Journal of Consumer Psychology最新文献

Is consumers' present spending influenced by future changes in their income? From an economic perspective, consumers should reduce present spending when anticipating a future income decrease and boost spending when anticipating a future income increase to maximize their welfare. We find that although consumers tend to adjust their spending to a future income decrease, they are less likely to do so to a future income increase. We show that this is, in part, due to a low sense of self-continuity, a tendency to view the future self whose income increases as if it were a different person and, as a result, to categorize present and future income into two separate mental accounts. Enhancing self-continuity leads consumers to combine present and future income in a single mental account, and thereby facilitates adjustment of present spending to a future income increase. Whereas prior work linked high self-continuity to reduced present spending, we identify a context in which high self-continuity can boost present spending. We discuss the implications of these findings for consumer well-being.

Do various kinds of feedback influence consumer impatience? Five studies involving hypothetical and real behavioral consequences demonstrate that compared with lump-sum feedback (i.e., feedback provided in bulk at the end), piecemeal feedback (i.e., feedback provided piece by piece in the process) increases consumer impatience (i.e., preference toward now options). This effect occurs because piecemeal feedback (vs. lump-sum feedback) establishes a reliable action–outcome association, which activates a general action goal to induce consumers to be more action oriented, making them more eager to complete actions for outcomes in subsequent related or unrelated situations. This effect is robust regardless of whether the valence of feedback is positive or negative, whether the outcome involves gain or loss (Study 1), and whether the form of feedback is monetary or informative (Study 2). Furthermore, we show that piecemeal feedback increases consumer impatience only when it is provided at a fixed ratio rather than at a variable ratio schedule (Study 3), when it is provided directly following behaviors (Study 4), and when it is directed to actions (vs. inactions) (Study 5). These findings contribute to the action goal research and consumer impatience literature.

From marketers and consumers to leaders and health officials, everyone wants to increase their communications' impact. But why are some communications more impactful? While some argue that content drives success, we suggest that style, or the way ideas are presented, plays an important role. To test style's importance, we examine it in a context where content should be paramount: academic research. While scientists often see writing as a disinterested way to communicate unobstructed truth, a multi-method investigation indicates that writing style shapes impact. To separate content from style, we focus on a unique class of words linked to style (i.e., function words such as “and,” “the,” and “on”) that are devoid of content. Natural language processing of almost 30,000 articles from a range of disciplines finds that function words explain 4–11% of overall variance explained and 11–27% of language content's impact on citations. Additional analyses examine particular style features that may shape success, and why, highlighting the role of writing simplicity, personal voice, and temporal perspective. Experiments further indicate the causal impact of style. The results suggest ways to boost communication's impact and highlight the value of natural language processing for understanding the success of ideas.

This paper examines when and why consumers are likely to support low-fit cause-related marketing (CM) initiatives. Through six studies, we demonstrate that when consumers think more holistically rather than analytically, they are likely to respond as positively to low-fit CM initiatives as high-fit ones. This effect occurs because holistic thinkers focus not only on the company and its characteristics but also on the perceived need of the cause beneficiaries, making them more likely to perceive the corporate motives to be public-serving, producing more favorable evaluations of the company. Dispositional skepticism toward corporate social responsibility (CSR) acts as a boundary condition of this effect.

With the proliferation of peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges in the marketplace, understanding which consumer factors drive demand for P2P providers is important. We examine the role of consumers' economic system justification (ESJ) beliefs (about the fairness of existing economic arrangements and outcomes), which, despite their growing salience in the marketplace, have been overlooked in extant P2P research. We show that high (vs. low) ESJ increases consumers' interest in purchasing from P2P providers because it heightens perceptions of these providers' entrepreneurial spirit. The effect emerges in the laboratory and in the field with measured and manipulated ESJ, and it is attenuated for traditional commercial providers. The findings offer novel insights and implications for practice and emerging research on P2P exchanges, system justification, and ideological consumption more broadly.

Across a range of decision contexts, we provide evidence of a novel proximity bias in probability judgments, whereby spatial distance and outcome valence systematically interact in determining probability judgments. Six hypothetical and incentive-compatible experiments (combined N = 4007) show that a positive outcome is estimated as more likely to occur when near than distant, whereas a negative outcome is estimated as less likely to occur when near than distant (studies 1–6). The proximity bias is explained by wishful thinking and thus perceptions of outcome desirability (study 3), and it does not manifest when an outcome is less relevant for the self, such as the case of outcomes with little consequence for the self (studies 4 and 5) or when estimating outcomes for others who are irrelevant to the self (study 6). Overall, the proximity bias we document deepens our understanding of the antecedents of probability judgments.

Given that the vast majority of brand extensions fail, it is important to understand how extension failure influences consumer judgments of the parent brand that launched the extension. In the brand extension literature, there is a paucity of research on the role of consumer characteristics in influencing response to such failures. To fill this gap, the present research examines the impact of consumers' implicit theory orientation—their perspective on whether personality traits are malleable versus fixed—on the severity of negative feedback effects following extension failure. Seven studies show that entity theorists, who believe in the fixedness of personality traits, penalize parent brands more than incremental theorists, who endorse trait malleability. This brand penalty effect arises because as compared to incremental theorists, entity theorists are motivated to view brands as a cohesive group and therefore equate extension failure with the diminishment of the overarching parent brand. This effect is more likely when brand cohesiveness is low or ambiguous, but it is less likely when brand cohesiveness is high. Furthermore, while entity theorists are more likely to reduce brand evaluations after extension failure, the two groups do not differ in parent brand evaluations after extension success.

Product owners often find it challenging to part with their possessions. As a result, owners may pursue various behavioral strategies to facilitate disposal, even when considering products that are no longer needed or personally useful. According to ethnographic research, one such strategy is to move products into purgatories, or temporary liminal spaces. Using an experimental approach, we aim to causally assess whether product purgatories do in fact induce disposal. Findings from three studies indicate that moving items into purgatories allows owners to psychologically brace for subsequent product disposal. However, unlike prior research that has focused on reduced product attachment as a primary driver of disposal preparedness, the present research documents a novel mechanism that does not necessarily entail attachment reduction. Specifically, purgatories are shown to trigger mental simulation of the product disposal process, thereby helping product owners brace for the looming loss of their product.

A great deal of research has investigated how various aspects of ethnic identity influence consumer behavior, yet this literature is fragmented. The objective of this article was to present an integrative theoretical model of how individuals are motivated to think and act in a manner consistent with their salient ethnic identities. The model emerges from a review of social science and consumer research about US Hispanics, but researchers could apply it in its general form and/or adapt it to other populations. Our model extends Oyserman's (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 250) identity-based motivation (IBM) model by differentiating between two types of antecedents of ethnic identity salience: longitudinal cultural processes and situational activation by contextual cues, each with different implications for the availability and accessibility of ethnic cultural knowledge. We provide new insights by introducing three ethnic identity motives that are unique to ethnic (nonmajority) cultural groups: belonging, distinctiveness, and defense. These three motives are in constant tension with one another and guide longitudinal processes like acculturation, and ultimately influence consumers' procedural readiness and action readiness. Our integrative framework organizes and offers insights into the current body of Hispanic consumer research, and highlights gaps in the literature that present opportunities for future research.

Hurricanes, wildfires, pandemics, and other disasters have taken millions of lives in the past few years and caused substantial economic losses. To tackle these extraordinary circumstances, governments, organizations, and companies seek assistance from both humans and high-technology machines such as robots. This research report documents how highlighting robots' (vs. humans') helping behaviors in disaster response can affect consumers' prosociality, explores driving mechanisms, and tests solutions. Study 1 found that consumers donated fewer items of clothing after watching news highlighting robots' (vs. humans') assistance in a mudslide disaster. Featuring the COVID-19 pandemic, Study 2 further showed that this decrease in prosociality occurred because reading about robots' assistance felt less encouraging/inspiring to consumers. Studies 3A-3C (and a supplemental study) explored multiple mechanisms and identified a key driver for the backfire effect—a lower perception of courage in disaster response robots. Accordingly, Study 4 tested three theory-driven solutions to raise the perceived courage in robots to increase consumer prosociality.