Suchergebnisse

AbstractRecently, conversation on diversity and inclusion has been at the forefront in the media as well as the workplace. Though research has examined how diversity impacts organizational culture and decision-making, little attention has been given to how corporate diversity impacts consumers' responses to the firm. This article establishes a link between diversity and the perceived morality of market actors. A series of studies demonstrate that greater diversity (racial, gender, or national) in a corporate team leads to perceptions of greater morality of the firm and its representatives and, as a consequence, results in more favorable consumer attitudes and behavior toward the firm. This positive effect arises because consumers perceive diverse teams as possessing higher perspective-taking abilities. Since marketplace morality is concerned with the greater good, we argue that higher perceptions of perspective-taking signal that the team will safeguard the broad interests of the community rather than serve narrow interest groups. The findings have broad implications since consumers are increasingly concerned with moral consumption. Our research suggests that diversity in the workforce is not only important for team performance and social equity but can shape consumers' sentiments and behavior toward the firm.

Abstract
Using a sample of individuals who hold target retirement funds (TRFs), we examine how people use arithmetic to estimate their retirement age. We find a robust "zero" bias where investors have a strong preference for TRFs that end with zero compared to TRFs that end with five. The evidence is consistent that the bias is an outcome of people using imprecise arithmetic, specifically rounding up and down in the computational estimation required to estimate their retirement year. The zero bias manifests itself in people born in years ending between eight and two. Those born in zero- through two-ending years select TRFs that imply they intend to retire at 70, whereas those born in eight- and nine-ending years choose TRFs that imply retiring at 60. The choices can significantly lower or increase wealth by altering the contribution amounts and exposing investors to risk incompatible with their age profile. The bias is particularly costly for those who are risk averse and select later TRFs but is also most beneficial to risk-averse consumers who choose early TRFs. We experimentally confirm that the contribution rates are related to the TRF choices and that the use of imprecise mathematical rounding is implicated in the bias.

AbstractWith the rise of machine learning and "big data," many large yet spurious relationships between variables are discovered, leveraged by marketing communications, and publicized in the media. Thus, consumers are increasingly exposed to many large-magnitude relationships between variables that do not signal causal effects. This exposure may carry a substantial cost. Seven studies demonstrate that the magnitudes of relationships between variables can distort consumers' judgments about whether those relationships reflect causal effects. Specifically, consumers often use a magnitude heuristic: consumers infer that relationships with larger perceived magnitudes are more likely to reflect causal effects, even when this is not true (and even when relationships' correlations are held constant). In many situations, relying on the magnitude heuristic will distort causality judgments, such as when large-magnitude relationships between variables are spurious, or when normatively extraneous factors (e.g., reference points) distort perceptions of magnitudes. Moreover, magnitude-distorted (mis)perceptions of causality, in turn, distort consumers' purchase and consumption decisions. Since consumers often encounter spurious relationships with large magnitudes in the health domain and in other consequential domains, the magnitude heuristic is likely to lead to biases in some of consumers' most important decisions.

Abstract
Consumers are increasingly engaging with content on social media platforms, such as by "following" Twitter accounts and "liking" tweets. How does their engagement change through the day for vice content offering immediate gratification versus virtue content offering long-term knowledge benefits? Examining when (morning vs. evening) engagement happens with which content (vice vs. virtue), the current research reveals a time-of-day asymmetry. As morning turns to evening, engagement shifts away from virtue and toward vice content. This asymmetry is documented in three studies using actual Twitter data—millions of data points collected every 30 minutes over long periods of time—and one study using an experimental setting. Consistent with a process of self-control failure, one of the Twitter data studies shows a theory-driven moderation of the asymmetry, and the experiment shows mediation via self-control. However, multiple processes are likely at play, as time does not unfold in isolation during a day, but co-occurs with the unfolding of multiple events. These results provide new insights into social media engagement and guide practitioners on when to post which content.

AbstractPrice knowledge is a key antecedent of many consumer judgments and decisions. This article examines consumers' ability to form accurate beliefs about the minimum, the maximum, and the overall variability of prices for multiple product categories. Eight experiments provide evidence for a novel phenomenon we call dispersion spillover: Consumers tend to overestimate price dispersion in a category after encountering another category in which prices are more dispersed (vs. equally or less dispersed). Our experiments show that this dispersion spillover is consequential: It influences the likelihood that consumers will search for (and find) better prices and offers, and how much consumers bid in auctions. Finally, we disentangle two cognitive processes that might underlie dispersion spillover. Our results suggest that judgments of dispersion are not only based on specific prices stored in memory and that dispersion spillover does not simply reflect the inappropriate activation of prices from other categories. Instead, it appears that consumers also form "intuitive statistics" of dispersion: Summary representations that encode the dispersion of prices in the environment but that are insufficiently category specific.

Abstract
The natural environment is deteriorating. However, humans have not slowed down their pace of resource depletion and environmental destruction. This research takes a particular path to understanding environmental consumption—through a focus on temporal perspective. Evidence from six studies demonstrates the positive effect of a cyclical temporal perspective, versus a linear temporal perspective, on consumers' pro-environmental behavior. The research shows that individuals with a cyclical perspective are more likely to include the environment in the self, which leads to higher pro-environmental behavioral intentions and more pro-environmental behavior. This temporal perspective effect is attenuated for consumers already high on green values. The authors also examine a marketer-controlled moderator and show that consumers are more likely to purchase a pro-environmental product when they see a temporal-perspective-congruent promotional appeal. The research contributes to both the time perception and the environmental consumption literature and offers several practical implications for organizations to promote sustainable consumer behavior.

Abstract
While much is known about product bundles comprised of different items, much less is known about multipacks—a product set comprised of multiple identical items (e.g., a 4-pack body washes). Using the context of multipacks, the authors propose a novel price divisibility effect, which suggests that a multipack's price that is easily divisible (vs. non-divisible) by the number of component items in the multipack will increase its purchase likelihood. For example, purchase likelihoods of a four-pack body wash multipack will be higher when its price is $16 (easily divisible by 4) versus $15.30 (non-divisible by 4). This occurs because a divisible versus non-divisible price shifts consumers' attention to the unit and creates a belief that each unit item in the multipack will be consumed quickly, which, in turn, helps justify purchasing multiple units. The authors report findings from 15 studies (including a field experiment), where they demonstrate the effect and its underlying mechanism and delineate several moderators and boundary conditions. This research contributes to several literature streams, including those on product bundling, multiple-unit pricing, product consumption, and numerical cognition.

Abstract
Foundational research in marketing and behavioral economics has revealed a great deal about the psychology of budgeting. However, little is known about the extent to which budgets do (or do not) influence consumers' real-world spending. The present research addresses this gap in the literature using naturally occurring budgeting and spending data provided by a popular personal finance app in the UK, a field experiment conducted with members of a Canadian credit union, and a financial diary study conducted with consumers in the US. Budget compliance is generally weak because budgets are wildly optimistic. However, optimistic budgets do help consumers reduce their spending. Moreover, the influence of budgets on spending is surprisingly sticky: consumers continue to reduce their spending six months after setting a budget, even though spending remains over-budget. Impulsive consumers exhibit worse budget compliance than less-impulsive consumers. However, counterintuitively, this is predominately because more impulsive consumers set lower budgets than less-impulsive consumers, not because they spend more. Finally, we provide evidence that budgets influence spending across several theory-informing psychographic variables. Taken together, these findings show that budgets can be both wildly optimistic and highly influential and that beliefs about the nature of consumers' budgets require updating.

Abstract
Despite firms' continued interest in using influencers to reach their target consumers, academic and practical insights are limited on what levers an influencer can use to enhance audience engagement using their posts. We demonstrate that posting stories with or about people whom they share close ties with—such as family, friends, and romantic partners—can be one effective lever. Content that incorporates close social ties can be effective for several reasons: it may increase perceptions of authenticity, enhance perceived similarity, increase the perception that the influencer possesses more warmth, and could satisfy viewers' interpersonal curiosity. We analyze texts and photographs of 55,631 posts of 763 influencers on Instagram, and after controlling for several variables, we find robust support that consumers "like" posts that reference close social ties. Furthermore, this effect enhances when first-person pronouns are used to describe special moments with these close ties. We supplement the Instagram data with an experimental approach and confirm the relationship between close ties and consumer engagement. Managerially, this is a useful insight as we also show that sponsored posts tend to be perceived negatively compared to non-sponsored posts; yet, embedding social ties on the sponsored posts can mitigate consumers' negative responses.

Abstract
This research reveals how a fundamental and pervasive psychological state, feeling powerful, asymmetrically impacts consumers' construction of and response to communications. For senders, power reduces consumers' need-for-justification and lowers the degree of support they seek and use to construct their communications. This lowered degree of support is evidenced by reduced information search, the use of fewer rational-based arguments, and a greater reliance on more concise language. In contrast, for receivers, power increases consumers' expectations for others to justify their positions. As a result, high-power receivers require a greater degree of support in communications from others. Based on a need-for-justification mechanism, the current work derives and demonstrates theoretically driven boundary conditions (e.g., attenuation when a heightened need-for-justification or support already exists) of this relationship. Together, these results provide new insights into how power influences consumers' need-for-justification and how this need affects the ways that consumers construct and respond to communications.