Journal of Consumer Research

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March 3, 2015

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A. Peter McGraw
Caleb Warren
Christina Kan

Although complaints document dissatisfaction, some are also humorous. This article introduces the concept of humorous complaining and draws on the benign violation theory -- which proposes that humor arises from things that seem simultaneously wrong yet okay -- to examine how being humorous helps and hinders complainers. Six studies, which use social media and online reviews as stimuli, show that humorous complaints benefit people who want to warn, entertain, and make a favorable impression on others. Further, in contrast to the belief that humor is beneficial but consistent with the benign violation theory, humor makes complaints seem more positive (by making an expression of dissatisfaction seem okay), but makes praise seem more negative (by making an expression of satisfaction seem wrong in some way). Finally, a benign violation approach perspective also reveals that complaining humorously has costs. Because being humorous suggests that a dissatisfying situation is okay, humorous complaints are less likely to elicit redress or sympathy from others than nonhumorous complaints.

Volume 41, Number 5, February 2015

DOI: 10.1086/678904

This Number Just Feels Right: The Impact of Roundedness of Price Numbers on Product Evaluations

Monica Wadhwa
Kuangjie Zhang

Because rounded numbers are more fluently processed, rounded prices ($200.00) encourage reliance on feelings. In contrast, because nonrounded numbers are disfluently processed, nonrounded prices ($198.76) encourage reliance on cognition. Thus, rounded (nonrounded) prices lead to a subjective experience of "feeling right" when the purchase decision is driven by feelings (cognition). Further, this sense of feeling right resulting from the fit between the roundedness of the price number and the nature of decision context can make positive reactions toward the target product more positive and negative reactions more negative, a phenomenon referred to as the rounded price effect in the current research. Results from five studies provide converging evidence for the rounded price effect. Findings further show that merely priming participants with rounded (nonrounded) numbers in an unrelated context could also lead to the rounded price effect. Finally, this research provides process support by showing that the rounded price effect is mediated by a sense of feeling right. This is the first research examining the differential impact of roundedness of prices on product purchase decisions, based on whether the purchase decision is driven by feelings versus cognition.

Volume 41, Number 5, February 2015

DOI: 10.1086/678484

Perils of Compensatory Consumption: Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulation

Monika Lisjak
Andrea Bonezzi
Soo Kim
Derek D. Rucker

Prior research has shown that psychological threat can provoke consumers to desire, seek out, and acquire products that symbolize accomplishment in the domain of the threat. Although such within-domain compensation can serve as a psychological salve to repair the self, the current research suggests that sometimes this form of compensation can have ill effects. Specifically, engaging in within-domain compensation can trigger ruminative thinking about the threat. As a consequence, performance in subsequent tasks that require self-regulation is undermined. In support of this hypothesis, multiple experiments demonstrate that within-domain compensation impairs subsequent self-regulation on behaviors ranging from resisting tempting but unhealthy food to performing cognitively taxing tasks. Evidence that within-domain compensation fosters ruminative thought, as well as documentation of boundary conditions, is provided.

Volume 41, Number 5, February 2015

DOI: 10.1086/678902

Squeezed: Coping with Constraint through Efficiency and Prioritization

Philip M. Fernbach
Christina Kan
John G. Lynch Jr.

When consumers perceive that a resource is limited and may be insufficient to accomplish goals, they recruit and enact plans to cope with the shortage. The authors distinguish two common strategies: efficiency planning yields savings by stretching the resource, whereas priority planning does so by sacrificing less important goals. Using a variety of methods to explore both financial and time planning, the authors investigate how the two types of planning differ, how they vary with constraint, and how they interrelate. Relative to efficiency planning, priority planning is perceived as yielding larger one-time savings, but it feels more costly because it requires trade-offs within-resource (money for money) as opposed to cross-resource (time for money). As constraint increases and greater resource savings are required, prioritization becomes more likely. However, the shift to prioritization is often insufficient, and consumers tend to react to insufficient prioritization dysfunctionally, making a bad situation worse. Budgeting helps consumers behave more adaptively. Budgeters respond to constraint with more priority planning than nonbudgeters, and they report fewer dysfunctional behaviors, like overspending and impulsive shopping.

Volume 41, Number 5, February 2015
DOI: 10.1086/679118

Things Fall Apart: The Dynamics of Brand Audience Dissipation

Marie-Agn�s Parmentier
Eileen Fischer

Much prior work illuminates how fans of a brand can contribute to the value enjoyed by other members of its audience, but little is known about any processes by which fans contribute to the dissipation of that audience. Using longitudinal data on America's Next Top Model, a serial brand, and conceptualizing brands as assemblages of heterogeneous components, this article examines how fans can contribute to the destabilization of a brand's identity and fuel the dissipation of audiences of which they have been members. This work suggests that explanations focusing on satiation, psychology, or semiotics are inadequate to account for dissipation in the audience for serial brands. Moreover, the perspective advanced here highlights how fans can create doppelg�nger brand images and contribute to the co-destruction of serial brands they have avidly followed.

Volume 41, Number 5, February 2015
DOI: 10.1086/678907

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