Effects of Messiness on Preferences for Simplicity

This research examines the effect of experiencing messiness, induced by a messy environment or by priming the concept of messiness, on consumers. We propose that messiness is an aversive state and consumers are motivated to attenuate this state by seeking simplicity in their cognitions, preferences, and choices. Six experiments support our theorizing. Experiments 1a-1c (conducted in the laboratory) and experiment 2 (conducted in the field) demonstrate that when messiness is salient, consumers form simpler product categorizations, are willing to pay more for a t-shirt with a simple picture, and seek less variety in their choices. Experiment 3 brings additional evidence for the underlying role of the need for simplicity by showing that when the need for simplicity is satiated, the effects of messiness disappear. A final experiment shows a boundary condition of the messiness effect: political conservatives are more susceptible to messiness primes compared to liberals

Inhibitory Spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains

Visceral states are known to reduce the ability to exert self-control. In the current research, we investigated how self-control is affected by a visceral factor associated with inhibition rather than with approach: bladder control. We designed four studies to test the hypothesis that inhibitory signals are not domain-specific but can spill over to unrelated domains, resulting in increased impulse control in the behavioral domain. In Study 1, participants’ urination urgency correlated with performance on color-naming but not word-meaning trials of a Stroop task. In Studies 2 and 3, we found that higher levels of bladder pressure resulted in an increased ability to resist impulsive choices in monetary decision making. We found that inhibitory spillover effects are moderated by sensitivity of the Behavioral Inhibition System (Study 3) and can be induced by exogenous cues (Study 4). Implications for inhibition and impulse-control theories are discussed

Emotions in Everyday Life

Despite decades of research establishing the causes and consequences of emotions in the laboratory, we know surprisingly little about emotions in everyday life. We developed a smartphone application that monitored real-time emotions of an exceptionally large (N = 11,000+) and heterogeneous participants sample. People’s everyday life seems profoundly emotional: participants experienced at least one emotion 90% of the time. The most frequent emotion was joy, followed by love and anxiety. People experienced positive emotions 2.5 times more often than negative emotions, but also experienced positive and negative emotions simultaneously relatively frequently. We also characterized the interconnections between people’s emotions using network analysis. This novel approach to emotion research suggests that specific emotions can fall into the following categories 1) connector emotions (e.g., joy), which stimulate same valence emotions while inhibiting opposite valence emotions, 2) provincial emotions (e.g., gratitude), which stimulate same valence emotions only, or 3) distal emotions (e.g., embarrassment), which have little interaction with other emotions and are typically experienced in isolation. Providing both basic foundations and novel tools to the study of emotions in everyday life, these findings demonstrate that emotions are ubiquitous to life and can exist together and distinctly, which has important implications for both emotional interventions and theory

Inhibitory spillover: Increased urination urgency facilitates impulse control in unrelated domains

Visceral states are known to have a (detrimental) impact on our ability to exert self-control. In the current research, we investigate the impact of a visceral factor associated with inhibition, rather than with approach: bladder control. We argue that inhibitory signals are not domain specific, but can spill over to unrelated domains, resulting in increased impulse control in the behavioral domain. We show that urination urgency correlates with improved performance on color naming but not word meaning trials of a Stroop task (Study 1). In Study 2 and 3, we show that higher levels of bladder control result in an increasing ability to resist more immediate temptations in monetary decision making. We show that inhibitory spillover effects are moderated by sensitivity of the behavioral inhibition system (BIS, Study 3), and can be induced by exogenous cues (Study 4). Implications for inhibition and impulse control theories are discussed.nrpages: 21status: publishe