How to change it: modes of engagement,rationality, and stance voluntarism

We have three goals in this paper. First, we outline an ontology of stance, and explain the role that modes of engagement and styles of reasoning play in the characterization of a stance. Second, we argue that we do enjoy a degree of control over the modes of engagement and styles of reasoning we adopt. Third, we contend that maximizing one’s prospects for change (within the framework of other constraints, e.g., beliefs, one has) also maximizes one’s rationality.     

Fundamental motives: How evolutionary needs influence consumer behavior

Can we better understand modern consumer behavior by examining its links to our ancestral past? We consider the underlying motives for consumption and choice from an evolutionary perspective. We review evidence that deep-seated evolutionary motives continue to influence much modern behavior, albeit not always in obvious or conscious ways. These fundamental motives include: (1) evading physical harm, (2) avoiding disease, (3) making friends, (4) attaining status, (5) acquiring a mate, (6) keeping a mate, and (7) caring for family. We discuss how, why, and when these motives influence behavior, highlighting that many consumer choices ultimately function to help fulfill one or more of these evolutionary needs. An important implication of this framework is that a person's preferences, behaviors, and decision processes change in predictable ways depending on which fundamental motive is currently active. We discuss how consideration of evolutionary motives provides fertile ground for future consumer research, while also helping build bridges between consumer behavior, evolutionary biology, and other social sciences.     

Genetics and bioethics: How our thinking has changed since 1969

In 1969, the field of human genetics was in its infancy. Amniocentesis was a new technique for prenatal diagnosis, and a newborn genetic screening program had been established in one state. There were also concerns about the potential hazards of genetic engineering. A research group at the Hastings Center and Paul Ramsey pioneered in the discussion of genetics and bioethics. Two principal techniques have emerged as being of enduring importance: human gene transfer research and genetic testing and screening. This essay tracks the development and use of these techniques and considers the ethical issues that they raise.     

Stolen elections: How conspiracy beliefs during the 2020 American presidential elections changed over time

Conspiracy beliefs have been studied mostly through cross-sectional designs. We conducted a five-wave longitudinal study (N = 376; two waves before and three waves after the 2020 American presidential elections) to examine if the election results influenced specific conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mentality, and whether effects differ between election winners (i.e., Biden voters) versus losers (i.e., Trump voters) at the individual level. Results revealed that conspiracy mentality kept unchanged over 2 months, providing first evidence that this indeed is a relatively stable trait. Specific conspiracy beliefs (outgroup and ingroup conspiracy beliefs) did change over time, however. In terms of group-level change, outgroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time for Biden voters but increased for Trump voters. Ingroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time across all voters, although those of Trump voters decreased faster. These findings illuminate how specific conspiracy beliefs are, and conspiracy mentality is not, influenced by an election event.     

How consumer drivers construe vehicle performance: Implications for electric vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as potentially important contenders as low carbon vehicles. However from the perspectives of consumer (non-commercial) drivers, all types of EVs have limitations such as short range and higher cost that are significant barriers to widespread uptake. To displace a significant fraction of conventional vehicles, they may need to offer consumer drivers specific advantages that offset these limitations. Better performance might be such an advantage, since electric powertrains can offer performance benefits such as quieter operation and higher torque at low speeds. This qualitative study explored how vehicle performance is construed by consumer drivers, using a repertory grid approach to elicit drivers’ personal constructs. Drivers were found to construe performance in terms of two main dimensions, both situationally specific: dynamic performance (involving acceleration, power, and responsiveness during pulling away, overtaking and hill climbs) and cruising performance (involving smoothness and low noise, during high speed cruising on highways). Users of gasoline fuelled cars emphasised dynamic performance more than did users of diesel fuelled cars, but the opposite was the case for cruising performance. A conceptual model based on the findings could help focus design efforts on those aspects of performance that are most directly salient to drivers.     

To trust or not to trust: How self‐construal affects consumer responses to interpersonal influence

Although people generally prefer persuasive messages that align with their self‐construal, the present research explores a seemingly paradoxical situation wherein mismatched message that does not align with people's self‐construal is positively received. Given sufficient cognitive capacity to trigger persuasion knowledge—the knowledge of persuasion tactics that are encountered in the marketplace, the use of an individually focused persuasion attempt on consumers with an interdependent self‐construal results in greater levels of trust in the sales agent. In contrast, consumers with an independent self‐construal respond similarly to different types of persuasion attempts. Persuasion knowledge is a mechanism for variations in trust. The findings replicate those of prior work, and the robustness of the effects is confirmed via small‐scale meta‐analysis.     

A changed perspective: How gratitude can affect sense of coherence through positive reframing

We hypothesized that gratitude would be related to sense of coherence via positive reframing, which is a process by which negative events or circumstances are seen in a positive light. We tested this hypothesis in two studies. In Study 1 (N = 166) we found a strong, robust relationship between trait gratitude and sense of coherence above and beyond life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, happiness, and social desirability. Study 2 (N = 275) showed that gratitude at Time 1 predicted sense of coherence at Time 2, controlling for baseline scores. Positive reframing mediated the relationship between gratitude and SOC. Results are discussed in terms of their practical implications.     

How common sense fails us on the road: contribution of bounded rationality to the annual worldwide toll of one million traffic fatalities

Bounded rationality is a generally adaptive behavior characterized by a rapid decision making process that involves only the most salient aspects of the problem. In the driving context, bounded rationality is evident on a macro (societal) level as well as on a micro (individual driver) level. On a macro level, bounded rationality underlined the development of many of the early, common-sense countermeasures for traffic safety problems. On a micro level, bounded rationality can lead to unexpected driver behaviors and thus to unexpected effects of some common-sense countermeasures. Because the obvious, common-sense countermeasures have already been largely identified (although not always implemented), further progress will require insights rooted in comprehensive theories of driving, and formal study of the implications of these insights. It will require unbounded rationality; it will require real science.     

Abstract rationality in education: from Vygotsky to Brandom

Abstract rationality has increasingly been a target of attack in contemporary educational research and practice and in its place practical reason and situated thinking have become a focus of interest. The argument here is that something is lost in this. In illustrating how we might think about the issue, this paper makes a response to the charge that as a result of his commitment to the ‘Enlightenment project’ Vygotsky holds abstract rationality as the pinnacle of thought. Against this it is argued that Vygotsky had a far more sophisticated appreciation of reason and of its remit. The paper proceeds first by examining the picture of Vygotsky that is presented in the work of James Wertsch, and especially his claim that Vygotsky was an ambivalent rationalist, goes on to provide an account of Vygotsky that corrects this picture, and develops this in the light of the work of Robert Brandom, who shares Vygotsky’s inheritance of Hegel. The conclusion towards which this piece points is that the philosophical underpinnings of Vygotsky’s work provide a radically different idea of rationality and epistemology from that characterised as abstract rationality and that this has significance for education studies.

Base-rate respect: From ecological rationality to dual processes

The phenomenon of base-rate neglect has elicited much debate. One arena of debate concerns how people make judgments under conditions of uncertainty. Another more controversial arena concerns human rationality. In this target article, we attempt to unpack the perspectives in the literature on both kinds of issues and evaluate their ability to explain existing data and their conceptual coherence. From this evaluation we conclude that the best account of the data should be framed in terms of a dual-process model of judgment, which attributes base-rate neglect to associative judgment strategies that fail to adequately represent the set structure of the problem. Base-rate neglect is reduced when problems are presented in a format that affords accurate representation in terms of nested sets of individuals.     

Writing consumer research: the world according to Belk

• Writing is a core scholarly competence. Not only is it a skill that every academic must acquire, regardless of their methodological, philosophical or empirical affiliations, but also it is ‘a substantial differentiating characteristic of eminent researchers’. This article offers an analysis of the writing style of one of the field's most eminent researchers, Russell W. Belk. It identifies five literary devices that help Belk's writing stand out from the crowd and, while the article does not claim to contain the secret of writing success, it considers the crucial part writing plays in the consumer research process.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Power and consumer behavior: How power shapes who and what consumers value

The current paper reviews the concept of power and offers a new architecture for understanding how power guides and shapes consumer behavior. Specifically, we propose that having and lacking power respectively foster agentic and communal orientations that have a transformative impact on perception, cognition, and behavior. These orientations shape both who and what consumers value. New empirical evidence is presented that synthesizes these findings into a parsimonious account of how power alters consumer behavior as a function of both product attributes and recipients. Finally, we discuss future directions to motivate and guide the study of power by consumer psychologists.     

No escape from Allais: reply to Buchak

In Risk and Rationality, Lara Buchak advertised REU theory as able to recover the modal preferences in the Allais paradox. But we pointed out that REU theory only applies in the “grand world” setting, where it actually struggles with the modal Allais preferences. Buchak offers two replies. Here we enumerate technical and philosophical problems they face.

     

Tales of a successful memeplex: How the water wars in the everglades were changed into a comprehensive plan

In 2000, a $7.8 billion plan was signed to help create a feasible and innovative approach to the drying-up problem of the Florida Everglades. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) would be the first time that parties that used to oppose each other regarding this issue will cooperate to reach a common goal. The article describes this intriguing process from a memetics perspective and shows that CERP spread fast because it reconciled different interests. Her research interests are safeguarding public values in privatized utility sectors. Her Ph. D. thesis Bridges and Watersheds was published in 2001 (Aksant, Amsterdam) and analyzes the shifting public private divide in water management under conditions of globalization. She is editor of the journals Bestuurswetenschappen and of Work & Emotion. Her latest book (with de Bruijn et al.) is Creating System Innovations. How Large Scale Transitions Emerge, Taylor and Francis, London (2004).     

Revealing obstacles to the consumer imagination

The research proposes that the consumer imagination combines information about a current sensory stimulus (product) with triggered episodic memories to use as inputs in making product evaluations. Two studies reveal that the consumer imagination can be suppressed when preferred haptic sensory information is missing and when a situation is unambiguous, reducing the need for relying on episodic memory. The research findings support the general notion that the consumer imagination enhances purchase intentions compared to considering product attributes because the imagination enables consumers to integrate the information in a more efficient way. In both studies, perceived ownership mediates the effect. Contributions to theory and practical implications are provided.