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February 25, 2014
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Journal of Consumer Research
Highlights from Two Years Ago

  

When Blemishing Leads to Blossoming: The Positive Effect of Negative Information
Danit Ein-Gar 
Baba Shiv 
Zakary L. Tormala

This research uncovers a counterintuitive effect of negative information, showing that under specifiable conditions
consumers 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.  

 

Volume 38, Number 5, February 2012
DOI: 10.1086/660807 
 

Selected Media Mentions

  

Financial Times 

 

Restaurant reviews: Can negative information have a positive effect?
EurekAlert!  
 
 

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

Darren W. Dahl 
Jennifer J. Argo 
Andrea C. Morales

This research focuses on understanding when low body esteem consumers are most likely to engage in negative social comparisons and examines how this process influences product evaluations. Two pieces of social information are needed for negative comparisons in a retail environment to occur: an attractive social referent must be actively consuming (wearing) the product, and the consumer must also be actively consuming (wearing) the product. If only one of these conditions holds, there is no alignment in consumption, and a negative comparison does not occur. Importantly, the identity of the social referent is critical to these effects. By identifying key factors that determine when comparative information will influence consumers, this research highlights how marketing strategies impact the consumer inside and outside of the retail environment. 

 

Volume 38, Number 5, February 2012
DOI: 10.1086/660918


Selected Media Mentions

  

The Consumerist 

  

Consumer self-esteem while shopping: Maybe good-looking clerks shouldn't wear the store brands?
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. Buyer colloquial use of "relationship" language is ubiquitous. However, buyer 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 buyer experiences. Implications for understanding buyer desire for relational bonds and recasting ironic "dark side" research findings offer challenges for relationship marketing research.

 

Volume 38, Number 5, February 2012
DOI: 10.1086/660916


Selected Media Mentions

  

Time to Admit It: The Sales 'Relationship' Is Over

Business News Daily 

  

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

Science Daily 

  

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

EurekAlert!  
 
 

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

Wendy Attaya Boland 
Merrie Brucks
Jesper H. Nielsen

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 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. 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.  

 

DOI: 10.1086/660749

Selected Media Mentions

  

Science Daily  

 

When the first choice isn't available, why don't consumers choose the obvious second choice?

Phys.Org

  

When the first choice isn't available, why don't consumers choose the obvious second choice?
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 (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 (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


Selected Media Mentions

 

Phys.Org 

 

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




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