Misrepresentation in the Consumer Context

Research in social psychology suggests that motives such as self‐bolstering and impression management can lead people to engage in deliberate misrepresentations during interpersonal communications. This article extends our understanding of such behavior to a new domain; that of consumer communications. Drawing on research on lying behavior and symbolic consumption, we suggest that misrepresentation about products and possessions is particularly likely to occur when these products or possessions are used to create a positive self‐image in the context of social interaction. Experiments 1 and 2 simulate a social interaction wherein misrepresentation about the purchase price of a product helps participants to manage impressions. A third experiment extends these findings by testing for wealth‐related misrepresentation in the context of an interaction wherein participants actually communicate their family's wealth to a recipient. Consistent with predictions derived from existing research on symbolic consumption, all 3 experiments provide support for the critical importance of recipient status on the likelihood of misrepresentation. The first 2 experiments additionally examine the role of individual differences and brand differences. Results on these dimensions are also supportive of our underlying theoretical premise regarding the antecedents of lying behavior.     

Minor physical anomalies and obstetrical complications: Their relationship to hyperactive,psychoneurotic, and normal children and their families

Hyperactive, psychoneurotic, and normal control boys and their families were examined for minor physical anomalies (MPA). The results revealed that the hyperactive boys and their families had more MPA than the combined group of psychoneurotic and normal control children and their families. There were no differences in the mean number of MPA within families. Hyperactive probands also had more pre- and perinatal complications than the combined proband group. Furthermore, it was quite evident that the combination of numerous obstetrical complications and a high number of MPA significantly increased the probability of a child being diagnosed as hyperactive. The results are discussed in relation to the genetic transmission of MPA and the use of MPA as high risk indicators.     

If you can't grab it,it won't grab you: The effect of restricting the dominant hand on target evaluations

This research examines whether and how holding one object influences evaluations of another. Across four studies, we find that occupying the dominant (vs. non-dominant) hand leads to lower evaluations of the target object; further, process data suggests that this effect occurs because dominant hand restriction impairs the ease with which the perceiver simulates holding the target. Boundary conditions that document effect attenuation and reversal are also consistent with this premise. Collectively, the studies offer support for a circular chain of influence between the perception and action systems.     

Package size and perceived quality: The intervening role of unit price perceptions

This research examines how package size can influence quality judgments for packaged goods, and also identifies a price-based mechanism for the observed size–quality relationship. Results from several studies show that a product in a smaller package is rated more favorably than the equivalent product in a larger package. Further, this effect is due to the smaller package being associated with a higher unit price (despite having a lower overall price), which suggests that unit price information is more diagnostic than overall price information when forming judgments of product quality. We also find a theoretically-derived reversal of this effect under conditions in which the greater diagnosticity of unit price is overwhelmed by its lower ease of use. Namely, when overall price is the only explicitly-provided price cue and consumers are too distracted to estimate unit price, a larger package is now rated as being better. Finally, two concluding studies examine the downstream consequences of changes in package size, building off our basic conceptualization to document effects on product choice as well as consumption experience.     

Hegel’s Secular Theology

This essay attempts to present Hegel as a secular theologian and to argue that the theological dimension of Hegel’s thought is central to his entire philosophy and is, in fact, the leitmotif that draws together all of his work. The task of overcoming the dualism between the sacred and the secular provides the driving spirit of all Hegel’s endeavors, from his juvenilia to the mature thought of his Heidelberg and Berlin periods. A secular theology demonstrates its commitment to secularity through three main affirmations: (1) the full reality and significance of this world, (2) the autonomy of the different fields of culture and knowledge besides that of religion, and (3) the epistemological authority of reason and shared experience in determining the real and the true. Hegel’s secular theology, however, has an ambiguous relationship with most forms of theism, including panentheism.     

Do consumers ever learn? Analysis of segment behavior in experimental markets

Economists argue that, despite cognitive limitations, economic agents arrive at optimal choice rules by learning. The assumption is that consumers, for example, are adaptively rational. Adaptive rationality raises a host of issues. We address three of these in the context of experimental markets: do consumers differ on the basis of learning; how do these differences, when aggregated, affect market efficiency; and how do consumers learn? Analysis of our experimental data reveals the following. First, multiple segments of consumers exist on the basis of learning. Second, the largest segment consists of subjects who do not learn despite timely feedback and motivation. Third, although some consumers do learn to make optimal choices, the effect of this segment on market efficiency is cancelled by an equal number of subjects who ‘learn' false relations. Finally, although subjects do not learn strict rationality even with experience, they are in the aggregate not so irrational as to allow highly suboptimal brands to survive. Further analysis of how consumers learn, specifically on the cues (signals) and the rules consumers employ in making choices over time leads to the following two conclusions. First, some signals make learning more easy than others: for example, providing market share information improves learning but not as much as providing quality information does. Second, people employ different rules depending upon the type of information they have. For example, consumers making decisions based only on price information are more likely to use a heuristic like ‘buy a medium‐priced product provided it has not failed in the past'. Consumers making decisions based on price and quality information may employ a heuristic such as ‘buy top quality products regardless of price'. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Having a body versus moving your body: How agency structures body-ownership

We investigated how motor agency in the voluntary control of body movement influences body awareness. In the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), synchronous tactile stimulation of a rubber hand and the participant's hand leads to a feeling of the rubber hand being incorporated in the participant's own body. One quantifiable behavioural correlate of the illusion is an induced shift in the perceived location of the participant's hand towards the rubber hand. Previous studies showed that the induced changes in body awareness are local and fragmented: the proprioceptive drift is largely restricted to the stimulated finger. In the present study, we investigated whether active and passive movements, rather than tactile stimulation, would lead to similarly fragmented body awareness. Participants watched a projected image of their hand under three conditions: active finger movement, passive finger movement, and tactile stimulation. Visual feedback was either synchronous or asynchronous with respect to stimulation of the hand. A significant overall RHI, defined as greater drifts following synchronous than asynchronous stimulation, was found in all cases. However, the distribution of the RHI across stimulated and non-stimulated fingers depended on the kind of stimulation. Localised proprioceptive drifts, specific to the stimulated finger, were found for tactile and passive stimulation. Conversely, during active movement of a single digit, the proprioceptive drifts were not localised to that digit, but were spread across the whole hand. Whereas a purely proprioceptive sense of body-ownership is local and fragmented, the motor sense of agency integrates distinct body-parts into a coherent, unified awareness of the body.     

Can Capability Approach Pave the Way for Religion? A Study in the Context of Rorty’s Private/Public Sphere’s Debate

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - Rorty has been criticized for his pragmatic rationality by different thinkers like Stout, Steven carter. Here in this article our main focus is...