Consumer responses to brand elimination: An attributional perspective

While research on innovation and new product development abounds in the literature, studies on firms deleting brands from their portfolio are virtually non-existent. This paper provides a pioneering examination of how brand elimination might influence consumer evaluations of the firm. As compared to a widely-held belief that brand elimination would adversely affect firm image, we propose that in situations where brand elimination can be viewed as the firm's effort to improve performance, consumers will rate this action favorably, with concomitant outcomes relating to firm evaluation. These ideas are supported in three studies. Study 1 finds that elimination targeting a weak (vs. strong) brand is more likely to be associated with eliminate-to-improve attributions, and consequently, more favorable evaluations. Study 2 shows that explanations provided by the firm (as against explanations generated internally by the consumers) help consumers make positive attributions for elimination targeting a strong brand, but lower evaluations when a weak brand is being eliminated. Study 3 establishes that loyal consumers are more likely to assess the applicability of an ‘eliminate-to-improve’ attribution and give favorable evaluations only when the eliminated brand is weak. Non-loyal consumers in general respond favorably to the elimination, regardless of brand strength. Future directions for brand elimination research are discussed.     

Avoidance of the handicapped: an attributional ambiguity analysis.

We demonstrated a general strategy for detecting motives that people wish to conceal. The strategy consists of having people choose between two alternatives, one of which happens to satisfy the motive. By counterbalancing which one does so, it is possible to distill the motive by examining the pattern of choices that people make. The motive used in the demonstration is the desire we believe most people have to avoid the physically handicapped. Because they do not wish to reveal this desire, we predicted that they would be more likely to act on it if they could appear to choose on some other basis. In two studies we found that people avoided the handicapped more often if the decision to do so was also a decision between two movies and avoidance of the handicapped could masquerade as a movie preference.     

Responsibility judgments and responses to people living with AIDS in China: testing an attributional perspective

With one in five individuals in the world living in China, there is an urgent need for HIV prevention and understanding HIV/AIDS stigma in China. This study applies an attributional analysis to Chinese students' responses to AIDS, examining effects of attributions of causal controllability for HIV infection on reactions to people living with HIV/AIDS. Students (n = 309) read one of two scenarios describing an AIDS patient and manipulating controllability of AIDS onset. Controllability of AIDS onset contributed to responsibility judgments, less positive affect, and lower desires to personally interact with the patient. Responsibility judgments predicted interaction wishes directly and indirectly through positive affect. Results provide support for Weiner's interpersonal attributional model. Implications for responses to AIDS in China are discussed.     

Anticipated bias from an outgroup: An attributional analysis

Utilizing a group product evaluation paradigm, a study was conducted to investigate anticipated outgroup evaluations. Specifically, it was proposed that ingroup members view outgroups in a way that leads them to anticipate discrimination. Results indicated, as predicted, that while subjects expected outgroup members to favour their own (outgroup) product, they expected impartial judges to agree with their own more favourable rating of the (ingroup) product. It is thus suggested that while subjects saw outgroup members as biased in their anticipated evaluations, they saw their own evaluations as relatively impartial. The results are discussed as an expression of ethnocentric attribution.     

Enactments: an intersubjective perspective.

We offer a critique and synthesis of classical and interpersonal views of enactment. From an intersubjective standpoint, the study of enactment leads to a reconsideration of the nature of the psychoanalytic process. And enactment becomes virtually synonymous with the psychoanalytic process. Enactments are interactions of analysand and analyst with communicative and resistive meanings that lead to valuable insight and can constitute corrective emotional experiences. Enactments that are recognized and defined become valuable dramatizing moments that have condensing, clarifying, and intensifying effects upon consciousness. The inevitable participation by the analyst in enactment is compatible with appropriate analytic discipline. A case will demonstrate these points.     

A meta‐analytic review of help giving and aggression from an attributional perspective: Contributions to a general theory of motivation

The present review syntheses 64 investigations on the determinants of helping and aggression involving more than 12,000 subjects, providing empirical tests of Weiner's (1986, 1995) theory of social conduct. A meta‐analytic test of the proposed causal cognition‐emotion‐behaviour sequence reveals that judgements of responsibility determine the emotional reactions of anger and sympathy, and that these emotional reactions, in turn, directly influence help giving and aggression. Results are highly consistent across several potential moderator variables including type of culture, sample characteristics, publication year, and publication status. Moreover, the present analyses suggest that the hypothesised model holds true for real events as well as for simulated data. Exploratory comparisons between the helping versus the aggression domain suggest that comparable results are obtained for these two domains, except that perceptions of responsibility are more likely to exert an additional proximal role in aggressive retaliation as compared to help giving. The implications of these findings for a general theory of motivation in the interpersonal and the intrapersonal domains are discussed.     

Prolonging life: an Orthodox Christian perspective.

While Orthodox Christianity does not find explicit statements about the morality of prolonging life in the usual doctrinal sources, the Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church, there are elements in Tradition which bear upon the issue. These include Orthodox spirituality's emphasis on the "wholeness" of the human person, its liturgical and synergistic view of human life, and its understanding of our moral ambiguity as fallen human beings in a fallen world. This last point, in particular, means that we do not usually have a clear choice between right and wrong, and that we cannot always trust ourselves to know which choice is the right, or even the better one. Therefore, we must always approach decisions about death and dying with humility and in a spirit of repentance, aware of the imperfection of all we do and trusting in the mercy of God.     

Sexual reorientation therapy: an orthodox perspective.

This article evaluates the phenomenon of sexual reorientation therapy from the standpoint of Orthodox Christian theology. It is argued that homosexual desire is the product of the fall of mankind and cannot be considered "normal." At the same time, however, reorientation therapies, whether secular or Christian, are inherently reductionistic and fail to address the underlying spiritual pathologies involved in homosexual desire (or any other deep-seated passion). The purpose of therapeia in the Orthodox Church is the psycho-somatic transfiguration of the whole person into the image of Christ, not merely the cessation of homosexual activity or the "reidentification" of one's "lifestyle."     

Self-disclosure as an influence strategy: Effects of machiavellianism,androgyny, and sex

In a study linking the characteristics of androgyny and Machiavellianism to the use of self-disclosure, participants were asked to complete two writing tasks. The tasks consisted of an influence situation (soliciting donations) and an affiliative situation (getting acquainted). The hypotheses were that Machiavellian females would be more self-disclosing on the influence task, androgynous individuals would be more self-disclosing on the affiliative task, and that the affiliative task would elicit more self-disclosure than the influence task. Results indicated that Machiavellian males were actually more self-disclosing on the influence task, and non-Machiavellian males were more self-disclosing on the affiliative task. Higher self-disclosure overall was elicited by the affiliative task, and there was some support for the hypothesis that androgynous individuals are more self-disclosing in an affiliative task.We would like to thank Florence L. Geis and Paul Harris for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and Richard Hall for his assistance in judging self-disclosure.     

Self-disclosure with all-male groups

Given the relational deficits men bring to a group, therapist self-disclosure is particularly pertinent with all-male groups. The use of this intervention reflects the author's long experience with such groups. The author writes from an interpersonal, collaborative model of group therapy, and discusses types of self-disclosure and the guiding principles in their use. Drawing primarily from his own practice, the author presents and discusses clinical vignettes that illustrate both helpful and nonhelpful uses of self-disclosure.