Joel B. Cohen

University of Florida | UF · Warrington College of Business Administration

Provides an integrative perspective on the history and evolution of research on consumer behavior and consumer Psychology.

Information communicated by persons responsible for student counseling is often dissonant with students’ self-evaluations. The manner in which dissonance is reduced is of vital concern. In this study test scores dissonant with self-concept related attitudes were presented to a group of college students. Dissonance was reduced by reevaluating the pr...

We examine the theoretical basis for the evolutionary narrative common to the target papers by Saad (2013) and by Griskevicius & Kenrick (2013) and identify areas of controversy that have sparked debate about evolutionary psychology [EP] among biologists and behavioral ecologists. The two main areas of disagreement are over (1) the role of genetic...

The marketing of debt consolidation loans is intended to offer a financial remedy to consumers faced with mounting debt and credit problems and unable to meet their monthly payments. The authors argue that debt consolidation loan marketing overemphasizes the short-term benefits (e.g., lower monthly payments) and downplays the considerable downside...

The objective of this paper is to assess the value of the means-end chains approach as a way of thinking about the behavior of consumers. What are we "buying into " when we adopt this approach, and what does it "buy " us? It is unreasonable to expect any one approach or model to be the unqualified or "ultimate solution " to understanding why consum...

We extend Wyer, Hung and Jiang's (2008) analysis of visualization to consider how it could overcome the tendency for consumers to focus much more heavily on end states and goals that products and services are intended to meet and underweight the steps consumers need to take to bring about those outcomes. We summarize related literature on consumers...

In the intervening years since publication of the chapter Affect and Consumer Behavior (Cohen & Areni, 1991) in the Handbook of Consumer Behavior (Kassarjian & Robertson, 1991), research in consumer behavior dealing with affect has exploded, making it one of the field's central research topics. Within psychology more generally, Schimmack and Crites...

How can the hedonistic assumption (i.e., people's willingness to pursue pleasure and avoid pain) be reconciled with people choosing to expose themselves to experiences known to elicit negative feelings? We assess how (1) the intensity of the negative feelings, (2) positive feelings in the aftermath, and (3) the coactivation of positive and negative...

CONSIDER THE following dilemma: To get people's attention and motivate action, a charity organization decides to use vivid pictures of orphaned and starving children in Africa along with somber background music. A primary research stream within the affect literature suggests, first, that such stimuli are likely to put people in a bad mood and that...

The Multiple Pathway Anchoring and Adjustment (MPAA) model integrates prior research on attitude formation, accessibility, strength, and attitude-behavior relationships and responds to key challenges to the traditional view of attitudes as enduring predispositions that guide behavior. The MPAA model emphasizes multiple pathways to attitude formatio...

Our research investigates the marketing of preventive and curative "remedies" (products and services that offer ways of mitigating risk by decreasing either its likelihood or severity). Examples include debt consolidation loans and smoking cessation aids. Like risk-avoidance messages, advertisements for remedies aim to reduce risk-by advocating the...

ark and MacInnis (2006, in this issue) provide the al- ways sound advice to examine the boundaries of the focal construct, in this case attitudes. They wonder whether attitudes are capable of predicting differences in levels of personal investment and commitment to resulting behavior, and they question whether attitude dimensions such as strength a...

Mood influences cognitive activity and behavior in systematic ways. Since such affective contingencies are repeatedly and broadly experienced, they should be available for learning and possibly conscious introspection. We examine the role of such intuitive theories in guiding affect regulation in a series of four studies and show that even suboptim...

This article introduces a goal-based view of consumer choice in which (1) choice is influenced by three classes of goals (consumption goals, criterion goals, and process goals), (2) goals are cognitively represented, and (3) the impact of a goal on choice depends on its activation. For each class of goals, we discuss how goal activation is influenc...

Two experiments investigated the processes through which post-message behavior (e.g., noncompliance) influences resistance to the message. Participants in Experiment 1 read preventive, consumer-education messages that either opposed the consumption of an alcohol-like product or recommended moderation. Half of the participants then tried the product...

Multidisciplinary evidence suggests that people often make evaluative judgments by monitoring their feelings toward the target. This article examines, in the context of moderately complex and consciously accessible stimuli, the judgmental properties of consciously monitored feelings. Results from four studies show that, compared to cold, reason-bas...

This article is based on the 1998 testimony the author provided for In the Matter of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company as an expert witness for the Federal Trade Commission. After providing an overview of the Joe Camel campaign and the Federal Trade Commission's investigation of it, the author considers consumer protection issues that provide a perspec...

This article examines health policy implications of providing smokers with numerical tar yield information in cigarette advertising. Results of a national probability telephone survey regarding smokers' knowledge and understanding of numerical tar yields and deliveries are reported. Few smokers knew the tar level of their own cigarettes (the except...

Volume 8 of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing contained a content analysis of cigarette advertising from 1926–1986 [Ringold and Calfee 1989], together with critiques of both the analysis and its implications [Cohen 1989; Pollay 1989]. In a subsequent paper, Ringold and Calfee [1990] (1) argued that “the evidence supports our exclusion of mil...

Public policy toward cigarette health claims should not be based on a “ market effects“ premise that health claim competition will reinforce consumer fears. Many have been influenced to smoke a succession of heavily advertised higher filtration, lower yield cigarettes, relying in part on the implication these were safer. None of these have been sho...

Widely different accounts of how people categorize new instances have been advanced in recent years. This article reviews these alternative formulations with a particular focus on the use of concrete category exemplars (from prior experience) as an alternative to category-defining rules and prototypes. It advances a contingent processing formulatio...

The Flshbein behavioral intention model combines all beliefs about the consequences of an act into a single attitude component. We propose a new model that separates personal and normative reasons for engaging in behavior. Two studies permitted multiple tests of the model's validity. The results support the model's potential for distinguishing betw...

The Fishbein-Ajzen behavioral-intentions model is designed to represent the effect of attitudes and subjective norms on behavioral intentions. The model has been used in a variety of contexts, and evidence for its validity flows largely from its generally good performance in predicting behavioral intentions. However, the manner in which these conce...

The Fishbein-Ajzen behavioral-intentions model is designed to represent the effect of attitudes and subjective norms on behavioral intentions. The model has been used in a variety of contexts, and evidence for its validity flows largely from its generally good performance in predicting behavioral intentions. However, the manner in which these conce...

Behavioral intentions often have been used as a surrogate for actual behavior in choice models and to reflect the impact of marketing variables. The Fishbein behavioral intentions model posits two determinants of behavioral intentions: a personal or attitudinal component and a social influence or normative component. The authors use an experimental...

Behavioral intentions often have been used as a surrogate for actual behavior in choice models and to reflect the impact of marketing variables. The Fishbein behavioral intentions model posits two determinants of behavioral intentions: a personal or attitudinal component and a social influence or normative component. The authors use an experimental...

This paper describes the application of an expectancy-value/normative-influence model to the understanding of contraceptive-choice behavior. Components of the model are identified and discussed with respect to issues raised by its application to contraceptive choice. Further, a pilot application of the approach is described. Encouraging pilot data...

Describes a class marketing research project in which 144 undergraduates, in 4 groups, were asked to evaluate a new product. 2 groups of ss were exposed to 16 scaled product evaluations (supposedly from peers). High uniformity and low uniformity conditions were determined by degree of dispersion, and ss expected their evaluations to be visible to o...

Post-decision cognitive reevaluation of instant coffee was primarily influenced by confirmation-disconfirmation experience with the product. Prior information resulting from brand familiarity influenced the direction of post-decision reevaluation.

Post-decision cognitive reevaluation of instant coffee was primarily influenced by confirmation-disconfirmation experience with the product. Prior information resulting from brand familiarity influenced the direction of post-decision reevaluation.

INTRODUCTION A telephone survey among a national probability sample of 1,005 adults (502 men and 503 women) 18years of age and older was conducted between November 17 and 20,1994. Data were weighted by age, sex, geographic region, and race so that each respondent was assigned a single weight based on the relationship between the actual population p...

The study of consumer behavior has focused on both the individual and his social identifications. This article reviews research on the micro-level of analysis relating personality to consumer choice.

An integrated framework for studying interpersonal aspects of consumer decision making is presented. The article describes a scale for measuring a person's interpersonal orientations. A study is reported that examines relationships between these traits and product and media choices.

An integrated framework for studying interpersonal aspects of consumer decision making is presented. The article describes a scale for measuring a person's interpersonal orientations. A study is reported that examines relationships between these traits and product and media choices.

In recent years, the social sciences have had a greater impact on business. This article examines a viewpoint of considerable significance—the theory of cognitive dissonance—in the reactions of smokers to information about the smoking-cancer linkage.