Contingencies: Learning Numerical and Emotional Associations in an Uncertain World

The ability to learn about the relation or covariation between events happening in the world is probably the most critical aspect of human cognition. This dissertation examines how the human mind learns numerical and emotional relations and explores consequences for managerial and consumer decision making. First, we study how uncertainty in the environment affects covariation learning and explore the consequences for consumers’ price-quality inferences and product valuation. Second, we examine how different types of accountability (process versus outcome) and analytical intelligence affect learning and judgment. We highlight the implications for employee performance management. Third, building on associative models of memory, we show that bilingual consumers perceive advertising messages in their native language (L1) to be more emotionally intense than advertising messages in their second language (L2). Finally, we explore the consequences of a greater perceived emotionality in L1 for international marketing research. The practical implications of this dissertation are of interest for professionals working in the area of pricing, branding, marketing research, and human resources. From a theoretical point of view, this dissertation relates to the fields of judgment and decision making under uncertainty and cognitive psychology

The Emotional Information Processing System is Risk Averse: Ego-Depletion and Investment Behavior

Two experiments show that a shortage of self-regulatory resources results in more risk aversion in mixed-gamble (gain/loss) situations. The findings support a dual process view that distinguishes between a rational and an affective information processing system, in which self-regulatory resources are the necessary fuel for the rational system. Depending on the expected values of risk seeking versus risk averse behavior, ego depletion can have negative (experiment 1) as well as positive (experiment 2) consequences for investment behavior

System 1 Is Not Scope Insensitive

Companies can create value by differentiating their products and services along quantitative attributes. Existing research suggests that consumers’ tendency to rely on relatively effortless and affect-based processes reduces their sensitivity to the scope of quantitative attributes and that this explains why increments along quantitative attributes often have diminishing marginal value. The current article sheds new light on how “system 1” processes moderate the effect of quantitative product attributes on subjective value. Seven studies provide evidence that system 1 processes can produce diminishing marginal value, but also increasing marginal value, or any combination of the two, depending on the composition of the choice set. This is because system 1 processes facilitate ordinal comparisons (e.g., 256 GB is more than 128 GB, which is more than 64 GB) while system 2 processes, which are relatively more effortful and calculation based, facilitate cardinal comparisons (e.g., the difference between 256 and 128 GB is twice as large as between 128 and 64 GB)

Structure and regulation of the Asr gene family in banana

Abscisic acid, stress, ripening proteins (ASR) are a family of plant-specific small hydrophilic proteins. Studies in various plant species have highlighted their role in increased resistance to abiotic stress, including drought, but their specific function remains unknown. As a first step toward their potential use in crop improvement, we investigated the structure and regulation of the Asr gene family in Musa species (bananas and plantains). We determined that the MusaAsr gene family contained at least four members, all of which exhibited the typical two exons, one intron structure of Asr genes and the “ABA/WDS” (abscisic acid/water deficit stress) domain characteristic of Asr genes. Phylogenetic analyses determined that the MusaAsr genes were closely related to each other, probably as the product of recent duplication events. For two of the four members, two versions corresponding to the two sub-genomes of Musa, acuminata and balbisiana were identified. Gene expression and protein analyses were performed and Asr expression could be detected in meristem cultures, root, pseudostem, leaf and cormus. In meristem cultures, mAsr1 and mAsr3 were induced by osmotic stress and wounding, while mAsr3 and mAsr4 were induced by exposure to ABA. mASR3 exhibited the most variation both in terms of amino acid sequence and expression pattern, making it the most promising candidate for further functional study and use in crop improvement

Fooled by Heteroscedastic Randomness: Local Consistency Breeds Extremity in Price-Based Quality Inferences

In some product categories, low-priced brands are consistently of low quality, but high-priced brands can be anything from terrible to excellent. In other product categories, high-priced brands are consistently of high quality, but quality of low-priced brands varies widely. Three experiments demonstrate that such heteroscedasticity leads to more extreme price-based quality predictions. This finding suggests that quality inferences do not only stem from what consumers have learned about the average level of quality at different price points through exemplar memory or rule abstraction. Instead, quality predictions are also based on learning about the covariation between price and quality. That is, consumers inappropriately conflate the conditional mean of quality with the predictability of quality. We discuss implications for theories of quantitative cue learning and selective information processing, for pricing strategies and luxury branding, and for our understanding of the emergence and persistence of erroneous beliefs and stereotypes beyond the consumer realm

The Anchor Contraction Effect in International Marketing Research

In an increasingly globalized marketplace, it is common for marketing researchers to collect data from respondents who are not native speakers of the language in which the questions are formulated. Examples include online customer ratings and internal marketing initiatives in multinational corporations. This raises the issue of whether providing responses on rating scales in a person¿s native versus second language exerts a systematic influence on the responses obtained. This article documents the anchor contraction effect (ACE), the systematic tendency to report more intense emotions when answering questions using rating scales in a nonnative language than in the native language. Nine studies (1) establish ACE, test the underlying process, and rule out alternative explanations; (2) examine the generalizability of ACE across a range of situations, measures, and response scale formats; and (3) explore managerially relevant and easily implementable corrective techniques