers through price discounts. The effect is reversed when service bots provide unambiguously superior service to human employees—a scenario that may soon become reality. Consumers’ default reactions to service bots are therefore largely negative but can be equal to or better than reactions to human service providers if firms can demonstrate how automation benefits consumers.
{"title":"Understanding and Improving Consumer Reactions to Service Bots","authors":"Noah Castelo, Johannes Boegershausen, Christian Hildebrand, Alexander P. Henkel","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Many firms are beginning to replace customer service employees with bots, from humanoid service robots to digital chatbots. Using real human-bot interactions in lab and field settings, we study consumers’ evaluations of bot-provided service. We find that service evaluations are more negative when the service provider is a bot versus a human—even when the provided service is identical. This effect is explained by consumers’ belief that service automation is motivated by firm benefits (i.e., cutting costs) at the expense of customer benefits (such as service quality). The effect is eliminated when firms share the economic surplus derived from automation with consumers through price discounts. The effect is reversed when service bots provide unambiguously superior service to human employees—a scenario that may soon become reality. Consumers’ default reactions to service bots are therefore largely negative but can be equal to or better than reactions to human service providers if firms can demonstrate how automation benefits consumers.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43483726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The ongoing rise of liquid consumption manifests in the growing popularity of ephemeral, access-based, and dematerialized forms of consumption that contrast with traditional solid forms of consumption characterized by possession and strong object relationships. The literature already presents a robust understanding of what makes liquid and solid consumption appealing to consumers. What has received less attention is the co-existence of liquid and solid consumption in consumers’ lived experiences. Furthermore, the literature does not explain how the balance that consumers achieve between liquid and solid consumption fluctuates over time. This study illuminates the co-existence of liquid and solid consumption through a phenomenological inquiry of subscription-based clothing libraries, a context where solid personal possessions frequently mix with liquid accessed items in everyday use. Findings show that changes in consumer desire play a major role in consumer decisions to liquify or solidify consumption, especially over time. Overall, the study provides new theoretical insights into liquid and solid consumption, consumer desire, and burdens of access-based consumption.
{"title":"Consumer Desires and the Fluctuating Balance between Liquid and Solid Consumption: The Case of Finnish Clothing Libraries","authors":"Laura M Rosenberg, Henri Weijo, Iina Kerkelä","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad021","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The ongoing rise of liquid consumption manifests in the growing popularity of ephemeral, access-based, and dematerialized forms of consumption that contrast with traditional solid forms of consumption characterized by possession and strong object relationships. The literature already presents a robust understanding of what makes liquid and solid consumption appealing to consumers. What has received less attention is the co-existence of liquid and solid consumption in consumers’ lived experiences. Furthermore, the literature does not explain how the balance that consumers achieve between liquid and solid consumption fluctuates over time. This study illuminates the co-existence of liquid and solid consumption through a phenomenological inquiry of subscription-based clothing libraries, a context where solid personal possessions frequently mix with liquid accessed items in everyday use. Findings show that changes in consumer desire play a major role in consumer decisions to liquify or solidify consumption, especially over time. Overall, the study provides new theoretical insights into liquid and solid consumption, consumer desire, and burdens of access-based consumption.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41529739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Word of Thanks","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44583836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J. Olson, Scott I. Rick, Deborah A. Small, Eli J. Finkel
When a romantic relationship becomes serious, partners often confront a foundational decision about how to organize their personal finances: pool money together or keep things separate? In a six-wave longitudinal experiment, we investigated whether randomly assigning engaged or newlywed couples to merge their money in a joint bank account increases relationship quality over time. Whereas couples assigned to keep their money in separate accounts or to a no-intervention condition exhibited the normative decline in relationship quality across the first two years of marriage, couples assigned to merge money in a joint account sustained strong relationship quality throughout. The effect of bank account structure on relationship quality is multiply determined. We examine—and find support for—three potential mechanisms using both experimental and correlational methods: merging finances 1) improves how partners feel about how they handle money, 2) promotes financial goal alignment, and 3) sustains communal norm adherence (e.g., responding to each other’s needs without expectations of reciprocity). While prior research has documented a correlation between financial interdependence and relationship quality, our research offers the first experimental evidence that increasing financial interdependence helps newlyweds preserve stronger relationship quality throughout the newlywed period and potentially beyond.
{"title":"Common Cents: Bank Account Structure and Couples’ Relationship Dynamics","authors":"J. Olson, Scott I. Rick, Deborah A. Small, Eli J. Finkel","doi":"10.1093/jcr/ucad020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad020","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 When a romantic relationship becomes serious, partners often confront a foundational decision about how to organize their personal finances: pool money together or keep things separate? In a six-wave longitudinal experiment, we investigated whether randomly assigning engaged or newlywed couples to merge their money in a joint bank account increases relationship quality over time. Whereas couples assigned to keep their money in separate accounts or to a no-intervention condition exhibited the normative decline in relationship quality across the first two years of marriage, couples assigned to merge money in a joint account sustained strong relationship quality throughout. The effect of bank account structure on relationship quality is multiply determined. We examine—and find support for—three potential mechanisms using both experimental and correlational methods: merging finances 1) improves how partners feel about how they handle money, 2) promotes financial goal alignment, and 3) sustains communal norm adherence (e.g., responding to each other’s needs without expectations of reciprocity). While prior research has documented a correlation between financial interdependence and relationship quality, our research offers the first experimental evidence that increasing financial interdependence helps newlyweds preserve stronger relationship quality throughout the newlywed period and potentially beyond.","PeriodicalId":15555,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Consumer Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44064576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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