How and why conversational value leads to happiness for experiential and material purchases

This work presents convergent evidence that experiential purchases are more conducive to interpersonal conversations than are material purchases- that is, experiences have higher conversational value, which helps explain why they afford consumers greater happiness than do objects (Van Boven and Gilovich 2003). Further, two experiments demonstrate that factors known to differ between experiential and material purchases-closeness to the self, social approval, and purchase uniqueness-help explain why experiences are preferred as a topic of conversation over objects, and suggest a social motivation for talking more about experiences. Indeed, when the motivation to build a relationship with the conversation partner is removed, the preference to share about experiences (vs. objects) disappears. Together, these findings add to and help integrate the growing literature on the relation between purchase type (material vs. experiential) and purchase-related happiness.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Branding Yourself

Our here in the western US a "brand " is distinctive symbol placed on livestock (cattle, horses) to indicate their ranch of origin. Brands originated in the 1800's to deter thieves and to place lost animals. The brand is applied by heating an iron template to red-hot and then burning the brand into the hide of the animal. In that context, the title of this essay may be quite disturbing. Branding of commercial products became common in the U.S. during the post-WWII economic boom. Products were proliferating to meet the needs of the burgeoning population, but the physical differences among them were becoming increasingly small. The result was that consumers were overwhelmed with the dizzying array of available products and services. Brands emerged to help the consumer organize their understanding of the commercial world, pass information to each other, and allocate their resources to meet their needs. Database researchers live in the same kind of information environment that consumers do. We are overloaded with books, technical reports, articles, and talks that present us with information intended to influence our thinking. But we need to handle all this information efficiently because the most important priority is producing our own research rather than reading the output of others. How does the database research consumer effectively allocate their scarce time resources? Partly by relying on "brands." Researchers depend on brands when deciding where to publish their work. Do they go with ACM or IEEE? D

Physician prescribing decisions: The effects of situational involvement and task complexity on information acquisition and decision making

This research utilized conjoint analysis and an analysis of information acquisition to examine the effects of situational involvement and task complexity on physician's decision-making process. The predictive accuracy of the linear model in predicting drug choice across situations was also assessed. A contingency model for the selection of decision strategies was used as a framework in the study. A sample of forty-eight physicians was asked to indicate their preferences and choices for hypothetical anti-infective drugs. Situational involvement was manipulated by telling physicians in the experimental group via the written scenario to assume that his/her decision would be reviewed and evaluated by peers and (s)he would be asked to justify drug choice. Task complexity was manipulated by varying the number of drug alternatives in a choice set. Results of the study indicated that physicians shifted from using compensatory to noncompensatory decision-making processes when task complexity increased. The effect of situational involvement on the decision-making process was not supported. However, physicians in the two groups were found to differ in choice outcomes and the attention given to specific drug attribute information. Finally, the linear model was found to be robust in predicting drug choice across contexts.physician drug prescribing decision-making process process tracing conjoint analysis