Journal of Consumer Research
August 3, 2010






































































































































































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Journal of Consumer Research
Recently Published Online

Got to Get You into My Life: Do Brand Personalities Rub Off on Consumers?
Ji Kyung Park
Deborah Roedder John


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 and more intelligent, more of a leader, and harder working after using an MIT pen; incremental theorists are unaffected. In two subsequent studies, 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.

DOI: 10.1086/655807
Online Publication Date: July 6, 2010.


References

Selected Media Mentions

BusinessWeek
Brand 'Personality' May Affect How Consumers See Themselves

U.S. News & World Report
Brand 'Personality' May Affect How Consumers See Themselves

MSN Health & Fitness
Brand 'Personality' May Affect How Consumers See Themselves

Canada.com
Brand identity: It's all in your head

London Free Press
Secret to boosting self-esteem: all in the bag

Health.com
Brand 'Personality' May Affect How Consumers See Themselves

R&D Magazine
Can a Victoria's Secret shopping bag make you feel glamorous?

EurekAlert!
Can a Victoria's Secret shopping bag make you feel glamorous?

Science Daily
Can a Victoria's Secret shopping bag make you feel glamorous?

Science Blog
Can a Victoria's Secret shopping bag make you feel glamorous?

Eureka! Science News
Can a Victoria's Secret shopping bag make you feel glamorous?

PhysOrg.com
Can a Victoria's Secret shopping bag make you feel glamorous?

Thaindian News
Victoria's Secret shopping bag 'can make you feel gorgeous

RedOrbit
Can A Shopping Bag Make You Feel Glamorous?


Regulatory Focus, Regulatory Fit, and the Search
and Consideration of Choice Alternatives

Michel Tuan Pham
Hannah H. Chang


This research investigates the effects of regulatory focus on alternative search and consideration set formation in consumer decision making. Results from three experiments yield two primary findings. First, promotion-focused consumers tend to search for alternatives at a more global level, whereas prevention-focused consumers tend to search for alternatives at a more local level. Second, promotion-focused consumers tend to have larger consideration sets than do prevention-focused consumers. Building on these two findings, it is additionally shown that whereas promotion-focused consumers attach relatively greater value to options chosen from hierarchically structured sets, prevention-focused consumers attach relatively greater value to options chosen from non-hierarchically structured item lists. Finally, whereas promotion-focused consumers attach significantly greater value to options chosen from a larger set than to options chosen from a smaller set, prevention-focused consumers do not attach significantly less value to options chosen from a larger set than to options chosen from a smaller set.

DOI: 10.1086/655668
Online Publication Date: July 7, 2010.


References

Selected Media Mentions

EurekAlert!
Are you promotion- or prevention-focused
and what does this mean when considering choices?


Science Daily
Are you promotion- or prevention-focused
and what does this mean when considering choices?


Science Blog
Are you promotion- or prevention-focused
and what does this mean when considering choices?


Eureka! Science News
Are you promotion- or prevention-focused
and what does this mean when considering choices?


PhysOrg.com
Are you promotion- or prevention-focused
and what does this mean when considering choices?



How Mainstream Consumers Think about Consumer Rights and Responsibilities
Paul C. Henry

How is mainstream consumer thinking is structured in order to form opinions about consumer rights, government regulation, and individual responsibility in the credit card setting? A broader political ideology--one that intertwines consumption practices with a causal narrative of business, society, and state--infuses consumer opinions. Four sociohistorically shaped political myths compete in this ideological space: individual autonomy, social equality, consumer sovereignty, and corporate dominance. Consumers negotiate tensions between each of these four myths (for example, individual autonomy versus social equality, and consumer sovereignty versus corporate dominance). This ideology triggers moral judgments among consumers about self and others that inform their perceptions of deservedness and apportions degrees of responsibility and blame across consumer, business, and government participants.

DOI: 10.1086/653657
Online Publication Date: May 10, 2010


References

Selected Media Mentions

EurekAlert!
Consumers and their rights: A new study from Australia

Eureka! Science News
Consumers and their rights: A new study from Australia

PhysOrg.com
Consumers and their rights: A new study from Australia

RedOrbit
Consumers and their rights: A new study from Australia


Fragile Enhancement of Attitudes and Intentions Following Difficult Decisions
Ab Litt
Zakary L. Tormala


Increased liking of one's choice following difficult decisions (such as choosing between similarly attractive options) is well documented. Given the common mechanism proposed for this effect--a highly involving dissonance reduction process--it would be reasonable to expect such choice enhancement to be quite durable and resistant to later change. Instead, the authors show the contrary: that difficulty-driven choice enhancement is exceptionally fragile, collapsing easily against even minor attack. In three experiments, consumers make easy or difficult product choices, report attitudes toward their choice, and subsequently encounter a negative customer review. Compared to easy decisions, difficult decisions lead to more extreme initial positivity toward chosen products but also to more vulnerability to subsequent attack. Moreover, this fragile enhancement effect is exacerbated, not ameliorated, by choice involvement. Thus, making difficult decisions between similarly attractive options may motivate a bubble-like inflation of positivity that has some semblance of strength yet remains highly prone to collapse.

DOI: 10.1086/653494
Online Publication Date: April 22, 2010


References

JCR Highlights Archive
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