Can Mixed Emotions Peacefully Co-Exist?

This research sheds insight on the psychological impact of mixed emotions on attitudes. In three experiments, we show that persuasion appeals that highlight conflicting emotions (e.g., both happiness and sadness) lead to less favorable attitudes for individuals with a lower propensity to accept duality (e.g., Anglo Americans, younger adults) relative to those with a higher propensity (e.g., Asian Americans, older adults). The effect appears to be due to increased levels of felt discomfort that arise for those with a lower, but not higher, propensity to accept duality when exposed to mixed emotional appeals. Theoretical implications regarding boundary conditions of emotional dissonance and distinctions between emotional and cognitive dissonance are discussed

Accessibility or Diagnosticity? Disentangling the Influence of Culture on Persuasion Processes and Attitudes

This research explores the extent to which differences in perceived diagnosticity as compared with differences in the accessibility of associations embedded in persuasion appeals better account for the attitudinal differences found in the culture and persuasion literature. Experiment 1 replicates basic findings showing that high culture-distinct associations lead to more favorable attitudes for individuals in the target culture relative to a nontarget culture, while low culture-distinct associations lead to more attitudinal similarities across cultural boundaries. Experiments 2 and 3 explore two potential explanations for these effects. Convergent evidence, provided through within-culture and across-culture mediation analysis, is more supportive of the differential accessibility explanation. That is, high culture-distinct associations may be valued in the nontarget culture but are relatively inaccessible in memory at an individual level. The results of these experiments help to reconcile conflicting findings in the consumer psychology literature, shed insight on why cultural differences might occur, and add to the growing body of research that identifies conditions under which cultural similarities in persuasion processes and effects may be found.

Do You Look to the Future or Focus on Today? The Impact of Life Experience on Intertemporal Decisions

In this research, we investigate the impact of significant life experiences on intertemporal decisions among young adults. A series of experiments focus specifically on the impact of experiencing the death of a close other by cancer. We show that such an experience, which bears information about time, is associated with making decisions that favor the long-term future over short-term interests (Studies 1 and 2). Underlying this effect appears to be increased salience and concreteness regarding one's future life course, shifting focus away from the present toward the long run (Studies 3 and 4). Finally, we explore the shift caused by a cancer death of a public figure and examine its stability over time (Study 5). Implications for research on intertemporal decision making and the impact of life events on perceptions and preferences are discussed.

Additivity versus attenuation : the role of culture in the resolution of information incongruity

Past research on dual process models of persuasion has documented that, when faced with incongruity between attribute and source information, consumers tend to form product evaluations by attenuating the less diagnostic (source) information and relying solely on the more diagnostic (attribute) information. The current research suggests that this way of resolving incongruity may be culture specific. In Experiment 1, we draw on research in cultural psychology to demonstrate that while members of an individualist culture tend to follow the attenuation strategy described above, members of a collectivist culture tend to follow an additive strategy wherein both source and attribute information impact product evaluations. In Experiments 2 and 3, we provide further support for the proposed psychological mechanism underlying these results, and identify contexts under which these cultural differences are diminished