Current Issue Highlights October 20, 2015
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The Foresight Effect: Local Optimism Motivates Consistency and Local Pessimism Motivates Variety
Adelle X. Yang Oleg Urminsky
Consumers sometimes prefer to repeat their past choices; at other times the same consumer prefers to try something new. A consumer's situational future outlook (local optimism or pessimism about an imminent outcome) can systematically affect the sequential consistency of consumer choices. Specifically, local optimism increases sequential choice consistency, whereas local pessimism increases sequential variety seeking. The authors test this foresight effect in two experimental paradigms, using both real and hypothetical consumer choices. They first establish the basic effect of situational future outlook on sequential choice consistency. Then they provide evidence that differences in the preference for self-continuity underlie the effect. Lastly, the authors extend this effect to choices between broadly defined usual and novel consumer products. Across the studies, they rule out differences in mood, causal attribution, and perceived control as alternative explanations. These findings have theoretical implications on the relationship between future-oriented cognition and consumer behaviors, as well as broad managerial implications for when consumers will be more apt to repeat past purchases or more open to novel product adoption.
Volume 42, Number 3, October 2015DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucv039
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Dominant Consumption Rituals and Intragroup Boundary Work: How Non-Celebrants Manage Conflicting Relational and Identity Goals
Through collective engagement in consumption rituals, group members reinforce intragroup relationships and the boundaries of the group. Yet, paradoxically, as intragroup diversity increases, dominant rituals deployed for this relational work can run counter to the ideologically rooted identities of some members. Using a sociological lens, this article focuses on the complexities of not celebrating a dominant collective consumption ritual by focusing on people who do not celebrate Christmas in America. The qualitative data analysis finds that non-celebrants use a set of ritual strategies that are grounded in their conflicting goals of protecting their ideologically rooted identities but also doing relational work with celebrators. It shows how non-celebrants deploy consumptive elements of the dominant ritual as symbolic resources to enact each strategy, foregrounding or backgrounding the symbolic boundary between themselves and celebrators. Beyond the context, contributions to the study of symbolic boundaries, identity politics, and collective consumption rituals are discussed.
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Thomas Allard
Katherine White
This research examines the notion that guilt, the negative emotion stemming from a failure to meet a self-held standard of behavior, leads to preferences for products enabling self-improvement, even in domains unrelated to the original source of the guilt. Such effects arise because guilt -- by its focus on previous wrongdoings -- activates a general desire to improve the self. This increase in desire for self-improvement products is only observed for choices involving the self (not others), is not observed in response to other negative emotions (shame, embarrassment, sadness, or envy), and is mitigated when consumers hold the belief that the self is nonmalleable. Building on past work that focuses on how guilt often leads to the motivation to alleviate feelings of guilt either directly or indirectly, the current research demonstrates an additional, novel downstream consequence of guilt, showing that only guilt has the unique motivational consequence of activating a general desire to improve the self, which subsequently spills into other domains and spurs self-improving product choices. These findings are discussed in light of their implications for research on the distinct motivational consequences of specific emotions and on consumer well-being.
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Christopher K. Hsee
Yang Yang
Bowen Ruan
Prior research indicates that a stimulus can reinforce an action if the stimulus is a reward (a priori positive) or carries useful information. The current research finds that if a stimulus is perceived as a reaction to an action, it can reinforce the action even if the stimulus is a priori nonpositive and noninformative. Mere reactions are reinforcing. Specifically, consumers are more likely to repeat an action (inserting money in a donation box or typing a message in a textbox) if the action is followed by a stimulus (the emission of a sound or the flash of an image) than if it is not, even if the stimulus is a priori negative (an annoying sound or an aversive image) and carries no useful information. Moreover, the effect just described will occur only if the stimulus is contingent on (immediately follows) the action and perceived as a reaction to the action. Finally, by serving as a reaction, an a priori nonpositive stimulus can become positive. The present work yields theoretical implications for stimulus-response relationships and practical implications for designs of consumer products and loyalty programs.
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(Autumn 2015) | (Spring/Summer 2015) |
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(Autumn 2014)
Curator: Jennifer Aaker
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Psychology Today
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