Showing papers in "Journal of Consumer Research in 2010"
TL;DR: Baron and Kenny's procedure for determining if an independent variable affects a dependent variable through some mediator is so well known that it is used by authors and requested by reviewers almost reflexively.
Abstract: Baron and Kenny’s procedure for determining if an independent variable affects a dependent variable through some mediator is so well known that it is used by authors and requested by reviewers almost reflexively. Many research projects have been terminated early in a research program or later in the review process because the data did not conform to Baron and Kenny’s criteria, impeding theoretical development. While the technical literature has disputed some of Baron and Kenny’s tests, this literature has not diffused to practicing researchers. We present a nontechnical summary of the flaws in the Baron and Kenny logic, some of which have not been previously noted. We provide a decision tree and a step-by-step procedure for testing mediation, classifying its type, and interpreting the implications of findings for theory building and future research.
8,032 citations
TL;DR: The choice overload hypothesis states that an increase in the number of options to choose from may lead to adverse consequences such as a decrease in the motivation to choose or the satisfaction with the finally chosen option as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The choice overload hypothesis states that an increase in the number of options to choose from may lead to adverse consequences such as a decrease in the motivation to choose or the satisfaction with the finally chosen option. A number of studies found strong instances of choice overload in the lab and in the field, but others found no such effects or found that more choices may instead facilitate choice and increase satisfaction. In a meta‐analysis of 63 conditions from 50 published and unpublished experiments (N = 5,036), we found a mean effect size of virtually zero but considerable variance between studies. While further analyses indicated several potentially important preconditions for choice overload, no sufficient conditions could be identified. However, some idiosyncratic moderators proposed in single studies may still explain when and why choice overload reliably occurs; we review these studies and identify possible directions for future research.
800 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigate whether consumers pursue the consumption of authentic objects with specific personal goals in mind, and find that consumers are motivated to focus on those particular cues in objects that for them convey authenticity (what is genuine, real, and/or true).
Abstract: Drawing from image-elicited depth interviews, we investigate whether consumers pursue the consumption of authentic objects with specific personal goals in mind. We find that consumers are motivated to focus on those particular cues in objects that for them convey authenticity (what is genuine, real, and/or true) and that this decision-making process is driven by a desire to draw different identity benefits (control, connection, virtue) from authentic objects. Our interpretive analysis elaborates contributions to theorizing related to consumer agency in seeking authentic consumption experience. We provide cultural explanations for the desire to assert the authentic self in these particular ways.
661 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that consumers are less willing to buy a product made by a nonprofit than a for-profit because of their perception that the firm lacks competence, and when perceived competence of a nonprofit is boosted through subtle cues that connote credibility, discrepancies in willingness to buy disappear.
Abstract: Consumers use warmth and competence, two fundamental dimensions that govern social judgments of people, to form perceptions of firms. Three experiments showed that consumers perceive nonprofits as being warmer than for‐profits but as less competent. Further, consumers are less willing to buy a product made by a nonprofit than a for‐profit because of their perception that the firm lacks competence. Consequently, when perceived competence of a nonprofit is boosted through subtle cues that connote credibility, discrepancies in willingness to buy disappear. In fact, when consumers perceive high levels of competence and warmth, they feel admiration for the firm—which translates to consumers’ increased desire to buy. This work highlights the importance of consumer stereotypes about nonprofit and for‐profit companies that, at baseline, come with opposing advantages and disadvantages but that can be altered.
521 citations
TL;DR: This article explored how veiling, a deviant practice stigmatized in the secular and urban mind-set, first became an attractive choice for some middle-class women and then transformed into a fashionable and ordinary clothing practice for many.
Abstract: Although stigma is prevalent in everyday life, consumer researchers’ interest on the topic remains scant and focuses mostly on stigma management. We move beyond individual coping strategies and examine the processes of stigmatization and destigmatization. Through an ethnographic study of fashion consumption practices of urban Turkish covered women, we explore how veiling, a deviant practice stigmatized in the secular and urban mind-set, first became an attractive choice for some middle-class women and then transformed into a fashionable and ordinary clothing practice for many. We map out the global multi-actored work that underlies the emergence of veiling as an attractive choice and explicate its gradual routinization and destigmatization. We discuss the findings in terms of their implications for understandings of choice and free will, the formative role of fashion in the evolution of a new habitus and social class, and the relationship between the market and religion.
457 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the relationship between regulatory focus and construal level and found that promotion-focused individuals are more likely to construe information at abstract, high levels, whereas those with a prevention focus are more receptive to information at concrete, low levels.
Abstract: This research investigates the relationship between regulatory focus and construal level. The findings indicate that promotion‐focused individuals are more likely to construe information at abstract, high levels, whereas those with a prevention focus are more likely to construe information at concrete, low levels (experiments 1 and 2). Further, such fit (vs. nonfit) between an individual’s regulatory focus and the construal level at which information is represented leads to more favorable attitudes (experiments 3 and 4) and enhances performance on a subsequent task (experiment 3). These outcomes occur because fit enhances engagement that in turn induces processing fluency and intensifies reactions.
451 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that people choose a larger portion following another consumer who first selects a large quantity but that this portion is significantly smaller if the other is obese than if she is thin, and that the adjustment is more pronounced for consumers who are low in appearance self-esteem.
Abstract: This research examines how the body type of consumers affects the food consumption of other consumers around them. We find that consumers anchor on the quantities others around them select but that these portions are adjusted according to the body type of the other consumer. We find that people choose a larger portion following another consumer who first selects a large quantity but that this portion is significantly smaller if the other is obese than if she is thin. We also find that the adjustment is more pronounced for consumers who are low in appearance self-esteem and that it is attenuated under cognitive load.
402 citations
TL;DR: While theories of signaling and conspicuous consumption suggest that more explicit markers facilitate communication, the authors examines the utility of subtle signals and highlights the communication value of less explicit signals and discusses the implications for branding, signal persistence and the communication of identity.
Abstract: While theories of signaling and conspicuous consumption suggest that more explicit markers facilitate communication, this article examines the utility of subtle signals. Four studies demonstrate that while less explicit branding increases the likelihood of misidentification (e.g., observers confusing a high-end purchase for a cheaper alternative), people with more cultural capital in a particular domain prefer subtle signals because they provide differentiation from the mainstream. Such insiders have the necessary connoisseurship to decode the meaning of subtle signals that facilitate communication with others “in the know.” Consistent with the notion that these effects are driven by outward communication, they are stronger in identity-relevant product domains and situations where consumption is more public. This work highlights the communication value of less explicit signals and discusses the implications for branding, signal persistence, and the communication of identity.
351 citations
TL;DR: The authors study the status consumption strategies of upper-middle-class Turkish women in order to revise three of Bourdieu's most important concepts (cultural capital, habitus, and consumption field) to propose a theory specific to the LIC context.
Abstract: How does status consumption operate among the middle classes in less industrialized countries (LICs)—those classes that have the spending power to participate effectively in consumer culture? Globalization research suggests that Bourdieu’s status consumption model, based upon Western research, does not provide an adequate explanation. And what we call the global trickle-down model, often invoked to explain LIC status consumption, is even more imprecise. We study the status consumption strategies of upper-middle-class Turkish women in order to revise three of Bourdieu’s most important concepts—cultural capital, habitus, and consumption field—to propose a theory specific to the LIC context. We demonstrate that cultural capital is organized around orthodox practice of the Western Lifestyle myth, that cultural capital is deterritorialized and so accrues through distant textbook-like learning rather than via the habitus, and that the class faction with lower cultural capital indigenizes the consumption field to sustain a national social hierarchy.
298 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze fashion ads to show how narrative transportation can nonetheless be a possible response to ads, if specific aesthetic properties are present, most notably when grotesque imagery is used.
Abstract: Narrative transportation—to be carried away by a story—has been proposed as a distinct route to persuasion But as originally conceived, narrative transportation is unlikely to occur in response to advertisements, where persuasive intent is obvious and consumer resistance is expected We analyze fashion ads to show how narrative transportation can nonetheless be a possible response to ads, if specific aesthetic properties are present, most notably when grotesque imagery is used We then situate narrative transportation as one of five modes of engaging fashion advertising, each of which serves as a distinct route to persuasion Interviews showed that consumers variously engage ads to act, identify, feel, transport, or immerse We explain how aesthetic properties of ads call forth different modes of engagement and explore how grotesque imagery can lead to either narrative transportation or immersion As routes to persuasion, transportation and immersion work by intensifying brand experience rather than boosting brand evaluation
TL;DR: The authors examined the influence of changes in the institutional environment over time on the meaning structures that influence consumer perception and practice and found that the regulatory approval of gambling is accompanied by a shift in the semantic categories used to discuss casinos and that journalists play a role in shaping these categories.
Abstract: How do changes in public discourse and regulatory structure affect the acceptance of a consumption practice? Previous research on legitimacy in consumer behavior has focused on the consumer reception of legitimizing discourse rather than on the historical process of legitimation itself. This study examines the influence of changes in the institutional environment over time on the meaning structures that influence consumer perception and practice. To study legitimation as a historical process, a discourse analysis of newspaper articles about casino gambling from 1980–2007 was conducted. Results show that the regulatory approval of gambling is accompanied by a shift in the semantic categories used to discuss casinos and that journalists play a role in shaping these categories. Further, journalists shape the meaning of a consumption practice in three ways: through selection, validation, and realization. Interpreted through the lens of institutional theory, these findings suggest that studies of legitimation ...
TL;DR: This article reviewed research that shows that in non-western cultures and among working-class Westerners, freedom and choice do not have the meaning or importance they do for the university-educated people who have been the subjects of almost all research on this topic.
Abstract: Americans live in a political, social, and historical context that values personal freedom and choice above all else, an emphasis that has been amplified by contemporary psychology. However, this article reviews research that shows that in non-Western cultures and among working-class Westerners, freedom and choice do not have the meaning or importance they do for the university-educated people who have been the subjects of almost all research on this topic. We cannot assume that choice, as understood by educated, affluent Westerners, is a universal aspiration. The meaning and significance of choice are cultural constructions. Moreover, even when choice can foster freedom, empowerment, and independence, it is not an unalloyed good. Too much choice can produce a paralyzing uncertainty, depression, and selfishness. In the United States, the path to well-being may require that we strike a balance between the positive and negative consequences of proliferating choice in every domain of life.
TL;DR: This article analyzed consumer narratives through which a brand-mediated moral conflict is enacted and showed that consumers' moralistic identity work is culturally framed by the myth of the moral protagonist and further illuminate how consumers use this mythic structure to transform their ideological beliefs into dramatic narratives of identity.
Abstract: Consumer researchers have tended to equate consumer moralism with normative condemnations of mainstream consumer culture. Consequently, little research has investigated the multifaceted forms of identity work that consumers can undertake through more diverse ideological forms of consumer moralism. To redress this theoretical gap, we analyze the adversarial consumer narratives through which a brand‐mediated moral conflict is enacted. We show that consumers’ moralistic identity work is culturally framed by the myth of the moral protagonist and further illuminate how consumers use this mythic structure to transform their ideological beliefs into dramatic narratives of identity. Our resulting theoretical framework explicates identity‐value–enhancing relationships among mythic structure, ideological meanings, and marketplace resources that have not been recognized by prior studies of consumer identity work.
TL;DR: The role of material culture in families is explored in this paper, where a longitudinal case study extends Kopytoff's theory of singularization by explaining what occurs between the singularization of a focal object and its recommodification.
Abstract: Our study contributes to understanding the role of material culture in families. Findings from a longitudinal case study extend Kopytoff’s theory of singularization by explaining what occurs between the singularization of a focal object and its recommodification. We uncover processes that move an already singularized object in and out of a network of practices, objects, and spaces; identify forces that constrain and empower a singularized object’s agency within that network; and demonstrate network transformations that result from the focal object’s movement. This extension explains some paradoxical findings in consumer research: how objects are granted agency even while displaced, when irreplaceable objects can be replaced, and why families sometimes displace central identity practices.
TL;DR: The authors examined the conditions under which consumers experience an increased preference for nostalgic products, such as previously popular movies, television programs, foods, or automobiles, and found that participants for whom the need to belong is an active goal experience a significantly stronger preference for nostalgically purchased products than do participants for which this is not a goal.
Abstract: This research examines the conditions under which consumers experience an increased preference for nostalgic products, such as previously popular movies, television programs, foods, or automobiles. Specifically, participants for whom the need to belong is an active goal experience a significantly stronger preference for nostalgic products than do participants for whom this is not an active goal. This preference holds both when the need to belong is activated in an ego-threatening manner, such as after being socially ostracized, and when it is activated in a non-ego-threatening manner, such as when the interdependent self is primed. Furthermore, the consumption of nostalgic products, rather than the exposure to or the mere selection of nostalgic products, successfully satiates the need to belong.
TL;DR: This paper showed that multisensory ads result in higher taste perception than ads focusing on taste alone, with this result being mediated by the excess of positive over negative sensory thoughts. But since the ad effect is thought-driven or cognitive, restricting cognitive resources (imposing cognitive load) attenuates the enhancing effect of the multiple-sense ad.
Abstract: We propose that advertisement (ad) content for food products can affect taste perception by affecting sensory cognitions. Specifically, we show that multisensory ads result in higher taste perceptions than ads focusing on taste alone, with this result being mediated by the excess of positive over negative sensory thoughts. Since the ad effect is thoughts-driven or cognitive, restricting cognitive resources (imposing cognitive load) attenuates the enhancing effect of the multiple-sense ad. Our results are exhibited across three experiments and have many implications for cognition and sensory perception research within consumer behavior, as well as several practical implications.
TL;DR: This article found that entity theorists use brands with appealing personalities to signal their positive qualities, thereby enhancing self-perceptions in line with the brand's personality, and implicate implicit self-theories as a key factor in understanding how brand experiences affect consumers.
Abstract: When consumers use brands with appealing personalities, does the brand’s personality “rub off” on them? The answer is yes, but only for consumers who hold certain beliefs about their personality. Entity theorists perceive themselves to be better looking, more feminine, and more glamorous after using a Victoria’s Secret shopping bag (study 1) and more intelligent, more of a leader, and harder working after using an MIT pen (study 2); incremental theorists are unaffected. In two subsequent studies, we find that entity theorists use brands with appealing personalities to signal their positive qualities, thereby enhancing self-perceptions in line with the brand’s personality. These findings implicate implicit self-theories as a key factor in understanding how brand experiences affect consumers.
TL;DR: The authors explored the effect of source certainty on persuasion and found that low expertise sources violate expectancies, stimulate involvement, and promote persuasion when they express certainty, whereas high expertise sources violated expectancies and stimulate involvement when they expressed uncertainty.
Abstract: This research explores the effect of source certainty—that is, the level of certainty expressed by a message source—on persuasion. The authors propose an incongruity hypothesis, suggesting that source certainty effects depend on perceived source expertise. In three experiments, consumers receive persuasive messages from sources of varying expertise and certainty. Across studies, low expertise sources violate expectancies, stimulate involvement, and promote persuasion when they express certainty, whereas high expertise sources violate expectancies, stimulate involvement, and promote persuasion when they express uncertainty. Thus, nonexpert (expert) sources can gain interest and influence by expressing certainty (uncertainty).
TL;DR: The authors developed a six-item scale measuring individual differences in propensity to plan that can be adapted to different domains and used to compare planning across domains and time horizons, finding that propensity to planning is moderately domain-specific.
Abstract: Planning has pronounced effects on consumer behavior and intertemporal choice. We develop a six-item scale measuring individual differences in propensity to plan that can be adapted to different domains and used to compare planning across domains and time horizons. Adaptations tailored to planning time and money in the short run and long run each show strong evidence of reliability and validity. We find that propensity to plan is moderately domain-specific. Scale measures and actual planning measures show that for time, people plan much more for the short run than the long run; for money, short- and long-run planning differ less. Time and money adaptations of our scale exhibit sharp differences in nomological correlates; short-run and long-run adaptations differ less. Domain-specific adaptations predict frequency of actual planning in their respective domains. A “very long-run” money adaptation predicts FICO credit scores; low planners thus face materially higher cost of credit.
TL;DR: In this article, an evolutionary framework for examining the influence of different positive emotions on cognition and behavior is presented, and three experiments are conducted to investigate how two positive emotions (pride and contentment) influence product desirability.
Abstract: We present an evolutionary framework for examining the influence of different positive emotions on cognition and behavior. Testing this framework, we investigate how two positive emotions—pride and contentment—influence product desirability. Three experiments show that different positive emotions (compared with a neutral control condition) have specific effects on judgment that are consistent with the proposed underlying evolved function of each positive emotion. As predicted by the framework, the specific influences of pride and contentment on product desirability are mediated by the triggering of emotion-specific functional motives. Overall, an evolutionary approach presents important research implications and practical applications for how and why discernible positive and negative emotions influence thinking and behavior. We discuss the implications of an evolutionary approach for the study of emotions, highlighting key similarities and differences between this and other approaches, as well as noting the advantages of incorporating an evolutionary approach.
TL;DR: This paper found that imposed healthy eating signals that the health goal was sufficiently met, and thus it increases the strength of the conflicting motive to fulfill one's appetite, and consumers asked to sample an item framed as healthy later reported being hungrier and consumed more food.
Abstract: Do subtle cues for imposed healthy eating make consumers hungry? Imposed healthy eating signals that the health goal was sufficiently met, and thus it increases the strength of the conflicting motive to fulfill one’s appetite. Accordingly, consumers asked to sample an item framed as healthy later reported being hungrier and consumed more food than those who sampled the same item framed as tasty or those who did not eat at all. These effects of healthy eating depend on the consumer’s perception that healthy eating is mandatory; therefore, only imposed healthy eating made consumers hungrier, whereas freely choosing to eat healthy did not increase hunger.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the ways in which active consumers negotiate meanings about the consumption of a particular public good, public space, using the context of street art, and document four main ideologies of public space consumption that result from the interaction, both conflict and common intent, of urban dwellers and street artists.
Abstract: Consumer research has paid scant attention to public goods, especially at a time when the contestation between categorizing public and private goods and controlling public goods is pronounced. In this multisited ethnography, we explore the ways in which active consumers negotiate meanings about the consumption of a particular public good, public space. Using the context of street art, we document four main ideologies of public space consumption that result from the interaction, both conflict and common intent, of urban dwellers and street artists. We show how public space can be contested as private and commercialized, or offered back as a collective good, where sense of belonging and dialogue restore it to a meaningful place. We demonstrate how the common nature of space both stimulates dialectical and dialogical exchanges across stakeholders and fuels forms of layered agency.
TL;DR: The authors show that attitude change can occur in two ways, depending on how brands and affective stimuli are presented, and that this attitude change is significantly more robust than indirect attitude change, for example, to changes in the valence of affective stimulus (unconditioned stimulus revaluation: e.g. endorsers falling from grace), to interference by subsequent information (e.g., advertising clutter), and to persuasion knowledge activation.
Abstract: Changing brand attitudes by pairing a brand with affectively laden stimuli such as celebrity endorsers or pleasant pictures is called evaluative conditioning. We show that this attitude change can occur in two ways, depending on how brands and affective stimuli are presented. Attitude change can result from establishing a memory link between brand and affective stimulus (indirect attitude change) or from direct “affect transfer” from affective stimulus to brand (direct attitude change). Direct attitude change is significantly more robust than indirect attitude change, for example, to changes in the valence of affective stimuli (unconditioned stimulus revaluation: e.g., endorsers falling from grace), to interference by subsequent information (e.g., advertising clutter), and to persuasion knowledge activation (e.g., consumer suspicion about being influenced). Indirect evaluative conditioning requires repeated presentations of a brand with the same affective stimulus. Direct evaluative conditioning requires simultaneous presentation of a brand with different affective stimuli.
TL;DR: This article argued that consumer behavior is not an independent discipline, emphasizing the consumer role and emphasizing the acquisition, consumption, and disposal of marketplace products, services, and experiences, and that it is distinguished from other fields by its focus on a consumer role.
Abstract: Critics within the consumer behavior field have consistently debated three fundamental issues about the field’s defining properties and goals: (1) whether consumer behavior should be an independent discipline, (2) what is (and is not) consumer behavior, and (3) whether our field should be interdisciplinary. Taking the perspective of the sociology of science leads us to conclude that (1) consumer behavior is not an independent discipline; (2) consumer behavior is distinguished from other fields by its focus on a consumer role, emphasizing the acquisition, consumption, and disposal of marketplace products, services, and experiences; and (3) consumer behavior is not an interdisciplinary field.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose that consumers have mental budgets for grocery trips that are typically composed of both an itemized portion and in-store slack, and they find support for their framework predicting that the relationship between in store slack and budget deviation (the amount by which actual spending deviates from the mental trip budget) depends on factors related to desire and willpower.
Abstract: We propose that consumers have mental budgets for grocery trips that are typically composed of both an itemized portion and in-store slack. We conceptualize the itemized portion as the amount that the consumer has allocated to spend on items planned to the brand or product level and the in-store slack as the portion of the mental budget that is not assigned to be spent on any particular product but remains available for in-store decisions. Using a secondary data set and a field study, we find incidence of in-store slack. Moreover, we find support for our framework predicting that the relationship between in-store slack and budget deviation (the amount by which actual spending deviates from the mental trip budget) depends on factors related to desire and willpower.
TL;DR: The authors examined how construal level (i.e., how abstractly or concretely people represent information in memory) affects consumers' responses to mixed emotions appeals and found mixed emotions and pure positive emotional appeals equally persuasive.
Abstract: This research examines how construal level (i.e., how abstractly or concretely people represent information in memory) affects consumers’ responses to mixed emotions appeals. The results of five studies show that, consistent with prior research, participants experienced discomfort when they encountered mixed emotions appeals and developed less favorable attitudes toward the ad relative to pure positive emotional appeals, but this was the case only for those who construed information at a concrete, low level. Participants who construed information at an abstract, high level did not experience much discomfort; hence, they found mixed emotions and pure positive emotional appeals equally persuasive. We further demonstrate that the chronic construal level associated with people’s age and cultural background underlies the moderating effects of age and culture on consumers’ attitudes toward mixed emotions appeals documented in prior research.
TL;DR: This article examined the factors influencing consumers' evaluations of self-designed products and found that a superior fit between consumers' underlying preferences and their customized products cannot fully explain self-design evaluations.
Abstract: The vast majority of consumer behavior research has examined how consumers respond to products that are offered on a “take it or leave it” basis by the manufacturer. Self-design changes the rules substantially, allowing consumers to have much more control over the product’s characteristics. This research examines the factors influencing consumers’ evaluations of self-designed products. Three studies demonstrate that a superior fit between consumers’ underlying preferences and their customized products cannot fully explain self-design evaluations. Comparisons with designers of comparable products can significantly influence evaluations as well. The first two experiments examine how social comparisons with the designers of similar “off-the-rack” products influence evaluations, identifying two key moderators useful in overcoming the negative effects of an upward comparison. A third study uses a real online design task to gain understanding of how the timing of the social comparison moderates the direction of the comparison (upward vs. equivalent) to influence evaluations.
TL;DR: For both positive and negative product experiences, the authors demonstrate that consumers use more abstract terms when they describe experiences that are in line with the valence of their product attitude, and this effect cannot be explained by differences in valence between abstract and concrete language.
Abstract: This research examines the language that consumers use in word of mouth. For both positive and negative product experiences, we demonstrate that consumers use more abstract terms when they describe experiences that are in line with the valence of their product attitude. This effect cannot be explained by differences in valence between abstract and concrete language. On the receiver side, abstract language in positive word of mouth leads to (1) the inference that the sender has a more favorable product attitude and (2) a higher buying intention for the product under consideration. The reverse is found for negative word of mouth.
TL;DR: The authors found that if a pencil or a facial tissue is imbued with scent (vs. not), recall for the brand's other attributes increases significantly, with the effects lasting as much as 2 weeks after exposure.
Abstract: Scent research has focused primarily on the effects of ambient scent on consumer evaluations. We focus instead on the effects of product scent on consumer memories. For instance, if a pencil or a facial tissue is imbued with scent (vs. not), recall for the brand’s other attributes increases significantly—with the effects lasting as much as 2 weeks after exposure. We also find that product scent is more effective than ambient scent at enhancing memory for product information. We suggest that this may be because, with product (ambient) scent, scent-related associations are focused on a single object (are diffused across multiple objects) in the environment. In support, we find that the memory effects are driven by the number of product/scent-related associations stored in long-term memory. The results suggest that, although ambient scent has received the bulk of attention from researchers and managers in recent years, greater focus on product scent is warranted.