Knowledge that Transforms

Consumers routinely make decisions about short time periods, such as waiting for a table or deciding whether to pay for faster delivery. Such periods are often expressed by either a duration or a clock time (e.g., if it is 6:00 PM now, “Your table will be ready in 30 minutes” vs. “Your table will be ready at 6:30 PM”). Eight experiments (N = 16,604) show that these logically equivalent frames change how long a period feels, with downstream consequences for consumer decisions. Relatively short time periods feel longer when framed by duration rather than by start and end time (i.e., clock times or calendar dates), but this pattern reverses as periods get longer. We refer to this phenomenon as time-duration asymmetry: framing an interval by its start and end time versus its duration changes how long it feels, with the direction of the effect depending on the interval’s length. We propose that this occurs because duration frames evoke compressive scalar representations shaped by diminishing sensitivity, whereas start-end frames situate time within structured categorical systems that attenuate compression. This research offers a unified framework for understanding how subtle differences in temporal framing shape perceptions of time and subsequent decisions.

Consumers can experience two types of uncertainty when purchasing a product. Preference uncertainty refers to the uncertainty associated with the horizontal product benefits one desires (e.g., “How strong do I want my coffee to be?”). Outcome uncertainty refers to the uncertainty associated with the actual benefits the product will deliver (e.g., “How strong will the coffee be?”). Ideally, retailers should strive for outcome certainty (i.e., standardize the strength profile of their coffee [coffees in their line]), and help consumers achieve preference certainty (i.e., help consumers learn their ideal coffee strength), so that consumers can purchase the appropriate product with confidence (i.e., achieve a preference-outcome match). Yet there are situations where high outcome uncertainty is a characteristic of the product class, after controlling for quality (e.g., flavor profile of wine). When outcome uncertainty is high, we paradoxically find that high preference uncertainty leads to more purchase intent than low preference uncertainty. We show this occurs because people are more optimistic that they will maximize their utility when preference uncertainty is high (i.e., multiple outcomes could potentially be the best match for their preference) than low (i.e., only one outcome could be the best match for their preference).

Why do consumers sometimes remain trapped in the very practices and communities that once helped them? Consumer practice research has largely emphasized the enabling outcomes of sustained practice participation, with less attention given to how those same practices can become entrapping. This article explores how consumer entrapment emerges within interconnected collective practices. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Chama, a community-based savings and support group in Kenya, it integrates practice theory with Hodder’s theory of entanglement. The study identifies three mechanisms (prefiguration, socialization, and entrenchment) through which participation generates commitments, dependencies, and obligations that produce recurring practice misalignments. Consumers continually work to realign these misalignments, yet under specific conditions, these efforts reproduce the contingencies that sustain participation while progressively deepening entrapment. The findings reveal a central tension: efforts to restore practice alignment can sustain what consumers value while simultaneously reproducing the interdependencies through which consumer entrapment emerges.

How do consumers make themselves responsible for social change? Consumer responsibilization refers to the institutional shaping of individuals into responsible subjects tasked with driving social change through market participation. Prior research shows that responsibilization generates tensions for consumers but says less about how they work through these tensions to craft responsible subjectivities. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography of zero-waste lifestyles in Denmark, this study examines consumers’ efforts to act responsibly amid uncertainty, balance personal well-being with the common good, and promote responsible consumption without appearing judgmental. The analysis reveals that consumers address these tensions through consumer responsibilization work—a threefold process of self-problematization, moralization, and intensification. Consumers enact this process through self-techniques that enable them to scrutinize the adequacy of their conduct, interpret consumption as a moral obligation, and strengthen their commitment to a responsible lifestyle. These self-techniques draw on local understandings of responsibility and are sustained through mundane interactions in which consumers hold themselves and one another accountable. The findings shift attention from institutional responsibilization to the culturally situated self-techniques through which consumers enact it in everyday life. They thereby recast responsibilization as a technical, situated, and relational process that reproduces neoliberal governmentality through consumer lifestyles.

Many organizations are adopting algorithms for evaluating various consumer applications (e.g., loans, insurance). This research explores how consumers react to this practice, with the goal of understanding what leads some consumers to react more positively or negatively to being evaluated by an algorithm than others. In the context of consumers applying for access to valued services, opportunities, or benefits, applicant strength (i.e., how strong an applicant believes their case is based on the information they have about their standing) influences their reactions toward algorithmic versus human evaluation. Algorithmic evaluation will have a greater deterrent effect on weaker than on stronger applicants. This asymmetry is explained by weaker applicants’ stronger preference for characteristics of human evaluators, such as flexibility and leniency, that they believe may improve their chances of receiving a favorable outcome. Consumers’ preferences ultimately impact willingness to apply, such that using algorithmic evaluations disproportionally discourages weaker applicants from applying. This research contributes to the literature on consumer responses to algorithms by identifying applicant strength as a novel determinant and by extending the focus from algorithms as advisors to algorithms as evaluators of consumers.

Firms can bundle material goods together in various ways, including based on their usage complementarity (i.e., the likelihood that the goods are used together). While prior research has investigated the consequences of bundling products that are high (vs. low) in usage complementarity, the current research uncovers the benefits of bundling products that are moderate in usage complementarity (e.g., a coffee mug and a folding chair). Thirteen pre-registered experiments show that bundling products that are moderate in usage complementarity offers companies a unique advantage: Bundling these products prompts consumers to view them as relatively more experiential compared to bundling products that are low or high in usage complementarity and compared to their non-bundled components. This perceptual shift occurs because bundling products with moderate usage complementarity increases contextualization—the degree to which consumers consider the setting in which the products could be used rather than the use of the products themselves. It also changes consumer behavior in ways that can benefit firms (e.g., increasing purchase likelihood when seeking an experience). This research offers theoretical contributions to the bundling and material-experiential literatures and practical implications for companies interested in different bundling approaches and obtaining the advantages of heightened experiential perceptions for material goods.

Some consumers evaluate products against demanding, ever-rising ideals of perfection. We introduce the desire for perfect products (DPP), a novel consumer trait capturing the extent to which consumers desire flawless products. Drawing on four qualitative studies, we identify three characteristics that distinguish high (vs. low) DPP consumers: (1) richer and more demanding ideal points, (2) greater susceptibility to upwardly revising those ideals when exposed to superior products, and (3) heightened sensitivity to even minor negative deviations from the ideal. Across scale-development studies reported in the web appendix, we develop an eight-item measure of DPP, establish its discriminant validity, and validate these characteristics. Across eight experiments, we show that DPP systematically shapes consumer behavior across acquisition and disposal. High-DPP consumers employ more numerous and stringent search filters, exhibit stronger preferences for newer products even when objective quality is unchanged, and are less willing to retain, repair, or donate flawed but usable products. Finally, we identify a managerially relevant intervention: reframing flaws as a source of uniqueness attenuates high-DPP consumers’ negative reactions to imperfect products.

This research investigates how the method of paying a shared expense affects purchase satisfaction. When multiple consumers share an expense (e.g., a meal, Uber ride, or vacation), each consumer can pay their own share directly, or one consumer can pay the total and others can repay them. Eight preregistered studies showed that indirect payment through another consumer led to higher purchase satisfaction versus direct payment to the vendor. This effect emerged regardless of the existing relationship (friend, acquaintance, or disliked person), or whether the consumers spent different amounts. Mediation evidence showed that indirect payment increased purchase satisfaction by providing relief from resolving indebtedness. Moderation evidence further supported our proposed process as this effect disappeared when either a financial obligation was made salient, or the focal consumer initially paid the total. This research highlights the distinction between direct and indirect payment paths in shared expenses, contributing a new construct to the consumer finance area. It also has implications for consumers who should realize the effects of shared expenses on their decision satisfaction and budgeting, and marketers who could encourage shared payments to increase satisfaction at little cost.

We revisit the widely accepted finding that paying with cash is more painful than paying with card by conducting the first systematic mega-replication (including 13 large-scale preregistered replications; a total of 32,371 participants, 65 products, and 57 price points ranging from $1.09 to $400). The aggregate evidence reveals four insights: (1) leveraging a broad set of established paradigms, we replicate the finding that paying with cash is more psychologically painful than paying with card, even among today’s consumers who own multiple cards, digital wallets, and virtual currencies; (2) comparing two outcome variables—amount spent and willingness-to-pay (WTP), we find a more reliable and larger overall direct effect of payment method on amount spent than on WTP; (3) these direct effects of payment method on outcome variables are mediated by pain of paying; (4) the mode-of-payment effect on pain of paying (and thereby on outcome variables) is moderated by individual differences, particularly the relative frequency of using cash versus card. We outline actionable guidance and future directions for researchers and practitioners interested in examining mode-of-payment effects, and discuss the value of and suitable approaches for future theory-driven large-scale replications.

In the United States, spending on political campaigns has surged dramatically. This paper introduces and examines “party-defiance ads,” a novel and increasingly common type of political advertisement in which candidates criticize their own party and take a position typically associated with the opposing party. Given the importance of party loyalty, defiance ads appear counterintuitive and risky. Why would candidates air ads in which they criticize their party? Across eight main studies and eight supplemental studies (N = 11,473), including an analysis of voting outcomes in recent elections, we investigate how consumers react to the use of defiance ads. We find that though defiance ads can be risky and trigger backlash, they have the potential to provide benefits to candidates. We identify when and why consumers support, tolerate, and penalize defiance ads in the context of both general elections and primaries. Our findings examine a previously undocumented advertising strategy, contribute to debates about affective polarization by showing that consumers can occasionally set partisan loyalty aside in favor of strategic considerations like electability, introduce electability as an important construct for research on consumer behavior, and provide practical insights for managers interested in using defiance ads.