Category: Consumer Behavior

The way people treat their possessions looks like love, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

"Is it possible for consumers to be in love with their possessions?" ask authors John L. Lastovicka (Arizona State University) and Nancy J. Sirianni (Texas Christian University). When it comes to cars, computers, bicycles, and firearms, the answer seems to be a resounding yes.

The researchers visited five car shows in Arizona and conducted in-depth interviews with car enthusiasts (males and females, aged 19-68). They found that love-smitten consumers were more likely to use pet names than brand names when describing their cars and that some people seemed to use their attachment to cars to remedy pain and disappointment in their romantic lives.

"Material possession relationships may reduce the negative consequences of social isolation and loneliness, and can contribute to consumer well-being, especially when considered relative to less-desirable alternative responses like substance abuse, delinquency, and the side-effects of anti-depressant medications," the authors write.

The researchers found various combinations of passion, intimacy, and commitment in consumers' relationships. "Consumers felt a passion, or a relentless drive to be with their beloved possession, and this often manifested in gazing at and caressing their cars, and even some love-at-first-sight purchase decisions," the authors write.

People nurture relationships with their beloved possessions, investing time and money into improving them and becoming fluent in understanding their details. "We found love-smitten consumers spent six times more on accessories and enhancements for their prized guns than firearm owners who did not demonstrate passion, intimacy, or commitment toward their guns," the authors write.

These findings have significance for firms that sell accessories and after-purchase services such as cleaning, enhancements, and repairs. "For those in the throes of material possession love, it should be no wonder that they so freely spend their time and money on their beloved," the authors conclude.

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Journal Reference:

1. John L. Lastovicka, Nancy J. Sirianni. Truly, Madly, Deeply: Consumers in the Throes of Material Possession Love. Journal of Consumer Research, August 2011

People are happier when goods are more equally distributed, but equality makes people want to spend more to get ahead of their neighbors, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Authors Nailya Ordabayeva (Erasmus University, The Netherlands) and Pierre Chandon (INSEAD, France) examined the way equality influences the consumption decisions of people in the bottom tiers of social groups. The researchers found that increasing equality decreases bottom-tier consumer envy of what other people have and boosts their satisfaction with their possessions. But increasing equality also raises the possibility of surpassing someone else. "In other words, equality increases the social gain (the boost in one's rank in the distribution) provided by spending," the authors explain.

The authors tested their predictions by asking participants to imagine they were at the bottom of the distribution in their social group. Then they manipulated the distribution so that sometimes it was relatively equal and other times lopsided. Study participants were asked to decide whether to save money or to spend money on purchases that would improve their status by moving them to a higher tier in the distribution.

In one study, the authors created a hypothetical situation where participants vied for status represented by the amount of flower bushes in their yards. "We found that people with no flower bushes were happier with what they had when the distribution was equal and the gap with other people's gardens was not so apparent," the authors write. "But the same happy people were more likely to spend money to beautify their garden when the gap was low. Thus, equality decreased envy but increased status spending."

The pattern repeated when consumers were spending on branded clothing and flat-screen TVs and when they were in a competitive mindset. However, equality reduced spending when people sought status-neutral products or when they were in a cooperative mindset.

"People do not only compete with the Joneses because they are envious," the authors write. "Sometimes people compete with the Joneses because it allows them to climb the social distribution in a cost-effective way,"

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Journal Reference:

1. Nailya Ordabayeva, Pierre Chandon. Getting Ahead of the Joneses: When Equality Increases Conspicuous Consumption among Bottom-Tier Consumers. Journal of Consumer Research, June 2011 

People who feel powerful are more likely to believe they can beat cancer if it's described in human terms, according to new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

The study looks at anthropomorphism, or the tendency to attribute humanlike characteristics, intentions, and behavior to nonhuman objects. "The present research shows important downstream consequences of anthropomorphism that go beyond simple liking of products with humanlike physical features," write authors Sara Kim and Ann L. McGill (both University of Chicago).

Previous consumer research has already demonstrated that consumers tend to like objects that they perceive to possess human characteristics. The authors take this further to investigate the effect of anthropomorphism on risk perception. "We examine people's assessment of the risks associated with a gambling machine and a disease and how these risk perceptions may vary depending on whether these risk-bearing entities are anthropomorphized or not," the authors write.

In their first study, the researchers found that participants who had recently recalled an incident where they felt powerful perceived lower risk toward a slot machine game and were more likely to play it when the machine had a humanlike face. In contrast, people who felt powerless felt greater risk in the game and were less willing to play it when the machine resembled a human.

In their next study, the authors found that people who felt powerful felt they could better control skin cancer when it was described as if it had humanlike evil intentions to hurt people. And people who felt less powerful believed they had little control over the disease when it was described in human terms; therefore they perceived greater risk.

In a final experiment, the authors reversed the situation to try to determine whether risk perceptions would affect people's tendency to anthropomorphize depending on their feelings of power. "We show that participants with low power were more likely to anthropomorphize the slot machine after losing the game, whereas those with high power were more likely to anthropomorphize after winning the game," the authors conclude.

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Journal Reference:

1. Sara Kim and Ann L. McGill. Gaming with Mr. Slot or Gaming the Slot Machine? Power, Anthropomorphism, and Risk Perception. Journal of Consumer Research, June 2011

— Why do people choose present consumption over their long-term financial interests? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that consumers have trouble feeling connected to their future selves.

"This willingness to forego money now and wait for future benefits is strongly affected by how connected we feel to our future self, who will ultimately benefit from the resources we save," write authors Daniel M. Bartels (Columbia Business School) and Oleg Urminsky (University of Chicago).

When we think of saving money for the future, the person we think of can seem different from the person we are now, the authors explain. People have trouble sacrificing in the present for that stranger in the future.

In one study, the researchers had graduating seniors read one of two narratives: the first indicated that their self-identity was already fully formed and would not change after graduation. The other passage indicated that graduation would change their self-identities. "When seniors were told that graduation would lead to major changes in identity, they reported feeling less connected to their future selves," the authors write. "Those thinking about changes in identity were also more impatient, choosing less-valuable gift certificates that would be available sooner over higher-valued gift certificates that required waiting a year."

In a subsequent study, the authors asked people to evaluate their sense of connectedness and similarity to their future selves. Three weeks later, they were asked them to choose between smaller gift cards they could use right away or larger gift cards that would require waiting. "Those who had felt more connected to their future selves then made more patient choices and were more willing to wait for a higher-valued gift card," the authors write.

When people fail to save for the future, they may not be making a mistake or failing to exercise self-discipline; they don't fully recognize benefits that their future selves will receive. "Countering this tendency, by helping people recognize the enduring aspects of their personal identity, may hold the key to making people more patient and more willing to sacrifice, save, and invest for the future," the authors conclude.

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Journal Reference:

1. Daniel M. Bartels, Oleg Urminsky. On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, August 2011

 Clemson University psychologist Eric Muth sees motion sickness as potential fallout from high-end technology that once was limited to the commercial marketplace moving to consumer use in gaming devices.

Microsoft's Kinect is the latest example of technology with the potential to use a helmet-mounted display to immerse the gamer in a 3D virtual world. It uses sensors and software to detect body movement and positioning to control responses in a game environment, although he said the risk of motion sickness from Kinect itself likely is low.

"What was once limited to the military and high-tech research, where users were screened and monitored for negative reactions, is available now to the public," said Muth, who is director of Clemson's Human Factors Institute. "You're not talking about carefully selected users like pilots and astronauts. Anybody with a few hundred dollars to spend can use it and the access will spread. The downside could be that people sensitive to visual disorders and susceptible to motion sickness suffer symptoms ranging from nausea to seizures. There needs to be a lot more research into the side effects."

Muth's research focuses on helmet-mounted displays that are used in virtual-environments technology. Before coming to Clemson 11 years ago, Muth spent three years in the Navy as an aerospace experimental psychologist working on wearable monitors and tracking systems to improve military training and to monitor soldiers, sailors and marines during combat. Now he uses helmet-mounted displays to study motion sickness, nausea and other upper gastrointestinal discomforts — the area of his graduate studies at the Pennsylvania State University under Robert Stern, a pioneer in biofeedback.

"Basically, when people are exposed to stimuli from a helmet-mounted display in the lab, it involves linking a subject's head movements to the changing view in the virtual environment," he said. "The response is complicated. It's not just a perceptual adjustment.

"Years ago research showed that the brain can re-set an upside-down view of world to be right side up. Constantly changing images pose a bigger challenge for the brain, which has to deal with 'lag': the time it takes the computer system to update and display changing visual images corresponding to the users head movements. This may be a variable linked to motion sickness and other symptoms related to helmet-mounted devices."

Muth and the other researchers at the Human Factors Institute seek to improve the way people interact with technology and devices.

"Helmet-mounted devices are going to be found everywhere as video gamers and the public get caught up in virtual reality," said Muth. "We have already seen the popularity of 3D movies, and 3D television is making its way into our living rooms. We need to know more about the side effects and how to deal with them. I would not allow my kids to use this technology before checking their susceptibility to the downsides, and even then I would limit and monitor their access to the virtual world."

With the holidays fast approaching and consumers in full shopping mode, new research shows that a seemingly innocent luxury item purchase can lead to an unintended, budget-busting spending spree.

The problem starts with the purchase of a new item, particularly those among designer product lines, luxury branded items, or consumer goods of high-end design. Once home, these items — graced with what researchers call salient design elements, such as a unique pattern or interesting color scheme — can look out of place when compared to other possessions. The most obvious solution to this aesthetic mismatch would be to return the item to the store.

But instead of making a return, consumers who were surveyed said they would make more purchases in an effort to try to surround their designer purchase with other luxury items and restore aesthetic harmony, according to marketing professors Vanessa Patrick of the University of Houston and Henrik Hagtvedt of Boston College, whose study is forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing Research. In fact, this additional string of purchases may represent a far larger expenditure than the initial purchase

What is driving these consumers? Emotions play a role in whether or not the buyer will return the item, Patrick and Hagtvedt found in a set of experiments and field studies involving hundreds of men and women.

When a new purchase fails to fit in with existing possessions, consumers regret the purchase and return it to the store. But when the mismatch involves a design item, consumers surveyed by Hagtvedt and Patrick said they experienced less regret and greater frustration. This led them to actively seek out ways to successfully incorporate the new purchase among their other possessions, often by making a string of new, additional purchases to match the item, a phenomenon the researchers dub aesthetic incongruity resolution.

"When we buy something with unique design elements and it doesn't fit, it frustrates us," says Hagtvedt. "This is because design has intrinsic value. So rather than returning the item, we actively seek ways to make the item fit, often by making complementary purchases. This has financial implications that may have been entirely unforeseen when the consumer made the initial purchase."

"In talking to people, it turns out that this is a pretty common occurrence," says Patrick. "We buy something we really like — after all what could be so wrong in purchasing a cute purple sweater or a unique little side table for the hallway? But, we take it home and that's when it happens…these items become really hard to give it up…so we buy more. And before we know it, we have purchased matching necklaces, shoes and bags, to go with the purple sweater or paintings, new wallpaper and new lighting to accommodate the unique side table."

For starry-eyed holiday shoppers, the researchers advise them to think twice. Ask yourself: Is it pretty? If yes, ask yourself: Does it match what I already own? Only then, consider buying.

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Journal Reference:

1. Vanessa M. Patrick and Henrik Hagtvedt. Aesthetic Incongruity Resolution. Journal of Marketing Research, 2011

 A new collaborative paper by economist Richard Easterlin — namesake of the "Easterlin Paradox" and founder of the field of happiness studies — offers the broadest range of evidence to date demonstrating that a higher rate of economic growth does not result in a greater increase of happiness.

Across a worldwide sample of 37 countries, rich and poor, ex-Communist and capitalist, Easterlin and his co-authors shows strikingly consistent results: over the long term, a sense of well-being within a country does not go up with income.

In contrast to shorter-term studies that have shown a correlation between income growth and happiness, this paper, to be published the week of Dec. 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the happiness and income relationship in each country for an average of 22 years and at least ten years.

"This article rebuts recent claims that there is a positive long-term relationship between happiness and income, when in fact, the relationship is nil," explained Easterlin, USC University Professor and professor of economics in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences.

Easterlin and a team of USC researchers spent five years reassessing the Easterlin Paradox, a key economic concept introduced by Easterlin in the seminal 1974 paper, "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence."

"Simply stated, the happiness-income paradox is this: at a point in time both among and within countries, happiness and income are positively correlated. But, over time, happiness does not increase when a country's income increases," explained Easterlin, whose influence has created an entire subfield of economic inquiry.

With such wide-ranging influence, the Easterlin Paradox unsurprisingly has been the target of critique and revision, which Easterlin addresses in this PNAS paper.

In particular, Easterlin expands on findings from other researchers that show a positive relationship between life satisfaction and GDP, demonstrating instead that they are the short-term effects of economic collapse and recovery, and do not hold up over the long term.

"With incomes rising so rapidly in [certain] countries, it seems extraordinary that no surveys register the marked improvement in subjective well-being that mainstream economists and policy makers worldwide expect to find," Easterlin said.

For examples, Easterlin points to Chile, China and South Korea, three countries in which per capita income has doubled in less than 20 years.

Yet, over that period, both China and Chile showed mild, not statistically significant declines in life satisfaction. South Korea initially showed a mild, not statistically significant increase in the early 1980s. But in four surveys from 1990 to 2005, life satisfaction declined slightly.

"Where does this leave us? If economic growth is not the main route to greater happiness, what is?" Easterlin asks. "We may need to focus policy more directly on urgent personal concerns relating to things such as health and family life, rather than on the mere escalation of material goods."

In 2009, Easterlin was the winner of the IZA Prize in Labor Economics. Easterlin's next book, Happiness, Growth, and the Life Cycle, will be published by Oxford University Press as part of the IZA Prize series.

Laura Angelescu McVey, Malgorzata Switek, Onnicha Sawangfa and Jacqueline Smith Zweig, all former or present graduate students at USC, were co-authors on the paper.

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Journal Reference:

1. Easterlin et al. The Happiness-Income Paradox Revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 13, 2010 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015962107