Social Information in the Retail Environment: The Importance of Consumption Alignment, Referent Identity, and Self-Esteem

This research uncovers a counterintuitive effect of negative information, showing that under specifiable conditions people will be more favorably disposed to a product when a small dose of negative information is added to an otherwise positive description. This effect is moderated by processing effort and presentation order, such that the enhanced positive disposition toward the product following negative information emerges when the information is processed effortlessly rather than effortfully and when the negative information follows rather than precedes positive information. Four studies demonstrate this blemishing effect in both lab and field settings and explore the proposed mechanism and boundary conditions.  

On the Dangers of Pulling a Fast One: Advertisement Disclaimer Speed, Brand Trust, and Purchase Intention

Two experiments demonstrated that fast (vs. normal-paced) end-of-advertisement disclaimers undermine consumers' purchase intention toward untrusted brands (both trust-unknown and not-trusted brands), but that disclaimer speed has no effect on consumers' purchase intention toward trusted brands. The differential effects of disclaimer speed for untrusted versus trusted brands were not due to differences in consumers' familiarity with the brands (experiment 1). Consistent with the hypothesis that fast disclaimers adversely affect purchase intention via heuristic rather than elaborative processes, the disclaimer speed × brand trust interaction effect remained robust even when the disclaimer presented positive information about the advertised product (experiment 2).  

Pulling a fast one: How do consumers react to zippy disclaimers?
PhysOrg.com

Pulling a fast one: How do consumers react to zippy disclaimers? 

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

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.  

The Attribute Carryover Effect: What the "Runner-Up" Option Tells Us about Consumer Choice Processes

The process used to differentiate a top choice from a runner-up can result in a preference reversal among nonselected alternatives, which the authors term the attribute carryover effect. A series of three experiments demonstrate that a phased choice process can shift attribute preferences. If the top choice is unavailable, consumers with weak attribute preferences are likely to reject their explicitly identified second choice (the runner-up option). Instead, these consumers choose an option that may not meet the initial screening criteria but that does share a desirable, "differentiating" feature with the unavailable top choice. Judgment data indicate that this preference reversal is due to increased salience of the differentiating attribute during the last phase of the original choice, which "carries over" into the subsequent choice. These findings augment the understanding of consumer choice processes and heighten the ability to predict choice outcomes under situations in which a chosen option is unattainable.