Knowledge that Transforms

Prior research has demonstrated that while people experience pride after an accomplishment, its experience can both encourage and discourage subsequent regulatory behavior. The current research shows that this seemingly contradictory influence can be accounted for by considering the information about the event that generated the pride (i.e., appraisal information) and whether or not a self-regulatory goal is active. In the absence of a self-regulatory goal, appraisal information concerning the locus of control (e.g., “I contributed to this achievement; it was not luck”) can be used to make positive inferences about one’s self-concept that reinforce further self-regulation. In the presence of a self-regulatory goal, appraisal information concerning personal agency (e.g., “This was my achievement, not someone else’s achievement”) can be used to make positive inferences about one’s progress toward self-regulation that, in turn, licenses indulgence. Thus appraisal information and the presence of self-regulatory goals is critical to how a self-conscious emotion like pride influences subsequent behavior. Implications and potential extensions in the areas of self-conscious emotions, goals, and self-regulation are discussed.

Although parents often try not to favor one child, we examine whether specific environmental factors might bias parents to favor children of one sex over the other. This research draws on theory in evolutionary biology suggesting that investment in female versus male offspring depends on resource availability. Applying this to consumers, a series of experiments show that poor economic conditions favor resource allocations to daughters over sons. For example, poor conditions led people to bequeath more assets to girls in their will, and to choose girls to receive a US Treasury bond and a beneficial extracurricular activity. It is proposed that this happens because spending on children represents a reproductive investment, and that boys’ and girls’ relative reproductive value varies with economic conditions. Supporting this account, perceptions of which child will have more children statistically mediates the effect of economic conditions on preferences for girls. Consequently, the effect is strengthened as a child approaches reproductive age, and it is moderated by individual differences (risk aversion and monogamy) directly related to our theoretical model. This research contributes to the consumer behavior literature by revealing how, why, and when environmental factors influence spending on girls versus boys.

We show that providing a low (vs. no) price discount can lower purchase propensity of low-priced products under certain conditions—when purchases are nonessential and purchase volume is small. Based on the theory of purchase value (Grewal, Monroe, and Krishnan 1998; Thaler 1983), we argue that offering a low price discount for nonessential purchases decreases perceived transaction value that in turn lowers consumers’ purchase propensity. However, this boomerang effect reverses when purchase volume is larger or when the purchase is essential. We demonstrate this effect with secondary scanner panel data sets (with six different product categories) and in five laboratory experiments (with real purchases). We also document the process and delineate boundary conditions.

This research examines how self-construal (i.e., independent vs. interdependent) and goal type (i.e., attainment vs. maintenance) are conceptually linked and jointly impact consumer behavior. The results of five experiments and one field study involving different operationalizations of self-construal and goal pursuit activities suggest that attainment (maintenance) goals can be more motivating for participants with a more independent (interdependent) self-construal and that differences in salient knowledge about pursuing the goals are one potential mechanism underlying this effect. This interaction effect was found within a single culture, between cultures, when self-construal was experimentally manipulated or measured, and when potential confounding factors like regulatory focus were controlled for. The effect was also found to impact consumer behavior in real life—self-construal, as reflected by the number of social ties consumers had, impacted the likelihood that they opted to reduce versus maintain their bodyweight. Further, after setting their goal, consumers who were more independent exhibited more (less) motivation, as measured by the amount of money they put at stake, when their goal was weight reduction (maintenance). These findings shed light on the relationship between self-construal and goal type, and offer insights, to both consumers and managers, on how to increase motivation for goal pursuit.

Many nutrition labeling studies only consider how consumers process health information about a single food product (i.e., in a noncomparative processing context). However, consumers also often comparatively evaluate many different food products at once in more complex shopping environments (i.e., in comparative processing contexts). Directly addressing these important differences, the results of two online studies and two retail laboratory studies demonstrate that the effects of different types of front-of-package nutrition cues (objective vs. evaluative) vary across consumers’ processing contexts (comparative vs. noncomparative). When consumers evaluate a single food item in a noncomparative context, objective nutrition cues that offer specific quantitative information lead to higher evaluations and intentions to purchase healthier products than do evaluative nutrition cues (which provide interpretive information about a product’s overall healthfulness and/or nutrients). However, these effects are reversed when consumers evaluate multiple food items simultaneously in a comparative context, such that evaluative cues have a more positive impact on evaluations and purchase intentions of healthier products. The authors integrate processing fluency and resource matching theoretical frameworks to explain why evaluative (objective) front-of-package cues are more influential in comparative (noncomparative) processing contexts. Implications for consumer health, the food and retail grocery industries, and public policy are offered.

Attractive service providers are often assumed to elicit favorable consumer reactions and to increase purchase intentions. However, this may not always be true. A pilot study and five field and laboratory experiments show that when a self-presentation concern is made salient, consumers react less positively to highly attractive providers than to less attractive ones. This concern can be influenced by chronic social anxiety or can be aroused by unrelated experiences that consumers have before being exposed to the service interactions. In addition, it can be activated by the type of product being sold, that is, a product that is likely to cause embarrassment. Thus the attractiveness of a service provider can have either positive or negative effects on consumers’ reactions to a consumption experience and their consequent purchase intentions, depending on the type of product under consideration. These effects occur when the service provider is both of the opposite sex and the same sex. However, self-presentation concerns when an opposite-sex provider is attractive are driven by sexual motives, whereas these self-presentation concerns when a same-sex target is attractive are stimulated by social comparison processes.

This article reviews 40 years of the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR). Using text mining, we uncover the key phrases associated with consumer research. We use a topic modeling procedure to uncover 16 topics that have been featured in the journal since its inception and to show the trends in topics over time. For example, we highlight the decline in family decision-making research and the flourishing of social identity and influence research since the journal’s inception. A citation analysis shows which JCR articles have had the most impact and compares the topics in top-cited articles with all JCR journal articles. We show that methodological and consumer culture articles tend to be heavily cited. We conclude by investigating the scholars who have been the top contributors to the journal across the four decades of its existence. And to better understand which schools have contributed most to the knowledge of consumer research over this history, we provide an analysis of where these top-performing scholars were trained. Our approach shows that the JCR archives can be an excellent source of data for scholars trying to understand the complicated, challenging, and dynamic field of consumer research.

Using a semiotic square to study placeway rituals, we theorize one particular sanctuary, a secular ritual we term vestaval—and specifically, its manifestation in the form of tailgating—as a site of popular communion. Vestaval demonstrates the power of consumption to stimulate social and civic engagement. We employ an ethnographic team methodology to describe and analyze the phenomenon. We theorize the eversion mechanism that animates vestaval and sets it apart from other social forms including spectacle, festival, and carnival well known to consumer research. We explore how vestaval turns the domestic world inside out and offers a template both for the temporary suspension and potential remaking of the social relations of market and polity. We detail a set of practices within four themes—location, construction, customization, and inhabitation—that enables the conversion of private space to public place and the creation of community from a confederacy of consumption encampments. These dynamics are presented as a Mobius strip to emphasize not only the simultaneity of stages, but also the constant sharing of energy. By examining how midwestern American tailgaters in a collegiate setting personalize public place and publicize personal place, we demonstrate how individuals negotiate two of the fundamental consumption ideologies of public space.

External cues regularly override physiological cues in food consumption resulting in mindless eating. In a series of experiments, this study shows that mindfulness, an enhanced attention state, improves consumers’ reliance on physiological cues across consumption episodes. Consumers who are chronically high in mindfulness (study 1) or who receive a short mindfulness training that focuses attention on the body (study 2) compensate more for previous food intake in their subsequent consumption. Moreover, after a mindful body meditation, consumers are more aware of physiological cues that develop after consumption (study 3), rather than of the amount they have previously eaten (study 4). Furthermore, we argue and show that the focus of mindfulness matters: mindfulness trainings that focus attention on the environment or on the body similarly elicit state mindfulness, but only mindful attention with a focus on the body stimulates compensation for previous consumption and awareness of satiety cues. Finally, practicing mindfulness and specifically paying mindful attention to body sensations is related to a more constant body weight in a sample of the general population (study 5).

Emotion and rationality are fundamental elements of human life. They are abstract concepts, often difficult to define and grasp. Thus throughout the history of Western society, the head and the heart, concrete and identifiable elements, have been used as symbols of rationality and emotion. Drawing on the conceptual metaphor framework, we propose that people understand the abstract concepts of rationality and emotion using knowledge of a more concrete concept—the vertical difference between the head and heart. In six studies, we show a deep-seated conceptual metaphorical relationship linking rationality with “up” or “higher” and emotion with “down” or “lower.” We show that the association between verticality and rationality/emotion affects how consumers perceive information and thereby has downstream consequences on attitudes and preferences. We find the association to be most influential when consumers are unaware of it and when it applies to an unfamiliar stimulus. Because all visual formats—from the printed page to screens on a television, computer, or smartphone—entail a vertical placement, this association has important managerial implications. Our studies implement multiple methodologies and technologies and use manipulations of logos, websites, food advertisements, and political slogans.