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Peculiar beliefs are beliefs "presumed (by scientists, at least) to not be veridical" and "do not have a rational, empirical, or scientifically established link to an outcome they are intended to influence." Despite it may be denied on the conscious level, the influences of peculiar beliefs in consumer's daily life are prevalent and play an important role in individuals' lives through its influence on the non-conscious level. While prior research on peculiar beliefs provide considerable evidence as to its role in social psychology, it is surprising that relatively few efforts have been made to understand its influences on consumer behavior and its role in marketing. An important but neglected research area in the field of peculiar beliefs is the synergistic effects of various forms of peculiar beliefs. Scholars have identified two specific types of peculiar beliefs that have recently received attention in the con- sumer psychology and marketing literature: superstition and magical thinking. Although obviously related, research on these two as of yet disparate peculiar beliefs is scant. To fill this gap, this research introduces an important but rarely examined concept -- the secondary- contamination effect (hereafter SCE) -- and demonstrates its influences on consumer responses. Based on the literature in social psychology and consumer psychology, we define the SCE as the changes in consumer perceived luck and other downstream responses which are affected by physically contacting with an object previously touched by another person (i.e., a contaminated object or vehicle). The concept of the SCE has its origins in medical and social psychology literature. However, it has never been examined in consumer behavior context. We contribute to the research on peculiar beliefs in consumer behavior by introducing the concept of the SCE and examining its influence on consumer responses. This research also seeks to address the psychological mechanism underlies the SCE. Based on the literature on active-self concept, the authors argue that consumer's self-concept will be temporarily changed by contacting with a contaminated object. This paper investigates the SCE with four studies. Study 1 provides initial support to the existence of SCE. By contacting with the source (our confederate), the neutral vehicle's inner quality was changed. We made participants physically touched this contaminated vehicle and captured their perceived luck and Likelihood Judgment. The results indicated that touching a contaminated vehicle temporarily changed participant's self-concept and lead to higher perceived luck. Perceived luck then in turn had positive effects on likelihood judgment of winning a lottery game. Study 2 shows that SCE is not homogeneous across participants. Touching a contaminated vehicle had stronger effects on perceived luck and Likelihood Judgment for those with high trait superstition. Another important finding of Study 2 is the replication of meditating effect of perceived luck, which again demonstrates that we can temporarily change participant's self-concept, lead to different perceived luck level, and then is reflected on their assessment toward likelihood of winning the lottery. In Study 3, the authors explored another important moderating factor: Participant's awareness of influences of peculiar belief. Based on the Flexible Correction Model, the authors hypothesize that consumers who are aware of the influences of peculiar beliefs in their daily lives will make adjustments with these possible sources of influence. A lab-based experiment provides supports to our hypothesis. Our last study (Study 4) inquires an interesting question: Whether the occurrence of first contamination should be visually observed by consumers to activate the SCE? Research in consumer contamination suggests that direct observation is not a necessary condition for contamination effect. Empirical evidences suggest that the SCE could be activated by consumer imagination. In other words, what is really important is consumer's belief that the neutral vehicle has been contaminated. Based on the empirical evidences, the authors also provide theoretical and managerial implications. Limitations and future research directions are also mentioned. References are available upon request. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic researchers have extensively documented the importance of service encounters; however, customer-to- customer (C2C) interactions have received little attention in academia. Academicians and practitioners have proposed that interactions among customers could have a direct effect on other customers' evaluations toward service and their repatronage intentions. Service organizations seek positive C2C interactions and avoid negative interactions. However, not every customer will behave properly in the service encounter. Jaycustomers (Lovelock 1994) and their dysfunctional behaviors (Harris and Reynolds 2003) are prevalent in daily life and create negative effects on other customers' consumption experiences. The first objective of the current study is to investigate target customer's cognitive and emotional responses by combining two theories -- social impact theory (Latané 1981) and cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus 1991). Some scholars have emphasized the role of frontline employees in jaycustomer situations, but no research has ever studied it empirically. Therefore, the second objective of this study is to understand the effect of employee intervention in jaycustomer situations. The term "jaycustomer" refers to customers who deliberately act in a thoughtless or abusive manner, causing problems to the firm, employees, or other customers in the same service encounter (Lovelock 1994). Harris and Reynolds (2003, 2004) use the phrase "dysfunctional customer behavior" to describe customers' detrimental manners. Researchers have done little to address this issue, even though customers' misbehaviors are prevalent in daily life. The critical incident technique is the primary research design used in empirical studies about jaycustomer issues. A feasible theoretical framework is necessary to operationalize jaycustomer behavior, and social impact theory (SIT) proposed by Latane (1981) satisfies this need. Most of the time, jaycustomers can be treated as a social presence in a service encounter. The main point of SIT is that people are impacted by the real or imagined presence or action of a social presence. Three "social forces" decide the impact level of a social presence: number (i.e., the group size), proximity (i.e., the closeness in time or space), and strength (i.e., the importance or intensity). According to the first principle of SIT, the overall impact on a target individual will be a multiplicative function of these three factors. "Strength" and "number" forces are the most important in this study since most service encounters are restricted to a limited space. Previous research indicates that dysfunctional customer behavior will spoil other customer's consumption experience, creating emotional responses in target customers (Harris and Reynolds 2003). However, cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus 1991) claims that emotions occur as a result of the cognitive appraisal of the person-environment situation. In other words, cognitive appraisal is the necessary and sufficient antecedent for the formation of emotions. In this study, the authors concentrated on the primary appraisal components. Goal relevance indicates the extent to which the external event or its outcome is relevant to personal welfare. The higher the goal relevance is, the stronger the emotions experienced (Lazarus 1991). Goal congruence is another important component of primary appraisal, and signifies the extent to which an event will facilitate or thwart personal welfare, or the degree to which an event is consistent with an individual's desires and wants (Lazarus 1991; Nyer 1997; Bagozzi et al. 1999). Congruence levels are directly related to emotions. The higher the goal congruence, the higher the positive emotions will be. The authors believe that dysfunctional customer behavior will reduce a target customer's goal congruence assessment.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "How Quality of Life Affects Social Networking Site Use Intention: Role of Perceived Self Disclosure and Social Tie Quality," by Chung-Chi Shen et al. is presented.