Abstract This article examines how exposure to disease-related cues influences consumers’ preference for typical (vs. atypical) product options. Merging insights from evolutionary psychology with research on preference for typicality in consumer products, we predict that disease salience decreases relative preference for typical versus atypical options, because typical products are implicitly associated with many people, misaligning them with the people-avoidance motive triggered by disease cues. We further build on this conceptualization to identify situations in which this preference shift might be eliminated. Specifically, we argue that the focal effect will not manifest when the disease in question is explicitly described to be noncontagious, or when an anti-infection intervention is introduced, or when the decision context involves minimum infection. Results from six studies provide support for our predictions, advancing basic knowledge on the evolutionary strategies guiding disease avoidance, while also documenting how such strategies can affect consumer preferences.

The authors investigate the link between the color of a Web page's background screen while the page is downloading and the perceived quickness of the download. They draw on research that supports links between color and feelings of relaxation and between feelings of relaxation and time perception. The authors predict that the background screen color influences how quickly a page is perceived to download and that feelings of relaxation mediate this influence. In a series of experiments, they manipulate the hue, value, and chroma dimensions of the color to induce more or less relaxed feeling states. The findings suggest that for each dimension, colors that induce more relaxed feeling states lead to greater perceived quickness. The authors provide triangulating evidence with an alternative manipulation: the number of times subjects wait for a download. As does color, this also leads to variation in levels of relaxation and perceived quickness. A final experiment reveals that color not only affects perceived download quickness but also has consequences for users' evaluations of the Web site and their likelihood of recommending it to others.