Knowledge that Transforms

Past studies find that lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals are less likely to donate organs. Building on the extended self literature, we propose that this effect occurs in part because the body is more central to the sense of self of lower-SES individuals. We test our predictions across seven studies (N = 8,782) conducted in different countries (United States and Brazil) with qualitative, observational, and experimental data in controlled and field settings. Results show that lower-SES individuals ascribe a greater weight to their bodies in forming their self-concept, which reduces their willingness to donate organs. Consistent with this rationale, socioeconomic disparities in organ donation are attenuated when (a) conceptions of selfhood prioritize non-physical aspects (e.g., the mind) over physical aspects (e.g., the body), and (b) appeals emphasize organ donation as a means to extend one’s sense of self (e.g., “let yourselves live through others”). Overall, this research documents an unexplored psychological barrier to organ donation and provides insights into how donation rates can be increased among lower-SES individuals.

This research draws on the theory of culture in action, which explains how consumers selectively mobilize their cultural repertoires to understand and solve daily problems. Contemporary life, however, is increasingly unsettled, challenging the adequacy of consumers’ repertoires and how they use existing institutional cultural resources. This qualitative study identifies four ways in which consumers use their cultural repertoires and institutional resources during unsettled times. Formulaic uses are when consumers mobilize familiar cultural tools and existing resources to resettle. Versatile uses are when consumers develop new cultural tools to transform while working within demanding institutional resources. Freewheeling uses are when consumers mobilize familiar cultural tools for play but rework institutional resources to be less demanding. Finally, troubleshooting uses are when consumers extend their existing cultural tools to suffice but reject institutional resources. These varied uses of culture capture how consumers either mobilize or develop their cultural repertoires and institutional resources to serve different ends. This study provides a more dynamic, pragmatic, and nuanced explanation of how consumers summon culture to solve problems during unsettled times. A conceptual model explains this process, and the discussion highlights the theoretical contributions.

Research on associative learning suggests that marketers can enhance consumer attitudes by repeatedly pairing their brands with pleasant or “positively-valenced” stimuli (e.g., attractive models, babies, cute animals) rather than unpleasant or “negatively-valenced” stimuli (e.g., garbage cans and disgusting insects)—an evaluative conditioning effect also known as affect transfer. In this research, we combine the associative learning and the goal pursuit literatures to show that the influence of affect transfer on brands depends on the mindset that is active at the time of judgment. Four experiments and one field study uniquely demonstrate that negatively-valenced brand pairings may become desirable when consumers have an instrumentality mindset, which increases attention to the instrumentality, or effectiveness, of a given consumption behavior. This pattern of results occurs due to a bidirectional association between unpleasantness and instrumentality, making a brand with negative associations seem more effective. Results are robust across contexts (health, entertainment, news) and persist regardless of whether the (un)pleasant images are within or adjacent to the advertisement. The effect attenuates when consumers have a weaker association between unpleasantness and instrumentality, and reverses when consumers are cued to focus on favorability (vs. instrumentality). Contributions and implications for associative learning and brand management are discussed.

Consumer choice decisions often involve a tradeoff between an alignable difference (a difference along a shared attribute) and a nonalignable difference (a difference between unique attributes of each alternative). For example, Café A provides friendly service, while Café B offers unwelcoming service (an alignable difference). However, Café A occasionally makes billing errors, and Café B has comfortable seating (a nonalignable difference). Prior research shows that alignable differences tend to have a greater impact on choice than nonalignable differences (known as the “alignability effect”). Yet, little research has examined tradeoffs involving moral attributes. Contrary to the prevailing evidence, eight studies (N = 2,861) demonstrate that in moral attribute tradeoffs, nonalignable (vs. alignable) differences have a greater impact on choice (termed the “nonalignability effect”). Consequently, consumers prefer an alternative that is superior on a nonalignable moral difference but inferior on an alignable moral difference. Moreover, in moral–quality tradeoffs, where one alternative is more ethical but is of lower quality, consumers show a stronger preference for the ethical alternative when its moral superiority is represented by a nonalignable (vs. alignable) difference. The nonalignability effect is driven by consumers’ unique decision process in making moral attribute tradeoffs, characterized by categorical valence coding and attribute-by-attribute win–loss counting.

In 2022, Democrats spent $53 million on ads helping far-right candidates win Republican primaries. Paying for ads that support far-right candidates, the reasoning went, could help Democrats win in the general elections because it is easier to beat extreme than moderate candidates. In the current research, we ask: how do consumers react to the use of “meddle ads”? On the one hand, because of rising levels of polarization, consumers might be accepting, or even supportive, of meddle ads. On the other hand, because meddle ads might come across as unethical and risky, consumers might be averse to their use. Across 7 main studies and 10 supplemental studies (N = 7,740) using multiple empirical approaches—including conjoint analysis, vignette studies, incentive-compatible donation studies, and analysis of online comments using human coders and NLP tools—we find that consumers are averse to the use of meddle ads. This aversion is driven by three factors: concerns about the character of the candidate, outcome-related risk (losing elections), and system-related risk (losing trust in democracy). These findings contribute to research on political marketing, provide practical guidance for marketers around meddle ads, and identify a novel type of risk perceptions with implications for consumer behavior research.

This article reflects on the study of consumer-related emerging topics in the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) and looks ahead to consider what the next generation of emergent issues might be that capture consumer researchers’ attention and interest. Drawing on conversations with eminent scholars who have made major contributions to JCR by introducing emerging topics to our literature, the author (i) provides a commentary of past approaches to researching novel emerging topics, (ii) suggests some domains from which new emerging topics for consumer research can be sourced, such as new digital technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence) and major societal challenges (e.g., climate change, sustainability, and health), and (iii) offers guidance on how to approach research on important emerging topics.

How does the way companies elicit ratings from consumers affect the ratings that they receive? In 10 pre-registered experiments, we find that consumers rate subpar experiences more positively overall when they are also asked to rate specific aspects of those experiences (e.g., a restaurant's food, service, and ambiance). Studies 1–4 established the basic effect across different scenarios and experiences. Study 5 found that the effect is limited to being asked to rate specific features of an experience, rather than providing open-ended comments about those features. Studies 6–9 provided evidence that the effect does not emerge because rating positive aspects of a subpar experience reminds consumers that their experiences had some good features. Rather, it emerges because consumers want to avoid incorporating negative information into both the overall and the attribute ratings. Lastly, study 10 found that asking consumers to rate attributes of a subpar experience reduces the predictive validity of their overall rating. We discuss implications of this work and reconcile it with conflicting findings in the literature.

This research tests a solution for consumers to recover faster from negative experiences. We identify this solution by examining how the manner in which review writers express their emotions and rational thoughts in their reviews causally influences review writers. The results of five studies (field data and experiments) show that, similar to writing about traumatic life events, when review writers express both emotional and rational aspects in reviews about negative consumption experiences, they feel better afterwards (i.e., they recover affectively), and are more likely to purchase again (i.e., they recover cognitively). We further examine why writing integrated reviews has positive effects on review writers by collecting biophysiological response data, which provide support for an account related to affective recovery, and by analyzing thought listing data, which provide support for an account related to cognitive recovery. This research shows that writing online reviews can serve as a digital therapy tool that helps consumers recover from negative experiences.

In some markets, offerings become riskier over time as producers introduce new versions that are made more affordable by increasing their risk. Existing theories suggest consumers adopt riskier versions either because they become more risk tolerant or they trade higher risk for lower price—both of which presume consumers know the risks. We reveal a third explanation: evolving market dynamics that increasingly encourage consumer inattention to risk and produce “collective ignorance.” We identify factors of collective inattention and propose a three-stage model of development of collective ignorance by analyzing the case of risk buildup in the Hungarian mortgage market. Data include archival materials and interviews with borrowers, lenders, and regulators. Initially, producers offer low-risk products, and social, cultural, and institutional factors encourage attention to risk. Consumers attentive to and capable of assessing risk become early adopters. Over time, increasing adoption and changes in market factors divert consumers’ attention from risk, shifting it to price. Under insufficient regulation, risk escalates: producers repeatedly cut price by offering increasingly risky products, while rising collective ignorance leads even risk-averse consumers to adopt them. We offer theoretical contributions to research on the social construction of risk, the attitude–behavior gap, and neoliberal responsibilization.

Past research on social influence finds that, all else being equal, a group of people engaged in a particular behavior is generally more influential than a single individual in inspiring others to adopt that behavior. The current research challenges this seemingly intuitive idea by showing that its validity depends on whether the focal behavior is selfish. Seven experiments show that while multiple people are indeed more influential than a single individual in encouraging unselfish behavior, a single individual can be just as influential as multiple people in encouraging selfish behavior. We present evidence that this phenomenon occurs because people generally have a preference for the selfish option and seek justification for their actions. Selfish behavior, whether exhibited by a single individual or a group of people, provides a convenient justification consistent with their preference for selfish behavior. When it comes to unselfish behavior, however, a larger group of influencers is required to counteract their self-benefiting tendencies. Supporting this mechanism, the effect is reversed when people have a pre-existing preference for unselfishness or when selfish behavior is difficult to justify.