Journal of Consumer Research
December 6, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Featured Media Mentions

 Tricking the Eye to Keep From Heaping Plates
Wall Street Journal



Journal of Consumer Research
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From Inherent Value to Incentive Value: When and Why Pointless Effort Enhances Consumer Preference

Sara Kim
Aparna A. Labroo

Companies typically use clear fonts and bright pictures in their ads, Web sites, and product-package designs; place their products on easy-to-reach shelves; and emphasize ease-of-usage to make their products appear desirable to consumers. However, customers focused on "incentive" value (getting the best product) may instead see products associated with noninstrumental (pointless) effort as more desirable. Because effort is usually required to get the best outcomes, people looking for the best outcomes also mistakenly presume effort must imply the best possible outcome. Highlighting incentive value (for instance, by message framing or by measuring chronic focus or by manipulating situational focus on incentive value) enhances preference toward outcomes associated with noninstrumental effort. The authors discuss the importance of the findings for understanding everyday consumption decisions and argue for a widespread tendency among individuals wanting the best to infer value from noninstrumental effort.    

 

DOI: 10.1086/660806
Electronically published June 21, 2011

Selected Media Mentions

 

Wanting the Hard to Get Simply Because It Is

New York Times

 

Something for the weekend
The Financial Times

 

What's that under your sleeve? A computer  

The Globe and Mail

 

Why We Want Things That Are Hard To Get 

The Huffington Post

 

Why Being Hard-To-Get Attracts Consumers (And Men) 

TIME

 

Why People Like Anything That Plays Hard to Get

The Atlantic Wire

 

Why do consumers think hard-to-get babes and products are worth the extra effort?

EurekAlert!     

 


The Role of Bolstering and Counterarguing Mind-Sets in Persuasion

Alison Jing Xu
Robert S. Wyer Jr.


The effect of a persuasive communication on individuals' attitudes can be influenced by the cognitive behavior they have performed in an earlier, unrelated situation. Inducing participants to make supportive elaborations about a series of propositions activated a bolstering mind-set that increased the effectiveness of an unrelated advertisement they encountered subsequently. However, inducing participants to refute the implications of a series of propositions activated a counterarguing mind-set that decreased the ad's effectiveness. These mind-sets had more impact when the cognitive behavior they activated differed from the behavior that would occur in the absence of these mind-sets. When the implications of a persuasive message were difficult to refute, inducing a counterarguing mind-set increased its effectiveness. Finally, watching a political speech or debate activated different mind-sets, depending on participants' a priori attitude toward the politicians involved, and these mind-sets influenced the impact of an unrelated commercial they considered later.

 

DOI: 10.1086/661112
Electronically published June 30, 2011

Selected Media Mentions

Scientific American   

 

Study of the Day: Do Ads That Air During Political Debates Work?  

The Atlantic 

 

STUDY: The Presidential Debates Will Make You Spend, Spend, Spend

Business Insider    

 

Watch the Debates. Mute the Ads 

SmartMoney

 

How do political debates affect advertising? 

EurekAlert!

 


Extending Culturally Symbolic Brands: A Blessing or a Curse? 

Carlos J. Torelli
Rohini Ahluwalia

Results from four studies uncover a relatively automatic cultural congruency mechanism that can influence evaluations of culturally charged brand extensions, overriding the impact of perceived fit on extension evaluations. Culturally congruent extensions (i.e., when both the brand and the extension category cue the same cultural schema) were evaluated more favorably than culturally neutral extensions, which in turn were evaluated more favorably than culturally incongruent ones (i.e., cue two different cultural schemas). The effects emerged with both moderate and low fit brand extensions, as well as for narrow and broad brands. However, they only emerged when both the brand and the product were culturally symbolic, likely to automatically activate a cultural schema but did not emerge for brands low in cultural symbolism. The effects were driven by the processing (dis)fluency generated by the simultaneous activation of the same (different) cultural schemas by the product and the brand.

 

DOI: 10.1086/661081
Electronically published June 14, 2011

Selected Media Mentions 

 

Consumers react positively to brands matching cultural expectations  

TruthDive 

 

Culturally symbolic products: Would you buy a Sony cappuccino maker? 

PhysOrg.com 


Culturally symbolic products: Would you buy a Sony cappuccino maker?

EurekAlert!   

 


The Dynamic Impact of Variety among Means on Motivation

Jordan Etkin
Rebecca K. Ratner

Consumers often have a variety of products that they may use to help them pursue their goals. These products constitute a set of means toward consumers' goal attainment. This article investigates (1) how the amount of variety (high vs. low) among a set of means affects motivation to pursue the associated goal and (2) how this relationship changes over the course of goal pursuit as progress is made toward goal attainment. Five studies demonstrate that when progress toward goal attainment is low, having more variety within a set of means to goal attainment increases motivation to pursue the goal. However, when progress toward goal attainment is high, having less variety within a set of means to goal attainment increases motivation to pursue the goal. These findings suggest perceived variety among means is an important determinant of motivation in goal pursuit.

 

DOI: 10.1086/661229
Electronically published June 20, 2011

Selected Media Mentions

PhysOrg.com

   

If consumers are close to fitness goals, do they prefer a larger or limited variety of products?
EurekAlert!  

 


Unpacking What a "Relationship" Means to Commercial Buyers: How the Relationship Metaphor Creates Tension and Obscures Experience

Christopher P. Blocker
Mark B. Houston
Daniel J. Flint

Scholars apply the relationship metaphor as a default conceptual lens to understand commercial interactions. Yet whereas the relationship paradigm sheds light on how the socially embedded structure of these interactions impacts their outcomes, the relationship metaphor can also obscure scholarly understanding of business buyers' experiences. Results of an interpretive study drawing on depth interviews demonstrate that buyers' colloquial use of "relationship" language is ubiquitous. However, buyers' narratives reveal instrumentally saturated emic meanings and felt tensions for the notion of expressive relationships with suppliers, which manifest deep conceptual friction with the constellation of etic relationship properties and constructs used by scholars to explain business interactions. Using Bauman's sociological commentary on liquid modernity, analyses indicate that framing these interactions as "connections" is a more theoretically congruent lens for viewing buyers' experiences. Implications for understanding buyers' desire for relational bonds and recasting ironic "dark side" research findings offer challenges for relationship marketing research.

 

DOI: 10.1086/660916
Electronically published June 28, 2011

Selected Media Mentions

670 KBOI

New study says it's time to stop assuming buyers and salespeople are in 'relationships'
EurekAlert!   

 


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

Ryan S. Elder
Aradhna Krishna


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. 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 the 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.

 

DOI: 10.1086/661531
Electronically published June 29, 2011

Selected Media Mentions 

Science Daily

EurekAlert!  

 

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