Knowledge that Transforms

When writing a review, influencers market their credibility–a critical antecedent to consumers’ attitudes towards reviewers, reviews, and brands. This research examines how consumer reviews shape source credibility and subsequent word-of-mouth (WOM) of influencers. Nineteen studies (N = 7,330), across several product categories and situations, find that consumers perceive negative reviewers as less credible than positive reviewers due to an expectancy-violation of social norms: negativity violates prior expectations for positive reviews. Study 1 finds that while a negative review is viewed as more helpful, the reviewer is perceived as less credible. Studies 2-5 test the expectancy-violation account, finding that the effect on credibility is mediated by social norms (study 2), is mitigated when consumers have ambiguous prior expectations, and reverses when expectations are negative (studies 3-5). Studies 7A-7I replicate this effect across many domains. This reduction in source credibility has downstream consequences, decreasing consumers’ willingness to follow a subsequent recommendation and the source on social media (studies 6A and 6B). While criticism may be intended to damage a brand and/or to help other consumers, this research finds that criticism hinders WOM and the credibility of a reviewer/influencer. Thus, critics are less credible, and have less influence, when positivity is expected.

Initial choices often lead to downstream choices. Initial choices among restaurants lead to downstream choices among entrées, and initial choices among resorts lead to downstream choices among activities. How do the options available for downstream choices (e.g., entrées, activities) affect initial choices among multi-option alternatives (e.g., restaurants, resorts)? Forward-looking consumers should be able to identify their most-preferred downstream choice options (e.g., favorite entrée, favorite activity) and select an initial alternative accordingly. Less-preferred downstream choice options may therefore be disregarded. Yet fifteen studies across four domains (three consumer goods and risky gambles) indicate this is not how consumers choose. Instead, adding a less-preferred option to an otherwise-attractive set of downstream choice options decreases the choice share of the corresponding multi-option alternative. The effect size increases as the difference in value between the more-preferred and less-preferred options increases. Mouse-tracking reveals that participants who attend more to a less-preferred downstream choice option (e.g., entrée, activity) are less likely to choose the corresponding multi-option alternative (e.g., restaurant, resort). A manipulation of attention to the downstream choice options provides causal evidence for this mechanism. This work enhances our understanding of multi-option decision-making and how decision-makers assess the overall value of choice sets.

Rising costs have led to the emergence of skimpflation—reducing the quality of a product or service without changing its price. Although this practice is becoming increasingly common, little is known about how consumers perceive it relative to other cost-management strategies. Across multiple preregistered experiments, I find that consumers judge decreases in product quality as significantly more unfair than decreases in product size or increases in price. This “skimpflation penalty” is associated with perceptions that quality reductions are less transparent and affect more central aspects of the product and consumption experience. Consistent with this account, differences in consumer reactions are substantially reduced when firms communicate changes transparently, and the additional penalty for quality reductions disappears—or even reverses relative to size reductions—when quality reductions affect peripheral rather than central attributes. Additional studies examine behavioral consequences, showing that consumers are especially averse to purchasing products with reduced quality compared with downsized products or those with higher prices. Further, consumers react less negatively to quality reductions when the original consumption experience can be recovered. These findings offer important implications for firms managing rising costs and for policymakers concerned with transparency and market fairness.

Scientists, NGOs, companies, and the press typically communicate temporal predictions about environmental threats in terms of the calendar date by which the threat is expected to occur (e.g., “Water shortage in the UK by 2040”). However, across eight online studies and a field experiment, we find that referring instead to the amount of time left until the threat (e.g., “Water shortage in the UK within 20 years”) makes the threat feel temporally closer. Consequently, using time-left frames increases consumer engagement with environmental issues and support for pro-environmental causes. This effect arises because time-left framing makes individuals feel as though time is counting down toward the threat.

Hedonic experiences often involve multiple components that are experienced simultaneously. When watching a video clip, for instance, consumers simultaneously experience acoustic and visual elements. The authors study how framing the same experience as either a single whole (single-experience framing) or as a combination of multiple simultaneous experiences (multi-experience framing) shapes hedonic enjoyment. Across 12 studies that span a variety of consumption contexts (e.g., food, videos, music, paintings, games), this work shows that multi-experience framing increases consumers’ enjoyment of the experience and also affects consequential choices such as the willingness to continue the experience. This enjoyment boost occurs because multi-experience framing leads consumers to invest more attention into the experience. The authors also establish two boundary conditions for this effect: multi-experience framing does not boost enjoyment if consumers already pay high attention to the experience for other reasons (e.g., extrinsic rewards) or when the experience is negatively valenced. By investigating how the framing of experiences as multiple simultaneous components shapes hedonic enjoyment, these findings extend existing research on gestalt psychology, partitioning, and bundling further into the hedonic domain. This simple, yet effective, framing manipulation can help marketers, policymakers, and everyday people to maximize the hedonic enjoyment for various commonplace experiences.

Trendsetters and cutting-edge brands constantly seek new styles and fresh designs that set them apart from previous trends. However, in recent decades, these early adopters and innovators have also increasingly turned to selected pieces from the past, a market phenomenon often referred to as “vintage.” But what are vintage products exactly? This research develops a unified framework for understanding vintage consumption using a multimethod approach that combines interviews, surveys, online product scraping, structural equation modeling, experiments, and data on over 2,000 vintage products across 16 categories collected at vintage fairs, stores, and online retailers. Vintage is a composite formative construct determined by three dimensions: moderate age, iconicity, and scarcity. By mapping its nomological network, the authors clarify the dimensions vintage shares with related constructs (i.e., antique, secondhand, retro), examine its downstream consequences for consumers, and identify its managerial implications. Vintage products deliver personal (e.g., heritage connection and authenticity), social (e.g., coolness), and sustainability benefits (e.g., environmental responsibility) for consumers. Moreover, highlighting a product’s age, iconicity, and scarcity can enhance consumer responses to vintage more than to new products. This research provides a theoretical foundation for understanding vintage consumption and offers guidance for identifying and positioning vintage products in the marketplace.

Singularization has long been an essential element of value creation in markets for various types of goods that become prized for their uniqueness, but has only recently gained prominence in digital markets. However, very little is known about how digital goods are singularized (i.e., valorized as unique). This study enriches extant research on singularization by shifting attention from physical to digital goods and by exploring singularization as a socio-technical process shaped by varied social actors and technological forces. Inspired by Reckwitz’s (2020) sociology of singularities, this multimethod qualitative study of a market for singularized digital goods uncovers four vectors of digital singularization, variable ways in which technology mediates digital singularization, and multiple tensions that mark this process. In addition to advancing nascent work on digital singularization, this study contributes to broader singularization research by theorizing singularization as a social, technology-mediated process that is inherently precarious. Moreover, this study provides new insights into digital possession and value creation in digital markets, as well as into contemporary “singularity markets” more broadly.

Social media shapes how people connect, communicate, and consume information. As generative artificial intelligence (AI) becomes an increasingly common tool for content creation, many platforms have introduced disclosure requirements to inform consumers when content has been created or significantly edited by AI. Yet, little is known about how such AI-generated content (AIGC) disclosures influence consumer engagement, a key metric for creators, platforms, and brands. This research examines whether and why AIGC disclosures affect engagement on social media. Analysis of engagement behavior on TikTok following the introduction of their AIGC disclosure policy and eight preregistered experiments (including two in the web appendix) finds that disclosures reduce consumer engagement. This reduction does not stem from concerns about content quality, wariness of artificial content, or general AI aversion. Instead, the findings identify a novel process: AIGC disclosures reduce parasocial connection—one-sided emotional bonds between consumers and creators. Reduced parasocial connection is driven in part by the perceived effort of the content creator. As such, disclosures that signal greater effort can mitigate reductions in engagement. The implications of these findings for platform policy, content creator strategy, and the future design of AI disclosure practices are discussed.

When consumers see someone else’s experience shared on social media, they often infer whether the sharer had relatively intrinsic or extrinsic motives for originally engaging in this experience. While prior research has documented how these inferred motives affect viewers’ social evaluations of the sharer, the present research demonstrates these inferences can shift viewer beliefs about the experience itself. The findings from six studies show that when viewers infer a sharer originally had either relatively intrinsic or extrinsic motives for consuming an experience they shared about, these inferences increase viewer beliefs that the experience is well suited to satisfy that same type of motive. This shift in the expected motive-based value of the experience, in turn, influences viewers’ behavior during and after their own engagement in a similar experience. However, when viewers are highly familiar with the experience that was shared, the expected motive-based value of the shared experience is not influenced by viewers’ inferences about the sharer’s original motives. Altogether, this research documents a new social influence phenomenon on social media and discusses managerial implications of these findings.

In recent years, firms’ depictions of some historically underrepresented identities (HUIs) in marketing communications have elicited backlash, while depictions of other HUIs have been more broadly accepted. The present work develops a framework to explain when and why these divergent responses occur. We propose that, while liberals respond positively to the depiction of all HUIs due to their prioritization of the Fairness moral foundation, conservatives’ responses are more nuanced and depend on how a focal identity is perceived on two dimensions: agency and normativity with respect to descriptive norms related to bodily purity. These dimensions produce a four-quadrant typology whereby, due to their greater emphasis on the Purity/Sanctity moral foundation, conservatives respond negatively only to HUIs perceived as high on both dimensions (e.g., an obese model, a transgender model, or a model who wears a hijab). We validate this framework by showing that conservatives’ negative responses are attenuated when an identity is perceived as low on either dimension. We further identify a managerially relevant boundary condition, wherein conservatives’ negative reactions are also attenuated when the focal identity appears as a numerical minority within a broader campaign featuring primarily non-HUIs.