Jennifer J. Argo

University of Alberta | UAlberta

In this article we review research from the past decade that explores how elements of social influence in the bricks-and-mortar retail environment impact customers. We focus our discussion on demonstrating how the active and passive social influence of the salesforce and other shoppers in the retail context can impact a focal customer’s thoughts, f...

This review synthesizes the social presence literature that has been conducted in consumer psychology over the past decade. It provides a framework for understanding the impact of other buyers and salespeople on a consumer's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The review is structured around three types of social influence: utilitarian, value‐expres...

We propose a theory-based model of the shopper journey, incorporating the rich literature in consumer and marketing research and taking into account the evolving retailing landscape characterized by significant knowledge, lifestyle, technological, and structural changes. With consumer well-being at its core and shopper needs and motivations as the...

This research demonstrates that a consumer's physical appearance—and, more specifically, his or her body size—predictably influences the product(s) that the consumer is recommended. Four studies conducted in both field and lab settings show that agents more frequently recommend round (vs. angular) shaped products to heavier targets, notably for pro...

Across six studies, a female mannequin is demonstrated to have negative implications for both male and female consumers low in appearance self-esteem. In particular, consumers who are lower in appearance self-esteem evaluate a product displayed by a mannequin more negatively as compared with consumers higher in appearance self-esteem. As mannequins...

This research shows that activating public self-awareness leads individuals to increase their association with symbolic representations of their identity. When a social identity was threatened, participants high rather than low in public self-awareness were more likely to select options that reinforced their association with the identity (Studies 1...

Goals are constructs that direct choice behavior by guiding a decision maker towards desirable (or away from undesirable) end-states. Oftentimes, consumers are motivated to satisfy multiple goals within a single choice. While recognizing this possibility, the literature has not directly formulated models of choice as a multi-goal problem. We develo...

In their paper, Li, Gordon and Gelfand (this issue) introduced the Tightness–Looseness (T-L) theoretical framework to the consumer domain, and offered a number of ideas on how this framework could be applied to various aspects of consumer behavior. In this commentary, we examine the T-L framework from the consumer lens and discuss how the uniquenes...

Much of what ends up in our landfills is recyclable material, exposing the urgent need to understand the psychological processes behind recycling behavior. Results from four studies suggest that consumers often trash well-known recyclable products due to the product being erroneously categorized as trash after it has been distorted (e.g., paper aft...

It has been known for some time that consumers' identities influence purchasing decisions, and that people form strong identity connections or "links" with products and brands. However, research has yet to determine whether identity-linked products are differentially treated at disposal in comparison to products that are not identity-linked. Across...

Previous research has found that people tend to avoid products or behaviors that are linked to dissociative reference groups. The present research demonstrates conditions under which consumers exhibit similar behaviors to dissociative out-group members in the domain of positive consumption behaviors. In particular, when a consumer learns that a dis...

Across a series of studies conducted in both the field and the laboratory, the authors demonstrate that the presence of others (i.e., an entourage) alters a VIP’s personal feelings of status. Specifically, the authors show that VIPs feel higher levels of status when they are able to experience preferential treatment with an entourage, even if this...

The present research examines conditions under which consumers dispose of recyclable products in the garbage. Results from a field study and four laboratory studies demonstrate that a consumer’s decision to recycle a product or throw it in the trash can be determined by the extent to which the product has been distorted during the consumption proce...

While many parts of pharmaceutical advertisements are regulated, each advertisement also contains a promotional component in which the advertiser conveys information to the consumer. The purpose of this research is to examine the promotional portion of pharmaceutical advertisements to determine whether factual information and rational arguments are...

Despite the common belief that seating arrangements matter, little research has examined how the geometrical shape of a chair arrangement can impact persuasion. Across three studies, this research demonstrates that the shape of seating arrangements can prime two fundamental human needs which in turn influence persuasion. When seated in a circular s...

Norm violations disrupt social order, and based on prior research, social order can be restored through the punishment of norm violators. Based on this conceptual framework, the current research examines a prevalent yet overlooked behaviour in the consumer literature by showing that consumers play an active role in making punishment decisions. Impo...

The current research examines the conditions under which consumers demonstrate associative versus dissociative responses to identity-linked products as a consequence of a social identity threat. Across four studies, the authors test the notion that reactions to social identity threat may be moderated by self-construal by examining subcultural diffe...

Effective social interactions require the ability to evaluate other people's actions and intentions, sometimes only on the basis of such subtle factors as body language, and these evaluative judgments may lead to powerful impressions. However, little is known about the impact of affective body language on evaluative responses in social settings and...

This research focuses on understanding when low body esteem consumers are most likely to engage in negative social comparisons and examines how this process influences product evaluations. In a series of three studies, we find that two pieces of social information are needed for negative comparisons in a retail environment to occur: (1) an attracti...

four studies investigate the interactive influence of the presence of an accompanying friend and a consumer’s agency–communion orientation on the consumer’s spending behaviors. in general, the authors find that shopping with a friend can be expensive for agency-oriented consumers (e.g., males) but not for communion-oriented consumers (e.g., females...

This video and the associated PDF (Sung et al., 2011) illustrate an experimental protocol that allows investigation of the neural correlates of observing virtual social interactions, using whole-body animated characters in conjunction with fMRI.

The ability to gauge social interactions is crucial in the assessment of others' intentions. Factors such as facial expressions and body language affect our decisions in personal and professional life alike (1). These "friend or foe" judgements are often based on first impressions, which in turn may affect our decisions to "approach or avoid". Prev...

In a series of four experiments, the authors examine the implications of one consumer’s possession being mimicked by another consumer. The results demonstrate that when distinctiveness concerns are heightened, greater dissociation responses (i.e., possession disposal intentions, recustomization behaviors, and exchange behaviors) arise in response t...

Prior research has found that under certain conditions, small packages can paradoxically increase consumption. The authors build on this work by suggesting that people low in appearance self-esteem (ASE) are particularly sensitive to external control properties (i.e., packaging-related factors that signal the ability of packaging to regulate food i...

Two laboratory studies identified conditions under which individuals are willing to misrepresent information regarding another person's performance to protect that other person's public self-image (i.e., to provide deceptive strategic identity support). The extent to which deceptive strategic identity support arises is determined by the salience of...

This research examines the implications of telling an “innocent” white lie after a negative interpersonal encounter. We propose that if a white lie falls outside an acceptable range of dishonesty, cognitive dissonance will arise and produce negative affect. Deceivers will then be motivated to reduce the dissonance and will do so by engaging in beha...

Recent research has demonstrated that linguistic characteristics of brand names can cognitively affect product evaluations. In six experiments, the authors demonstrate that affect arising from sound repetition may also be influential. The results reveal across multiple brand names and product categories that exposure to a brand name that has sound...

Recent research has demonstrated that linguistic characteristics of brand names can cognitively affect product evaluations. In six experiments, the authors demonstrate that affect arising from sound repetition may also be influential. The results reveal across multiple brand names and product categories that exposure to a brand name that has sound...

We show that minimal physical contact can increase people's sense of security and consequently lead them to increased risk-taking behavior. In three experiments, with both hypothetical and real payoffs, a female experimenter's light, comforting pat on the shoulder led participants to greater financial risk taking. Further, this effect was both medi...

Although marketers often link brands with an aspect of consumer social identity, the current research demonstrates that such brand-identity linkages may sometimes have negative consequences. Consumers motivated to protect and maintain feelings of individual self-worth alter their product evaluations and choices to avoid a threatened aspect of their...

The present research establishes that the innocuous behavior of coupon redemption is capable of eliciting stigma by association. The general finding across four studies shows that the coupon redemption behavior of one consumer results in a second non-coupon-redeeming shopper being stigmatized by association as cheap when a low as compared to a high...

This research examines the impact of attractiveness on consumers during a consumption experience. Specifically, it examines the effects of an attractive social influence in the context of touching and contamination of store products by investigating how consumers respond when they see attractive others touching the same products they want to purcha...

Three studies investigate the influence of empathy and the level of fictionality of short stories on consumers' evaluations of emotional melodramatic entertainment. We find that high empathizers' evaluations are more favorable when the story is low in fictionality (i.e., real) versus high. In contrast, low empathizers' evaluations do not differ, re...

Four experiments demonstrate that self-threatening social comparison information motivates consumers to lie. Factors related to self-threat, including relevance of the social comparison target (i.e., the importance of the comparison person), comparison discrepancy (i.e., the magnitude of the performance difference), comparison direction (i.e., whet...

Although consumers like to touch products while shopping, the authors propose a theory of consumer contamination, positing that consumers evaluate products previously touched by other shoppers less favorably. The authors test the theory by manipulating cues that increase the salience that consumer contact has occurred. Furthermore, the authors inve...

Although consumers like to touch products while shopping, the authors propose a theory of consumer contamination, positing that consumers evaluate products previously touched by other shoppers less favorably. The authors test the theory by manipulating cues that increase the salience that consumer contact has occurred. Furthermore, the authors inve...

While the majority of consumer research that has studied social influences has focused on the impact of an interactive social presence, in this research we demonstrate that a noninteractive social presence (i.e., a mere presence) is also influential. We conduct two field experiments in a retail setting to show when and how a noninteractive social p...

The authors use a series of meta-analyses to demonstrate the impact of warning labels across five dimensions of effectiveness: attention, reading and comprehension, recall, judgments, and behavioral compliance. Subsequent moderator analyses indicate that attention is moderated by vividness-enhancing characteristics, warning location, and familiarit...

Two field studies investigate the importance of social presence (real and imagined) and familiarity with the purchase act in producing embarrassment in the context of an embarrassing product purchase. The results indicate that awareness of a social presence during purchase selection and commitment, whether real or imagined, is a motivating factor i...