Joann Peck

University of Wisconsin–Madison | UW · Department of Marketing

Although consumers are commonly exposed to numerous choices and the opportunity to touch products when they shop, the literature remains unclear on how both factors simultaneously affect choice. With the growth of online shopping, touch literature has studied the effects of mere touch (i.e., nondiagnostic tactile contact) or vicarious touch (e.g.,...

This article details the theoretical foundation of haptics in consumer research. We structure the review using a continuum from proximal touch‐based interactions to increasingly distal interactions through devices, imagery, or language use. We begin with a focus on product/object touch in marketing highlighting touch for haptic information, touch f...

Consumers and marketers often post photos of experiential consumption online. While prior research has studied how human presence in social media images impacts viewers’ responses, the findings are mixed. The present research advances the current understanding by incorporating viewers’ need for self-identity into their response model. Six studies,...

Among the topics of psychological ownership (PO) within current literature, a significant gap exists in understanding PO within a prescriptive lens. This study will examine how instigating the PO mapping method will help us understand how the PO mapping method can support an ownership journey. In addition, we want to see how we can create a prescri...

Product demonstrations are powerful promotional tools which can vary in how they present information, either illustrating step-by-step processes, or showcasing final outcomes customers may achieve after product usage. Our research investigates customers’ cognitive and social experiences while viewing product demonstrations to reveal which type is m...

Research on psychological ownership is prevalent in the consumer domain. This article details the theoretical core of psychological ownership, integrating research in consumer psychology and marketing. The underlying motivations behind psychological ownership are also considered as well as the antecedents and consequences of feeling ownership. This...

We examine the role of narcissistic admiration and rivalry in consumers’ word of mouth about promotional games. We show that, although narcissistic admiration and rivalry are both positively associated with belief in good luck (Study 1), their associations with word of mouth in reference to a retailer diverge when consumers lose a chance-based prom...

Drawing on people’s motivation to whet their curiosity, we tested a previously unexplored solution to reconciling want/should conflicts. Past work has shown that people are motivated to satisfy their curiosity and find enjoyment in doing so. Our work shows that piquing people’s curiosity can be leveraged to influence their choices, by steering them...

Although people of take care of their own possessions, they also engage in stewardship and take care of things they do not own. Here, we examine what young children infer when they observe stewardship behavior of an object. Through four experiments on predominantly middle-class Canadian children (total N = 350, 168 girls and 182 boys from a predomi...

Although people take care of their own possessions, they also engage in stewardship and take care of things they do not own. Here, we examined what young children infer when they observe stewardship behavior of an object. Through four experiments on predominantly middle-class Canadian children (total N = 350, 168 girls and 182 boys from a predomina...

In today’s advanced economies, consumers are constantly exposed to an increasing number of upgraded products. This research examines consumer response to a brand’s launching of an upgraded product and identifies the consumer’s ownership status of a previous version of the product as a key dimension that can influence their reaction. Contrary to com...

Retail is rapidly evolving to construct virtual environments for consumers. Online product images, videos, and virtual reality (VR) interfaces enliven consumer experiences and are a source of product information. Since consumers are unable to physically touch products in these digital environments, this research considers vicarious touch, or the ob...

The role of exemplars in formation of attitudes toward a category has, surprisingly, been ignored in prior consumer research. In the present research we seek to develop a better understanding of the relationship between category exemplars (e.g., the products in a brand category) and overall attitudes toward the category. Attitude measures that inco...

The sharing economy is an omnipresent topic, not just in academia but throughout public discourses. Key questions thus have been approached from various research perspectives. To gain a comprehensive view of these perspectives, this commentary features contributions from a group of respected scholars, sharing their research findings, personal obser...

How can consumers be encouraged to take better care of public goods? Across four studies, including two experiments in the field and three documenting actual behaviors, the authors demonstrate that increasing consumers' individual psychological ownership facilitates stewardship of public goods. This effect occurs because feelings of ownership incre...

While research has recognized the role of haptic sensations in influencing various aspects of consumer behavior, the association between haptically based experiences and social judgments in a retail encounter has not been explored. Based on the results of one field study, we showed a positive effect for both heavy and soft haptic cues on purchase b...

Previous research has highlighted the effects of receiving interpersonal touch on persuasion. In contrast, we examine initiating touch. Individuals instructed to touch engage in egocentric projection in which they project their own affective reaction onto their expectations for how the recipient will feel (i.e., empathic forecast), how they appear...

This research investigates situations in which frontline employees deliberately restrict customers’ access to touch products on display (active interpersonal haptic blocking), and how this understudied form of sensory blocking may increase customers’ downstream purchasing. While previous research examines the benefits of increased product touch, we...

The reference lists for Chapter 5 and Chapter 15 were inadvertently published with missing information for some entries. Both reference lists are now complete in the corrected versions of the chapters.

Psychological ownership, or the feeling that something is mine, has garnered growing attention in marketing. While previous work focuses on the positive aspects of psychological ownership, this research draws attention to the darker side of psychological ownership—territorial behavior. Results of five experimental studies demonstrate that when cons...

In this research, we propose an analytical approach for studying the influence of two structural elements of brand’s packaging design, accessible by haptic exploration (Lederman and Klatzky 1987): texture and shape. We developed a conceptual framework detailing how these elements can facilitate the transfer of meaning to the brand and enhance its p...

This chapter is about the history of the construct psychological ownership and its migration into consumer psychology. The emergence of the construct in the organizational sciences is largely one of “serendipity” followed by our ability to “stand upon the shoulders of giants” whose prior reflections on the concept of ownership, and especially its m...

Publicly owned or shared items can often suffer from a lack of stewardship due to a diffusion of responsibility, a dilemma sometimes known as the tragedy of the commons. We propose that even when an item is publicly rather than privately owned (e.g., a local pond or community park), there can still be high levels of psychological ownership. The ben...

This pathbreaking volume expands on the construct of psychological ownership, placing it in the contexts of both individual consumer behavior and the wider decision-making of consumer populations. An individual’s feeling of ownership toward a target represents the perception that something is “mine!”, and is highly relevant to buying and relating t...

While interest in psychological ownership in consumer behavior has been growing, there are many research opportunities remaining. This chapter provides a brief summary of the book chapters and also delineates broad areas for future research. Included are seven sections beginning with the measurement of psychological ownership in consumer research a...

Psychological ownership, or the feeling that something is mine, has garnered growing attention in marketing. While previous works focuses on the positive aspects of psychological ownership, this research draws attention to the darker side of psychological ownership, territorial behavior. Results of five experimental studies demonstrate that when co...

Both face-to-face communication and communication in online environments convey information beyond the actual verbal message. In a traditional face-to-face conversation, paralanguage, or the ancillary meaning- and emotion-laden aspects of speech that are not actual verbal prose, gives contextual information that allows interactors to more appropria...

As arts organizations frequently seek purchases and donations from the same consumers, one of their challenges is identifying which consumers are likely to become donors in the future. With all of the data currently available, many organizations are looking to their databases to predict future consumer behavior. In the customer relationship managem...

This research details the development of the "Comfort with Interpersonal Touch" (CIT) scale designed to measure individual differences in interpersonal touch tendencies and preferences. The CIT construct is defined as the degree to which an individual is comfortable with intentional interpersonal touch from or to another person. The scale incorpora...

Previous research has shown that individuals value objects more highly if they own them, a finding commonly known as the endowment effect. In fact, simply touching an object can create a perception of ownership that produces the endowment effect. Through a series of three studies, we extend this line of research in several ways. First, we investiga...

This research proposes that the concept of emotional attachment, and specifically the independent constructs of psychological ownership and affective reaction, can help explain many of the endowment effect findings documented in the literature. We define these constructs and then test them across a set of nine studies in which we both replicate pre...

Previous research has shown that a touch or haptic element attached to a persuasive appeal can increase persuasion, particularly for individuals who have a clear preference for touch to enjoy its sensory feedback (high autotelics). This research extends previous work by including involvement in the context of an appeal by a nonprofit. We find, in a...

This research proposes that the concept of emotional attachment, and specifically the independent constructs of psychological ownership and affective reaction, can help explain many of the endowment effect findings documented in the literature. We define these constructs and then test them across a set of nine studies in which we both replicate pre...

A recent trend among universities shifts from traditional MBA programs to specialized MBA offerings. Specialized programs are believed to cultivate stronger relationships with students, which lead to stronger alumni relationships and increased donations. This research tests this empirically by examining relationship perceptions and donation behavio...

This research finds that merely touching an object results in an increase in perceived ownership of that object. For nonowners, or buyers, perceived ownership can be increased with either mere touch or with imagery encouraging touch. Perceived ownership can also be increased through touch for legal owners, or sellers of an object. We also explore v...

Prior research has assumed that touch has a persuasive effect only if it provides attribute or structural information about a product. Under this view, the role of touch as a persuasive tool is limited. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the persuasive influence of touch as an affective tool in the absence of useful product-related...

Prior research has assumed that touch has a persuasive effect only if it provides attribute or structural information about a product. Under this view, the role of touch as a persuasive tool is limited. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the persuasive influence of touch as an affective tool in the absence of useful product-related...

Prior research has assumed that touch has a persuasive effect only if it provides attribute or structural information about a product. Under this view, the role of touch as a persuasive tool is limited. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the persuasive influence of touch as an affective tool in the absence of useful product-related...

This research examines the influence of touch on impulse-purchasing behavior. We first replicate the Rook and Fisher [Rook DW, Fisher RJ. Normative influences on impulsive buying behavior. J Consum Res 1995;22:305–13.] studies about the moderating effect of the normative evaluation of impulse purchase on impulse-purchasing behavior. Extending the i...

Despite growing attention to problems associated with girls’ and women's viewing unrealistic portrayals of women in advertising, little research has identified positive consequences of presenting larger sized females in advertisements. The present research examined these positive effects and found that instructions that support the use of larger si...

A variety of negative consequences for girls and women have been associated with women's and men's viewing unrealistic portrayals of women in advertising. However, research on the positive consequences of presenting larger-sized women in advertisements, and the conditions under which they are effective, has been lacking. The present research examin...

This research details the development of the "Need for Touch" (NFT) scale designed to measure individual differences in preference for haptic (touch) information. The 12-item NFT scale consists of autotelic and instrumental dimensions. Results are reported that support the scale's hypothesized internal structure as well as its reliability, converge...

Haptic information, or information attained through touch by the hands, is important for the evaluation of products that vary in terms of material properties related to texture, hardness, temperature, and weight. The authors develop and propose a conceptual framework to illustrate that salience of haptic information differs significantly across pro...

The role of exemplars in formation of attitudes toward a category has, surprisingly, been ignored in prior consumer research. In the present research we seek to develop a better understanding of the relationship between category exemplars (e.g., the products in a brand category) and overall attitudes toward the category. Attitude measures that inco...

The role of exemplars in formation of attitudes toward a category has, surprisingly, been ignored in prior consumer research. In the present research we seek to develop a better understanding of the relationship between category exemplars (e.g., the products in a brand category) and overall attitudes toward the category. Attitude measures that inco...

Motivations to engage in retail shopping include both utilitarian and hedonic dimensions. Business to consumer e-commerce conducted via the mechanism of web-shopping provides an expanded opportunity for companies to create a cognitively and esthetically rich shopping environment in ways not readily imitable in the nonelectronic shopping world. In t...

The "Perishable Refrigerated Products and Home Practices Survey" was a two-part survey developed to better understand consumers' perceptions and their current level of understanding regarding the proper handling and storage of perishable refrigerated foods. Past studies (e.g. Anonymous, 1997a; Anonymous, 1999a) have demonstrated a lack of consumer...

What is the role of touch in consumer behavior? Consumers are especially motivated to touch some products before buying them, and for some people, those high in "desire to touch", touching before buying is especially important. In addition, some situations encourage consumers to touch goods before purchasing them. How do these relate to impulse pur...