The Odd-Ending Price Justification Effect: The Influence Of Price Endings On Hedonic And Utilitarian Consumption

This paper examines how odd-ending pricing influences consumption of hedonic and utilitarian products. Four studies test the hypothesis that the discount image associated with odd-ending prices reduces anticipated guilt and provides justification for hedonic consumption – an effect the authors label the odd-ending price justification effect (OPJE). Study 1 reveals people are more likely to choose hedonic over utilitarian products when they have odd-ending prices. Study 2 finds that the effect of odd-ending prices on hedonic consumption is mediated by guilt reduction. Study 3 reveals a boundary condition for the OPJE – purchase likelihood of hedonic products increases only when monetary, not nonmonetary, guilt is reduced. Study 4 suggests the OPJE operates at an unconscious level, as consumers who are made aware of the trivial difference between odd- and round-ending prices are no longer influenced by odd-ending prices. The theoretical, practical, and research implications of these findings are discussed

Opposites attract: Impact of background color on effectiveness of emotional charity appeals

The present work utilizes research on context effects and color psychology to investigate how background color can enhance the effectiveness of positive and negative charity appeals. Five experiments measuring both actual donations and donation intention examine the hypothesis that a negative charity appeal against an orange (vs. blue) background and a positive charity appeal against a blue (vs. orange) background will increase donations. We propose that this is because blue and orange colors are incongruous with positive and negative charity appeals, respectively, due to the affective valences of the appeals and the perceptions of warmth and coldness cued by the background colors. This incongruity enhances the attention people pay to the charity appeals, thereby strengthening their emotional response to the appeals, which increases charitable donations. When attention is manipulated, people who pay a high (vs. low) level of attention to the charity appeal are more likely to donate regardless of the color and valence of the appeal, suggesting attention is an important antecedent to the intensity of the emotional response and subsequent donation behavior. We also identify affect diagnosticity as a boundary condition for the effect – when people are informed that color affects their emotions, the contextual effect of color disappears

Effects of Employees' Positive Affective Displays on Customer Loyalty Intentions: An Emotions-As-Social-Information Perspective

Employees’ positive affective displays have been widely used as a strategic tool to enhance service experience and strengthen customer relationships. Companies have primarily focused their employee training programs on two dimensions of display: intensity and authenticity. Yet there is limited research on when, how, and why these two dimensions affect customer reactions. Drawing on the emotions as social information (EASI) framework (Van Kleef, 2009), we develop a conceptual model in which display intensity and display authenticity differentially influence customer loyalty by changing customers’ affective reactions and cognitive appraisals. Further, we propose that the relative impact of either dimension depends on customers’ motivation to understand the environment deeply and accurately (i.e., their epistemic motivation). We tested our model in one field study and one laboratory study. Results across these two studies provide consistent support for the proposed model and advance our understanding about how different dimensions of employees’ positive affective displays enhance customer reactions. Thus, findings of this research contribute to knowledge on the interpersonal effects of emotions in customer–employee interactions

Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making

What is a “rational” decision? Economists traditionally viewed rationality as maximizing expected satisfaction. This view has been useful in modeling basic microeconomic concepts, but falls short in accounting for many everyday human decisions. It leaves unanswered why some things reliably make people more satisfied than others, and why people frequently act to make others happy at a cost to themselves. Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, we propose that people make decisions according to a set of principles that may not appear to make sense at the superficial level, but that demonstrate rationality at a deeper evolutionary level. By this, we mean that people use adaptive domain-specific decision-rules that, on average, would have resulted in fitness benefits. Using this framework, we re-examine several economic principles. We suggest that traditional psychological functions governing risk aversion, discounting of future benefits, and budget allocations to multiple goods, for example, vary in predictable ways as a function of the underlying motive of the decision-maker and individual differences linked to evolved life-history strategies. A deep rationality framework not only helps explain why people make the decisions they do, but also inspires multiple directions for future research

Smile Big Or Not? Effects Of Smile Intensity On Perceptions Of Warmth And Competence

While previous work has focused on the positive impact of smiles on interpersonal perceptions, this research proposes and finds that smile intensity differentially affects two fundamental dimensions of social judgments-warmth and competence. A marketer displaying a broad smile, compared to a slight smile, is more likely to be perceived by consumers as warmer but less competent. Furthermore, the facilitative effect of smile intensity on warmth perceptions is more prominent among promotion-focused consumers and in low-risk consumption contexts, while the detrimental effect of smile intensity on competence perceptions is more likely to occur among prevention-focused consumers and in high-risk consumption situations. Field observations in a crowdfunding context further indicate that the effects of smile intensity on warmth and competence perceptions have downstream consequences on actual consumer behaviors

Economic decision biases and fundamental motivations: How mating and self-protection alter loss aversion.

Much research shows that people are loss averse, meaning that they weigh losses more heavily than gains. Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, we propose that although loss aversion might have been adaptive for solving challenges in the domain of self-protection, this may not be true for men in the domain of mating. Three experiments examine how loss aversion is influenced by mating and self-protection motives. Findings reveal that mating motives selectively erased loss aversion in men. In contrast, self-protective motives led both men and women to become more loss averse. Overall, loss aversion appears to be sensitive to evolutionarily important motives, suggesting that it may be a domain-specific bias operating according to an adaptive logic of recurring threats and opportunities in different evolutionary domains

Effects Of Employees\u27 Positive Affective Displays On Customer Loyalty Intentions: An Emotions-Associal-Information Perspective

Employees\u27 positive affective displays have been widely used as a strategic tool to enhance service experience and strengthen customer relationships. Companies have primarily focused their employee training programs on two dimensions of display: intensity and authenticity. Yet there is limited research on when, how, and why these two dimensions affect customer reactions. Drawing on the emotions as social information (EASI) framework (Van Kleef, 2009), we develop a conceptual model in which display intensity and display authenticity differentially influence customer loyalty by changing customers\u27 affective reactions and cognitive appraisals. Further, we propose that the relative impact of either dimension depends on customers\u27 motivation to understand the environment deeply and accurately (i.e., their epistemic motivation). We tested our model in one field study and one laboratory study. Results across these two studies provide consistent support for the proposed model and advance our understanding about how different dimensions of employees\u27 positive affective displays enhance customer reactions. Thus, findings of this research contribute to knowledge on the interpersonal effects of emotions in customer-employee interactions