Showing papers in "Journal of Consumer Research in 2018"
TL;DR: It is argued that although automated text analysis cannot be used to study all phenomena, it is a useful tool for examining patterns in text that neither researchers nor consumers can detect unaided.
Abstract: The amount of digital text available for analysis by consumer researchers has risen dramatically. Consumer discussions on the internet, product reviews, and digital archives of news articles and press releases are just a few potential sources for insights about consumer attitudes, interaction, and culture. Drawing from linguistic theory and methods, this article presents an overview of automated text analysis, providing integration of linguistic theory with constructs commonly used in consumer research, guidance for choosing amongst methods, and advice for resolving sampling and statistical issues unique to text analysis. We argue that although automated text analysis cannot be used to study all phenomena, it is a useful tool for examining patterns in text that neither researchers nor consumers can detect unaided. Text analysis can be used to examine psychological and sociological constructs in consumer-produced digital text by enabling discovery or by providing ecological validity.
359 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conceptualize perceived financial well-being as two related but separate constructs: (i) stress related to the management of money today (current money management stress), and (ii) a sense of security in one's financial future (expected future financial security).
Abstract: Though perceived financial well-being is viewed as an important topic of consumer research, the literature contains no accepted definition of this construct. Further, there has been little systematic examination of how perceived financial well-being may affect overall well-being. Using consumer financial narratives, several large-scale surveys, and two experiments, we conceptualize perceived financial well-being as two related but separate constructs: 1) stress related to the management of money today (current money management stress), and 2) a sense of security in one’s financial future (expected future financial security). We develop and validate measures of these constructs (web appendix A) and then demonstrate their relationship to overall well-being, controlling for other life domains and objective measures of the financial domain. Our findings demonstrate that perceived financial well-being is a key predictor of overall well-being and comparable in magnitude to the combined effect of other life domains (job satisfaction, physical health assessment, and relationship support satisfaction). Further, the relative importance of current money management stress to overall well-being varies by income groups and due to the differing antecedents of current money management stress and expected future financial security. Implications for financial well-being and education efforts are offered.
318 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptual framework based on assemblage theory and object-oriented ontology details how consumer experience and object experience emerge in the IoT and defines consumer experience by its emergent properties, capacities, and agentic and communal roles expressed in interaction.
Abstract: The consumer Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to revolutionize consumer experience. Because consumers can actively interact with smart objects, the traditional, human-centric conceptualization of consumer experience as consumers’ internal subjective responses to branded objects may not be sufficient to conceptualize consumer experience in the IoT. Smart objects possess their own unique capacities and their own kinds of experiences in interaction with the consumer and each other. A conceptual framework based on assemblage theory and object-oriented ontology details how consumer experience and object experience emerge in the IoT. This conceptualization is anchored in the context of consumer-object assemblages, and defines consumer experience by its emergent properties, capacities, and agentic and communal roles expressed in interaction. Four specific consumer experience assemblages emerge: enabling experiences, comprising agentic self-extension and communal self-expansion, and constraining experiences, comprising agentic self-restriction and communal self-reduction. A parallel conceptualization of the construct of object experience argues that it can be accessed by consumers through object-oriented anthropomorphism, a nonhuman-centric approach to evaluating the expressive roles objects play in interaction. Directions for future research are derived, and consumer researchers are invited to join a dialogue about the important themes underlying our framework.
300 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that participants valued physical goods more than digital goods whether their value was elicited in an incentive compatible pay-what-you-want paradigm, with willingness to pay, or purchase intention.
Abstract: Digital goods are, in many cases, substantive innovations relative to their physical counterparts. Yet, in five experiments, people ascribed less value to digital than to physical versions of the same good. Research participants paid more for, were willing to pay more for, and were more likely to purchase physical goods than equivalent digital goods, including souvenir photographs, books (fiction and nonfiction), and films. Participants valued physical goods more than digital goods whether their value was elicited in an incentive compatible pay-what-you-want paradigm, with willingness to pay, or purchase intention. Greater capacity for physical than digital goods to garner an association with the self (i.e., psychological ownership), underlies the greater value ascribed to physical goods. Differences in psychological ownership for physical and digital goods mediated the difference in their value. Experimentally manipulating antecedents and consequents of psychological ownership (i.e., expected ownership, identity-relevance, perceived control) bounded this effect, and moderated the mediating role of psychological ownership. The findings show how features of objects influence their capacity to garner psychological ownership before they are acquired, and provide theoretical and practical insights for the marketing, psychology, and economics of digital and physical goods.
139 citations
TL;DR: This work proposes that, aside from increasing sample size, researchers can also increase power by boosting the effect size, if done correctly, removing participants, using covariates, and optimizing experimental designs, stimuli, and measures can boost effect size.
Abstract: As in other social sciences, published findings in consumer research tend to overestimate the size of the effect being investigated, due to both file drawer effects and abuse of researcher degrees of freedom, including opportunistic analysis decisions. Given that most effect sizes are substantially smaller than would be apparent from published research, there has been a widespread call to increase power by increasing sample size. We propose that, aside from increasing sample size, researchers can also increase power by boosting the effect size. If done correctly, removing participants, using covariates, and optimizing experimental designs, stimuli, and measures can boost effect size without inflating researcher degrees of freedom. In fact, careful planning of studies and analyses to maximize effect size is essential to be able to study many psychologically interesting phenomena when massive sample sizes are not feasible.
125 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors demonstrate that political ideology systematically influences consumers' preferences for differentiation, and the effect is robust across measured and manipulated ideology, hypothetical and real product choices, and online searches in conservative and liberal US states.
Abstract: As consumers’ political opinions become more divided and more central to their identities, it is important to understand how political ideology shapes consumers’ attempts to differentiate from others in the marketplace. Seven studies demonstrate that political ideology systematically influences consumers’ preferences for differentiation. Conservative ideology leads consumers to differentiate from others vertically in the social hierarchy through products that signal that they are better than others, and liberal ideology leads consumers to differentiate from others horizontally in the social hierarchy through products that signal that they are unique from others. This happens because conservatism endorses, and liberalism opposes, the belief that the dominance-based hierarchical social structure is a legitimate mechanism to distinguish individual qualities. The effect is robust across measured and manipulated ideology, hypothetical and real product choices, and online searches in conservative and liberal US states. Manipulating consumers’ differentiation goals and perceptions of hierarchy legitimacy mitigates the effect. The findings advance existing research on political ideology, social hierarchy, and consumer divergence, and they contribute to marketing practice.
107 citations
TL;DR: For instance, this paper found that when consumers feel psychological ownership of a target, they are prone to perceptions of infringement and subsequent territorial responses when they infer that another individual feels ownership of the same target.
Abstract: Psychological ownership, or the feeling that something is mine, has garnered growing attention in marketing. While previous work focuses on the positive aspects of psychological ownership, this research draws attention to the darker side of psychological ownership—territorial behavior. Results of five experimental studies demonstrate that when consumers feel psychological ownership of a target, they are prone to perceptions of infringement and subsequent territorial responses when they infer that another individual feels ownership of the same target. Potential infringers are held less accountable when they acknowledge ownership prior to engaging in otherwise threatening behaviors, and when they could not be expected to know that a target is owned, as it was not clearly marked. In addition, high narcissists are subject to a psychological ownership metaperception bias, and are thus more apt than low narcissists to perceive infringement. A multitude of territorial responses are documented for both tangible (coffee, sweater, chair, pizza) and intangible (a design) targets of ownership. Further, consumers infer the psychological ownership of others from signals of the antecedents of psychological ownership: control, investment of self, and intimate knowledge. Theoretical implications for territoriality and psychological ownership are discussed, along with managerial implications and areas for future research.
91 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that consumers are less likely to evaluate anthropomorphized (vs. non-anthropomorphized) brands favorably when distinctiveness goals are salient, and consumers are more likely to choose non-anthropomorphic brands to express distinctiveness.
Abstract: Although past research has shown that anthropomorphism enhances consumers’ attraction to a brand when social-connectedness or effectance motives are active, the current research demonstrates that anthropomorphizing a brand becomes a detrimental marketing strategy when consumers’ distinctiveness motives are salient. Four studies show that anthropomorphizing a brand positioned to be distinctive diminishes consumers’ sense of agency in identity expression. As a result, when distinctiveness goals are salient, consumers are less likely to evaluate anthropomorphized (vs. nonanthropomorphized) brands favorably and are less likely to choose them to express distinctiveness. This negative effect of brand anthropomorphism, however, is contingent on the brand’s positioning strategy—brand-assupporter (supporting consumers’ desires to be different) versus brand-as-agent (communicating unique brand features instead of focusing on consumers’ needs) versus brand-as-controller (limiting consumers’ freedom in expressing distinctiveness). Our results demonstrate that an anthropomorphized brand-as-supporter enhances consumers’ sense of agency in identity expression, compared to both an anthropomorphized brand-as-agent and an anthropomorphized brand-ascontroller. In turn, enhancing or thwarting consumers’ sense of agency in expressing their differences from others drives the differential impact of anthropomorphizing a brand positioned to be distinctive.
91 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the effect of handwritten typefaces on the emotional attachment between the consumer and the product and provide guidelines for how and when brands should use handwritten types.
Abstract: The loss of a sense of humanness that stems from increasing mechanization, automation, and digitization gives firms an impetus to develop effective ways to humanize products. On the basis of knowledge activation theory, this article systematically investigates a novel humanization approach: the use of typefaces that appear to be handwritten. Across several laboratory and field studies, the authors provide evidence of the positive effect of handwritten typefaces, reveal the mechanisms that lead to these outcomes, and outline some boundary conditions. Specifically, the results show that handwritten typefaces create perceptions of human presence, which lead to more favorable product evaluations (and behavior) by enhancing the emotional attachment between the consumer and the product. However, these effects are mitigated for brands to which consumers already feel a sense of attachment. Finally, the effects reverse when the products are functionally positioned or functional in nature. The present article thus extends understanding of humanization processes and provides guidelines for how and when brands should use handwritten typefaces.
86 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the Restaurant Day movement initially emerged as a resistant response to market tensions relating to constraining food culture regulation in a Nordic market context, and the movement's appropriation of collective creativ- ity as its chief mode of organization and participation.
Abstract: Consumer movements are resolute and persistent efforts by organized consumer collectives to reimagine elements of consumer culture. Such movements often use creative public performances to promote their causes and to make movement par- ticipation more ludic and fun. However, collective creativity within consumer move- ments has rarely been an explicit focus of research. Using ethnographic methods and assemblage theory, this study elaborates how collective creativity organizes a consumer movement and facilitates its quest for market change. Findings show how the Restaurant Day movement initially emerged as a resistant response to market tensions relating to constraining food culture regulation in a Nordic market context. Findings then illuminate the movement's appropriation of collective creativ- ity as its chief mode of organization and participation. Collective creativity builds on iterative and co-constituting deterritorializing and territorializing processes of con- sumer production that fuel transformative and explorative creativity, respectively, within the market context. The study provides new insights to consumer movement mobilization, organization, member recruitment, and market legitimacy. The study also provides novel theoretical insights to the study of consumer creativity.
78 citations
TL;DR: The authors constructed a new theory of narrativity to link the narrative content and discourse of consumer reviews to consumer behavior and developed from scratch a computerized technique that reliably determined the degree of narration of 190,461 verbatim, online consumer reviews and validated the automated text analysis with two controlled experiments.
Abstract: Many consumers base their purchase decisions on online consumer reviews. An overlooked feature of these texts is their narrativity: the extent to which they tell a story. The authors construct a new theory of narrativity to link the narrative content and discourse of consumer reviews to consumer behavior. They also develop from scratch a computerized technique that reliably determines the degree of narrativity of 190,461 verbatim, online consumer reviews and validate the automated text analysis with two controlled experiments. More transporting (i.e., engaging) and persuasive reviews have better developed characters and events as well as more emotionally changing genres and dramatic event orders. This interdisciplinary, multimethod research should help future researchers (1) predict how narrativity affects consumers’ narrative transportation and persuasion, (2) measure the narrativity of large digital corpora of textual data, and (3) understand how this important linguistic feature varies along a continuum.
TL;DR: The authors found that taking photos with the intention to share increases self-presentational concern during the experience, which can reduce enjoyment directly, as well as indirectly by lowering engagement with the experience.
Abstract: People often share their experiences with others who were not originally present, which provides them with both personal and interpersonal benefits. However, most prior work on this form of sharing has examined the decision to share one’s experience only after the experience is over. We investigate a distinct, unexplored aspect of the sharing process: when the decision to share is already salient during an experience and hence can impact the experience itself. We examine this research question within the context of photo-taking, an increasingly ubiquitous and integral part of people’s experiences. Across two field and three laboratory studies, we find that relative to taking pictures for oneself (e.g., to preserve one’s memories), taking pictures with the intention to share them with others (e.g., to post on social media) reduces enjoyment of experiences. This effect occurs because taking photos with the intention to share increases self-presentational concern during the experience, which can reduce enjoyment directly, as well as indirectly by lowering engagement with the experience. We identify several factors that moderate the effect of photo-taking goals on enjoyment, such as individual differences in the extent to which individuals care about how others perceive them and the closeness of the intended audience.
TL;DR: The fresh start mindset as mentioned in this paper is defined as a belief that people can make a new start, get a new beginning, and chart a new course in life, regardless of their past or present circumstances.
Abstract: This article introduces the fresh start mindset, defined as a belief that people can make a new start, get a new beginning, and chart a new course in life, regardless of their past or present circumstances. With historical roots in American culture and neoliberalism, and with contemporary links to liquid modernity and global consumer culture, this mindset structures reasoning, experience, and everyday language, and guides behavior across self- and other-transformative consumption domains. We develop a six-item scale (FSM) to measure the fresh start mindset and situate it within a broader nomological network, including growth mindset, personal capacity for change, optimism, future temporal focus, internal locus of control, self-efficacy, perseverance, resilience, and consumer variety seeking. Individuals with a stronger (vs. weaker) fresh start mindset invest in transformative change through changing their circumstances, including their own consumption choices (e.g., buying a new pair of sunglasses and getting a new self); they also are more supportive of transformative programs that assist those who are challenged to get a fresh start (i.e., disadvantaged youth, at-risk teens, veterans, and tax-burdened adults). Our work significantly contributes to transformative consumer research with attention to self-activities and programs for vulnerable populations that enable new beginnings.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide converging evidence for the joint effect of perceived economic mobility and socioeconomic status (SES) on compensatory behavior, such that low SES consumers who perceive low economic mobility seek more variety than other consumers.
Abstract: Five studies provide converging evidence for the joint effect of perceived economic mobility and socioeconomic status (SES) on compensatory behavior, such that low SES consumers who perceive low economic mobility (i.e., economically stuck consumers) seek more variety than other consumers. We trace this effect to these consumers’ desire to compensate for their low sense of personal control. Furthermore, we show that these consumers’ variety-seeking tendency disappears when their sense of control is boosted by other means or when the more varied option is not associated with a sense of control. Alternative explanations based on instrumental benefits, reactance, and affect were tested and did not account for the effect. Thus, the current research provides fresh insights to consumer research by contributing to the literature on compensatory behavior, variety seeking, and SES.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors found that feeling crowded in a shopping environment can decrease consumers' evaluations of a product or service and lower customer satisfaction, and that consumers become more attached to brands as an alternative way of maintaining their basic need for belongingness.
Abstract: Feeling crowded in a shopping environment can decrease consumers’ evaluations of a product or service and lower customer satisfaction. However, the present research suggests that a crowded environment can sometimes have a positive impact on consumer behavior. Although feeling crowded motivates consumers to avoid interacting with others, it leads them to become more attached to brands as an alternative way of maintaining their basic need for belongingness. The effect does not occur (a) when the crowding environment is composed of familiar people (and, therefore, is not considered aversive); (b) when individuals have an interdependent self-construal (and consequently, high tolerance for crowdedness); (c) when people are accompanied by friends in the crowded environment; (d) when the social function of the brands is made salient; (e) when people have never used the brand before; or (f) when the brand is referred to as a general product rather than a specific brand.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effectiveness of public recognition in encouraging charitable giving, demonstrating that public recognition can sometimes decrease donations, driven by the activation of an agentic motive, wherein donors are motivated to make decisions that are guided by their own goals and self-interests, rather than being influenced by the opinions and expectations of others.
Abstract: This research examines the effectiveness of public recognition in encouraging charitable giving, demonstrating that public recognition can sometimes decrease donations. While previous work has largely shown that making donations visible to others can motivate donors, the present research shows that the effectiveness of public recognition depends on whether potential donors are under an independent (i.e., separate from others) or interdependent (i.e., connected with others) self-construal. Across seven experimental studies, an independent self-construal decreases donation intentions and amounts when the donor will receive public recognition compared to when the donation will remain private. This effect is driven by the activation of an agentic motive, wherein independents are motivated to make decisions that are guided by their own goals and self-interests, rather than being influenced by the opinions and expectations of others. This research contributes to the understanding of the nuanced roles of both public recognition and self-construal in predicting donation behavior.
TL;DR: This paper explored how financial status, which influences consumers' expectations about how companies will treat them, affects consumers' perceptions and assessments of products that have been given anthropomorphic features by companies.
Abstract: The present research explores how financial status, which influences consumers’ expectations about how companies will treat them, affects consumers’ perceptions and assessments of products that have been given anthropomorphic features by companies. Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants with higher financial status expect more favorable treatment from a humanized entity (e.g., “a self-driving car would prioritize the well-being of the rich over others”). The results of study 3 indicate that participants with higher perceived financial status both afforded greater agency to humanized products and liked these products better than did participants with lower perceived financial status. These effects were mediated by commercial treatment expectations, when we controlled for perceived control and self-efficacy. Further confirming the role of treatment expectations, when participants believed people with low financial status would be treated better than those with high financial status, we observed the reverse pattern (study 4). Lastly, study 5 replicated the effect using a measured, not manipulated, variable of financial status. Findings support the view that effective anthropomorphism requires marketers to take into account consumers’ motivation to interpret a target with humanlike features as having positive agency, which results from treatment expectations.
TL;DR: This article found that consumers have better memory for an ethical attribute when the product performs well on the attribute versus when a product performs poorly on it, suggesting that willfully ignorant memory is a more morally acceptable form of coping with want/should conflict.
Abstract: This research documents a systematic bias in memory for ethical attribute information: consumers have better memory for an ethical attribute when a product performs well on the attribute versus when a product performs poorly on the attribute. Because consumers want to avoid emotionally difficult ethical information (e.g., child labor) but believe they should remember it in order to do the right thing, the presence of negative ethical information in a choice or evaluation produces conflict between the want and should selves. Consumers resolve this conflict by letting the want self prevail and forgetting or misremembering the negative ethical information. A series of studies establishes the willfully ignorant memory effect, shows that it holds only for ethical attributes and not for other attributes, and provides process evidence that it is driven by consumers allowing the want self to prevail in order to avoid negative feelings associated with the conflict. We also ameliorate the effect by reducing the amount of pressure exerted by the should self. Lastly, we demonstrate that consumers judge forgetting negative ethical information as more morally acceptable than remembering but ignoring it, suggesting that willfully ignorant memory is a more morally acceptable form of coping with want/should conflict.
TL;DR: The authors developed a framework for understanding and investigating the different ways in which experiencing and creating laughter and amusement help consumers reach their goals, from experiencing pleasure and making better decisions to staying healthy and building relationships.
Abstract: Consumers regularly experience humor while buying and using products, procuring services, and engaging in various consumption experiences, whether watching a movie or dining with colleagues. Despite an expansive literature on how humor influences advertisers’ communication goals, far less is known about how humor appreciation and comedy production influence the likelihood of attaining various consumption goals, from experiencing pleasure and making better decisions to staying healthy and building relationships. Drawing on a wide range of findings from multiple disciplines, we develop a framework for understanding and investigating the different ways in which experiencing and creating laughter and amusement help — and sometimes hurt — consumers reach their goals. The framework provides key insights into the nuanced role of humor and comedy in consumer welfare.
TL;DR: For example, this paper found that people are more likely to perform unimportant tasks (i.e., tasks with objectively lower payoffs) over important tasks when the unimportant task are characterized merely by spurious urgency (e.g., an illusion of expiration).
Abstract: In everyday life, people are often faced with choices between tasks of varying levels of urgency and importance. How do people choose? Normatively speaking, people may choose to perform urgent tasks with short completion windows, instead of important tasks with larger outcomes, because important tasks are more difficult and further away from goal completion, urgent tasks involve more immediate and certain payoffs, or people want to finish the urgent tasks first and then work on important tasks later. The current research identifies a mere urgency effect, a tendency to pursue urgency over importance even when these normative reasons are controlled for. Specifically, results from five experiments demonstrate that people are more likely to perform unimportant tasks (i.e., tasks with objectively lower payoffs) over important tasks (i.e., tasks with objectively better payoffs), when the unimportant tasks are characterized merely by spurious urgency (e.g., an illusion of expiration). The mere urgency effect documented in this research violates the basic normative principle of dominance—choosing objectively worse options over objectively better options. People behave as if pursuing an urgent task has its own appeal, independent of its objective consequence.
TL;DR: The authors explored the role of reference points in shaping goal specificity's effects and found that for specific goals, the end state tends to be more salient, but for nonspecific goals the initial state should be more prominent.
Abstract: Consumers often pursue goals that lack specific end states, such as goals to lose as much weight as possible or to pay off as much debt as possible. Yet despite considerable interest in the consequences of setting nonspecific (vs. specific) goals, how goal specificity affects motivation throughout goal pursuit is less well understood. The current research explores the role of reference points in shaping goal specificity’s effects. We propose that goal specificity alters what reference point consumers spontaneously adopt during goal pursuit: for specific goals, the end state tends to be more salient, but for nonspecific goals, the initial state should be more salient. Five studies investigate how this difference in focal reference points shapes (1) the relationship between goal progress and motivation, (2) when (i.e., at what level of goal progress) goal specificity produces the greatest difference in motivation, and (3) the underlying process driving these effects. Our findings advance understanding of the relationship between goal specificity, goal progress, and motivation, and in doing so, underscore the critical role that reference points play in goal-directed behavior. In addition, the findings offer practical insight into how best to set important financial, health, and other consumer goals to enhance motivation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that the face width-to-height ratio (fWHR: bizygomatic width divided by upper-face height) can signal dominance and affect a product's overall evaluation.
Abstract: A product’s front face (e.g., a watch face or car front) is typically the first point of contact and a key determinant of a consumer’s initial impression about the product. Drawing on evolutionary accounts of human face perception suggesting that the face width-to-height ratio (fWHR: bizygomatic width divided by upper-face height) can signal dominance and affect its overall evaluation, this research is based on the premise that product faces are perceived in much the same way as human faces. Five experiments tested this premise. Results suggest that like human faces, product faces with high (vs. low) fWHR are perceived as more dominant. However, while human faces with high fWHR are liked less, product faces with high fWHR are liked more as revealed by consumer preference and willingness-to-pay scores. The greater preference for the high fWHR product faces is motivated by the consumers’ desire to enhance and signal their own dominant status as evidenced by the moderating effects of type of goal and of usage context. Brand managers and product designers may be particularly interested in these findings since a simple design feature can have potentially significant marketplace impact, as was also confirmed by the field data obtained from secondary sources.
TL;DR: The authors found that people delegate difficult decisions, regardless of the decision's importance, and regardless of their potential surrogate's expertise, to avoid responsibility for potentially making the wrong choice rather than simply the desire to avoid the possibility of a poor outcome, although anticipated disappointment with the outcome and anticipated regret about one's decision both contribute to the decision to delegate.
Abstract: Consumers typically prefer freedom of choice, but when faced with a choice they might regret, they may prefer freedom from choice. Eight experiments show that people delegate difficult decisions, regardless of the decision’s importance, and regardless of their potential surrogate’s expertise. Delegation stems from a desire to avoid responsibility for potentially making the wrong choice rather than simply the desire to avoid the possibility of a poor outcome: although anticipated disappointment with the outcome and anticipated regret about one’s decision both contribute to the decision to delegate, only anticipated regret directly leads people to delegate choices to others. Consequently, delegation is an appealing method for coping with difficult choices while allowing consumers to retain the benefits of choosing that they would forgo by opting out of the choice. Moreover, giving people the option to delegate makes them less prone to walk away from difficult choices empty-handed.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the effects of human crowding on calorie consumption and find that when given a choice between several different options, people select and eat higher-calorie items, but when presented with only one option, people eat more of the same food item.
Abstract: Consumer behavior is often influenced by subtle environmental cues, such as temperature, color, lighting, scent, or sound. We explore the effects of a not-so-subtle cue—human crowding—on calorie consumption. Although crowding is an omnipresent factor, it has received little attention in the marketing literature. We present six studies showing that crowding increases calorie consumption. These effects occur because crowding increases distraction, which hampers cognitive thinking and evokes more affective processing. When consumers process information affectively, they consume more calories. We show the specific reason for the increase in calories. When given a choice between several different options, people select and eat higher-calorie items, but when presented with only one option, people eat more of the same food item. We document this process, rule out alternative explanations, and discuss theoretical and managerial implications.