Contrast and assimilation effects of processing fluency

When perceptually difficult-to-read information (e.g., a magazine article in difficult font) precedes easy-to-read information about a product, the subjective ease of processing experienced in reading the product's information increases. This change in subjective ease leads to more favorable evaluations of it. Three experiments identify whether this contrast effect on judgment of the second product occurs because evaluations of the content described by the difficult-to-read material are used as a basis for evaluation. Or, if the effect is perceptual in nature and participants are unaware of the influence that fluency of previously encountered information has on subsequent evaluations

Dimensions of holistic thinking: Implications for nonsocial information processing across cultures

Representatives of Asian and Western countries often differ in terms of both their social orientation (e.g., collectivism vs. individualism) and their thinking style (holistic vs. analytic). The disposition to think of oneself in relation to others or to the collective to which one belongs appears similar to a more general holistic thinking style (the disposition to think of elements of a stimulus in relation to one another or their context), suggesting that they may have similar roots. Nevertheless, the low correlations among measures of these characteristics (e.g., Na et al., 2010) indicate that holistic thinking might be multidimensional. To obtain a clearer picture of this multidimensionality, we constructed a procedure that could be used both to assess and to induce three different styles of cognitive processing that reflect different aspects of holistic thinking: specifically, the tendencies (a) to respond to the configuration of a stimulus as a whole without regard to the elements that compose it, (b) to think about stimulus elements in relation to their context, and (c) to think about stimulus elements in relation to one another. Indian, Hong Kong Chinese, North American, and British participants differed in their tendency to use these types of thinking. Moreover, priming these different styles of holistic thinking experimentally affected the performance of only those cognitive tasks that required these thinking styles. Finally, although cultural groups differed spontaneously in their performance of tasks to which different types of holistic thinking were relevant, experimentally inducing these thinking styles eliminated these between-culture differences in performance. Such differences were generally unrelated to measures of social orientation typically used to distinguish representatives of Western and Asian countries

Enjoy! Assertive Language and Consumer Compliance in (Non)Hedonic Contexts

This paper is concerned with the tension between consumer persuasion and freedom of choice. We study how assertive language (as in the slogan Just do it!) affects consumer compliance in hedonic vs. utilitarian contexts. Previous literature consistently claimed that forceful language would cause reactance and decreased compliance. However, we find in four studies that assertive persuasion is effective in contexts involving hedonic goods and hedonically framed utilitarian goods. Our hypotheses emerge from sociolinguistic research and confirm the relevance of linguistic research in consumer behavior

From Doubt to Functionality: An Imagery Story

Mental imagery and mental simulations play an important role in any consumption experience. For decades, however, the famed "imagery debate" dominated discussions on imagery and to some extent stymied research on how imagery impacts consumption. As researchers debated whether a picture-like component was part of the underlying mental representation or not, a researcher's inability to produce concrete evidence that people had indeed formed mental images was often used to challenge imagery-based explanations. Despite this, the last decade has witnessed burgeoning research on how consumers use imagery in a myriad of ways — often in the service of some larger goal. The monograph views imagery through this functional lens and reviews and organizes these findings. This review provides a historical perspective on imagery research and then uses evidence from past research to lay down a conceptual foundation for new work that will undoubtedly emerge in the coming decades. Questions such as "What triggers imagery?" "Are there differences between perception and imagery?" "How do we use imagery to create simulations and imagine what we do not see?" "How does imagery exert an influence?" and "Are there individual and cultural differences in the ability to image?" are addressed. Then, to unify the somewhat diverse findings from imagery research conducted on consumers, the monograph organizes the research using two dimensions: The extent to which imagery is spontaneous or deliberate and whether it has cognitive or motivational antecedents. This framework is used to not only discuss the existing research but also to pose questions that remain to be answered

Numerosity and Consumer Behavior

Psychologists have long been intrigued by how humans and nonhuman primates process magnitudes such as “how far, how fast, how much, how long, and how many.” This fascination perhaps stems from the fact that magnitude estimations of space, time, and number form the bedrock of most of the decisions that we make in daily life

The role of affect in perceptions of brand name and price : effects and underlying cognitive mechanisms

Participants who had been induced to feel either happy or not were asked to judge products described by both categorical information (e.g., brand name) and individuating information (e.g., price). These judgments pertained to quality, monetary sacrifice, value, liking and willingness to buy. A parameter estimation procedure was used to isolate the simultaneous effects that affect can have (a) on the importance that participants attached to each piece of information in making judgments, (b) on their perception of its evaluative implications, and (c) as a source of information in its own right. Inducing positive affect at the time product information was received increased the influence of brand name on judgments. This increase was due to the impact of positive affect on not only the importance participants attached to brand name but also their perception of its favorableness. Participants also gave greater importance to brand name when its valence was evaluatively consistent with the affect they were experiencing. Finally, the affect that participants experienced influenced their initial impressions of the product. As expected, the impact of affect was often contingent on the type of information presented and in several cases the type of judgment to be made