Knowledge that Transforms

Journal Article Nostalgia and Consumption Preferences: Some Emerging Patterns of Consumer Tastes Get access Morris B. Holbrook Morris B. Holbrook Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 20, Issue 2, September 1993, Pages 245–256, https://doi.org/10.1086/209346 Published: 01 September 1993 Article history Received: 01 March 1992 Revision received: 01 February 1993 Published: 01 September 1993

A sociocultural approach is used to explore voluntary high-risk consumption. Specifically, we examine the dynamics of individuals' motives, risk perceptions, and benefit/cost outcomes of participation in increasingly popular high-risk leisure activities such as skydiving, climbing, and BASE jumping (parachuting from fixed objects). An ethnography of a skydiving subculture provides the primary empirical data. We propose an extended dramatic model that explains both macroenviron-mental and inter- and intrapersonal influences and motives for high-risk consumption. Key findings indicate (1) an evolution of motives that explains initial and continuing participation in high-risk activities and (2) a coinciding evolution of risk acculturation that leads to the normalization of risk.

Indirect (i.e., structured projective) questioning has been employed frequently in marketing and other social sciences to reduce social desirability bias, that is, systematic error in self-report measures resulting from the desire of respondents to avoid embarrassment and project a favorable image to others. Yet little is known about the validity of indirect questioning in reducing social desirability bias. This article reports on three studies that examine indirect questioning as a technique to reduce social desirability bias on self-report measures. The effects of asking indirect (i.e., structured, projective) questions were compared with direct (i.e., structured, personal) questions The pattern of results indicates that indirect questioning reduces social desirability bias on variables subject to social influence and has no significant effect on socially neutral variables. The social nature of the differences between direct and indirect questioning groups, and the attribution of an undesirable trait to an out-group but not an in-group target, supports the view that subjects projected their beliefs and evaluations in the indirect response situation. These results are consistent across several product categories and indirect question wordings.

An attempt to extend current thinking on postpurchase response to include attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction as separate determinants not fully reflected in either cognitive (i.e., expectancy disconfirmation) or affective paradigms is presented. In separate studies of automobile satisfaction and satisfaction with course instruction, respondents provided the nature of emotional experience, disconfirmation perceptions, and separate attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction judgments. Analysis confirmed the disconfirmation effect and the effects of separate dimensions of positive and negative affect and also suggested a multidimensional structure to the affect dimensions. Additionally, attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction were significantly related to positive and negative affect, respectively, and to overall satisfaction. It is suggested that all dimensions tested are needed for a full accounting of postpurchase responses in usage.

This article explores the provision of extraordinary hedonic experiences on commercial, multiday river rafting trips in the Colorado River basin. White water river rafting provides a dramatic illustration of some of the complex features of delivering an extraordinary experience. Multiple methods were employed over two years of data collection to articulate the lived meaning of this experience from both the guides' and the consumers' perspectives. Robust quantitative measures were developed from rich qualitative data. Participant observation and interview data enriched the interpretation of quantitative results. Experiential themes of personal growth and self-renewal, “communitas,” and harmony with nature are evidenced across the data; they evolve and are woven together over the course of the trip. Together they are significant in explaining overall satisfaction. There is a complex relationship between client expectations and satisfaction. The narrative of the rafting experience rather than relationships between expectations and outcomes is shown to be central to its evaluation. Implications for other services and consumption activities are discussed.

The social sciences are dominated by a paradigm that views human behavior as instrumental exchange. It is not surprising that consumer research on gift giving has also been dominated by this exchange paradigm. The present research on dating gift giving among American college students finds support for two variants of this paradigm, but it also reveals an alternative paradigm of gift giving as an expression of agapic love. It is suggested that agapic expressiveness is a needed addition to exchange instrumentalism for understanding gift giving and perhaps for understanding consumer behavior in general.

This article examines the underlying dimensionality of three aspects of the post-consumption experience—product evaluation, product-elicited affect, and product satisfaction. In addition, the article integrates these concepts through a suggested causal framework. Students evaluated either a high- or a low-involvement product in current use, reported affective responses evoked by it, and assessed their levels of product-derived satisfaction. Analysis shows that two primary dimensions of product evaluation—utilitarian and hedonic judgment—can be viewed as causally antecedent to two dimensions of affect—pleasantness and arousal—and to product satisfaction. Implications of the conceptual framework and empirical findings for the study of consumption events are discussed.

This article examines consumers' perceptions of warranties within the framework of economic signaling theory. We develop propositions about conditions under which higher warranties may lead to higher, lower, or the same quality perceptions as do lower warranties. These quality perceptions of consumers are consistent with different types of market equilibria predicted by signaling theory. The propositions are tested in an experiment which varies warranty length, warranty scope, and the conditions for warranty signaling. Results suggest that, in general, consumer responses to warranties are consistent with the behavioral assumptions of signaling theory. The authors suggest that consumer researchers can gain greater insight by integrating signaling theory with psychologically based approaches.