EFFICACY AND MAINTENANCE OF AN EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR A CONSUMER COOPERATIVE

We examined the effects of contingency management on participation in and maintenance of an education program by new members of a student housing cooperative. With credit and fine contingencies in place, the percentage of participants completing study guides was five times higher than without the contingencies. Members continued to implement the program for 9 years without researcher involvement.     

On the wisdom and utility of (under)sociality: A consumer psychology perspective

Kumar and Epley (2023) review robust evidence for an intriguing hypothesis: That people fail to appreciate the benefits of everyday social behaviors and thus hesitate to connect with others in ways that would increase well-being. In this commentary, we discuss how consumer research can enrich theory and application in this emerging line of inquiry. We suggest (a) that the hedonic implications of undersociality can be integrated with reputational signaling insights to generate new questions about the wisdom and utility of social behavior, and (b) that undersociality has interesting implications for a consumption domain of particular interest to maximizing welfare: charitable giving.     

The Temporal Dynamics of Wish to Live,Wish to Die,and Their Short-Term Prospective Relationships With Suicidal Desire

The internal debate hypothesis (Kovacs & Beck, 1977) suggests that those at risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors may experience fluctuations in both the wish to live (WTL) and wish to die (WTD). Previous research has investigated this hypothesis using various cross-sectional (Goods et al., 2019 [cf. Page & Stritzke, 2020]) and longitudinal methodologies (e.g., Bryan et al., 2016). No investigations have determined the within-day temporal dynamics of WTL and WTD using ecological moment assessment (EMA), however. N = 49 undergraduate university students recruited from a research participant pool from a large southeastern university in the United States with a lifetime history of suicide ideation completed the current 10-day EMA investigation. Results demonstrated that WTL, WTD, and resulting suicidal ambivalence (i.e., relatively equal WTL/WTD ratings) demonstrated similar within-person person variability; however, WTD scores appeared to demonstrate higher average variability compared to WTL and ambivalence scores. Although state WTL and WTD were concurrently related to state suicidal desire, only WTD prospectively predicted suicidal desire when controlling for the influence of the outcome variable at the previous timepoint. Ambivalence scores also prospectively predicted suicidal desire when controlling for suicidal desire at the previous timepoint. Results support the clinical and theoretical utility of separate WTL and WTD assessment. WTD was relatively stable within this sample but may be closely related to risk for future suicidal thinking. Changes in WTL may reduce state risk for suicidal desire but could be more trait-like in nature compared to WTD. Future research that investigates these hypotheses should consider the study limitations outlined.     

Through rose-tinted glasses: How inducing and resolving curiosity makes consumers less skeptical and improves their product evaluations

Research indicates that in general, curiosity leads to more intense processing of an advertisement, which might result in a more skeptical response toward a persuasive message. However, we propose the opposite and argue that a process of evoking curiosity toward a stimulus in the first step (with the creation of an information gap) and resolving it in the second step creates a positive affective experience. Upon receiving curiosity-resolving information after becoming curious, consumers are less skeptical toward the advertised product, which leads to a more favorable attitude and a higher purchase intention. Based on four studies, we demonstrate curiosity's skepticism-reducing effect, its downstream consequences, and the underlying mechanism of positive affect. We show that this curiosity-stimulating way of information disclosure caused the effect instead of the information itself, which remained constant. The effects occur for integral curiosity, directed at the focal product, and for incidental curiosity, elicited by an unrelated stimulus. These results contribute to understanding consumer responses to curiosity-evoking advertisements, which are widespread, and provide implications for consumer psychologists, practitioners, and policy makers.     

Bayesian inference for finite mixtures of generalized linear models with random effects

We present an hierarchical Bayes approach to modeling parameter heterogeneity in generalized linear models. The model assumes that there are relevant subpopulations and that within each subpopulation the individual-level regression coefficients have a multivariate normal distribution. However, class membership is not known a priori, so the heterogeneity in the regression coefficients becomes a finite mixture of normal distributions. This approach combines the flexibility of semiparametric, latent class models that assume common parameters for each sub-population and the parsimony of random effects models that assume normal distributions for the regression parameters. The number of subpopulations is selected to maximize the posterior probability of the model being true. Simulations are presented which document the performance of the methodology for synthetic data with known heterogeneity and number of sub-populations. An application is presented concerning preferences for various aspects of personal computers.     

拥挤影响消费者情绪和购物反应的元分析

拥挤是由社会(人群)运动空间和物理空间受限引发的一种主观感受和客观状态。随着消费者所处的环境越来越拥挤, 近些年来消费者行为领域对拥挤的关注逐渐增多, 但目前的研究结论并不一致。本文通过元分析方法获得了38个研究、81个样本的149个效应值, 分别探讨了两类拥挤对消费者情绪和购物反应(趋近型购物反应与回避型购物反应)的影响, 并尝试找出以往研究结果表现出异质性的原因。从情绪层面来看, 社会拥挤正向影响消费者的消极情绪, 负向影响自主感知; 空间拥挤负向影响消费者积极情绪, 正向影响消极情绪。从购物反应层面来看, 社会拥挤会显著增强消费者的趋近型购物反应(ρ = 0.208, N = 28624), 增加风险规避, 并负向影响消费者的购物态度和意愿(ρ = -0.135, N = 10094); 空间拥挤对消费者趋近型购物反应的影响并不显著, 但能负向影响回避型购物反应(ρ = -0.409, N = 3223)。进一步的调节分析发现, 购物环境类型、研究情境的真实性、是否为学生样本、以及样本来源于西方国家还是东方国家等能够调节拥挤对消费者部分情绪和购物反应的影响。本文最后讨论了研究结果, 并对管理实践和未来研究提供了建议。     

An Information Processing Theory of Ambivalence

This paper analyzes the sources of ambivalence toward political parties and candidates. We propose and test an information-processing theory of ambivalence in which systematic processing is hypothesized to heighten partisan and candidate ambivalence. We show that ambivalence is linked to several dispositional sources of systematic processing, including individuals' information, motivation, and cognitive style. Specifically, we find that ambivalence tends to be greater among the well informed and those who are high in need for cognition while it tends to be lower among those motivated by directional goals. Collectively, our results suggest that levels of partisan and candidate ambivalence are greatest among those most likely to engage in effortful processing of information and that these effects are independent of value conflict. The results further suggest that the effects of effortful processing on ambivalence are moderated by attitude commitment.     

应用层次析分法和模糊综合评判研究保健品消费心理

将层次分析方法与模糊综合评判理论相结合,以营养成分、包装情况、价格因素、广告宣传、售后服务为一级评判指标,以保健品专卖店、大型超市、小型超市、杂货店、厂家邮购五种销售渠道为二级评价指标,给出一种模糊判断的权重计算方法,建立了保健品消费心理的层次模糊决策模型。应用该模型对长春地区消费者的保健品消费心理进行了测试,结果表明：测试结果与实际销售情况相符。说明应用该方法建立起来的模型在了解消费者对保健品的消费心理方面是可行的,同时也为新型保健品的开发和市场推广提供了一定的依据。     

信息显示板（IDB）实验在消费行为研究中的应用

信息显示板（Information Display Board, IDB）实验是一种过程跟踪技术,以m×n矩阵方式呈现信息阵列,通过观测被试信息检索和浏览的一系列行为,来研究被试问题解决和决策中的信息获得（information acquisition）过程。Mouselab是常用的IDB计算机化程序。消费者是有限理性的问题解决者,因此IDB实验被用于消费行为领域的研究。应用不同的IDB实验设置,研究者探索了消费决策中消费者信息获得的模式和影响因素。     

品牌个性与消费者自我概念的一致性及其对品牌忠诚的影响

品牌个性与消费者自概念的一致性是指消费者在进行品牌选择时,倾向于选择那些品牌个性与其自我概念一致的品牌。品牌个性与自我概念的一致性对消费者的品牌忠诚具有积极的影响。许多研究都证实了这一点。本文主要对品牌个性与消费者自我概念的一致性对品牌偏好的影响做了简要的概述,对并对其未来研究方向进行了展望。