Materialism and life satisfaction relations between and within people over time: results of a three-wave longitudinal study

The negative association between materialism and life satisfaction is well-documented, but it is unclear what the directionality of the association is. To address this issue, we (a) conducted a three-wave longitudinal study (N = 6551) over 3 years and examined the bidirectional relations between life satisfaction and materialism as a composite measure and with each of its three facets (happiness, success, and centrality), and (b) estimated Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models (RI-CLPMs) that separate inter- and intra-individual effects and compared them with traditional CLPMs that do not. The traditional CLPM showed bidirectional negative associations between composite materialism and life satisfaction and strong negative bidirectional association for the happiness facet, but positive effects of the centrality facet on life satisfaction. However, and importantly, the RI-CLPM revealed that these relations exist predominantly between people. Within people, materialism does not impact life satisfaction, but life satisfaction does impact the happiness facet negatively. These findings challenge common ideas that the direction of the effect is from materialism to life satisfaction and that it is unilaterally negative.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Falling Back on Numbers: When Preference for Numerical Product Information Increases after a Personal Control Threat

Despite the ubiquity of numerical information in consumers’ lives, prior research has provided limited insights to marketers about when numerical information exerts greater impact on decisions. This study offers evidence that judgments involving numerical information can be affected by consumers’ sense of personal control over the environment. A numerical attribute’s format communicates the extent to which the magnitude of a benefit is predictable (Study 1a), such that people who experience a control threat and want to see their external environment as predictable (Study 1b) rely on point value (vs. range) information as a general signal that the environment is predictable (Study 2). A personal control threat changes consumers’ preferences as a function of whether the numerical information appears as a point value or a range (Studies 3–4). This heightened focus on format may lessen the impact of a product benefit’s predicted magnitude, if a lower magnitude is specified in a more precise format (Study 5). Study 6 provides first evidence that the interactive effect of personal control levels and numerical formats can affect consequential choices

Taking a shine to it: How the preference for glossy stems from an innate need for water ☆ , ☆☆

Abstract Human beings are attracted to glossy objects. However, the investigation of whether this preference for glossy is a systematic bias, and the rationale for why, has received little or no attention. Drawing on an evolutionary psychology framework, we propose and test the hypothesis that the preference for glossy stems from an innate preference for fresh water as a valuable resource. In a set of six studies we demonstrate the preference for glossy among both adults and young children (studies 1A, 1B and 2) ruling out a socialization explanation, investigate the hypothesis that the preference for glossy stems from an innate need for water as a resource (studies 3 and 5) and, in addition, rule out the more superficial account of glossy = pretty (study 4). The interplay between the different perspectives, implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed

Choosy Moral Punishers

The punishment of social misconduct is a powerful mechanism for stabilizing high levels of cooperation among unrelated individuals. It is regularly assumed that humans have a universal disposition to punish social norm violators, which is sometimes labelled “universal structure of human morality” or “pure aversion to social betrayal”. Here we present evidence that, contrary to this hypothesis, the propensity to punish a moral norm violator varies among participants with different career trajectories. In anonymous real-life conditions, future teachers punished a talented but immoral young violinist: they voted against her in an important music competition when they had been informed of her previous blatant misconduct toward fellow violin students. In contrast, future police officers and high school students did not punish. This variation among socio-professional categories indicates that the punishment of norm violators is not entirely explained by an aversion to social betrayal. We suggest that context specificity plays an important role in normative behaviour; people seem inclined to enforce social norms only in situations that are familiar, relevant for their social category, and possibly strategically advantageous

How to make a 29% increase look bigger: The unit effect in option comparisons

Quantitative information can appear in different units (e.g., 7-year warranty = 84-month warranty). This article demonstrates that attribute differences appear larger on scales with a higher number of units; expressing quality information on such an expanded scale makes consumers switch to a higher-quality option. Testifying to its practical importance, expressing the energy content of snacks in kilojoules rather than kilocalories increases the choice of a healthy snack. The unit effect occurs because consumers focus on the number rather than the type of units in which information is expressed (numerosity effect). Therefore, reminding consumers of alternative units in which information can be expressed eliminates the unit effect. Finally, the unit effect moderates relative thinking: consumers are more sensitive to relative attribute differences when the attribute is expressed on expanded scales. The relation with anchoring and implications for temporal discounting and loyalty programs are discussed

Better think before agreeing twice. Mere agreement: a similarity-based persuasion mechanism

The present paper shows that the frequency of people's compliance with a request can be substantially increased if the requester first gets them to agree with a series of statements unrelated to the request but selected to induce agreement. We label this effect the ‘mere-agreement effect’ and present a two-step similarity-based mechanism to explain it. Across five studies, we show that induced mere agreement subtly causes respondents to view the presenter of the statements as similar to themselves, which in turn increases the frequency compliance with a request from that same person. We support the similarity explanation by showing that the effect of agreement on compliance is suppressed when agreement is induced to indicate dissimilarity with the interviewer, when the request is made by some other person, and when the artificially high level of agreement is made salient. We also validate the practical relevance of the mere-agreement persuasion technique in a field study. We discuss how the mere-agreement effect can be broadly used as a tool to increase cooperation and be readily implemented in marketing interactions