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Purpose Traditionally, it has been held that strong attitudes are a result of the conscious cognitive process of elaboration where one engages in effortful issue-relevant thinking. The purpose of this work is to show that attitude strength can follow from processes not just limited to elaboration – as a function of certain embodied states. This work examines bodily manipulations that could alter perceptions about the quality of the information describing a target (e.g. notion of “hard/soft” evidence), and, finds that such an embodiment leads one to have strong attitudes toward the target object. This work proposes an attitude-rehearsal-based mechanism to explain the phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach This work has relied on lab experiments as a methodology – undergraduate students and American residents served as participants. There is a pre-registered study included as well. Findings This work shows that strong attitudes can result from processes not just limited to elaboration, as a function of certain embodied states. This paper examines bodily manipulations that could alter perceptions about the quality of information describing the target (e.g. notion of “hard vs soft”; “converging vs diverging” information), and, find that such an embodiment leads one to have strong attitudes toward the target. This paper consistently observed that the bodily manipulations influence attitude accessibility, a direct and operational indicator of attitude strength. This paper further validates an attitude-rehearsal-based mechanism to explain the observed phenomenon. Originality/value While much work has investigated the impact of embodiment on attitudes, little attention has been paid to whether, and, how embodied states can impact the “strength” of the attitude without impacting the attitude itself – to the knowledge, this paper is the first to document this. Moreover, traditionally, it has been held that strong attitudes are a result of the conscious cognitive process of elaboration where one engages in effortful issue-relevant thinking. This work however shows that attitude strength can follow from processes not just limited to elaboration – as a function of certain embodied states.

Purpose The endowment effect is arguably one of the most robust phenomena documented in economics, behavioral decision theory and consumer research. However, the endowment effect has traditionally been studied as a fairly static phenomenon at the transactional level of analysis. Design/methodology/approach This paper documents this “contagious” endowment effect using lab experiments and such field data as eBay transactions and discuss the managerial implication of these findings. Findings This study suggests that the endowment effect is not limited to the level of the specific object, but can manifest itself with the more abstract class of objects to which a specific object happens to belong. Research limitations/implications A logical next step would be to examine the boundary conditions – how similar does the subsequent object have to be for the endowment effect to transfer over to it? A related aspect would be whether there are boundary conditions arising from the quality of the endowment. Practical implications The effects reported here probably underlie the success of the many types of “bait and switch” schemes that have been used by the more unsavory type of marketer. As such, these findings might have implications for policy in the area of consumer protection. Originality/value This paper argues for and presents evidence consistent with the notion that the endowment effect is dynamic and can be transferred from one transaction to another and refer to this generalization of the endowment effect to other, similar products as “contagious endowment.”

We compare the impact of round and non-round numbers used in a communication message on consumers’ evaluations and judgments towards the associated target entity. We find that the use of non-round numbers, in contrast to round numbers, in a message frame results in increased attention to numerical values, which further leads to a comparison of the associated measures with ideal reference points. This leads to an increased framing effect in the non-round numbers condition compared to the round numbers condition. Interestingly, this also negatively affects consumers’ overall evaluations of the target entity. We demonstrate that such a decreased positivity in attitudes when using non-round numbers is more pronounced in negatively expressed frames. We explain this using an ‘attention shift-comparison’ process. Additionally, using multiple methodologies, we provide elaborated support for the attention-association based reasoning for framing effects in general and thus add to the literature on processes underlying framing effects. This extends the original valence-shift based account originally proposed by Levin and Gaeth (1988) and provides an avenue for future research on attention-association based framing effects.

Research consistently finds that fluent stimuli in marketing communications are better liked and more trusted than more difficult to process stimuli. This paper describes four studies showing that ...

Disagreement exists as to the psychological processes underlying reports of evaluative judgments, with some theorists suggesting that attitudes can be retrieved and used to guide evaluative judgments, and others suggesting that such judgments are the result of construction, wherein evaluative judgments are constructed on the spot, and as needed. We propose the attitude strength moderation model, which predicts that evaluative judgments of an object associated with strong attitudes are often the result of retrieval processes, whereas the evaluative judgments associated with weak attitudes are often the result of construction processes. We examine these hypotheses in three experiments. The first and second experiments compare response latencies to sequential evaluative and attribute judgments. The third experiment uses eye-tracking. All three experiments provide support for the attitude strength moderation model.

We propose that when individuals believe in fixed traits of personality (entity theorists), they are likely to expect a world of "uniformity." As such, they easily infer a population statistic from a small sample of data with confidence. In contrast, individuals who believe in malleable traits of personality (incremental theorists) are likely to presume a world of "diversity," such that they "hesitate" to infer a population statistic from a similarly sized sample. In four laboratory experiments, we found that compared to incremental theorists, entity theorists estimated a population mean from a sample with a greater level of confidence (Studies 1a and 1b), expected more homogeneity among the entities within a population (Study 2), and perceived an extreme value to be more indicative of an outlier (Study 3). These results suggest that individuals are likely to use their implicit self-theory orientations (entity theory versus incremental theory) to see a population in general as a constitution either of homogeneous or heterogeneous entities.

Markets are mechanisms of social exchange, intended to facilitate trading. However, the question remains as to whether markets would help or hurt individuals with decision-makings deficits, as is frequently encountered in the case of cognitive aging. Essential for predicting future gains and losses in monetary and social domains, the striatal nuclei in the brain undergo structural, neurochemical, and functional decline with age. We correlated the efficacy of market mechanisms with dorsal striatal decline in an aging population, by using market based trading in the context of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections (primary cycle). Impaired decision-makers displayed higher prediction error (difference between their prediction and actual outcome). Lower in vivo caudate volume was also associated with higher prediction error. Importantly, market-based trading protected older adults with lower caudate volume to a greater extent from their own poorly calibrated predictions. Counterintuitive to the traditional public perception of the market as a fickle, risky proposition where vulnerable traders are most surely to be burned, we suggest that market-based mechanisms protect individuals with brain-based decision-making vulnerabilities.

In this article, the authors find that consumers’ preferences change as a function of their temporal distance from the receipt of their last salary. The authors propose and test that when consumers have just received their salary (“the near-salary condition”), they exhibit promotion motivations in their product preferences. However, they exhibit prevention motivations in their product preferences when significant time has elapsed since their last salary receipt (“the far-from-salary condition”). The authors collected data from two longitudinal studies to validate these findings and to test the underlying process. Using actual purchase behavior and collecting product preference during a one-month period, the authors show that consumers’ product preferences change in response to temporal distance from their last salary receipt. The findings suggest to managers that the best time to promote products or messages with a promotion appeal is near to consumers’ last salary receipt and that the best time to promote products or messages with a prevention appeal is far from consumers’ last salary receipt.

This article examines the effects on outcome expectancies of precise versus vague information across two contexts: prior to an action taken by the consumer (pre-action) and after the action is taken (post-action). Across three experiments, we show that with vague information individuals are more optimistic of outcomes post-action compared to pre-action; this difference is attenuated with precise information. We term this inconsistency the blissful ignorance effect and show that it arises due to the interplay of two goals in decision making, the goal to arrive at a desired conclusion (directional goal) and the goal to be accurate (accuracy goal) about one's outcome expectancies.

Dual process models conceptualize two systems of processing that are activated when presented with a decision task, the quick and affective System 1 and the deliberative and rule-based System 2. In this article, we explore whether the affective component of System 1 has the potential to interfere with the information integration component of System 2 by utilizing everyday consumer decision-making situations that require the integration of provided information to make optimal choices. We posit that if the provided information has an affective System 1 element, then the affective reaction serves as an input to the System 2 process of information integration. Such an affective input has the potential to cause improper information integration resulting in a biased mental representation, which in turn leads to suboptimal choices. Across three experiments, we test the interfering role of affect in information integration. Experiment 1 establishes the mediating role of the affective System 1 generating a preference for the suboptimal option and rules out the alternate account of analytical skills. Experiments 2 and 3 provide converging evidence for the proposed account that System 1 interferes with System 2 and argue against the alternate account of System 1 directly influencing choice.

Prior research has traced poor judgment quality to poor calibration. We suggest inconsistency to be another reason for poor judgment quality—utilizing different models on different occasions resulting in increased wandering in judgments. We demonstrate differing consistency in the utilization of models depending upon which variable is used as a cue and which is used as the criterion to be predicted. This results in differing correlations underlying judgments between the same two variables, an internally inconsistent pattern. We trace this to the utilization of lay causal models to make predictions but with the strength of the causal story moderating the consistency in use of the model.

We document the phenomenon of “bias for the whole,” wherein greater value is perceived for money in the form of a whole (large denomination) than for equivalent amounts of money in parts (smaller denominations), resulting in a lower inclination to spend with the whole. We demonstrate across four experiments that the bias arises from greater processing fluency experienced in processing the whole as opposed to parts. This processing fluency is hedonically marked and generates positive affect that is attributed to the money, which results in an overvaluation of the whole, making one reluctant to spend with the whole.

The endowment effect, predicted by prospect theory, is a robust finding in behavioral decision theory. Extending recent examinations of the underlying processes, we present evidence for differential perceptions of the traded item, with sellers focusing more on positive features and less on negative features, relative to buyers. In experiment 1, sellers and buyers access information of differing valence in a free recall task. Experiment 2 utilizes error rates and response latencies to demonstrate systematic, and differing, patterns of errors and biases in reactions to valenced stimuli. Experiment 3 utilizes contrast effects to manipulate these foci, thereby moderating the endowment effect.

Background Concerns about direct-to-consumer advertisement's (DTCA's) information quality have raised interest in patients' drug information–seeking after DTCA exposure. Objective To identify predictors of patients' intentions and behaviors to seek drug information from physicians, pharmacists, and the Internet after DTCA exposure, using theories of planned behavior and self-efficacy. Methods One thousand patients were randomly selected from 3,000 nationwide osteoarthritic patients. A self-administered survey examined predictors of intention including measurements of attitude toward behavior, subjective norm, perceived difficulty, self-efficacy, controllability, self-identity, intention, exposure to ads, and control variables. After 6 weeks, another survey measured respondents' information-seeking behavior. For patients exposed to DTCA, 6 multiple regressions were performed for information-seeking intention and behavior for 3 information sources: physicians, pharmacists, and the Internet. Results The response rates were 61.9% and 80.1% for the first survey and the second survey, respectively. Four hundred and fifty-four participants reported exposure to DTCA about arthritis prescription medicines in the previous month. Over 41% of the variance in intention and over 18% of the variance in behavior were explained by the regression procedures. The consistent positive predictors of intention were attitude toward behavior, self-identity, attitude toward DTCAs of arthritis medication, and osteoarthritis pain; while the consistent positive predictors of behavior were intention and osteoarthritis pain. The strongest predictors of intention were self-identity for physicians, subjective norm for pharmacists, and attitude toward behavior for the Internet. Perceived difficulty and self-efficacy did not predict intention, and self-efficacy and controllability did not predict behavior. Conclusions DTCA-prompted drug information–seeking may be under patients' complete volitional control. To promote information searching, efforts could be made to affect factors predicting intention. Interventions could address patients' attitude toward behavior, the influence of their important others, and their role as information seeker, respectively, for information sources like the Internet, pharmacists, and physicians.

This research investigates the influence of attitudes and attitude strength on consideration and choice. Three experiments provide support for the Attitude and Attitude Strength, Consideration and Choice (A2SC2) Model, which hypothesizes that ( a ) attitude strength moderates the influence of attitudes on consideration, such that attitudes guide consideration more for strongly held attitudes than for weakly held attitudes and ( b ) consideration of a brand mediates the influence of attitudes and attitude strength on choice.

In this article, we review the extant literature on the consumption or family life cycle (FLC). We also review criticisms of this concept. Finally, we propose a framework that might be useful in examining how life cycle might influence household decision making. We report briefly on one subject we have studied in our labs, namely, how children might influence parent preferences. Keywords: life cycle; family; age

We used contagion theory as a framework for studying the influence of spread of qualities in a group. We found that people's preferences change depending on how objects are arranged in a group. They prefer to choose from a closely arranged group if one unidentified object in that group has a positive quality, but prefer to choose from a group in which objects are farther apart if one unidentified object in that group has a negative quality. We call this pattern of preference the group-contagion effect. We also found that the magnitude of the effect increases if the number of objects possessing the positive or negative quality increases.

A consistent finding in the attitude literature is that strong attitudes are products of effortful cognitive elaboration (Petty and Cacioppo 1984; Petty and Wegener 1999). The current research extends this by incorporating the construct of implicit self-theory. Specifically, it finds that that individuals who believe in fixed traits of personality (entity theorists) form strong attitudes without effortful cognitive elaboration. They form attitudes more quickly and with less effort but hold these attitudes more strongly than incremental theorists, whereas those who believe in malleable traits (incremental theorists) can form strong attitudes only with a high level of elaboration. The current research suggests that effortful cognitive elaboration is a sufficient but not necessary condition for attitude strength. The underlying mechanism for this strength without elaboration effect is also traced.