Knowledge that Transforms

AbstractIn this article, we theorize how marketplace objects and their properties facilitate market legitimacy. Adopting assemblage theory, we examine a politically contested market—the U.S. recreational cannabis market—using retail sales data, public opinion polls and surveys, mainstream media coverage, and interviews with producers and consumers. We find that objects convey meaning in the market by creating sensory or discursive alignment between new or contested products and products from existing, legitimate markets, and by creating sensory or discursive distancing between new products and products in existing, illegitimate markets. We further find that different types of consumers play different roles in the overall legitimation process because they perceive alignments and misalignments differently. We present a conceptual model that links object meaning with the market and broader, cultural, and societal levels, demonstrating how materiality contributes to the overall legitimation of a politically contested market.

AbstractAn investigation into the embodiment of consumer knowledge is presented, drawing on ethnomethodology and the allied field of conversation analysis. Analyzing video recordings of 189 service encounters at the ticket desk of an art gallery, the study explores the embodiment of consumer knowledge, how consumer knowledge is witnessable from quotidian details of customers’ embodied conduct, how they talk, move their bodies, gesture, handle objects, and cast their gaze. Consumer knowledge is shown to be socially organized, with social considerations informing what customer should know, and how customers’ faulty assertions and claims should be treated. In the way firms approach consumer knowledge, the article describes how they might create or undermine interactive value. This article breaks new ground by demonstrating that consumer knowledge is relevant for understanding the actions of consumers, not only as a result of cognitive processes but also as it is embodied.

Abstract Extant research shows that consumers are more likely to donate to close than distant others, making donations to geographically distant beneficiaries a challenge. This article introduces residential mobility as a novel variable that can lead to increased donations toward distant beneficiaries. This article proposes that residential mobility (vs. stability) leads consumers to have a stronger global identity, whereby they see themselves as world citizens. This global identity results in higher donations to distant beneficiaries. A multi-method approach provides evidence for this prediction. An analysis of a national panel dataset demonstrates that high residential mobility is correlated with donations to distant beneficiaries. Lab experiments, including one with real monetary donations, replicate these effects using both actual moving experience and a residential mobility mindset.

Abstract A fundamental function of retailing is to bring products into the view of shoppers, because viewing products can activate forgotten or new needs. Retailers thus employ various strategies to entice shoppers to explore the product assortment and store environment, in the hopes of stimulating unplanned purchasing. This article investigates consumers’ breadth of attention as a mechanism of such in-store exploration and hence of unplanned purchasing. Specifically, attentional breadth is the focus that is directed to a wider or more limited area in processing visual scenes. Across several lab and field experiments, the authors show that shoppers’ attentional breadth activates an exploratory mindset that stimulates visual and physical exploration of shopping environments, ultimately affecting their product choices and unplanned purchasing. The results also show that more impulsive buyers are more susceptible to these effects. The present article thus complements and constrains prior theorizing on mindset theory, attention, store exploration, and unplanned purchasing, all of which are of practical importance to both retailers and consumers.

AbstractA model’s eyes are a powerful and ubiquitous visual feature in virtually any advertisement depicting a person. But does where the ad model’s eyes look matter? Integrating insights from social psychology and performance and visual art theory, we demonstrate that when the ad model’s gaze is averted (looking away from the viewer), the viewer is more readily transported into the ad narrative and responds more favorably to the ad than when the ad model’s gaze is direct (looking directly at the viewer). Five multi-method experiments (field and lab studies) illustrate that averted gaze (direct gaze) enhances narrative transportation (spokesperson credibility) to boost the effectiveness of emotional (informative) ads. Study 1 is a Facebook field study that demonstrates the effect of averted (vs. direct) gaze direction on advertising effectiveness using a real brand. Studies 2a and 2b implicate enhanced narrative transportation as the underlying process mechanism by measuring (study 2a) and manipulating (study 2b) narrative transportation. Studies 3a and 3b examine ad contexts in which direct gaze can enhance ad effectiveness: when the ad has informational (vs. emotional) appeal (study 3a), and when the viewer prefers not to identify with the negative emotional content of the ad (study 3b).

AbstractPast research generally finds that if consumers share word of mouth about past purchases with others, the valence of the information tends to be congruent with actual perceptions. Thus, a negative purchase experience should elicit negative (vs. positive) word of mouth. We examine how a goal of attaining the best possible outcome, or maximizing, may alter this tendency. Drawing on prior work demonstrating that consumers may view their own personal failures more favorably through relative comparisons with others faring similarly or worse, we show that maximizing increases consumers’ propensity to share favorable word of mouth about unsatisfactory purchases, in an effort to encourage others to make the same poor choices, as they seek to enhance the perceived relative standing of and post-purchase feelings toward their own unsatisfying outcomes. We further show that consumers particularly exhibit this behavior when sharing with psychologically close (vs. distant) others, as comparisons with close others are especially relevant to relative standing. Finally, we consider the downstream consequences of such behavior, finding that when consumers successfully persuade close others to make the same bad decisions, they feel better about their own outcomes, but are also burdened with feelings of guilt that erode their overall wellbeing.

AbstractHow does foreign language influence consumer dishonesty? We propose a self-diagnosticity theory arguing that compared to one’s native language, using a foreign language makes lying appear less self-diagnostic, thereby increasing or decreasing lying depending on which aspect of the self is salient. In situations where lying reflects an undesirable, dishonest self, using a foreign language increases lying. In contrast, in situations where lying primarily reflects a desirable (e.g., competent or compassionate) self, using a foreign language decreases lying. Ten studies, spanning various languages, consumer contexts, and experimental paradigms, support the theory. The studies establish that the effect of language on lying jointly depends on the self-diagnosticity of lying and on whether lying is diagnostic of a positive or a negative aspect of the self. The findings highlight self-diagnosticity as a valuable lens to understand the behavior of bilingual consumers and offer practical guidance for addressing dishonesty in the marketplace.

AbstractThe present article explores the effect of memory efficacy on consumer behavior—particularly on consumer’s likelihood to behave “virtuously,” that is, in line with standards, such as ideals, values, morals, and social expectations. Memory efficacy refers to people’s general belief that they will be able to remember in the future the things they are experiencing or doing in the present. We hypothesize and find across five studies that when consumers have low-memory efficacy (vs. control), they are less likely to behave virtuously because their actions seem less consequential for their self-concept (i.e., less self-diagnostic). Using two different experimental manipulations of memory efficacy, we examine its effect on virtuous behavior in the context of prosocial choices—that is, charitable giving (study 1A) and volunteering (studies 1B and 2). We then explore our proposed underlying mechanism (perceptions of self-diagnosticity) using causal-chain mediation (studies 3A and 3B) and moderation approaches (studies 4 and 5) in the context of food choices. We conclude with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of our findings.

AbstractIn an era of unprecedented consumer access to media and the tools to control narrative delivery, speed, and exposure to transmedia content, there is no longer the illusion of a cohesive narrative managed by a recognized singular author or unified authorial voice. Instead, consumers carve their own trajectories through brand narratives. Our multimethod inquiry of television series viewing, based on a combination of interviews, diaries, video recordings followed by member-check interviews and online forum analyses, identifies two key forces that guide narrative navigation: how consumers manage a text’s gravitational pull and its permeability to transmedia content. We find that consumers shape their own trajectories by adopting and/or moving between nine documented narrative positions. This more nuanced understanding of narrative consumption in a transmedia environment offers new insights for the study of narrative brand spaces and brand storytelling.

AbstractPersuasion success is often related to hard-to-measure characteristics, such as the way the persuader speaks. To examine how vocal tones impact persuasion in an online appeal, this research measures persuaders’ vocal tones in Kickstarter video pitches using novel audio mining technology. Connecting vocal tone dimensions with real-world funding outcomes offers insight into the impact of vocal tones on receivers’ actions. The core hypothesis of this paper is that a successful persuasion attempt is associated with vocal tones denoting (1) focus, (2) low stress, and (3) stable emotions. These three vocal tone dimensions—which are in line with the stereotype content model—matter because they allow receivers to make inferences about a persuader’s competence. The hypotheses are tested with a large-scale empirical study using Kickstarter data, which is then replicated in a different category. In addition, two controlled experiments provide evidence that perceptions of competence mediate the impact of the three vocal tones on persuasion attempt success. The results identify key indicators of persuasion attempt success and suggest a greater role for audio mining in academic consumer research.