Maureen Morrin

Temple University | TU · Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management

We demonstrate that consumers have learned that unhealthy snacks such as potato chips tend to be sold in glossy packages, whereas healthier snacks such as crackers tend to be sold in matte packages (in studies 1 to 3). As a result, consumers who see a snack food package with a glossy [matte] surface will infer lesser [greater] healthfulness of its...

The present research explores the effect of an ambient coffee-like scent (versus no scent) on expectations regarding performance on an analytical reasoning task as well as on actual performance. We show that people in a coffee-scented (versus unscented) environment perform better on an analytical reasoning task due to heightened performance expecta...

A conceptual model is developed to predict how consumers respond to in-store displays as a function of the extent to which a product’s brightness level (i.e., its perceived light-emitting quality) contrasts with that of its background environment and the product’s level of disarray. We show that products whose brightness levels contrast more with t...

The present research examines how ambient scents affect consumers' spatial perceptions in retail environments, which in turn influence customers' feelings of power and, thus, product preference and purchasing behavior. Specifically, the authors demonstrate that in a warm- (vs. cool-) scented and thus perceptually more (vs. less) socially dense envi...

The concept of olfactory imagery is introduced and the conditions under which imagining what a food smells like (referred to here as “smellizing” it) impacts consumer response are explored. Consumer response is measured by: salivation change (studies 1 and 2), actual food consumption (study 3), and self-reported desire to eat (study 4). The results...

We utilize a novel advertising context—commercials seen in a simulated movie theater setting while ambient scent is emitted into the atmosphere—to explore the effects of multisensory cues on brand evaluation and advertising recall. Although both pictorial and olfactory cues enhance brand evaluations and ad recall overall, we find that olfactory (vs...

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 5(2) of Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics (see record 2012-04964-001 ). Author Josh Ackerman should have been listed as Joshua M. Ackerman. All versions of this article have been corrected.] This article discusses the role of embodiment in judgment and choice to (a...

Purpose This paper seeks to promote an understanding of gender effects on retirement plan participation as a function of fund assortment size. Design/methodology/approach A decision simulation was conducted among 349 US adults whose task was to invest in a hypothetical 401(k) retirement plan. The number of mutual funds offered for investment was v...

Purpose – Retail buyers' decisions result in billions of dollars of merchandise being purchased and offered for sale by retailers around the world. At present, retail buyers do not appear to be adequately harnessing consumer input to improve their forecasts. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue by introducing a new approach involving...

We report the results of a decision simulation conducted among 349 adults whose task was to invest in a hypothetical 401(k) retirement plan. We varied the number of mutual funds offered for investment and observed the effects on the incidence and extent of participation. The results indicate that larger fund assortments tend to reduce participation...

Employers have moved away from traditional defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. As a result, many individuals are now required to make their own retirement saving and investment decisions, which has raised concerns about their ability and desire to handle these decisions. Since investment choices have major i...

We report the results of a decision simulation conducted among 211 adults whose task was to invest in a 401(k) retirement plan. We varied the number of mutual funds (three vs. twenty-one) offered for investment and assessed investing knowledge with a self-report measure. The results indicate that less knowledgeable (but not more knowledgeable) inve...

We conducted an analysis of the 13-item Maximization Scale (Schwartz et al., 2002) with the goal of establishing its factor structure, reliability and validity. We also investigated the psychometric properties of several proposed refined versions of the scale. Four sets of analyses are reported. The first analysis confirms the 3-part factor structu...

This article proposes that, in electoral contexts, decision makers may experience a desire for vengeance or a desire to "get even" with an entity, such as a political candidate, in response to a perceived wrongdoing. This article draws on research from the domains of psychology and sociology to develop a theoretical framework for examining factors...

Consumer researchers have conceptualized brand name dilution in terms of the potentially damaging effects that a company's own brand extensions can have on beliefs and attitudes toward its parent brands. A different form of dilution, trademark dilution, can also occur through the unauthorized use of a mark (brand, logo, etc.) by an entity other tha...

Retail buyers ' forecasts, decisions, and subsequent purchases result in billions of dollars of merchandise being purchased and offered for sale by retailers around the world. However, academic research examining this decision process has been limited, and recommendations for improvement almost nonexistent. In the present study, we begin to ad...

The purpose of this research is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding consumer response to direct marketers' pricing formats based on shoppers'perceptions of fairness. As part of this effort, we introduce an individual difference variable we call shipping-charge skepticism. An experiment is conducted (n = 189) to examine whether offe...

This article introduces the concept of desire for consumer vengeance. Desire for consumer vengeance (DCV) is conceptualized as the desire of a decision maker to "get even" with an entity, such as a firm, in response to a perceived wrongdoing. Drawing on research in psychology and organization behavior, a theoretical framework is proposed for unders...

The Journal of Consumer Psychology (JCP) was created in 1992 partly in response to what was interpreted by some as a shift in the methodological focus of the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR). JCR began to increase its accommodation of postmodern approaches, compared to more positivistic approaches. JCP's mission was thus perceived by some to be m...

Consistent with calls for a dynamical social psychology (Jacoby et al., 1987; Nowak, Lewenstein, & Vallacher, 1994), attitude formation was studied using a recently developed, computer-based simulation technique termed Higher Order Cognitive Tracing (see Jacoby et al., 1994). Participants’ attitudes toward 12 different products in 3 product categor...

Considerable research has examined how securities information, once accessed, is cognitively processed to arrive at buy, sell or hold decisions. In contrast, this paper examines whether training novice investors to simply apply the information accessing strategies used by better-performing security analysts, prior to actual cognitive processing of...

After discussing the value of trademarks to consumers and businesses, the authors outline the major objectives of trademark law. The authors review recent federal trademark infringement cases that involve the use of disclaimers, in terms of the extent to which disclaimers reduce the likelihood of consumer confusion. The authors then note recent tre...

Consumer behavior continued to attract additional researchers and publication outlets from 1993 through 1996. Both general interest and domain-specific scholarly contributions are discussed, along with limitations and suggested areas for future research. A concluding section observes that the integrity of consumer research is unnecessarily compromi...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, 1994. Includes bibliographical references.