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AbstractWhen a consumer realizes that information relevant to a consumption decision is missing, such uncertainty can be attributed to ignorance (i.e., the information has never been observed and is unknown) or to memory failure (i.e., the information has been observed and is forgotten). Although research has examined inferences about unknown attributes, no prior work has examined inferences about forgotten attributes. Across six experiments in the lab and in the field, we find that when uncertainty is attributed to ignorance, consumers often make inferences about unknown attributes based on existing correlational evidence (e.g., a brand comparison sheet that could indicate a positive or negative correlation between the unknown attribute and observable attributes). However, when uncertainty is attributed to memory failure, consumers tend to ignore such existing correlational evidence and instead make inferences about forgotten attributes that tend to be positively correlated with known attributes. This process occurs partly because when consumers believe that an attribute was forgotten, they falsely retrieve an impression about the attribute that tends to be consistent with their overall product evaluation. Overall, believing that an attribute is forgotten and believing that it is unknown can lead to opposite inferences and choices.

In a field experiment, we use a novel method to test whether instilling a greater sense of vividness of the future self motivates people to act in a more future‐oriented way and reduces their delinquent involvement. We manipulate vividness of the future self by having participants, a sample of high‐school youth (N = 133), "befriend" an avatar representing their future self on a social network website. For 7 days, they reply to short messages from their future self designed to trigger thinking about that distant self. Using repeated‐measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), we find that participants who had been linked to their future self report less delinquent involvement, whereas controls did not. Furthermore, the results of a nonparametric bootstrapping procedure show that this effect is mediated by changes in vividness of the future self, such that increases in vividness lead to lower self‐reported delinquency. We conclude that vividness of the future self holds promise not only as a cognitive explanation for the failure to make informed cost–benefit trade‐offs but also for interventions aiming to reduce delinquency.

AbstractSpending is influenced by many factors. One that has received little attention is the meaning that people give to the act of spending. Spending money might imply that someone is relatively wealthy—since they have money to spend—or relatively poor—since spending can deplete assets. We show that people differ in the extent to which they believe that spending implies wealth (SIW beliefs). We develop a scale to measure these beliefs and find that people who more strongly believe that SIW spend their own money relatively lavishly and are, on average, more financially vulnerable. We find correlational evidence for these relationships using objective financial-transaction data, including over 2 million transaction records from the bank accounts of over 2,000 users of a money management app, as well as self-reported financial well-being. We also find experimental evidence by manipulating SIW beliefs and observing causal effects on spending intentions. These results show how underlying beliefs about the link between spending and wealth play a role in consumption decisions, and point to beliefs about the meaning of spending as a fruitful direction for further research.

Abstract
Many consumers say they want to save for the future yet struggle to do so. This research examines this saving behavior problem from a persuasive messaging standpoint. With the goal of helping people take better care of their future selves, we build on a stream of research that has found that the way people view their identities over time affects the saving decisions they make. Although past research on similarity judgments across time almost exclusively starts with the present self and moves forward to the future self, such judgments could theoretically start at any point in time. Here, we explore the possibility of backward mental time travel, by asking people to start in the future and return to the present. A series of studies shows that mentally traveling from the future to the present—rather than the present to the future—increases perceived similarity between selves across time by reducing the uncertainty of the destination self. Lab studies and two large-scale experiments indicate that, as an important outcome of this novel intervention, mentally traveling from the future to the present has a small but positive impact, systematically increasing savings intentions and savings behavior.