Children's Understanding of the Instrumental Value of Products and Brands

Gelman and Echelbarger (2019—this issue) provide a valuable discussion about children's understanding of the inferred or nonobvious features of objects, which has implications for how children value products. We further this conversation by examining how children value products and brands as a means for meeting important goals, which we refer to as instrumental valuation. Specifically, we examine developmental trends in instrumental valuation for three goals—self‐concept development, self‐presentation, and happiness. Across these areas, we find that children place greater value on products and brands for meeting these goals as they grow older, particularly during late childhood and early adolescence. We conclude with a discussion of how age differences in instrumental valuation add to the general conversation about how children of different ages value objects.     

I Can't Get You Out of My Head: The Influence of Secrecy on Consumers’ Self‐Brand Connections

Although research provides anecdotal evidence of consumers keeping their brand consumption a secret, there is little empirical corroboration to justify its study or illuminate the resulting consequences. The goals of this research are to provide evidence for the prevalence of keeping brand consumption a secret and to understand the resulting cognitive processing and consequences. Specifically, we first explore the occurrence of secrecy in the context of brand consumption, its types, and its motivations, underscoring the need for further investigation. Then, through a series of three subsequent studies, we demonstrate that keeping brand consumption a secret can lead to enhanced self‐brand connections through the underlying processes of thought suppression and thought intrusion. We rule out alternative explanations and enhance generalizability through the examination of passive (e.g., avoiding) versus active (e.g., lying) secrecy and variations in agency (i.e., instructed vs. voluntary secrecy).     

塞勒关于行为金融学的实证研究及其理论贡献

理查德·塞勒(Richard H. Thaler)是行为金融学的主要创建者。全文按照行为金融学的发展脉络, 在简单介绍了行为金融学诞生的前提条件及理论基础之后, 详细介绍了塞勒等学者关于股票的输家-赢家效应、封闭式基金之谜以及股权溢价之谜的实证研究及其理论观点, 展示了塞勒等学者如何巧妙地以真实金融市场上的产品以及投资者的行为为样本, 通过对这些数据的挖掘、提炼以及模拟, 揭示出投资者的信念、情绪等心理因素是导致上述金融“异象”的主要原因。对这些现象的研究, 使得塞勒脱离了传统金融学研究的窠臼, 倡导了金融学研究中关注个体行为及心理因素的研究取向, 促成了行为金融学的发展与壮大。     

拟人化:从“它”到“他”

拟人化是将人类特征、动机、意向或心理状态赋予非人对象的心理过程或者个体差异。拟人化的产生受到激发主体知识、效能动机和社会动机的影响,现有研究包括对自然、超自然、动物、机器、品牌和产品等的拟人化。对自然的拟人化能够促进环境保护行为,对动物、机器、品牌和产品的拟人化则形式多样、后果复杂。未来研究的焦点可能在人-机器人交互以及拟人化与可爱的关系问题上。     

Stuck like glue: the formation and consequences of brand attachments among salespeople

Although managers and researchers put utmost importance on uncovering factors that affect effort and performance of sales representatives, they have largely overlooked a key factor. This research aims to remedy this neglect by shedding light on salesperson brand attachment. A qualitative study first examines the prevalence of attachment and uncovers several potential antecedents. Two follow-up empirical studies show that identification and psychological ownership are significant predictors of salesperson brand attachment. Informed by this research, managers can encourage brand attachment, with the end goal of increasing salesperson effort and ultimately performance, by increasing feelings of identification and psychological ownership among salespeople. This impact is particularly notable among brands with low market share, which are often a key concern of managers. The findings provide novel insights into how attachment affects sales representatives, as well as potential methods to cultivate such an attachment.     

Expanding Diversity: Noncategorical Inclusion and Equity

Contemporary public policy and laws give strong support to equal protection and civil rights. This article argues that a modern society and each person therein should cultivate qualities in one’s self and others that will promote inclusion and equity to continually reduce and eventually eliminate unjust bias, prejudice, and discrimination (albeit perhaps an “impossible dream”). To date, equal protection has depended primarily on governmental regulations based on categorization of human factors. It is argued that everyone, particularly those persons granted “professional” status in society, should aspire for self-concept features that will move toward adopting and expanding inclusion to eliminate the need for categorization per se. Rather than diversity per se, inclusion and equity have contemporary support for better obtaining the personal and social values that can reduce bias, discrimination, and prejudice. It is recommended that interventions be directed at the structural, institutionalized, and close-minded barriers that exist in individual and collective decision making.     

Age and outcome allocation: A new test of the subtractive model

The no, moderate, and large differences between shares of outcome allocated to the high and low performers are interpreted as the respective rules of equality, ordinal equity, and proportional equity. The ability to employ the proportional rule is also believed to develop around the age of 13 years. The authors hypothesized that: (i) the rule of outcome allocation is subtraction; and (ii) age differences in outcome allocation are mediated by age differences in perceived inputs. In an experiment on Chinese aged 8–20 years, measures of perceived inputs were taken after or before outcome allocation. Results from the input-allocation order supported the hypotheses. Obviously, age effects in outcome allocations by Asians can sometimes be mediated by age differences in the ability to perceive the inputs accurately.     

Effect of brand name on consumers' risk perceptions of online shopping

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between brand names and consumers' perceived risk. Hypotheses dealt with whether the presence of a product's brand name affects consumers' perceived risk towards shopping online; whether the familiarity with a brand name influences consumers' perceived risk; and whether online shoppers and non‐shoppers perceive risk towards shopping online differently. Results indicate that the presence or absence of a product's brand name affects online shoppers' perceived risk, but in the opposite direction to that expected. There was no significant difference between online shoppers' perceived risk vis‐à‐vis brand familiarity; however, online shoppers possessed lower perceived risk than non‐shoppers. Implications and limitations are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.