A Comment on Metacognitive Experiences and Consumer Choice

This commentary discusses the role that naive theories play in consumer judgment. It emphasizes deviation from expectations as a driver of metacognitive activity and discusses challenges involved in transposing Schwarz's (2004) elegant framework to the domain of consumer choice. The author concludes that the value of the metacognitive framework is limited when applied to choices, especially those for which subjective experience effects are driven by affect or emotions.     

社会排斥对消费选择偏向的影响：怀旧的调节作用及社会联结的中介作用

社会排斥会导致许多消极影响,人们会尝试通过各种策略对此进行缓解,而消费是其中重要的一种应对方式。本文通过3个实验考察了社会排斥和消费选择偏向（体验性消费vs.实物性消费）的关系,同时探讨了怀旧的调节作用和社会联结的中介作用。结果发现,社会排斥可以提高消费者对体验性消费的偏好,怀旧调节了社会排斥与体验性消费偏向的关系,并通过社会联结的中介作用进一步缓冲了社会排斥对消费选择偏向的影响。     

Consumer Evaluation of Low Price Guarantees: The Moderating Role of Reference Price and Store Image

This article reports the findings of 2 studies that examined the effects of low price guarantees (LPG) in retail advertisements within the framework of signaling theory. Overall, an LPG in an ad resulted in higher value perceptions and shopping intentions. Findings also suggest that the effect of an LPG is likely to be moderated by other price cues such as reference prices and by the price image of the store. An LPG resulted in higher value perception and shopping intention when reference prices were low or absent, but lowered search intention in the presence of a high reference price. Additional findings suggest that intention to search for a better price was lower, particularly when an LPG was offered by a low price image store. For high price image stores, an LPG increased value perceptions and shopping intentions, while also increasing search intentions, indicating the possibility that LPGs can act as a double‐edged sword in certain instances. Managerial and public policy implications are also noted.     

心理距离对跨期选择和风险选择的影响

通过考察时间距离、社会距离和概率距离对跨期选择和风险选择的影响, 探究跨期选择和风险选择心理过程的相似性, 并检验不同心理距离影响决策的相似性。结果发现, 无论是时间距离(实验1)、社会距离(实验2)、还是概率距离(实验3), 心理距离越远, 被试在跨期选择中越倾向于延迟选项, 在风险选择中越倾向于风险选项。研究认为, 在跨期选择和风险选择中, 选项的表征结构和选项整体评价时不同选项特征的相对权重具有相似性。随着心理距离增加, 与高识解相联系的金额特征的相对权重增加, 与低识解相联系的时间和概率特征的相对权重降低, 这使得被试更倾向于选择金额较大的延迟和风险选项。同时, 研究发现三类心理距离对两类决策有相似影响, 进一步验证了不同心理距离的本质相似性。     

识解水平对跨期选择和风险选择的影响

通过考察识解水平启动对跨期选择和风险选择的影响, 探究两类选择对时间或风险心理加工的相似性。结果发现, 无论以思维诱导为识解水平的启动条件(实验1), 还是以视觉加工为识解水平的启动条件(实验2), 受高识解水平启动的被试对延迟选项和风险选项的主观值判断都要大于受低识解水平启动的被试, 说明跨期选择中的延迟时间和风险选择中的概率具有相似的表征, 而识解水平思维定势是通过影响金额和时间(或概率)的相对权重起作用。即由于高识解水平下的金额权重高于低识解水平, 时间(或概率)权重低于低识解水平, 从而使被试在高识解水平下更愿意等待或冒险。     

Consumer Rights to Informed Choice on the Food Market

The discourse about traceability in food chains focused on traceability as means towards the end of managing health risks. This discourse witnessed a call to broaden traceability to accommodate consumer concerns about foods that are not related to health. This call envisions the development of ethical traceability. This paper presents a justification of ethical traceability. The argument is couched in liberal distinctions, since the call for ethical traceability is based on intuitions about consumer rights to informed choice. The paper suggests that two versions of ethical traceability find justification. The first version of ethical traceability entails that governments ensure that all consumers are provided with foods that respect some threshold level of, e.g., animal welfare that is supported by an overlapping consensus. The second version of ethical traceability entails that food producers provide consumers with products, and sufficient information about these products, that are relevant for reasonable, non-superficial values that are not supported by an overlapping consensus. Governments should facilitate this in the sense that consumers are not provided with misinformation about characteristics of foods that are relevant for reasonable, non-superficial values that are not supported by an overlapping consensus.

Pseudocontingencies in Consumer Choice: Preference for Prevalent Product Categories Decreases with Decreasing Set Quality

Building on theorizing about contingency inferences, the present research deals with the impact of product category prevalence on consumer choice. We argue that a category's prevalence in the choice set can signal high quality, but the validity depends on the aggregate quality of the choice set. With ever more low‐quality products in the set, high prevalence should increasingly signal poor rather than high quality. When choosing from a poor‐quality set, choices should thus favor products from the rare category. In four experiments, we show that poor‐quality sets increase the proportion of consumers choosing products from a rare category. Furthermore, we show that these effects increase when base rates of a category and quality become more extreme. Finally, Experiment 4 shows that contingency inferences partly mediate the effect of set quality on choice. The results extend previous research on contingency inferences, indicating the adaptive use of base‐rate information in consumer decision making. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

压力使人短视?来自跨期决策的证据

跨期决策是指个体对不同时间点上的收益或损失进行的权衡和选择。本研究探讨了日常慢性压力知觉和实验室急性压力操作对跨期决策的影响。研究一通过问卷调查发现高压力感与跨期决策中的短期偏好有关;研究二采用社会压力测试范式(TSST)在实验室进行压力操作,同样发现压力组被试比控制组更偏好"小而近"的选项。研究认为,压力使人在跨期决策中倾向于短视选择,可能与双系统激活模式和自我控制资源损耗有关。     

不孕不育患者述情障碍与其生活质量相关性研究

述情障碍是影响个人情绪体验和表达方式的一种认知情感障碍,常导致患者不恰当的疾病行为并影响心理、躯体治疗效果。不孕不育是一个涉及个人隐私、家庭及社会问题的疾病,研究显示不孕不育患者存在较高程度的述情障碍,主要表现在缺乏描述情感的能力,易于用躯体障碍的形式来表现其焦虑、抑郁等情绪。从研究结论可知,在对不孕不育患者进行治疗时,应采用恰当的沟通方式,准确把握其病情及内心感受,并辅以恰当心理治疗,以提高治疗效果。     

The Moderating Effect of the Service Context on the Relationship Between Price and Post-Consumption Perceptions of Service Quality

A stream of marketing research indicates that price often affects consumers' pre-purchase perceptions of quality. Interestingly, however, most studies that have assessed the effect of price on quality have utilized physical products rather than services. Moreover, the effect of price on assessments of quality has typically measured before respondents have an opportunity to consume the target product. This paper reports the results of a study that found that the effect of price on post-purchase perceptions of service quality is contingent on consumers' perceptions of contextual cues. Specifically, only when consumers evaluate contextual cues to be worse than their expectations does a higher price increase their perceptions of service quality. Implications of these findings and avenues for future research in services are discussed.     

The Effects of the Selective Consideration of Alternatives on Consumer Choice and Attitude–Decision Consistency

There are many instances of consumer decision making in which more consideration is given to 1 brand than to others in the choice set. This research explored how selective consideration of a brand affects attitudes toward the brand, relative standing of the focal brand within the choice category, and decision making. Experiment 1 demonstrated that when participants were prompted to consider a randomly determined focal alternative, that alternative was more likely to be chosen than nonfocal alternatives. Moreover, willingness to pay for an alternative was higher if it was the focus of consideration. Attitudinal data suggest that the selective consideration effect occurred because attitudes toward the focal alternative became more positive compared to those toward other alternatives in the choice set. Experiment 2 elucidated this attitudinal effect by demonstrating that selective consideration could cause the extremity of consumers’ attitudes toward a focal brand to become more positive. Experiment 3 explored the potential of the selective consideration of a focal alternative to influence the consistency between consumers’ attitudes and decisions and established that the initial attitude toward a focal alternative moderated the selective consideration effect.     

Choice Environment, Market Complexity, and Consumer Behavior: A Theoretical and Empirical Approach for Incorporating Decision Complexity into Models of Consumer Choice

Most empirical models of choice in economics and consumer research assume that the decision maker assesses all alternatives and information in a perfect information-processing sense. The complexity of the choice environment, the ability of the individual to make complex decisions, and the effect of choice context on the decision strategy are generally not considered in statistical model development. One of the reasons for this omission is that theoretical literature on choice complexity and imperfect ability to choose that has developed in psychology and behavioral decision theory (BDT) literatures has not been translated into empirical econometric analysis. Second, the data used in economics and consumer research studies tend to be somewhat different from the data structures used in psychology and BDT literatures. In this paper we outline a theoretical model that simultaneously considers task complexity, effort applied by the consumer, ability to choose, and choice. We then construct a measure of task complexity and incorporate this in an analysis of a number of data series based on the random utility framework. We also examine the performance of our measure of task complexity in a composite data set that allows for increased variability in factors affecting decision context. Our approach provides a mechanism to link research in BDT and econometric modeling of consumer choice. Our findings suggest that task complexity does affect inferences about choice model parameters and that context effects, such as complexity, have a systematic impact on the parameters of econometric models of choice. The modeling approach provides a mechanism for inclusion of results from psychology and BDT in traditional economic models of consumer choice.     

The Morality of Price/Quality and Ethical Consumerism

Res Publica - Hussain claims that ethical consumers are subject to democratic requirements of morality, whereas ordinary price/quality consumers are exempt from these requirements. In this paper,...     

问题启动对跨时选择的影响研究

本研究采用2×3混合实验设计,通过控制时间距离和表征的建构水平,对不同问题启动下的跨时选择进行对比研究。实验结果显示,问题启动是影响跨时选择的重要因素,不同问题启动下的未来结果价值折扣存在显著差异。Why问题启动使个体的时间距离敏感度降低,How问题启动使个体的时间距离敏感度提高。     

The Effect of Scarcity on Anticipated Price Appreciation

Researchers in psychology and marketing have found that consumers' perceptions and evaluations of a product's attractiveness, desirability, expensiveness, quality, and taste are affected by knowledge that the product is scarce. This study examines scarcity's effect on a new variable—anticipated price appreciation. Although scarcity does not affect a product's actual potential for price appreciation, news reports of scarce collectibles that have appreciated in value may lead people to develop naive economic theories associating scarcity with price appreciation. Consistent with this expectation, we found that scarcity increased the anticipated price appreciation of two collectible products. The practical implications of this result are discussed along with issues for future research.     

In Defense of Consciousness: The Role of Conscious and Unconscious Inputs in Consumer Choice

Although the argument that unconscious inputs are often key determinants of consumer decision making is compelling, it may be overstated, particularly with respect to choice. A comparison of the effect of conscious inputs (e.g., the attributes of options in the choice set) and unconscious inputs (e.g., a seemingly irrelevant observation or task) indicates that the former have a significant advantage. In particular, the impact of conscious inputs is supported by choice task norms and is less susceptible to being lost in the “noise” that is characteristic of most natural consumer environments (e.g., stores). Indeed, although consumers often have limited insight into influences and processes producing their choices, the assumption that consumers base their choices on conscious, willful evaluation of task‐relevant inputs has been quite successful in explaining a wide range of phenomena. It is expected that future research will put greater emphasis on the interactions between conscious and unconscious influences on decision making.     

品牌名称暗示性对消费者决策选择的影响：认知需要和专业化水平的调节作用

品牌管理者最首要的决策就是选择一个好记的或有意义的品牌名字。由于任何特征的品牌名字都必须借助消费者的认知差异来实现真正的差异化, 因此, 从消费者认知特点出发研究暗示性品牌名字就显得尤为重要和有意义。本文通过3个实验, 分别验证了消费者认知需要和专业化水平对品牌名称暗示性与决策选择的调节作用。方差分析发现：低专业化水平的消费者更倾向于根据暗示性的品牌名字做出决策, 而高专业化水平的消费者则不受品牌名称暗示程度的影响。此外, 低认知需要的消费者比较喜欢暗示性的品牌名字, 而对于高认知需要的消费者来说, 品牌名字的暗示性程度不会对其决策过程产生影响。最后, 研究结果揭示了专业化水平和认知需要对暗示性品牌名字效果发挥具有交互作用。对于具有高专业化水平的消费者来说, 无论他们处于低认知需要还是高认知需要, 品牌名字的暗示程度都不会影响他们的态度形成。相反地,对于具有低专业化水平的消费者来说, 无论是低认知需要还是高认知需要均倾向于暗示性的品牌名字。而对于专业化程度中等的消费者而言, 暗示性品牌名字效用的发挥则取决于其处理信息的动机—认知需要水平。     

Sales Promotions and the Choice Context as Competing Influences on Consumer Decision Making

Although brand switching is one of the most researched topics in marketing, we still know very little about the moderators of switching between brands in different price‐quality tiers (e.g., from Häagen–Dazs ice cream to Breyers or to a store brand). Building on the notion that buyers have a (category‐specific) consideration set of price–quality tiers, we propose that sales promotions and the choice set composition (or the choice context) have compensatory effects on brand switching between price–quality tiers. Specifically, if one of these factors causes buyers to switch to a higher price–quality tier within their brand‐tier consideration set, then the other factor is less likely to induce switching in the same direction (to an even higher tier) and more likely to induce switching in the opposite direction. This general proposition leads to several specific hypotheses, including (a) the likelihood of switching between particular brand tiers due to price promotions can be predicted based on the choice set composition; (b) asymmetric switching, whereby consumers are more likely to switch up from a low‐tier to a promoted high‐tier brand than from a high‐tier to a promoted low‐tier brand, is reduced or eliminated if consumers consider three price–quality tiers; and (c) the compromise effect is reduced when the lowest tier brand offers a price promotion. These hypotheses were supported in a series of studies, which also examined rival explanations. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The relationship between Career Choice Attitudes and Career Choice Competencies of ninth-grade pupils

This paper presents the results of a study designed to determine whether or not Career Choice Attitudes and Career Choice Competencies are interrelated as hypothesized in the Crites' (1965, 1973a) model of career maturity. To test hypotheses derived from the Crites model, the Career Maturity Inventory was administered to 270 ninth-grade pupils. The Attitude Scale and Competence Test subscales and total score were intercorrelated. The resulting correlations appear to be mostly consistent with the model of career maturity, although the Career Choice Attitudes and Career Choice Competencies dimensions were found to be more highly correlated with each other than was hypothesized.     

Price‐Matching Guarantees and Consumer Evaluations of Price Information

In 3 experiments, we show that price‐matching guarantees affect the process through which consumers translate price information into subjective judgments. In Experiment 1, we find that price‐matching guarantees appear to change the standard used in price evaluation by raising consumers’ estimates of the lowest and average prices in the market. This leads consumers to perceive products and stores that offer price‐matching guarantees as less expensive. In Experiment 2, we show that evaluations of product price information are affected by the presence of a price‐matching guarantee only when consumers do not know the range of market prices. In Experiment 3, we extend these findings to show that consumer evaluations of the cost of products in a store, inferred on the basis of store characteristics, are also influenced by the presence of a price‐matching guarantee.