Coping With My Loneliness: the Effects of Social Exclusion on Consumer Choice of Unique Products

This research examines the diverging effects of social exclusion on consumer choice. We propose that the experience of social exclusion can either increase or decrease consumers' likelihood of choosing unique products depending on whether regaining social acceptance is perceived as desirable means to cope with the state of being socially excluded

Goals Or Means: How Psychological Distance Influences Depletion Effects

This paper examines how construal level influences the performance of consecutive self-control which requires sustained effort and is vulnerable to self-control resource depletion effect. We propose that at higher-level construals, individuals focus on self-relevant goals (e.g., one's health goal) and will allocate self-control resources to the second self-control task depending on the importance of the task to their goal. At lower-level construals, individuals attend to resource accessibility and will perform self-control based on their perceived fatigue involved in exerting self-control resource. In three experiments we test this proposition in the consumer health context and examine the underlying processes. [to cite]

Dealing With Anxiety: How Effective Health Messages Undermine Self-Control

Health messages that convince consumers of their heightened risk also tend to increase anxiety. The current paper examines the deleterious consequences of such anxiety. We show that processing high versus low health risk messages enhances feelings of anxiety which impair subsequent self-control. Three studies document this effect, examine underlying processes, and identify the condition that overcomes this effect. Anxiety generated from health messages did not undermine subsequent healthful behaviors when the subsequent behaviors were related to the health message domain, because here individuals took a cognitive perspective and engaged in health practice as a way of reducing uncertainty. [to cite]

Regulating Risk or Risking Regulation? Construal Levels and Depletion Effects in the Processing of Health Messages

The depletion effect occurs when individuals who exert self‐control in a previous task (i.e., depleted individuals) exhibit less self‐control on a subsequent task relative to individuals who did not previously exert self‐control. This article presents two experiments that implicate construal levels to understand the processes underlying depletion effects in the context of consumer health. At low‐level construals, individuals rely on resource accessibility cues (e.g., feelings of tiredness) to determine self‐control. Hence, they exert less self‐control only when they assess themselves as depleted, manifesting the depletion effect. High‐level construals reduce the resource focus and enhance a goal focus, which diminishes and even reverses the depletion effect.

Becoming More Sensitive to the Source of Social Exclusion: When Self-Affirmation and Type of Social Exclusion Influences Excluded Consumers' Preferences

This research examines how self-affirmation influences socially excluded consumers' preference toward a product recommended by excluders (vs. non-excluders). Our studies demonstrate that affirmed (vs. non-affirmed) consumers display greater sensitivity toward the type of social exclusion. Also, different from previous findings, self-affirmation does not always buffer detrimental social exclusion effects

Show Me the Honey! Effects of Social Exclusion on Financial Risk-Taking

This research examines the effects of social exclusion on a critical aspect of consumer behavior, financial decision-making. Specifically, four lab experiments and one field survey uncover how feeling isolated or ostracized causes consumers to pursue riskier but potentially more profitable financial opportunities. These daring proclivities do not appear driven by impaired affect or self-esteem. Rather, interpersonal rejection exacerbates financial risk-taking by heightening the instrumentality of money (as a substitute for popularity) to obtain benefits in life. Invariably, the quest for wealth that ensues tends to adopt a riskier but potentially more lucrative road. The article concludes by discussing the implications of its findings for behavioral research as well as for societal and individual welfare

Carryover Effects of Self-Control on Decision Making: A Construal-Level Perspective

Six experiments examine how exerting self-control systematically influences subsequent decision making. Exerting self-control led individuals to rely on feasibility over desirability attributes, favor secondary over primary attributes, and choose products framed in a proximal rather than distal perspective. Process measures suggest that these effects occur because depletion from self-control heightens one’s focus on resources and prompts a lower construal level that is carried over to subsequent tasks. Stimulating individuals to adopt higher level construals diminishes these effects. These findings offer insight into the psychological process by which self-control influences subsequent decisions.

The Effect of Regulatory Orientation and Decision Strategy on Brand Judgments

Four studies investigate how consumers' regulatory orientation and the decision strategies used to process message information affect their judgments. Evaluations of the chosen brand were more favorable when individuals with a prevention focus used decision strategies that enhanced the accuracy of a decision outcome than when they used strategies that facilitated progress toward a decision, whereas the opposite outcome occurred for those with a promotion focus. These findings emerged whether the decision strategies were prompted by instructions about how to make a decision or by the message presentation format, and they were mediated by a subjective experience of confidence. These observations suggest that judgments are influenced by the decision makers' feelings about how information is processed that are independent of the message content. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..