Unmake up your mind: why some reversible decisions lead to more choice satisfaction than others.

Consumers can often make reversible decisions, e.g. make purchases where items can be returned for exchanges or refunds or where purchases can be cancelled. Having the option to reverse a purchase decision (decision reversibility) has been linked to lower choice satisfaction, prompting scholars to think that being able to return goods for a refund or to cancel a purchase should make consumers less satisfied with their purchases. In this thesis I qualify this notion. I refine the construct of reversible decisions, showing that there are two distinct kinds of them: when consumers have an option to remake a choice (exchange the chosen item for a non-chosen one) and when consumers have an option to unmake a choice (cancel an order or return items for a refund). I conduct four experiments that show that consumers who can unmake a choice are more satisfied with it than those who can remake it. I thus refine the link between reversible decisions and choice satisfaction and recommend that retailers do not adopt exchange-only return policies. I explain the mediating mechanism for this effect: the extent of post-choice comparison between the chosen and foregone alternatives that is higher in decisions where a choice can be remade, rather than unmade. I also show that the effect of the different decision reversibility options (unmake choice vs remake choice) on choice satisfaction is stronger for neurotic consumers. Cognitively depleting consumers or prompting them to seek variety in their choices removes the effect of decision reversibility options on choice satisfaction, suggesting some ways in which retailers can contain consumers’ dissatisfaction with exchange-only return policies.PhD in Leadership and Managemen

North York Moors National Park: Resident Survey Results

The North York Moors National Park undertook Residents' survey in 2023. The primary aims of the survey were to help establish a baseline in residents’ attitudes to tourism and to set a target related to improving resident satisfaction in relation to tourism. An online survey was conducted between 8 May and 8 June 2023, with 701 valid responses. York St John University was commissioned to conduct the analysis of survey data (report authors: Dr Jenny Hall, Dr Dmytro Moisieiev and Dr Brendan Paddison, York Business School)

Hot and cold: How do consumers hate and forgive offending charity brands?

When brands transgress, consumers often react by hating them and sometimes forgiving them. Charity brands transgress, too, including serious transgressions of a sexual nature or against children. Charity brands contribute greatly to the economy, but differ from for‐profit brands in their nature and do transgress; yet whether charity brands are hated and forgiven similarly to for‐profit brands has not been researched adequately. Our study aimed to build a framework that demonstrates the antecedents of charity brand hate, the emotions associated with different types of charity brand hate and the behavioural consequences of charity brand hate, including brand forgiveness. We adopted a qualitative approach that involved collecting data from 26 semi‐structured interviews and analysing it thematically. The findings of this study advance the current understanding of brand hate and brand forgiveness by identifying the emotional outcome (feeling of suspicion and hurt) and behavioural outcomes (distancing from charity brands and practising financial punishment) associated with charity brand transgressions. In the long term, interviewees display the intention to reconnect with charity brands and to forgive transgressing charity brands due to the benevolence associated with them. Therefore, we also contribute to the brand forgiveness literature by highlighting the nature of the forgiveness (forgiving is given to the charity brands, not the individual employees responsible) and the steps consumers take to forgive the charity brands (step one when charity brands fix their wrongdoing, and step two when charity brands continue helping people in need). Finally, we identified that brand switching (switching to donating to new charity brands offering similar support and help) is the behaviour consequence when charity brands are not forgiven

So happy for your loss: Consumer schadenfreude increases choice satisfaction

Consumers often feel schadenfreude, an emotion reflecting an experience of pleasure over misfortunes of another. Schadenfreude has found wide use in advertising, but its actual consequences for consumers have not been thoroughly documented. The present research investigates the effect of schadenfreude on consumers' satisfaction with choices they have made. Building on the feelings‐as‐information theory, the authors posit that consumers take their positive feelings of schadenfreude over another's unrelated bad purchase as positive information about their own choices, and through such misattribution become more satisfied with their own choices. Three experiments show that feeling schadenfreude over another consumer's bad purchase makes consumers more satisfied with their own choices (Study 1), regardless of whether the other's bad purchase is in the same or in a different product category as one's own choice (Study 2), but only so long as consumers are not aware that they are engaging in misattribution (Study 3). The present research contributes to the literature on schadenfreude and feelings‐as‐information theory. Its findings may be used by marketers aiming to exert an unconscious influence on consumer satisfaction

MUHAMET-GERAI'S HAMAM: THE DISAPPEARED PART OF THE BAKHCHYSARAI PALACE

This article is about the problem of the historical topography of the downtown of Bakhchisarai -Hansaray. It was the centre of formation of the medieval city and the capital of the Crimean Khanate. A popular belief is that Hansaray is, in one sense, a copy and development of the idea of a medieval Eastern Palace (videlicet, the Top Cap in Istanbul) and dominates in historiography. The study of kırımlı cultural and historical heritage remains at a very low level as a result of permanent genocide by Russia empire in the XIX-XX centuries. This led to the development of a distorted picture of the historical and scientific understanding of cultural heritage. Great and significant monuments, even scientific memory about them, have disappeared from the cultural and historical landscape. Mehmed IV Geray baths is an example of this. The actual location of the monument with the help of archaeological geolocation method has been determined in this article. This discovery and interpretation, as an important part of the palatial part of the city development, gives a different look at the whole complex of Hansaray. The Khan's Palace is the centre of the city in contradistinction from the Oriental palaces. Quarters of socially important structures formed around it (one of them was Mohammed IV Giray's baths). After that city development transforms into civic blocks with town mansions, mosques and other public buildings