Article

Reactance to Recommendations: When Unsolicited Advice Yields Contrary Responses

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Abstract

Recommendations often play a positive role in the decision process by reducing the difficulty associated with choosing between options. However, in certain circumstances recommendations play a less positive and more undesirable role from the perspectives of both the recommending agent or agency and the person receiving the recommendation. Across a series of four studies, we explore consumer response when recommendations by experts and intelligent agents contradict the consumer's initial impressions of choice options. We find that unsolicited advice that contradicts initial impressions leads to the activation of a reactant state on the part of the decision maker. This reactance, in turn, leads to a behavioral backlash that results not only in consumers ignoring the agents' recommendations but in intentionally contradicting them.

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... This results in the person trying to hang on to the restricted freedom. It has already been shown that spatial constraints and recommendations can induce reactance (Levav and Zhu, 2009;Fitzsimons and Lehmann, 2004). Thus, the research question which will be answered is: ...
... Other examples of topics in consumer research that can cause reactance are spatial constraint and recommendations (Levav and Zhu, 2009;Fitzsimons and Lehmann, 2004). These topics will be discussed next. ...
... All these studies above have in common that when consumers perceive that they are being influenced, reactance will occur. In a recent article, Fitzsimons and Lehmann (2004) showed that recommendations that contradict initial preferences can cause someone to choose the not recommended product. Fitzsimons and Lehman (2004) indicate that it would be interesting to research what will happen if participants would receive a recommendation while he or she is forming their attitude towards the choice options, which is done in this study. ...
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The main objective of this study was to examine the effects of spatial constraints on choosing recommended products. Two experiments were conducted where the level of spatial constraint was operationalized by a small room and a large room. The study showed that as expected a spatial constraint caused a consumer to choose the not recommended product. This effect is mediated by a feeling of confinement. In addition, the effect of a chronic reactance level of consumers was taken into account. However, the chronic reactance level of consumers did not have an influence on this choice. In the first experiment the method of recommendation was operationalized as an advertisement. However, an advertisement always causes some level of reactance because of its inherent nature to influence. In the second experiment the recommendation method was a personal recommendation which was not expected to cause some level of reactance. The personal recommendation did not have an influence on the choice of consumers. Concluding, this study showed that a recommendation in a small room might have an adverse effect; customers choosing the not recommended product. Important managerial implications and directions for further research are given.
... Res. 2024, 19 449 users, and in some cases, could evoke resistance, creating a sense of aversion among users [3,4]. Initially, research on recommendation systems was focused on enhancing accuracy to improve user satisfaction. ...
... This refers to the actions that individuals take in opposition to situations in which they perceive themselves to be in a compelled condition [37]. Moreover, psychological reactance has been studied in various fields such as advertising [38], artificial intelligence [39], and personalized recommendations [3,36]. Particularly in the field of personalized recommendations, the research results indicate that personalized recommendations can lead to psychological reactance. ...
... Fitzsimons and Lehmann [3] showed that when users receive recommendations that do not align with their expectations, a resistance state is activated. In such situations, users not only ignore recommendations from the recommendation system, but may also exhibit resistance. ...
Article
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A recommendation system serves as a key factor for improving e-commerce users’ satisfaction by providing them with more accurate and diverse suggestions. A significant body of research has examined the accuracy and diversity of a variety of recommendation systems. However, little is known about the psychological mechanisms through which the recommendation system influences the user satisfaction. Thus, the purpose of this study is to contribute to this gap by examining the mediating and moderating processes underlying this relationship. Drawing from the traditional task-technology fit literature, the study developed a moderated mediation model, simultaneously considering the roles of a user’s feeling state and shopping goal. We adopted a scenario-based experimental approach to test three hypotheses contained in the model. The results showed that there is an interaction effect between shopping goals and types of recommendation (diversity and accuracy) on user satisfaction. Specifically, when a user’s shopping goal aligns with recommendation results in terms of accuracy and diversity, the user satisfaction is enhanced. Furthermore, this study evaluated the mediating role of feeling right and psychological reactance for a better understanding of this interactive relationship. We tested the moderated mediation effect of feeling right and the psychological reactance moderated by the user shopping goal. For goal-directed users, accurate recommendations trigger the activation of feeling right, consequently increasing the user satisfaction. Conversely, when exploratory users face accurate recommendations, they activate psychological reactance, which leads to a reduction in user satisfaction. Finally, we discuss the implications for the study of recommendation systems, and for how marketers/online retailers can implement them to improve online customers’ shopping experience.
... Recommendation systems have become indispensable in shopping websites. However, it is essential to recognize that recommendation systems may not universally cater to all users, and in some cases, could evoke resistance, creating a sense of aversion among users (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004); (Lee, Lee, Lee, & Lee, 2009). Initially, research on recommendation systems was focused on enhancing accuracy to improve user satisfaction. ...
... This refers to the actions that individuals take in opposition to situations in which they perceive themselves to be in a compelled condition (Tucker, 2014). Moreover, psychological reactance has been studied in various fields such as advertising (Youn & Kim, 2019), artificial intelligence (Pizzi, Scarpi, & Pantano, 2021), and personalized recommendations (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004;Ma, Sun, Guo, Lai, & Vogel, 2022). Particularly in the field of personalized recommendations, the research results indicate that personalized recommendations can lead to psychological reactance. ...
... Pizzi et al. (2021) indicated that non-anthropomorphic digital assistants could trigger psychological reactance and lead to negative evaluations of artificial intelligence. Fitzsimons and Lehmann (2004) showed that when users receive recommendations that do not align with their expectations, a resistance state is activated. In such situations, users not only ignore recommendations from the recommendation system, but may also exhibit resistance. ...
Preprint
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A significant body of research has examined the accuracy and diversity of several types of recommendation systems. However, little is known about the psychological mechanisms underlying the effects of the different types of recommendation systems on user satisfaction. The findings of our experiment showed that user satisfaction is influenced by shopping goal. Specifically, when a user’s shopping goal aligns with the type of recommendation system, the user satisfaction is enhanced. Our study evaluated the mediating role of feeling right and psychological reactance for a better understanding of this relationship. We further tested the moderated mediation effect of feeling right and psychological reactance moderated by the user shopping goal. For goal-directed users, accurate recommendations trigger the activation of feeling right, consequently increasing the user satisfaction. Conversely, when exploratory users face accurate recommendations, they activate psychological reactance, which leads to a reduction in user satisfaction.
... In addition, we consider reactance to be an established concept to capture unfavorable responses to personalized recommendations (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). Reactance to personalized recommendations may constitute a negative side-effect of highly accurate recommendations (Bleier & Eisenbeiss, 2015) and is thus an integral element of the personalization paradox (Aguirre et al., 2015). ...
... Thus, the higher the accuracy of personalized recommendations, the higher customers' privacy concerns, as they may feel observed by the firm (Bleier & Eisenbeiss, 2015). Furthermore, recommending certain products can result in customers feeling intruded upon in their product choice process (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). In response, they may exhibit reactance as they try to maintain control over their choices (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). ...
... In response, they may exhibit reactance as they try to maintain control over their choices (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). That is, they may act opposite to the personalized recommendations (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004) by, for example, choosing an option that was not recommended. Ultimately, provoking reactance to the personalized recommendations limits their benefits for both customers and the firm (Aljukhadar et al., 2017). ...
Article
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Firms often employ personalized recommendations to help customers make purchase decisions. To improve the effectiveness of their personalized recommendations, some firms use cues to offer transparency on how they collect and use data to derive recommendations. We draw on attribution theory to propose an additional mechanism to improve the effectiveness of personalized recommendations with cues. Attributional cues, which refer to the underlying data (i.e., customers' own data vs. similar customers' data) used for personalized recommendations, aim to increase customers' self‐attribution of personalized recommendations. Specifically, in three experimental studies, we show that attributional cues increase customers' self‐attribution of personalized recommendations, leading to higher trust in and lower reactance to personalized recommendations. The accuracy and valence of the personalized recommendations moderate this attributional effect. As a result, employing attributional cues can be an essential and affordable tool for firms to increase the effectiveness of their personalized recommendations.
... For example, in one study, pressuring individuals not to sign a petition led more participants to sign the petition (Heilman, 1976). Consumers whom an expert had recommended a specific product opposed the expert's advice by choosing the nonrecommended product (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). The logic is that when people prefer restricted options, reject an imposed option, disagree with a message, insult the source, or attack the person in response to a freedom threat, reactance is what motivates that behavior (e.g., Brehm, 1966;Brehm & Brehm, 1981;Clee & Wicklund, 1980;Dillard & Shen, 2005;Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). ...
... Consumers whom an expert had recommended a specific product opposed the expert's advice by choosing the nonrecommended product (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). The logic is that when people prefer restricted options, reject an imposed option, disagree with a message, insult the source, or attack the person in response to a freedom threat, reactance is what motivates that behavior (e.g., Brehm, 1966;Brehm & Brehm, 1981;Clee & Wicklund, 1980;Dillard & Shen, 2005;Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). Regardless of whether such studies investigated changes in attractiveness, defiance of restricting attempts, or aggressive behaviors, they all investigated the consequences of reactance but not the reactance state per se. ...
Article
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Psychological reactance is a motivational state that leads people to regain threatened or lost freedoms. It is accompanied by anger and negative cognitions and causes various effects such as resistance, aggression, and increased attractiveness of the original freedom. Despite a wealth of studies exploring the causes and consequences of reactance, there has been little effort to understand the phenomenon of reactance itself. To learn more about the state of reactance itself and to distinguish it from the related construct of anger, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging. We asked participants to read and imagine being in freedom-threatening, anger-arousing, and neutral scenarios. Using the Neurosynth image decoder, we discovered that, compared to the neutral and anger-arousing scenarios, the freedom-threatening scenarios produced a pattern of activation characteristic of imaging studies that feature terms such as theory of mind, mental states, and mentalizing. This suggests that when people are led to imagine experiences in which their freedom is restricted, they exhibit a pattern of brain activation that resembles activation patterns found in mentalizing studies, and this is not due to the affective consequence of reactance (i.e., anger).
... Individuals who feel that their freedom of choice is threatened may experience psychological reactance (Brehm, 1966;Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). Psychological reactance is linked to the feeling of intrusiveness and leads individuals to attempt to restore their freedom of choice by responding counter to the original goal of the threatening trigger (Brehm, 1966). ...
... Psychological reactance is linked to the feeling of intrusiveness and leads individuals to attempt to restore their freedom of choice by responding counter to the original goal of the threatening trigger (Brehm, 1966). Reactance has been documented in the context of consumer response to firm recommendations (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004) and promotional tactics (Kivetz, 2005). ...
Article
Firms increasingly use consumer information to target and personalize communication with consumers. This paper focuses on explicit targeting, a practice where firms saliently (yet subtly) reveal the information used to target consumers in their advertisement text. How to craft ad messages to convey product benefits without triggering privacy concerns is a nontrivial task. Results from a field experiment reveal that consumers respond negatively to explicit targeting, yet such a negative effect can be partially alleviated by using hedonic instead of utilitarian information framing. In a controlled online experiment, we show that explicit targeting increases consumers’ privacy concerns relative to the perceived benefits of personalization, leading to less positive consumer responses. Interestingly, an extension of the online experiment suggests that providing consumers with a clear description of why they are targeted seems to offset the negative effects of explicit targeting. This study offers important academic implications for the personalization literature and valuable practical insights for firms and policymakers.
... In some cases, a BCT can even backfire, causing the opposite behaviour to what was intended (e.g. [Erskine et al. 2010;Lyngs et al. 2020;Stibe and Cugelman 2016]). 1 Such responses could be understood as manifestations of psychological reactance [Fitzsimons and Lehmann 2004;McAlaney et al. 2020]: unpleasant motivational arousal to situations that threaten certain behavioural freedoms. This reactance 2 may result in "behavioural backlash, " when a person not only fails to comply with expectations, but intentionally contradicts them [Fitzsimons and Lehmann 2004]. ...
... [Erskine et al. 2010;Lyngs et al. 2020;Stibe and Cugelman 2016]). 1 Such responses could be understood as manifestations of psychological reactance [Fitzsimons and Lehmann 2004;McAlaney et al. 2020]: unpleasant motivational arousal to situations that threaten certain behavioural freedoms. This reactance 2 may result in "behavioural backlash, " when a person not only fails to comply with expectations, but intentionally contradicts them [Fitzsimons and Lehmann 2004]. ...
... Research by Van Swol et al. (2017), Aguirre et al. (2015) and Gino (2008) also showed that unsolicited advice is valued less than voluntary and requested advice. This is also true for smart products, where unsolicited advice can lead consumers to ignore technology recommendations and trigger boomerang effects (doing the opposite of what is recommended) (Feng and Magen, 2016;Fitzsimons and Lehmann, 2004;Lee and Lee, 2009;Murray and Häubl, 2009). On the other hand, people who have invested money, time, and effort in obtaining information are less likely to ignore it (Sutherland et al., 2016). ...
... Dworkin (2020) x Paternalism 21 Dzindolet et al. (2002) x Ergonomics 22 Ehrenbrink et al. (2016) x HCI 23 Ehrenhard et al. (2014) x Elderly Care 24 Ekman et al. (2018) x HCI 25 Feng and Magen (2016) x Social Sciences 26 Fitzsimons and Lehmann (2004) x Marketing Management 27 Gaudiello et al. (2016) x HCI 28 Ghazali et al. (2017) x HCI 29 Ghazali et al. (2018a) x HCI 30 Ghazali et al. (2018b) x HCI 31 Ghazali et al. (2019) x HCI 32 Gino (2008) x Organizational Behavior 33 Glass et al. (2008) x x x HCI 34 Gönül et al. (2006) x HCI 35 ...
... For the second term I 2 defined in (13), according to the definition for weight ω e,t < 1, we have ω e,t = ...
Preprint
In this work, we investigate the online influence maximization in social networks. Most prior research studies on online influence maximization assume that the nodes are fully cooperative and act according to their stochastically generated influence probabilities on others. In contrast, we study the online influence maximization problem in the presence of some corrupted nodes whose damaging effects diffuse throughout the network. We propose a novel bandit algorithm, CW-IMLinUCB, which robustly learns and finds the optimal seed set in the presence of corrupted users. Theoretical analyses establish that the regret performance of our proposed algorithm is better than the state-of-the-art online influence maximization algorithms. Extensive empirical evaluations on synthetic and real-world datasets also show the superior performance of our proposed algorithm.
... These CFFs, inspired by psychological theories, include pre-decision making before AI recommendations, influenced by the anchoring bias [21], and delayed AI suggestions, which can enhance decision outcomes [37]. Additionally, offering a choice to engage with CFFs relates to reactance, the resistance to unsolicited advice [18]. These CFFs proved more effective in reducing overreliance than AI-generated explanations, yet received lower subjective ratings [7]. ...
Preprint
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In this paper, we investigate the impact of hallucinations and cognitive forcing functions in human-AI collaborative text generation tasks, focusing on the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to assist in generating high-quality conversational data. LLMs require data for fine-tuning, a crucial step in enhancing their performance. In the context of conversational customer support, the data takes the form of a conversation between a human customer and an agent and can be generated with an AI assistant. In our inquiry, involving 11 users who each completed 8 tasks, resulting in a total of 88 tasks, we found that the presence of hallucinations negatively impacts the quality of data. We also find that, although the cognitive forcing function does not always mitigate the detrimental effects of hallucinations on data quality, the presence of cognitive forcing functions and hallucinations together impacts data quality and influences how users leverage the AI responses presented to them. Our analysis of user behavior reveals distinct patterns of reliance on AI-generated responses, highlighting the importance of managing hallucinations in AI-generated content within conversational AI contexts.
... Este estudo confirmou a hipótese H1 em dois experimentos, mostrando que a restrição percebida à liberdade leva a escolhas alimentares não saudáveis. Esse efeito representa um desafio em uma sociedade cada vez mais reatante, onde até recomendações simples podem causar reatância (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). ...
... The advice can be offered voluntarily or unsolicited (Chentsova-Dutton, 2012;Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004;Goldsmith, 2000;Swol et al., 2017), constituting the highest contingent option of how advice arises. However, due to the assumption of the advice receiver's inferior knowledge indicated by voluntary advice-giving, such attempts are often challenged or disqualified (Swol et al., 2017). ...
Article
This conversation analytic study identifies a sequential pattern, where the construction of laughable is succeeded by joint laughter between students and supervisors, and is used to anticipate the exposure of trouble and advice-giving. Drawing from authentic supervision meetings in UK institutions, this study identifies key features that appeal joint laughter: (1) students’ disaligment with formal supervisory questions and (2) supervisors’ disruption of students’ consistency of talk to point out something problematic. Both warranting further unpacking, these two types of interactional trouble make the activity of advice-giving relevant. This study not only contributes to the properties of laughable, but also to the sequential environmental prerequisites for advice-giving in supervision interaction.
... Advice giving is often conceived of as a form of interpersonal influence that advocates a particular plan of action for the advice recipient. It has the potential to trigger reactance, especially when unsolicited (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004;Paik, 2020). Yet, advice is often solicited; Individuals request advice from others. ...
Article
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Reactance theory has inspired a plethora of empirical investigations since its birth. In this project, we attempt to push the boundaries of existing work by (a) assessing the degree to which the core two-step process predicted by the theory is superior to its logical alternatives and (b) considering the role of reactance in shaping message production in an interpersonal context. Data from a web-based experiment (N = 955) provided strong evidence that the proposed reactance process was empirically superior to theoretical alternatives. In addition, examining reactance in advice interactions, we found that prospective advisors perceived a greater threat to freedom and subsequently a higher level of reactance in response to inexplicit requests when they made a controllable attribution for the problem that prompted the need for advice. Reactance in turn diminishes the quality of their advice. Implications for reactance theory and advice research are discussed.
... Psychological reactance is previously examined in the context of online advertising and product recommendations as well as in loyalty programs and rewards (e.g. Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). Following a restriction of their available choices, customers can experience anger (Steindl et al., 2015) and negative emotions for sellers; negative advocacy and switching intentions appear as the most common responses to restriction/changes on customers available options (Thorbjørnsen & Dahlén, 2011). ...
Article
This work is a first attempt to explain the phenomenon of customer threats and identify the individual and situational factors that drive this phenomenon in tourism and hospitality. Towards this goal, one qualitative and two quantitative studies are employed. Study 1 conceptualizes customer threats by uncovering two of the most common forms of verbal threats (i.e., threat to switch and threat to negative word of mouth) and their distinctive features as well as customers’ motivations behind them, and some situational conditions that favor the enactment of customer threats. Using a survey-based approach, study 2 sheds light on three incident-specific drivers (i.e., psychological reactance, rumination, and justice perceptions) of the two main forms of customer threats. Finally, using an experimental approach, study 3 assesses the effectiveness of two service recovery strategies (self-service recovery vs. human-based recovery) at mitigating customer threats following service failure incidents.
... Consumers tend to report higher confidence levels in choice situations with more information and less uncertainty (Eppler and Mengis, 2008;Winzar and Savik, 2002). Consulting an RS should reduce choice uncertainty and, thus, improve confidence in general (Fitzsimons and Lehmann, 2004;Xiao and Benbasat, 2007). However, few studies have specifically examined how anthropomorphic perceptions of RSs affect users' choice confidence. ...
Article
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Recommendation systems (RSs) leverage data and algorithms to generate a set of suggestions to reduce consumers’ efforts and assist their decisions. In this study, we examine how different framings of recommendations trigger people’s anthropomorphic perceptions of RSs and therefore affect users’ attitudes in an online experiment. Participants used and evaluated one of four versions of a web-based wine RS with different source framings (i.e. “recommendation by an algorithm,” “recommendation by an AI assistant,” “recommendation by knowledge generated from similar people,” no description). Results showed that different source framings generated different levels of perceived anthropomorphism. Participants indicated greater trust in the recommendations and greater confidence in making choices based on the recommendations when they perceived an RS as highly anthropomorphic; however, higher perceived anthropomorphism of an RS led to a lower willingness to disclose personal information to the RS.
... Among various internal and external influencing factors (Amarnath & Jaidev, 2021), the level of reactance largely depends on prior opinions on the topic and whether the message is pro-or counter-attitudinal (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004;Zhao & Fink, 2021). In the context of climate change messages, Ma, Dixon, and Hmielowski (2019) found that individuals only experienced reactance after a persuasion attempt that was contrary to their prior views. ...
Conference Paper
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In response to the global pandemic and heated public debates, anti-COVID measures have become a relevant topic for brand activism. In a remarkable example of multi-brand activism, over 1,000 brands joined forces in the pro-vaccination campaign #TogetherAgainstCorona. With the rise of brand activism, research has also devoted more and more attention to the subject. However, the underlying psychological mechanisms of consumers' responses are not well understood, yet. Moreover, effects of multi-brand campaigns remain unclear. This study examines psychological reactance and perceived marginalization by the brand as potential mediators that drive brand-related and socially relevant consumer responses. Further, the moderating effects of single-vs. multi-brand activism are evaluated using the campaign #TogetherAgainstCorona as an example. Results revealed that vaccination opposition triggered reactance and a sense of marginalization, which in turn adversely affected campaign and brand evaluations. Reactance also impaired socially relevant outcomes. Thus, brand activism could backfire and reduce peoples' willingness to engage in socially responsible behaviour, such as getting vaccinated, while increasing their intention to advocate for their contrary position. Multi-(vs. single) brand activism increased the negative effects of vaccination opposition on attitude towards the ad, but decreased issue advocacy intentions. Implications for brand management and theory are discussed.
... Perceived threat to freedom of choice is an antecedent of psychological reactance (Shen, 2015). Unsolicited advice that contradicts initial attitudes has been shown to activate psychological reactance which in turn has resulted in behavioural backlash (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004). Thus, we suggest as a second mechanism that dissimilar alternatives are met with lower acceptance compared to similar alternatives because they are perceived as a larger threat to individuals' freedom of choice. ...
Article
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ne novel strategy to shift food choices in digital shopping environments is to automatically recommend healthier alternatives when an unhealthy choice is made. However, this raises the question which alternative products to recommend. This study assesses 1) whether healthier food swap recommendations are effective, even though the unhealthy choice was made in the presence of visible FOP nutrition labels, and 2) how the similarity of the alternatives influences the acceptance of food swap recommendations. Based on a pre-test, similarity of the recommendation was operationalized in terms of animal-based versus plant-based options. A randomized controlled trial (healthy food swap recommendation conditions: none, similar animal-based, dissimilar plant-based, or mixed animal- and plant-based) with 428 Dutch participants was conducted in a simulated online supermarket. Additional healthier food swap recommendations improved the nutritional quality of the final basket compared to only providing Nutri-Score nutrition labels (−1.7 mean FSA score, p < .001, medium Cohen’s d = −0.48). Compared to the dissimilar condition, acceptance of an alternative was more likely in the mixed (odds-ratio = 2.78, p = .015) and in the similar condition (odds-ratio = 2.24, p = .048), but the nutritional quality of the final basket did not differ between treatment conditions. Individuals in treatment conditions who did not receive any recommendation (i.e. only made healthy choices) had higher Nutri-Score familiarity and general health interest than individuals who received recommendations. This suggests that for individuals with higher knowledge and motivation FOP nutrition labels were sufficient, whereas for individuals with lower knowledge and motivation additional food swap recommendations can improve dietary choices. Food swap recommendations may act as meaningful reminders by disrupting the automatic choice process and triggering individuals to rethink their (unhealthy) choice.
... People clamor for freedom in their private and political lives. They exhibit patterns such as reactance (Brehm, 1966;Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004) and illusions of control (Ariely, 2000;Langer, 1975) that indicate deeply rooted motives to maintain a feeling of having choices. The marketplace, normally a reliable guide to what people want, offers ever more fine-grained choices, from dozens of car makes Figure 1. ...
Article
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The current research tested the hypothesis that making many choices impairs subsequent self-control. Drawing from a limited-resource model of self-regulation and executive function, the authors hypothesized that decision making depletes the same resource used for self-control and active responding. In 4 laboratory studies, some participants made choices among consumer goods or college course options, whereas others thought about the same options without making choices. Making choices led to reduced self-control (i.e., less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination, and less quality and quantity of arithmetic calculations). A field study then found that reduced self-control was predicted by shoppers’ self-reported degree of previous active decision making. Further studies suggested that choosing is more depleting than merely deliberating and forming preferences about options and more depleting than implementing choices made by someone else and that anticipating the choice task as enjoyable can reduce the depleting effect for the first choices but not for many choices.
... Ahluwalia et al. (2000) found that negative information for highly committed consumers with a brand is less diagnostic, and therefore they are less affected by it. In addition, Fitzsimons and Lehmann (2004) found that consumers became more likely to choose a product when they read negative information about it if it contradicted their initial preference. More studies have confirmed the existence of the negativity effect and that as valence becomes more extreme, information becomes more helpful in reducing consumers' attitudinal uncertainty (Chua & Banerjee, 2016). ...
Article
on consumers' perceived relationship with a firm and identifies the causes of such influence and the underlying process. Based on social exchange theory and signal theory, the authors identify how conflict is pivotal in connecting review valence and consumers' perceived relational benefits and trust. The authors use Qualtrics survey data in three experimental studies to examine how review valence indirectly impacts consumers' perceived trust and benefits. The results indicate that conflict is a moderator between review valence and perceived benefits and trust, and the magnitude of the indirect effect of valence varies according to the different levels of a perceived partner's commitment to the relationship. These findings provide incremental theoretical implications for relationship marketing in online contexts and have managerial relevance for online marketing strategies.
... Indeed, trust is one of the most important factors driving adoption [34,161] and purchase intention [205,214]. Recommendations that are irrelevant [48,202,255,281], manipulative [6,8,65,111,171,247,269], or poorly explainable [64,262,280] because they are too biased towards the profitable items [263] can harm trust, leading customers to reactance [86,274] or churning. ...
Preprint
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Many of today's online services provide personalized recommendations to their users. Such recommendations are typically designed to serve certain user needs, e.g., to quickly find relevant content in situations of information overload. Correspondingly, the academic literature in the field largely focuses on the value of recommender systems for the end user. In this context, one underlying assumption is that the improved service that is achieved through the recommendations will in turn positively impact the organization's goals, e.g., in the form of higher customer retention or loyalty. However, in reality, recommender systems can be used to target organizational economic goals more directly by incorporating monetary considerations such as price awareness and profitability aspects into the underlying recommendation models. In this work, we survey the existing literature on what we call Economic Recommender Systems based on a systematic review approach that helped us identify 133 relevant papers. We first categorize existing works along different dimensions and then review the most important technical approaches from the literature. Furthermore, we discuss common methodologies to evaluate such systems and finally outline the limitations of today's research and future directions.
... If they needed more time to think about the gift decision, we told them that they could make their choice during the gift distribution phase. Then, we used four items adapted from Fitzsimons and Lehmann (2004;e.g., "I believe that I made the right choice"; α = .900) to measure decision confidence. ...
Article
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Consumers always delay their choices, which can cause companies to suffer tremendous losses. One reason for such delay is a lack of confidence. Confidence in consumer decision-making can stem from many sources, including social power. In this research, we find that selection power with regard to choosing a romantic mate increases consumers' decision confidence and, in turn, decreases choice deferral. We define the concept of intersexual selection power (ISP), and propose certain factors that can induce individuals' asymmetric ISP. We conducted four studies to explore four factors that could influence consumers' ISP perceptions (sex, mating cues, sex ratio, and mate value) and the effects of such power perception on choice deferral. The results showed that individuals with high ISP perception have more decision confidence and a lower choice deferral rate than individuals with low ISP perception regardless of the way in which choice deferral is measured.
... 此外, 决策者对建议者的社会态度也对建议权 重存在关键影响. 研究发现, 决策者对强加建议或主动 提供建议的建议者具有消极的社会态度(如存在抵触 情绪), 使得决策者不仅倾向于无视他们的建议, 还会有 意地反驳这些建议 [36] . 研究还发现, 决策者更倾向于使 用来自朋友而非陌生人的建议指导决策(即便是在他 们的建议可靠性是一致的前提下) [37] . ...
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建议互动是信息和影响力在社会传播的重要基石之一。近年来,越来越多的研究开始关注决策者与建议者之间的相互影响,但这种影响的内在过程尚不清晰。从人际互动的角度出发,我们尝试构建了一个整合建议双方行为与社会认知过程的人际影响模型:建议者和决策者分别通过提供建议信息和对建议进行反馈相互影响;这种影响通过社会认知过程被各自内化、分别更新了决策者对建议者可靠性的信念和建议者对自身的社会影响力的信念,以及对彼此的社会态度;这些社会认知结果进一步指导了决策者后续的建议采纳倾向和决策优化结果,以及建议者随后的建议策略与建议准确性;同时,受影响的决策、建议行为又产生新的建议反馈和建议信息影响对方。在这些过程中,奖赏加工、心理理论加工和自我监控发挥了关键作用。具体来说,建议采纳过程和建议者对自身影响力的信念更新主要涉及奖赏相关的认知计算和神经表征;决策者对建议者可靠性的信念更新和建议提出过程涉及与社会学习相关的计算过程,并伴随着心理理论相关脑区的激活;此外,自我监控加工也参与了建议者的建议策略的使用过程。总之,本研究为揭示建议互动中双方的行为以及认知加工(如,信念更新、决策权衡)的内在机理提供了启示。未来研究还需进一步通过人际神经科学、计算建模等手段探索建议互动双方复杂的社会信念和互动动机如何整合,进而影响社会行为。
... Unsolicited advice is more likely to elicit negative emotions in the advice recipient, and thus less likely to be perceived positively or implemented, compared with when the advice recipient is receptive to advice (Paik 2020). Research in customer communication has shown that consumers not only ignore expert recommendations but also intentionally contradict them when receiving unsolicited advice that does not meet their expectations (Fitzsimons and Lehmann 2004). ...
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... This coping strategy is also conceptually close to reactance, which refers to a motivational state that occurs when a person's freedom is threatened or eliminated. This threat of freedom then engenders a tendency to reestablish this freedom by engaging in the forbidden behavior (Brehm, 1966) even though this may come at the cost of one's personal preferences (Fitzsimons & Lehmann, 2004;Van Petegem et al., 2015a). Thus, opposition involves coping through resistance, yet unlike negotiation (which is discussed below) it involves a rigid way of expressing resistance. ...
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Internet Shopping Agents (ISAs) allow consumers to costlessly search many online retailers and buy at the lowest price. One would expect these ISAs to subject sellers to intense price competition that results in uniform low prices. Yet, Internet retailers have joined these ISAs. Furthermore, the prices charged by inside retailers can vary substantially. We examine the impact of ISAs on market competition. An ISA creates differentiation in the pricing strategies of ex-ante identical retailers: Some retailers join the ISA due to mass of consumers that they can potentially win, while others stay out and extract surplus from their loyal consumers, while others stay our and extract surplus from their loyal consumers. The equilibrium inside pricing is such that the average price charged can increase or decrease when more retailers join, depending on whether or not the reach of the ISA is independent of the number of joining retailers. When the reach is endogenous, there exist a unique number of inside retailers.
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Despite the explosive growth of electronic commerce and the rapidly increasing number of consumers who use interactive media (such as the World Wide Web) for prepurchase information search and online shopping, very little is known about how consumers make purchase decisions in such settings. A unique characteristic of online shopping environments is that they allow vendors to create retail interfaces with highly interactive features. One desirable form of interactivity from a consumer perspective is the implementation of sophisticated tools to assist shoppers in their purchase decisions by customizing the electronic shopping environment to their individual preferences. The availability of such tools, which we refer to as interactive decision aids for consumers, may lead to a transformation of the way in which shoppers search for product information and make purchase decisions. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the nature of the effects that interactive decision aids may have on consumer decision making in online shopping environments. While making purchase decisions, consumers are often unable to evaluate all available alternatives in great depth and, thus, tend to use two-stage processes to reach their decisions. At the first stage, consumers typically screen a large set of available products and identify a subset of the most promising alternatives. Subsequently, they evaluate the latter in more depth, perform relative comparisons across products on important attributes, and make a purchase decision. Given the different tasks to be performed in such a two-stage process, interactive tools that provide support to consumers in the following respects are particularly valuable: (1) the initial screening of available products to determine which ones are worth considering further, and (2) the in-depth comparison of selected products before making the actual purchase decision. This paper examines the effects of two decision aids, each designed to assist consumers in performing one of the above tasks, on purchase decision making in an online store. The first interactive tool, a recommendation agent (RA), allows consumers to more efficiently screen the (potentially very large) set of alternatives available in an online shopping environment. Based on self-explicated information about a consumer's own utility function (attribute importance weights and minimum acceptable attribute levels), the RA generates a personalized list of recommended alternatives. The second decision aid, a comparison matrix (CM), is designed to help consumers make in-depth comparisons among selected alternatives. The CM allows consumers to organize attribute information about multiple products in an alternatives × attributes matrix and to have alternatives sorted by any attribute. Based on theoretical and empirical work in marketing, judgment and decision making, psychology, and decision support systems, we develop a set of hypotheses pertaining to the effects of these two decision aids on various aspects of consumer decision making. In particular, we focus on how use of the RA and CM affects consumers' search for product information, the size and quality of their consideration sets, and the quality of their purchase decisions in an online shopping environment. A controlled experiment using a simulated online store was conducted to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that both interactive decision aids have a substantial impact on consumer decision making. As predicted, use of the RA reduces consumers' search effort for product information, decreases the size but increases the quality of their consideration sets, and improves the quality of their purchase decisions. Use of the CM also leads to a decrease in the size but an increase in the quality of consumers' consideration sets, and has a favorable effect on some indicators of decision quality. In sum, our findings suggest that interactive tools designed to assist consumers in the initial screening of available alternatives and to facilitate in-depth comparisons among selected alternatives in an online shopping environment may have strong favorable effects on both the quality and the efficiency of purchase decisions—shoppers can make much better decisions while expending substantially less effort. This suggests that interactive decision aids have the potential to drastically transform the way in which consumers search for product information and make purchase decisions.
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The modeling of individual consumer preference can be aided by incorporating others' opinions which contain information above and beyond identified product attributes. The value of others' opinions is tested using two empirical data sets. The results indicate that incorporating others' opinions into an attribute-based model can reduce systematic error and increase predictive accuracy by serving as a proxy for missing information (e.g., undiscovered attributes or attribute interactions, sensory or experiential aspects of the product, as well as advertising or word of mouth effects). Additionally, modeling individual preference based on others' opinions alone is shown to predict as well or better than traditional multiattribute models thus bypassing the need for defining a product attribute space.
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A theory and methodology are developed for explicitly considering the cost of comparing diverse choice alternatives. The theory allows (1) explicit analytical measures of the cost of using various simplified decision strategies, and (2) predictions regarding the distribution of mistakes a consumer is likely to make when reducing decision-making effort.
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While conventional farming systems face serious problems of sustainability, organic agriculture is seen as a more environmentally friendly system as it favours renewable resources, recycles nutrients, uses the environment’s own systems for controlling pests and diseases, sustains ecosystems, protects soils, and reduces pollution. At the same time organic farming promotes animal welfare, the use of natural foodstuffs, product diversity and the avoidance of waste, among other practices. However, the future of organic agriculture will depend on its economic viability and on the determination shown by governments to protect these practices. This paper performs panel regressions with a sample of Catalan farms (Spain) to test the influence of organic farming on farm output, costs and incomes. It analyses the cost structures of both types of farming and comments on their social and environmental performance.
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Four studies examine the process by which consumers integrate critic opinions and attribute information into their product evaluations and how critic consensus affects this process. A reference-dependent model is proposed such that consumer response to consensus depends on whether the average critic rating for an alterative is above or below an aspiration level. Consensus is shown to be preferred for alternatives above an aspiration level, whereas critic disagreement is preferred for alternatives below an aspiration level. Consumers exhibited a tendency to prefer critic disagreement for high-priced products or decisions associated with high social risk because most alternatives fell below their high aspiration levels. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.
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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of physician recommendation on whether to enroll in a randomized controlled chemoprevention trial for breast cancer. We surveyed 360 women who were at increased risk for breast cancer regarding social and behavioral factors that could influence their decision to enroll or not to enroll in the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT). Respondents completed a questionnaire following attendance at an informational session about the trial. The analysis was restricted to 175 women who discussed the possibility of their participation in the trial with their primary care physician (PCP) and who reported what their physician advised them to do regarding participation. Logistic regression modeling showed that among women who discussed the trial with their physician, physician recommendation was the most important factor that influenced the respondent's decision to enroll in the BCPT. Women who reported that their physician advised them to enroll in the trial were 13 times more likely to participate than were women who reported that their physicians advised them not to participate. The results of our study show that PCPs play an important role in influencing preventive health behavior, specifically, regarding enrollment in a randomized breast cancer chemoprevention trial. Efforts to increase recruitment to a trial should include enlisting the support of PCPs.
Article
This research investigates how choice-process satisfaction is influenced by limitation of choice option and by the types of features used to represent the options. Studies of choice satisfaction have focused on how satisfied the decision maker feels about the choice that has been made and have overlooked the importance of the process through which the decision maker makes a choice, i.e., choice-process satisfaction. We show that the comparability of choice options through alignable features increases choice-process satisfaction, whereas option limitation (i.e., making one option unavailable from a set of equally attractive options) decreases choice-process satisfaction. Further, this decrease in satisfaction, relative to all options being available, occurs for people who are given a set of options in which the difference features are alignable (i.e., differences of a corresponding dimension) but not for people who are given a set of options in which the difference features are nonalignable (i.e., differences of unique dimensions). We propose that alignable differences are easier to compare and have more weight in people's attribute processing, and thus give rise to a perception of a greater amount of information about the option set that is relevant for choice. Making an option unavailable in this case would have a bigger impact than in a situation in which all options have nonalignable differences. Nonalignable differences are difficult to process and are less likely to make people aware that there is very much information about the options for decision making. This explanation and the interaction effect between option limitation and feature alignability are tested in four experiments. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.
Article
We explore consumer responses to stockouts, both in terms of consumer satisfaction with the decision process, and in terms of subsequent store choice behavior. A series of four laboratory experiments involving stockouts in a consumer choice context are run. The results of these experiments suggest that consumer response to stockouts is driven in large part by two factors: the effect of a stockout on the difficulty of making a choice from the set, and the degree of personal commitment to the out-of-stock alternative. We show that personal commitment to an out-of-stock choice option is a function of preference for the option, whether the option is included in the consumer's consideration set, and the degree to which the stockout announcement is personally directed. We find that as personal commitment to the out-of-stock option increases, consumers react substantially and negatively to the stockout -- they report lower satisfaction with the decision process and show a higher likelihood of...
Learning by collaborative and individual-based recommendation agents. J. Consumer Psych. 14. Brehm, Jack W. 1966. A Theory of Psychological Reactance
  • Ariely
  • John G Dan
  • Lynch
  • Jr
  • Aparicio
Ariely, Dan, John G. Lynch, Jr., Manuel Aparicio. 2004. Learning by collaborative and individual-based recommendation agents. J. Consumer Psych. 14. Brehm, Jack W. 1966. A Theory of Psychological Reactance. Academic Press, New York.
The Adaptive Decision Maker The cost of thinking
  • John W Payne
  • R James
  • Eric J Bettman
  • K Johnson
  • Shugan
  • Steven
Payne, John W., James R. Bettman, Eric J. Johnson. 1993. The Adaptive Decision Maker. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. Shugan, Steven M. 1980. The cost of thinking. J. Consumer Res.