Indulgence as self‐reward for prior shopping restraint: A justification‐based mechanism

This research investigates the effects of refraining from a purchase temptation at one point in time on choices made at a subsequent opportunity to purchase or consume a tempting product. Four experiments involving scenarios and real decisions demonstrate that the salience of restraint at a prior impulse buying opportunity causes consumers to reward themselves subsequently by choosing indulgence over non‐indulgence. We show that indulgence is likely to increase only when prior restraint is salient and hence can be used as a justification. As expected, an index of reasons for vs. against buying mediates the relationship between prior impulse purchase decision and indulgent choice. In further support of the mechanism, we find that prior indulgence can have the same effect as prior restraint, if the prior indulgence is made justifiable. Finally, we show that prior shopping restraint can increase indulgence without a corresponding increase in self‐esteem. These findings extend our understanding of self‐regulation and demonstrate that everyday consumer decisions such as responses to impulse buying opportunities can have consequential downstream effects.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141777/1/jcpy334.pd

Gender Typed Advertisements and Impression Formation: The Role of Chronic and Temporary Accessibility

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142219/1/jcpy220.pd

Products as self-evaluation standards : when owned and unowned products have opposite effects on self-judgment

Consumers frequently evaluate their own traits before making consumption decisions (e.g., “Am I thin enough for skinny jeans?”). The outcome of these self-evaluations depends on the standard consumers use and on whether they evaluate “self” in assimilation or contrast to that standard. Previous self-judgment research has focused on self-standards that arise from social aspects of the environment including people and groups. We propose that self-judgment is sometimes made relative to other standards that originate from different aspects of the environment, namely material objects, including products and goods. Two experiments demonstrate that consumers classify products they own as “self” and products they do not own as “not-self.” Consequently, consumers judge their own physical and personal traits (e.g., height, sincerity) in assimilation to traits of products they own, but in contrast to traits of products they do not own, even following imposed ownership, when a person acquires an object they may not have chosen themselves. Extending this paradigm, experiment 3 shows that simply wearing products can evoke ephemeral felt ownership, leading to consumers taking on product traits. We discuss implications for modern consumers, who often acquire objects inadvertently through gifts and are frequently exposed to products they do not own through advertisements

Psychological ownership in egocentric categorization theory

Egocentric categorization theory proposes that thinking of a product as owned (vs. unowned) influences consumer response to the product by systematically changing the way consumers mentally represent that product. Consumers who become owners of an item mentally classify it in the category of self, whereas those who remain non-owners mentally classify the item outside of that category. Categorization principles suggest that the way people perceive and respond to items they classify in a category differs from the way they perceive and respond to items they classify as external to that category. Therefore, thinking of a product as owned (vs. unowned) should lead people to make different judgments and decisions about the same product in ways that align with categorization principles. This chapter provides a brief overview of egocentric categorization theory (or ECT); positions its contribution relatively to two pertinent theories, specifically social categorization and possession attachment; and explores ECT’s implications for ownership in product judgment and consumer choice. The chapter then highlights empirical evidence for the role of psychological ownership in ECT and outlines how ECT principles can be used to amend adverse selection problems through induction of psychological ownership

Tempted or Not? The Effect of Recent Purchase History on Responses to Affective Advertising

Three experiments investigate the emotions that arise from buying or not buying at an unintended purchase opportunity and how they color evaluations of affective advertising appeals that are viewed subsequently. We demonstrate that buying can cause happiness tempered with guilt, while not buying causes pride. Consistent with the felt affect, respondents who had bought at time 1 subsequently prefer happiness appeals to pride appeals, while those who had refrained prefer pride appeals. Drawing attention to the initial purchase decision and varying the affect by manipulating the discount both moderate this effect. These results contribute to the literatures on self-regulation, emotions, and persuasion. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Strengthening vs. weakening effects of inconsistencies in attribute information : a resolution of opposing perspectives

This research examines the effects of evaluative inconsistencies in product attribute information on an important consequence of attitude strength - viz., the link between attitudes and behavior (as measured by behavioral intention). Drawing on the existing literature, which makes opposing predictions as to the effects of inconsistency, we construct a theoretical framework that allows us to specify conditions under which weakening or strengthening effects should be obtained. Specifically, we propose that a strengthening effect should result when exposure to inconsistencies leads to a process of reconciliation; however, a weakening effect should result when respondents are either not motivated to reconcile inconsistencies, or are hindered from doing so. This framework is collectively tested in two experiments. Experiment 1 varies the accessibility of attribute information under default motivation conditions (i.e., high motivation to reconcile). In support of the thesis that high (low) accessibility should facilitate (hinder) the process of reconciliation, inconsistency leads to an increase in the attitude-intention link under high accessibility, but weakens the link under low accessibility. Experiment 2 then keeps information accessibility high across conditions, and studies the effects of processing goal by making people either accountable or non-accountable for their judgments. Results show that when the default reconciliation motive is replaced by a regret minimization motive that is inimical to inconsistency reconciliation (e.g., under high accountability), a weakening effect is obtained even under high accessibility conditions. Taken together, results from these two experiments provide good support for the proposed framework, and bridge opposing theoretical perspectives on the effects of information inconsistency. Process measures obtained in the two experiments are also supportive of our overall conceptualization

Contingent effects of anxiety on message elaboration and persuasion

We extend previous research on the debilitating effects of anxiety to the context of message elaboration and persuasion. In two experiments, we manipulate anxiety by exploiting a naturally occurring stressful situation and examine its effects on subsequent message processing. Consistent with research documenting the cognitive deficits produced by anxiety, Experiment 1 shows that high anxiety results in less systematic message processing than low anxiety. We also document a boundary condition for this effect. When increased motivation to process the message can compensate for anxiety deficits (for example, while processing an anxiety-related message) anxiety differences in the amount of processing are no longer observed. Even for a highly involving anxiety-related message, however, differences exist in the type of processing across anxiety levels. Specifically, Experiment 2 shows that despite high levels of motivation, capacity pressures cause heuristic cues in the message to bias the nature of systematic processing such that they skew message processing (and hence, persuasion) in the direction of the cue