Knowledge that Transforms

AbstractResource scarcity is a powerful construct in social sciences. However, explanations about how resources influence overall wellbeing are difficult to generalize since much of the research on scarcity focuses on relatively affluent marketplace conditions, limiting its usefulness to large segments of the global population living in poverty. Conversely, poverty research provides cultural insights into resource deprivation, yet it stops short of explaining the systematic variation of scarce resources among impoverished individuals. To bridge these intellectual silos and advance a deeper understanding of scarcity, we integrate resource scarcity research, which builds upon a psychological tradition to understand various forms of everyday deprivation, with poverty research, which builds upon a sociological tradition to understand extreme and enduring deprivation. We propose a novel framework that integrates the concept of consumption adequacy and clarifies resource scarcity's forms, intensity, duration, and dynamic trajectories. We leverage this framework to generate a research agenda, and we propose ways to stimulate dialog among scarcity and poverty scholars, policymakers, and organizations to help inform impoverished life circumstances and generate effective solutions.

AbstractProduct returns incur a substantial financial loss for retailers. We demonstrate how, when, and why cross‐selling during the product returns process can reduce this loss in revenue. We find consumers more readily spend money refunded from product returns than unspent money. We theorize that this refund effect occurs because consumers psychologically realize the loss of money when purchasing products and earmark that money for spending. Thus, consumers feel a smaller psychological loss when spending refunded money than unspent money on a subsequent purchase. In six experiments, we find consumers spend refunded money more freely than unspent money, even more than windfall gains like lottery winnings, on products in similar and different product categories (e.g., groceries vs. apparel). However, the refund effect only holds when consumers do not expect to return products at the point of purchase and before refunded money is commingled with money in other accounts. Our findings identify a new fungibility violation due to mental accounting (i.e., a new source effect), and illustrate its value for generating, validating, and explaining revenue retention strategies.

AbstractLoneliness is a complex set of aversive feelings that arises when people perceive that their belongingness needs are not being met. Usually, these feelings of loneliness are temporary because people successfully cope with their loneliness by connecting with others. However, for some people, their attempts to cope with loneliness are unsuccessful, and their loneliness becomes chronic, which can have severe consequences for their mental and physical health. Understanding the causes and consequences of loneliness is critical for developing interventions to reduce loneliness, a need made more urgent by the dramatic rise in reported loneliness over the last few decades. In this review, we provide a synthesis of the research on how people cope with loneliness through consumption situations and the extent to which these coping strategies are successful. We also provide a discussion of how the marketplace has responded to the rapidly increasing levels of chronic loneliness worldwide. We conclude with an agenda for future research to answer both basic and applied research questions regarding the causes, consequences, and underlying processes of loneliness.

AbstractThis paper makes the case that there is considerable untapped potential for qualitative research to make theoretical contributions that will advance our collective insights on consumer psychology. The paper explains some features that distinguish qualitative research from other approaches and addresses some common misperceptions about it. It explains why qualitative research—which is geared toward theory development and refinement—can be such as useful took in the kit of researchers seeking insights on consumer psychology. It then outlines a qualitative research process suitable for crafting conceptual contributions to consumer psychology and offers a set of criteria that are appropriate and inappropriate for adjudicating qualitative research of this kind. In all, we make the case that the conditions are in place for JCP to be a vibrant platform for publishing research based on qualitative methods.

AbstractThe current research examines how and why self‐concept clarity (i.e., having self‐aspects that are integrated into a well‐defined whole) shapes consumers' appearance management behaviors. Five (including four pre‐registered) studies and one supplemental study provide correlational and causal evidence for the link between low self‐concept clarity and appearance management (e.g., choice of appearance‐enhancing products, interest in cosmetic procedures, and beauty filters). Furthermore, we demonstrate that public self‐consciousness mediates this effect (Studies 3–4). We also find convergent process‐by‐moderation evidence that low self‐concept clarity increases appearance management only when the appearance management behavior is perceived to be socially acceptable (Study 5). In addition, we rule out global and appearance self‐esteem, private self‐consciousness, self‐improvement, and mood management as potential mechanisms. This research extends the literature on self‐concept, impression management, and appearance management and yields implications for beauty marketing, health communication, and consumer well‐being.

AbstractOrganizations face growing pressure from their consumers and stakeholders to take public stances on sociopolitical issues. However, many are hesitant to do so lest they make missteps, promises they cannot keep, appear inauthentic, or alienate consumers, employees, or other stakeholders. Here we investigate consumers' impressions of firms that respond quickly or slowly to sociopolitical events. Using data scraped from Instagram and three online experiments (N = 2452), we find that consumers express more positive sentiment and greater purchasing intentions toward firms that react more quickly to sociopolitical issues. Unlike other types of public firm decision making such as product launch, where careful deliberation can be appreciated, consumers treat firm response time to sociopolitical events as an informative cue of the firm's authentic commitment to the issue. We identify an important boundary condition of this main effect: speedy responses bring limited benefits when the issue is highly divisive along political lines. Our findings bridge extant research on brand activism and communication, and offer practical advice for firms.

AbstractBillions of people across the globe use social media to acquire and share information. A large and growing body of research examines how consuming online content affects what people know. The present research investigates a complementary, yet previously unstudied question: how might sharing online content affect what people think they know? Sharing signals expertise, and people frequently internalize their public behavior into their private self‐concepts. We therefore posit that sharing information on social media may cause people to believe they are as knowledgeable as their posts make them appear. We examine this possibility in the context of “sharing without reading,” a phenomenon that allows us to isolate the effect of sharing on subjective knowledge from any influence of reading or objective knowledge. Six studies provide correlational (study 1) and causal (studies 2, 2a) evidence that sharing—even without reading—increases subjective knowledge, and test the internalization mechanism by varying the degree to which sharing publicly commits the sharer to an expert identity (studies 3–5). A seventh study investigates potential consequences of sharing‐inflated subjective knowledge on downstream behavior in the domain of financial decision‐making.

AbstractWhen consumers avoid taking algorithmic advice, it can prove costly to both marketers (whose algorithmic product offerings go unused) and to themselves (who fail to reap the benefits that algorithmic predictions often provide). In a departure from previous research focusing on when algorithm aversion proves more or less likely, we sought to identify and remedy one reason why it occurs in the first place. In seven pre‐registered studies, we find that consumers tend to avoid algorithmic advice on the often faulty assumption that those algorithms, unlike their human counterparts, cannot learn from mistakes, in turn offering an inroad by which to reduce algorithm aversion: highlighting their ability to learn. Process evidence, through both mediation and moderation, examines why consumers fail to trust algorithms that err across a variety of prediction domains and how different theory‐driven interventions can solve the practical problem of enhancing trust and consequential choice in algorithms.

AbstractIn recent decades, scholars across all areas of marketing have studied consumer gift‐giving behavior. Despite the growing popularity of this research topic, no extensive review of the gift‐giving literature exists. To that end, this paper offers an expansive review of research on consumer gift‐giving, focusing primarily on work coming from within the marketing discipline, but also drawing on foundational pieces from other fields. We review extant scholarship on five of gift‐giving's most important aspects—givers' motivations, givers' inputs, giver‐recipient mismatches, value creation/reduction, and the greater gift‐giving context. In doing so, we illuminate the literature's key agreements and disagreements, shed light on themes that traverse ostensibly disparate gift‐giving findings, and develop deeper conceptualizations of gifting constructs. Moreover, we identify opportunities for improvement in the gift‐giving literature and use them to create key agendas for future gift‐giving research. In sum, this paper offers a single point of reference for gift‐giving scholars, improves academia's current understanding of gift‐giving, offers several theoretical contributions, and generates multiple paths for future research.

AbstractFrom marketers and consumers to leaders and health officials, everyone wants to increase their communications' impact. But why are some communications more impactful? While some argue that content drives success, we suggest that style, or the way ideas are presented, plays an important role. To test style's importance, we examine it in a context where content should be paramount: academic research. While scientists often see writing as a disinterested way to communicate unobstructed truth, a multi‐method investigation indicates that writing style shapes impact. To separate content from style, we focus on a unique class of words linked to style (i.e., function words such as “and,” “the,” and “on”) that are devoid of content. Natural language processing of almost 30,000 articles from a range of disciplines finds that function words explain 4–11% of overall variance explained and 11–27% of language content's impact on citations. Additional analyses examine particular style features that may shape success, and why, highlighting the role of writing simplicity, personal voice, and temporal perspective. Experiments further indicate the causal impact of style. The results suggest ways to boost communication's impact and highlight the value of natural language processing for understanding the success of ideas.