Showing papers in "Journal of Consumer Research in 2012"

Access-Based Consumption: The Case of Car Sharing

Abstract: Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place, is becoming increasingly popular, yet it is not well theorized. This study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing, specifically the consumer-object, consumer-consumer, and consumer-marketer relationships. Six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access-based consumptionscapes: temporality, anonymity, market mediation, consumer involvement, the type of accessed object, and political consumerism. Access-based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of Zipcar consumers. Four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified: lack of identification, varying significance of use and sign value, negative reciprocity resulting in a big-brother model of governance, and a deterrence of brand community. The implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange, consumption, and brand community are discussed.

When Brands Seem Human, Do Humans Act Like Brands? Automatic Behavioral Priming Effects of Brand Anthropomorphism

Abstract: This research examines automatic behavioral effects of priming brands that are anthropomorphized. It posits that anthropomorphized brands trigger people’s goals for a successful social interaction, resulting in behavior that is assimilative or contrastive to the brand’s image. Three studies show that consumers are more likely to assimilate behavior associated with anthropomorphized partner brands that they like, consistent with the goal of drawing in the liked coproducer, and servant brands that they dislike, consistent with the goal of pushing the disliked would-be helper away by signaling self-sufficiency. Results also show a contrastive behavior when primed with disliked partner brands and liked servant brands. These effects are observed in contexts unrelated to the brand prime. For example, priming Kellogg’s, a liked partner brand associated with healthfulness, led to greater willingness to take the stairs than the elevator in a purportedly unrelated study. No effects were observed of priming brands t...

Doing Poorly by Doing Good: Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Concepts

Abstract: Although the idea of brand concepts has been around for a while, very little research addresses how brand concepts may influence consumer responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Four studies reveal that communicating the CSR actions of a luxury brand concept causes a decline in evaluations, relative to control. A luxury brand’s self-enhancement concept (i.e., dominance over people and resources) is in conflict with the CSR information’s self-transcendence concept (i.e., protecting the welfare of all), which causes disfluency and a decline in evaluations. These effects do not emerge for brands with openness (i.e., following emotional pursuits in uncertain directions) or conservation (i.e., protecting the status quo) concepts that do not conflict with CSR. The effects for luxury brand concepts disappeared when the informativeness of the disfluency was undermined but were accentuated in an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set. These findings implicate brand concepts as a key factor in how ...

The "Visual Depiction Effect" in Advertising: Facilitating Embodied Mental Simulation through Product Orientation

Abstract: This research demonstrates that visual product depictions within advertisements, such as the subtle manipulation of orienting a product toward a participant’s dominant hand, facilitate mental simulation that evokes motor responses. We propose that viewing an object can lead to similar behavioral consequences as interacting with the object since our minds mentally simulate the experience. Four studies show that visually depicting a product that facilitates more (vs. less) embodied mental simulation results in heightened purchase intentions. The studies support our proposed embodied mental simulation account. For instance, occupying the perceptual resources required for embodied mental simulation attenuates the impact of visual product depiction on purchase intentions. For negatively valenced products, facilitation of embodied mental simulation decreases purchase intentions.

Conspicuous Consumption versus Charitable Behavior in Response to Social Exclusion: A Differential Needs Explanation

Abstract: Social exclusion has been shown to produce a number of different responses. This research examines the proposition that social exclusion may produce either self-focused or prosocial responses, depending on which needs are threatened. Different types of social exclusion threaten different needs, which in turn produce distinct outcomes (differential needs hypothesis). Social exclusion in the form of being implicitly ignored increased conspicuous consumption, whereas being explicitly rejected increased helping and donation behavior. However, when efficacy needs (power, meaningful existence) were bolstered, the effects of being ignored were eliminated, whereas when relational needs (self-esteem) were bolstered, the effects of being rejected were eliminated. The results indicate that certain types of social exclusion produce prosocial responses, whereas others produce self-focused and attention-getting responses.

Liquid Relationship to Possessions

Abstract: This study investigates consumers' relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary global nomadism. Prior research argues that consumers form enduring and strong attachments to possessions because of their centrality to identity projects. This role is heightened in life transitions including cross-border movements as possessions anchor consumer's identities either to their homeland or to the host country. This study reexamines this claim via in-depth interviews with elite global nomads, deterritorialized consumers who engage in serial relocation and frequent short-term international mobility. An alternative relationship to possessions characterized by detachment and flexibility emerges, which is termed “liquid.” Three characteristics of a liquid relationship to possessions are identified: temporary situational value, use-value, and immateriality. The study outlines a logic of nomadic consumption, that of instrumentality, where possessions and practices are strategic resources in managing mobility. A liquid perspective on possessions expands current understandings of materiality, acculturation, and globalization.

Plate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf Illusion’s Bias on Serving and Eating Behavior

Abstract: Despite the challenged contention that consumers serve more onto larger dinnerware, it remains unclear what would cause this and who might be most at risk. The results of five studies suggest that the neglected Delboeuf illusion may explain how the size of dinnerware creates two opposing biases that lead people to overserve on larger plates and bowls and underserve on smaller ones. A countercyclical sinus-shaped relationship is shown to exist between these serving biases and the relative gap between the edge of the food and the edge of the dinnerware. Although these serving biases are difficult to eliminate with attention and education, changing the color of one’s dinnerware or tablecloth may help attenuate them. By showing that the Delboeuf illusion offers a mechanistic explanation for how dinnerware size can bias serving and intake, we open new theoretical opportunities for linking illusions to eating behavior and suggest how simple changes in design can improve consumer welfare.

Super Size Me: Product Size as a Signal of Status

Abstract: This research proposes that consumers’ preference for supersized food and drinks may have roots in the status-signaling value of larger options. An initial experiment found that consumers view larger-sized options within a set as having greater status. Because low-power consumers desire status, we manipulated power to test our core propositions. Whether induced in the lab or in the field, states of powerlessness led individuals to disproportionately choose larger food options from an assortment. Furthermore, this preference for larger-sized options was enhanced when consumption was public, reversed when the size-to-status relationship was negative (i.e., smaller was equated with greater status), and mediated by consumers’ need for status. This research demonstrates that choosing a product on the basis of its relative size allows consumers to signal status, illustrates the consequences of such a choice for consumers’ food consumption, and highlights the central role of a product category’s size-to-status r...

Is Meat Male? A Quantitative Multimethod Framework to Establish Metaphoric Relationships

Abstract: Metaphors are increasingly recognized as influencing cognition and consumption. While these linkages typically have been qualitatively generated, this article presents a framework of convergent quantitative methodologies that can further document the validity of a metaphor. To illustrate this multimethod framework, the authors explore whether there is a metaphoric link between meat and maleness in Western cultures. The authors address this in six quantifiable studies that involve (1) implicit associations, (2) free associations, (3) indirect-scenario-based inferences, (4) direct measurement profiling, (5) preference and choice, and (6) linguistic analysis and conclude that there is a metaphoric relationship between mammal muscle meat and maleness.

Shining in the Center: Central Gaze Cascade Effect on Product Choice

Abstract: Consumers' tendency to choose the option in the center of an array and the process underlying this effect is explored. Findings from two eye-tracking studies suggest that brands in the horizontal center receive more visual attention. They are more likely to be chosen. Investigation of the attention process revealed an initial central fixation bias, a tendency to look first at the central option, and a central gaze cascade effect, progressively increasing attention focused on the central option right prior to decision. Only the central gaze cascade effect was related to choice. An offline study with tangible products demonstrated that the centrally located item within a product category is chosen more often, even when it is not placed in the center of the visual field. Despite widespread use, memory-based attention measures were not correlated with eye-tracking measures. They did not capture visual attention and were not related to choice.

Nostalgia: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Abstract: Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for a personally experienced and valued past, is a social emotion. It refers to significant others in the context of momentous life events and fosters a sense of social connectedness. On this basis, the authors hypothesized that (1) nostalgia promotes charitable intentions and behavior, and (2) this effect is mediated by empathy with the charity’s beneficiaries. Five studies assessed the effect of nostalgia on empathy, intentions to volunteer and donate, as well as tangible charitable behavior. Results were consistent with the hypotheses. Study 1 found that nostalgia increases charitable intentions. Study 2 showed that this salutary effect of nostalgia on charitable intentions is mediated by empathy (but not by personal distress). Studies 3 and 4 corroborated these finding for different charities and in diverse samples. Finally, study 5 demonstrated that nostalgia increases tangible charitable behavior. By virtue of its capacity to increase empathy, nostalgia facilitates p...

Identifiable but Not Identical: Combining Social Identity and Uniqueness Motives in Choice

Abstract: How do consumers reconcile conflicting motives for social group identification and individual uniqueness? Four studies demonstrate that consumers simultaneously pursue assimilation and differentiation goals on different dimensions of a single choice: they assimilate to their group on one dimension (by conforming on identity-signaling attributes such as brand) while differentiating on another dimension (distinguishing themselves on uniqueness attributes such as color). Desires to communicate social identity lead consumers to conform on choice dimensions that are strongly associated with their group, particularly in identity-relevant consumer categories such as clothing. Higher needs for uniqueness lead consumers to differentiate within groups by choosing less popular options among those that are associated with their group. By examining both between- and within-group levels of comparison and using multidimensional decisions, this research provides insight into how multiple identity motives jointly influence consumer choice.

Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition

Abstract: This paper examines how ambient noise, an important environmental variable, can affect creativity. Results from five experiments demonstrate that a moderate (70 dB) versus low (50 dB) level of ambient noise enhances performance on creative tasks and increases the buying likelihood of innovative products. A high level of noise (85 dB), on the other hand, hurts creativity. Process measures reveal that a moderate (vs. low) level of noise increases processing difficulty, inducing a higher construal level and thus promoting abstract processing, which subsequently leads to higher creativity. A high level of noise, however, reduces the extent of information processing and thus impairs creativity.

Life Satisfaction, Self-Determination, and Consumption Adequacy at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Abstract: Concentration on consumption in material environments characterized by too much rather than too little creates important gaps in the understanding of how much of the earth’s population navigates the marketplace. This study investigates bottom-of-the-pyramid, or impoverished, consumers to better comprehend the relationship between societal poverty and individual life satisfaction as moderated by psychological need deprivation and described by self-determination theory. Data were gathered from more than 77,000 individuals in 51 of the world’s poorest countries. Using hierarchical linear models, results show that relatedness and autonomy improve poverty’s negative influence on life satisfaction, but only if basic life necessities are available, described as consumption adequacy. Findings illustrate that without consumption adequacy, psychological need fulfillment has little effect on the poverty–well-being relationship, emphasizing the hopelessness of individuals living in extreme poverty. Findings also sugg...

Infidel Brands: Unveiling Alternative Meanings of Global Brands at the Nexus of Globalization, Consumer Culture, and Islamism

Abstract: Religion and ideology are prominent forces shaping consumption. While consumer researchers have studied both topics considerably, examinations of religious ideology remain scant. Notably lacking is research on how religion, myths, and ideology intertwine in the marketplace, informing attitudes toward brands. This ethnography investigates how the religious ideology of Islamism informs brand meanings among low-income Turkish consumers and identifies three discourses that construct global brands as infidels. Informants use the infidel parable to characterize market societies as devoid of social equality, morality, and justice. Their critique culminates in a consumer jihad against global brands. Through the consumer jihad, informants accommodate and protest the social crises posed by modernity and globalization as they seek to recreate the Golden Age of Islam. Exploring the relationships among economic means, cultural capital, and religious ideology helps this study bridge related domains of research on relig...

How Happiness Affects Choice

Abstract: Consumers want to be happy, and marketers are increasingly trying to appeal to consumers’ pursuit of happiness. However, the results of six studies reveal that what happiness means varies, and consumers’ choices reflect those differences. In some cases, happiness is defined as feeling excited, and in other cases, happiness is defined as feeling calm. The type of happiness pursued is determined by one’s temporal focus, such that individuals tend to choose more exciting options when focused on the future, and more calming options when focused on the present moment. These results suggest that the definition of happiness, and consumers’ resulting choices, are dynamic and malleable.

Self-Affirmation through the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Products

Abstract: Just as good looks bestow an unconscious “beauty premium” on people, high aesthetics bestows an unrecognized benefit on consumer goods. Specifically, choosing a product with good design affirms the consumer’s sense of self. Choice of a highly aesthetic product was compared with choice of products superior on other attributes including function, brand, and hedonics to show that only aesthetics influences a consumer’s personal values. In study 1 a prior self-affirming task leads to a decrease in choice share of a highly aesthetic option. Studies 2 and 3 mimic prior research on self-affirmation with, however, choice of a highly aesthetic product replacing a traditional self-affirmation manipulation. Choosing a product with good design resulted in increased openness to counter-attitudinal arguments and reduced propensity to escalate commitment toward a failing course of action. There are numerous implications of this form of self-affirmation, from public policy to retail therapy.

The Beauty of Boundaries: When and Why We Seek Structure in Consumption

Abstract: How do consumers cope when it seems that they have no control over their outcomes in life? This research posits that consumers will seek greater structure in consumption—or the sense that everything is in its designated place. Moreover, it suggests that very simple boundaries in the environment offer a means for attaining this sense of structure. Several experiments demonstrate that when personal control is threatened, consumers prefer logos, products, and environments that are tangibly or intangibly bounded over those that are unbounded. This research also explores the functional and symbolic benefits that boundaries provide as representations of order and structure.

Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid: How Word of Mouth Influences the Storyteller

Abstract: Consumers frequently tell stories about consumption experiences through word of mouth (WOM). These WOM stories may be told traditionally, through spoken, face-to-face conversation, or nontraditionally, through written online reviews or other electronic channels. Past research has focused on how traditional and nontraditional WOM influences listeners and firms. This research instead addresses how specific linguistic content in nontraditional WOM influences the storyteller. The current article focuses on explaining language content, through which storytellers reason about why experiences happened or why experiences were liked or disliked. Four studies examine how and why explaining language influences storytellers’ evaluations of and intentions to repeat, recommend, and retell stories about their experiences. Compared to nonexplaining language, explaining language influences storytellers by increasing their understanding of consumption experiences. Understanding dampens storytellers’ evaluations of and inte...

Financial Deprivation Prompts Consumers to Seek Scarce Goods

Abstract: Consumers assess their well-being subjectively, largely by comparing the present state of their lives to the state of comparable others and to their own state earlier in time. The authors suggest that consumers similarly assess their financial wellbeing, and when these evaluations highlight a deficit in their financial position, they pursue strategies that mitigate the associated sense of financial deprivation. Specifically, consumers counteract the relative deficit in their financial resources by acquiring goods that are consequently unavailable to other consumers in their environment. The results from five studies suggest that the inferiority and unpleasant affect associated with financial deprivation motivates consumers to attend to, choose, and consume scarce goods rather than comparable abundant goods. These effects diminish when scarce goods are limited because other people have already obtained them and when consumers attribute their unpleasant feelings to a source unrelated to financial deprivation.

Dissociative versus Associative Responses to Social Identity Threat: The Role of Consumer Self-Construal

Abstract: The current research examines the conditions under which consumers demonstrate associative versus dissociative responses to identity-linked products as a consequence of a social identity threat. Across four studies, the authors test the notion that reactions to social identity threat may be moderated by self-construal by examining subcultural differences in ethnic background, priming self-construal, and investigating cross-national differences in cultural background. Those with more independent self-construals tend to avoid identity-linked products when that identity is threatened versus not threatened. Those with more interdependent self-construals, in contrast, demonstrate more positive preferences for identity-linked products when that aspect of social identity is threatened. These effects arise because, while independents are motivated to restore positive self-worth when a social identity is threatened, interdependents access a repertoire of social identities to fulfill belongingness needs when threatened.

Intracommunity Gifting at the Intersection of Contemporary Moral and Market Economies

Abstract: Consumer research on gifting has primarily focused on the interpersonal meanings and behavior patterns associated with dyadic gifts that are specifically given from one individual to another and in which the central goal is interpersonal relationship maintenance. Yet we find another type of gifting when community members in one social position give to community members in another position in which the central goal is intracommunity, rather than interpersonal, relationship work. This ethnographic research details the ritual practices, structural components, and meanings associated with intracommunity gifts employing the empirical context of the post-Katrina New Orleans’ community celebration of Mardi Gras. Through this context, we detail how intracommunity gifting gives prominence to the logics of the moral economy while still drawing from those of the market economy. Beyond this context, we use our conclusions about the intersection of the market and moral economies to understand contemporary ambivalence ...

A Goal-Based Model of Product Evaluation and Choice

Abstract: The authors propose a goal-based model of product evaluation and choice. The model is intended to account for the role of momentary goal activations in relatively straightforward product evaluation and choice processes. It contributes by ( a ) providing a coherent and consistent account for goal-based product evaluations/choices, ( b ) providing a theory of the way goal activation influences product evaluation and choice, and ( c ) generating predictions about novel phenomena, moderators, and boundary conditions in the area of goal-based product evaluations and choices.

How Economic Contractions and Expansions Affect Expenditure Patterns

Abstract: In this study, we attempt to understand how household budget allocations across various expenditure categories change when the economy is in recession or expansion The common assumption is that a household’s tastes would not change as a function of economic conditions and therefore any adjustments in expenditure patterns during economic contractions/expansions would simply be due to changes in the consumption budget Standard economic models translate these budgetary effects into lateral movements along a set of fixed Engel curves, which relate category expenditure shares to total expenditures We propose and test a conceptual framework based on the notion of relative consumption, which prescribes that, for any given total consumption budget, expenditure shares for positional goods/services will decrease during a recession, while shares for nonpositional goods/services will increase (ie, shifting the entire Engel curve upward or downward, depending on the nature of the expenditure category and the economic conditions)

Do Payment Mechanisms Change the Way Consumers Perceive Products

Abstract: Do payment mechanisms change the way consumers perceive products? We argue that consumers for whom credit cards (cash) have been primed focus more on benefits (costs) when evaluating a product. In study 1, credit card (cash) primed participants made more (fewer) recall errors regarding cost attributes. In a word recognition task (study 2), participants primed with credit card (cash) identified more words related to benefits (costs) than those in the cash (credit card) condition. In study 3, participants in the credit card (cash) condition responded faster to benefits (costs) than to costs (benefits). This differential focus led credit card primed consumers to express higher reservation prices (studies 1–3) and also affected their product choices (study 4) relative to those primed with cash.

The Lonely Consumer: Loner or Conformer?

Abstract: Despite the popularity of social networks and technologies that intend to enhance social interaction, more Americans feel lonely now than before. This research examines how loneliness affects consumers’ responses to consensus-related social cues in marketing contexts. Results from three studies show that lonely consumers prefer minority-endorsed products, whereas nonlonely consumers prefer majority-endorsed products. However, this pattern occurs only when consumers’ product preferences are kept private. When product preferences are subject to public scrutiny, lonely consumers shift their preferences to majority-endorsed products. Results also reveal the underlying mechanisms. Minority-endorsed products fit better with the feelings of loneliness, and this fit mediates the effect of loneliness and endorsement type (i.e., majority vs. minority endorsement) on product evaluations in private consumption contexts. Yet, when their preferences are subject to public scrutiny, lonely consumers are concerned about b...

How Marketplace Performances Produce Interdependent Status Games and Contested Forms of Symbolic Capital

Abstract: Consumer researchers have commonly analyzed marketplace performances as liminal events structured by context-specific role playing, norms of reciprocity, and cocreative collaborations. As a consequence, this literature remains theoretically mute on questions related to the sociological disparities that arise when marketplace performances forge relationships between affluent consumers and underclass service workers: a circumstance becoming increasingly commonplace owing to trends in the service-oriented global economy. To redress this gap, we analyze how such sociocultural differences are manifested and mediated in the provisions of skilled marketplace performances. Building upon Bourdieu’s logic of field analysis, our resulting theoretical framework illuminates a network of structural relations that reconfigures the asymmetrical distribution of class-based resources between these class factions. Rather than being cooperative endeavors conducive to the formation of commercial friendships, we show that thes...

The Small-Area Hypothesis: Effects of Progress Monitoring on Goal Adherence

Abstract: This article examines a small-area hypothesis: individuals striving toward a goal end state exhibit greater motivation when their attention is directed to whichever is smaller in size—their accumulated or remaining progress. The result is that, at the beginning of goal pursuit, directing attention to accumulated progress increases goal adherence relative to directing attention to remaining progress (e.g., 20% completed is more impactful than 80% remaining). However, with closeness to the goal, directing attention to accumulated progress lessens goal adherence relative to directing attention to remaining progress (e.g., 20% remaining is more impactful than 80% completed; studies 1–2). The focus on small areas increases motivation by creating an illusion of fast progress (study 3). Therefore, when individuals wish to prolong goal pursuit and avoid reaching the goal’s end state, they slow down goal adherence when their attention is directed to small areas (study 4).

The Exception Is the Rule: Underestimating and Overspending on Exceptional Expenses

Abstract: Purchases fall along a continuum from ordinary (common or frequent) to exceptional (unusual or infrequent), with many of the largest expenses (e.g., electronics, celebrations) being the most exceptional. Across seven studies, we show that, while people are fairly adept at budgeting and predicting how much they will spend on ordinary items, they both underestimate their spending on exceptional purchases overall and overspend on each individual purchase. Based on the principles of mental accounting and choice bracketing, we show that this discrepancy arises in part because consumers categorize exceptional expenses too narrowly, construing each as a unique occurrence and consequently overspending across a series of discretely exceptional expenses. We conclude by proposing an intervention that diminishes this tendency by helping consumers consider their spending on exceptional items as part of a larger set of purchases.

Enjoy! Hedonic Consumption and Compliance with Assertive Messages

Abstract: This paper examines the persuasiveness of assertive language (as in Nike’s slogan “Just do it”) as compared to nonassertive language (as in Microsoft’s slogan “Where do you want to go today?”). Previous research implies that assertive language should reduce consumer compliance. Two experiments show that assertiveness is more effective in communications involving hedonic products, as well as hedonically advertised utilitarian products. This prediction builds on sociolinguistic research addressing relationships between mood, communication expectations, and compliance to requests. A third experiment reaffirms the role of linguistic expectations by showing that an unknown product advertised using assertive language is more likely to be perceived as hedonic.