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The Mere Deadline Effect: Why More Time Might Sabotage Goal Pursuit
Abstract
Contrary to the common belief that having more time facilitates goal pursuit by allowing for more flexibility and fewer restrictions, the current work argues that long deadlines may produce unintended detrimental consequences on goal pursuit. In particular, this research identifies a mere deadline effect, showing that longer versus shorter deadlines, once imposed, lead consumers to infer that the focal goal is more difficult, even when the deadline length results from incidental factors that cannot be meaningfully used to make any other diagnostic inferences about the task itself besides completion frame. Further, these difficulty inferences consequently lead consumers to commit more resources (e.g., time and money). Thus, while long incidental deadlines might be beneficial for essential yet often underestimated aspects of long-term well-being (e.g., when consumers exert more effort to save for college and plan for retirement), the unintended difficulty perception arising from deadline length will sometimes sabotage goal pursuit (e.g., when consumers commit more resources that are beyond their capability, and when elevated resource estimates lead to increased procrastination and higher likelihood of quitting). © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. All rights reserved
... Research has long established the relationship between time and individuals' pursuit of goals (Munichor & LeBoeuf, 2018;Zhu et al., 2019). One stream of research has examined how the specific characteristics of time influence individuals' goal pursuits. ...
... One stream of research has examined how the specific characteristics of time influence individuals' goal pursuits. For example, goal maintenance (limited or unlimited) (Brodscholl et al., 2007;Haiyang et al., 2015), anticipated time of goal pursuit (Etkin & Ratner, 2013), deadlines for completing goals (Zhu et al., 2019), and even descriptions of the time intervals (Munichor & LeBoeuf, 2018) may affect individuals' pursuit of goals. Another stream of literature has examined the influence of time with specific meanings, which are referred to as temporal landmarks. ...
... That is, goal activation and pursuit are based on an assessment of the ease with which the goal can be attained (Bandura, 1977). Therefore, the motivation to initiate and pursue a goal would decrease when the perceived difficulty is high (Liyin et al., 2013;Rozental & Carlbring, 2014;Zhu et al., 2019). In our context, if the perceived difficulty is low, the time priming effect on self-improvement products remains significant. ...
Time-relevant cues are one of the most common elements used in ads, packaging or online retailing settings. However, little research has directly examined how time priming influence the preferences for self-improvement products. Across three experiments, this paper demonstrates that time priming increases consumers’ consumption intention of self-improvement products. This pattern is driven by consumers’ heightened locomotion orientation. That is, time activation reminds consumers to initiate actions and be more locomotion orientated. As a result, it motives them to pursue self-improvement goals through consuming relevant products. Furthermore, the time priming effect on self-improvement products will be mitigated or even inverted when the self-improvement goals were difficult to attain. This occurs because perceived difficulty leads consumers to assess the attainability of the goal and decreases the locomotion orientation. Both theoretical contributions and practical implications for research on time priming and self-improvement are discussed.
... Although deadlines have traditionally been considered as tools that prompt people to engage with tasks (Ariely & Wertenbroch, 2002;Buehler et al., 2010;Tu & Soman, 2014), they do not always yield positive outcomes (Balasubramanian et al., 2018;Zhu et al., 2019). For example, individuals often feel time-pressured as a deadline approaches, which leads to low-quality work (Balasubramanian et al., 2018). ...
... For example, individuals often feel time-pressured as a deadline approaches, which leads to low-quality work (Balasubramanian et al., 2018). In addition, the challenge of accurately estimating the time and effort needed for tasks with long deadlines can cause people to expend an unnecessarily high amount of resources (Zhu et al., 2019). Resolving a gap regarding the impacts of how people perceive deadlines on goal pursuit behaviors, we suggest different types of temporal (i.e., future vs. present) anchors in deadlines may change their perceived time availability until the deadline, which can influence their goal achievement (i.e., the completion of certain tasks within the specified deadlines). ...
While deadlines are routinely used as a strategy to achieve goals, the way these deadlines are described has been relatively overlooked in terms of their influence on decision‐making. We examined the unique effect of future (vs. present) anchors in deadlines on ones' goal achievement. A field study shows that a deadline with a future anchor encourages people to complete a task more effectively within the deadline than a deadline with a present anchor (Study 1). In Study 2, we further demonstrated the positive effect of future (vs. present) anchors on individuals' goal achievement in a more controlled lab setting. Study 3 provided support for our mechanism by examining individuals' perceived time availability until the deadline underlies this effect. Studies 4 and 5 delved deeper, investigating our mechanism by examining individuals' dispositional time value as an important moderator. This research enriches our understanding of time perception and decision‐making, and offers valuable insights on how to strategically deal with deadlines to enhance one's goal achievement.
... Yet another demonstration concerns a recently discovered phenomenon called the mere-urgency effect (Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2018;Zhu, Yang, & Hsee, 2018). Here, participants chose between tasks with short or long deadlines. ...
... Nevertheless, the participants preferred the short-deadline tasks. Zhu, Bagchi, and Hock (2018) and Zhu, Yang, and Hsee (2018) suggested that participants preferred the shorter deadlines because those deadlines helped them avoid the need to monitor the passage of time. Keeping track of time is cognitively taxing (Grondin, 2008), as is the need to remember to do upcoming tasks (Einstein & McDaniel, 2005). ...
... Temporal landmarks can alter individuals' perceptions, judgments and decision-making (Hennecke and Converse 2017;Peetz & Wilson, 2013). Existing research has demonstrated how temporal landmarks influence consumers' selfevaluation (Peetz & Wilson, 2014), goal pursuit (Dai et al., 2015), resource allocation (Zhu et al., 2019), and attention focus (Bi et al., 2021). However, it remains unclear whether temporal landmark framings can influence consumers' engagement in VS campaigns. ...
... Thus, employing temporal landmarks as either personal or public events is, to some extent, deficient and ambiguous (Bi et al., 2021). The third type of temporal landmark, a reference point on a calendar, is perceived as more general and robust because it is embedded in socially constructed and shared timetables (Kouchaki & Smith, 2014;Shum, 1998;Zhu et al., 2019). Compared to meaningful personal events and vivid public events, timepoints in a socially constructed calendar are easier to manipulate for business in the marketplace. ...
Voluntary simplicity (VS) refers to a minimalistic lifestyle of conscious, ecological, and ethical consumption, which is conducive to individual, societal, and environmental well-being. For policymakers and business managers, a key to leveraging this consumer shift is to promote persuasive appeals effectively. This research theorizes that the two forms of VS appeals are systematically associated with distinct temporal landmarks. In particular, we demonstrate that consumers are more likely to engage in biospheric voluntary simplicity (BVS) when priming a temporal landmark as the start of a time period. In contrast, consumers are more likely to participate in egoistic voluntary simplicity (EVS) when priming a temporal landmark as the end of a time period. Notably, the matching effects are driven by distinct mechanisms, such that the effect of a match between a start temporal landmark and BVS appeals is driven by self-transcendence, whereas the effect of a match between an end temporal landmark and EVS appeals is motivated by self-enhancement. Beyond their substantive theoretical significance, our findings provide marketing campaigns with tools to enact strategies that support voluntary simplicity.
... This subjective sensation might drain individuals' mental resources and make them less concerned with other duties. Researchers have explored many different types of resource scarcity, including money [32], time [33,34], products [35], and ecological [18] Scarcity, as a pervasive phenomenon, plays an important role in guiding individuals' emotions and behavior. Mullainathan and Shafir (2013) indicate that scarcity increases cognitive load by focusing on the shortage of resources, but they did not compare the psychological consequences induced by different scarcity types [14]. ...
... Even though there is no actual scarcity, just activating the cognitions associated with losing money can stimulate consumers' desire to gain selfbenefit regardless of others [42]. These findings are consistent with previous study on time constraints [34] and food shortages [43]. ...
Green advertising has been shown to motivate consumers to engage in green consumption behavior. However, little is known about how resource scarcity affects the efficacy of explicit and implicit appeals in green advertising. To address it, the present research investigates the differential impacts of ecological resource scarcity (vs. abundant) and personal resource scarcity (vs. abundant) on consumers’ evaluations of explicit and implicit green advertising appeals. We proposed that the relationship between resource scarcity and green advertising appeals are mediated by consumers’ perception of green products’ effectiveness. We conducted two experimental designs to examine our hypothesis. The findings show that when consumers perceive ecological resource scarcity (vs. abundant), companies that emphasize the environmental attributes of green products (e.g., explicit appeals) are more effective in conveying green messages (study 1). Conversely, when consumers experience personal resource scarcity (vs. abundant), employing the approach of green understatement (e.g., implicit appeals) to highlight the performance advantages of green products would result in favorable consequences (study 2). Furthermore, this research reveals the critical role of perceived green products’ effectiveness in improving consumers’ attitude and purchase intention (studies 1 and 2). Resource scarcity will not always decrease consumers’ pro-environmental intention. Interestingly, ecological resource scarcity and personal resource scarcity lead to opposite preferences for green advertising appeals. These findings contribute to the literature on resource scarcity in the domain of green consumption, as well as having significant practical implications for advertisers and marketers in conveying effective information for green product promotion.
... School factors were reflected too in the study of different scholars. Zhu, et al. (2019) found that extended deadlines may produce negative effects and consequences on target goals. ...
... This affects the output of the task as they rush to meet the deadline. Zhu, et al. (2019) found that extended deadlines may produce negative effects and consequences on target goals. Though a long deadline provides flexibility and fewer restrictions the unintended difficulty perception arising from extended time sometimes sabotage goal pursuit which more likely to increase procrastination and worst is quitting. ...
Prospective elementary teachers face and encounter academic procrastination during the entire course of study. This study determined ways to mitigate procrastination among prospective elementary teachers of the selected Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) in the Philippines. The qualitative research design using thematic analysis analyzed the activities, reasons, and challenges in procrastination. Generated responses revealed that school-related activities and home responsibilities were the activities that they frequently procrastinate. External, internal/personal, school, and family factors are reasons that triggered them to procrastinate while school and behavior-related issues are the challenges they encountered. Task and behavior management are ways to mitigate the encountered procrastination.
... 3 Interestingly, further work by Zhu and colleagues demonstrated that having a longer timeline assigned to a project can sabotage the pursuit of a goal as people believe it is difficult. 4 Therefore the deadline assigned to a task, even artificially, can play an outsized role in completing the task, despite its relative importance. 4 It has been shown that a close deadline diverts attention to the urgent task away from the more important but less urgent task, especially for those individuals who are busy, pay attention to time, and are schedule driven. ...
... 4 Therefore the deadline assigned to a task, even artificially, can play an outsized role in completing the task, despite its relative importance. 4 It has been shown that a close deadline diverts attention to the urgent task away from the more important but less urgent task, especially for those individuals who are busy, pay attention to time, and are schedule driven. 3 Zhu and colleagues additionally hypothesize that task urgency may create discomfort for some individuals due to shifting attention to a deadline and completing the task resolves the negative feeling. 3 To overcome the urgency effect, one needs to focus not necessarily on a list of everything that needs to get done, but to prioritize the list so that important items are given the time and energy they will require to accomplish. ...
Faculty frequently have many tasks that need to be completed on a daily basis. It can be hard to prioritize them effectively, especially considering the relative urgency and importance of each. Decision matrices such as the Eisenhower Matrix and the Time Management Matrix can assist individuals in categorizing tasks to value what is truly career building versus a distraction. it is imperative for faculty to develop strategies to address common distractors, such as email, meetings, and requests from others. Identifying tasks which are truly urgent over those which appear to be urgent may help faculty increase their productivity and efficiency.
... Construal level theory (CLT) holds that compared with near-future events, distant-future events activate a higher, more abstract level of psychological representation (Trope and Liberman 2003). Consequently, disclosing a distant-future tourism goal may lead tourists to make a simpler, broader tourism plan (Liberman, Sagristano, and Trope 2002;Trope and Liberman 2003;Zhu, Bagchi, and Hock 2018). Relevant empirical studies have found that temporal distance causes changes in the level of goal commitment and further cause significant differences in goaldirected behaviors (Förster, Higgins, and Idson 1998;Heath, Larrick, and Wu 1999;Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng 2006;Zhu, Bagchi, and Hock 2018). ...
... Consequently, disclosing a distant-future tourism goal may lead tourists to make a simpler, broader tourism plan (Liberman, Sagristano, and Trope 2002;Trope and Liberman 2003;Zhu, Bagchi, and Hock 2018). Relevant empirical studies have found that temporal distance causes changes in the level of goal commitment and further cause significant differences in goaldirected behaviors (Förster, Higgins, and Idson 1998;Heath, Larrick, and Wu 1999;Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng 2006;Zhu, Bagchi, and Hock 2018). Although much research has studied the relationship between temporal distance and goaldirected behaviors, very few studies have explored the relationship between tourism goal disclosure and goal-directed behaviors under different temporal distances. ...
Through the lenses of construal-level theory and goal-directed behavior theory, this study proposed and tested a conceptual model of tourists’ goal-directed behaviors. The proposed model depicted the impacts of tourism goal disclosure on tourists’ goal-directed behaviors through the mediation of goal commitment. The moderating role of temporal distance was also investigated. Two experimental studies were conducted to test hypotheses. Study 1 revealed that goal disclosure (vs. nondisclosure) on social media would enhance tourists’ commitment to tourism goals, which in turn would elicit more goal-directed behaviors. Study 2 further showed that the findings of study 1 are only applicable to the condition of short temporal distance. However, when it comes to the condition of long temporal distance, there is no significant difference in goal commitment and goal-directed behaviors regardless if the goal is disclosed or not. The findings of this study provided valuable theoretical and managerial implications.
... Yet another demonstration concerns a recently discovered phenomenon called the mere-urgency effect (Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2018;Zhu, Yang, & Hsee, 2018). Here, participants chose between tasks with short or long deadlines. ...
... Nevertheless, the participants preferred the short-deadline tasks. Zhu, Bagchi, and Hock (2018) and Zhu, Yang, and Hsee (2018) suggested that participants preferred the shorter deadlines because those deadlines helped them avoid the need to monitor the passage of time. Keeping track of time is cognitively taxing (Grondin, 2008), as is the need to remember to do upcoming tasks (Einstein & McDaniel, 2005). ...
Putting things off as long as possible (procrastination) is a well-known tendency. Less well known is the tendency to attempt to get things done as soon as possible, even if that involves extra effort (precrastination). Since its discovery in 2014, precrastination has been demonstrated in humans and animals and has recently been revealed in an analogous tendency called the mere-urgency effect. Trying to get things done as soon as one can may reflect optimal foraging, but another less obvious factor may also contribute—reducing cognitive demands associated with having to remember what to do when. Individual differences may also play a role. Understanding precrastination will have important implications for explaining why hurrying happens as often as it does and may help reduce the chance that haste makes waste.
... The first is the desire to offload cognitive load (Rosenbaum et al., 2014;Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2018;Zhu, Yang, & Hsee, 2018). By completing a task early, individuals can reduce the stress on prospective memory, freeing up cognitive resources for future tasks. ...
This study examines the relationship between precrastination-a tendency to complete tasks early-and the time-moving perspective. Given the opposing nature of precrastination and procrastination, we hypothesize that precrastination correlates positively with a time-moving perspective, based on the finding that procrastination correlates with an ego-moving tendency. To test this, we conducted a survey with 366 participants (172 females aged 17 to 68), assessing their tendencies toward precrastination and their responses to the classic "ambiguous meeting question" (McGlone & Harding, 1998). Participants who selected "Monday" as the answer to the ambiguous time-related question displayed higher precrastination scores than those who chose "Friday," supporting the hypothesis. To address the potential subjectivity of self-reported data, we included an objective measurement by recording participants' arrival times for a scheduled test in a controlled setting involving 84 students (42 females aged 18 to 25). The results showed that participants who arrived early were more likely to choose "Monday" in a modified version of the "ambiguous meeting question," further validating our hypothesis. This study highlights the significant role of precrastination in shaping time perception.
... Resource scarcity is when one perceives or observes a discrepancy between one's existing resources and a more ideal reference [14]. Individuals frequently experience a shortage of resources in their daily lives [3,20], for instance, in terms of money [12,21], products [11,22,23], food [11,24,25], and time [2,19,26]. Recent literature showed that a generalized mindset can be activated by the perception of resource scarcity, which affects individual motivations, perceptions, and behavior [5,6,19,22]. ...
Prior studies revealed varying effects of resource scarcity on individuals’ general categorization tendency. However, little is known about when and why such differences occur. Based on the self-regulatory model of resource scarcity, we examine whether resource scarcity generates higher or lower general categorization tendency depending on the perceived mutability of the resource discrepancy. We conducted two online experiments to test the hypotheses. The results affirmed that when individuals consider the resource discrepancy to be mutable, they are more likely to seek abundance to compensate for resource scarcity, thus reducing their general categorization tendency. In contrast, perceiving the scarcity as immutable triggers the intention to restore a sense of control undermined by the scarcity, increasing individuals’ general categorization tendency. Our findings provide insights into the downstream consequences of resource scarcity and offer significant managerial implications for coping strategies.
... In contemporary research, particularly within North America-based studies, the significance of the concept of time in consumer behavior is extensively explored from various dimensions, including its association with factors such as happiness, conspicuous consumption, donation behavior, and scarcity (Aaker, Rudd, & Mogilner, 2011;Bellezza, Paharia, & Keinan, 2017;Langan & Kumar, 2019;May & Monga, 2014;Mogilner & Aaker, 2009;Monga, May & Bagchi, 2017;Monga & Saini, 2009;Wan, 2018;Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2019). ...
İlk olarak filozofların tanımlamaya çalıştığı zaman kavramı, Sanayi Devrimi ile modern insanın yaşamında en önemli kaynaklardan biri haline gelmiştir. Ekonomistlerin ve sosyologların öncülüğünde zaman kavramı akademik bir çalışma alanı olmuştur. Pazarlama akademisyenleri ise öncü çalışmalarda zaman kavramını teorik olarak ele almış ve pazarlama ve tüketici davranışları için önemini açıklamaya çalışmıştır. Daha sonraları, özellikle Kuzey Amerika merkezli pazarlama akademisi merkezli çalışmalarla tüketici davranışında ve pazarlama yönetiminde zamanın önemli bir faktör olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Bu çalışmada, bibliyometrik analiz ile Kuzey Amerika merkezli olan ve temelde zamanı inceleyen tüketici davranışı çalışmalarının genel bir çerçevesi çizilmiştir. Uluslararası çalışmaların büyük bir kısmında nesnel zaman deneysel tasarım kullanılarak ürün yaşam döngüsü, ürün benimseme, karar verme, bekleme süresi, tüketici memnuniyeti, zaman kısıtı ve bağış davranışı gibi çeşitli konu başlıkları altında incelenmiştir. Ulusal pazarlama literatüründe ise zamanın oldukça sınırlı bir şekilde ele alındığı tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca, çalışmada ulusal pazarlama literatüründeki zaman konulu çalışmaların içerikleri incelenerek gelecekte bu konuda araştırmacıların inceleyebileceği araştırma soru önerilerinde bulunulmuştur.
... In contemporary research, particularly within North America-based studies, the significance of the concept of time in consumer behavior is extensively explored from various dimensions, including its association with factors such as happiness, conspicuous consumption, donation behavior, and scarcity (Aaker, Rudd, & Mogilner, 2011;Bellezza, Paharia, & Keinan, 2017;Langan & Kumar, 2019;May & Monga, 2014;Mogilner & Aaker, 2009;Monga, May & Bagchi, 2017;Monga & Saini, 2009;Wan, 2018;Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2019). ...
İlk olarak filozofların tanımlamaya çalıştığı zaman kavramı, Sanayi Devrimi ile modern insanın yaşamında en önemli kaynaklardan biri haline gelmiştir. Ekonomistlerin ve sosyologların öncülüğünde zaman kavramı akademik bir çalışma alanı olmuştur. Pazarlama akademisyenleri ise öncü çalışmalarda zaman kavramını teorik olarak ele almış ve pazarlama ve tüketici davranışları için önemini açıklamaya çalışmıştır. Daha sonraları, özellikle Kuzey Amerika merkezli pazarlama akademisi merkezli çalışmalarla tüketici davranışında ve pazarlama yönetiminde zamanın önemli bir faktör olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Bu çalışmada, bibliyometrik analiz ile Kuzey Amerika merkezli olan ve temelde zamanı inceleyen tüketici davranışı çalışmalarının genel bir çerçevesi çizilmiştir. Uluslararası çalışmaların büyük bir kısmında nesnel zaman deneysel tasarım kullanılarak ürün yaşam döngüsü, ürün benimseme, karar verme, bekleme süresi, tüketici memnuniyeti, zaman kısıtı ve bağış davranışı gibi çeşitli konu başlıkları altında incelenmiştir. Ulusal pazarlama literatüründe ise zamanın oldukça sınırlı bir şekilde ele alındığı tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca, çalışmada ulusal pazarlama literatüründeki zaman konulu çalışmaların içerikleri incelenerek gelecekte bu konuda araştırmacıların inceleyebileceği araştırma soru önerilerinde bulunulmuştur.
... Yet deadlines do not always work as intended. For example, recent research indicates that longer deadlines can be more detrimental to goal pursuit than shorter deadlines [27]. ...
Many goals people have, like getting into shape or getting good grades on important exams, require small daily deferrable efforts, like exercising or studying. To help people sustain these efforts over time, behavioral research explored the use of interventions like planning, reminders, commitment devices, and incentives. In an exploratory study, we tested the effectiveness of these interventions in a real-life setting, practicing exam questions, using four versions of a study app (mRAPID) over 30 days. The basic app allowed users to plan their next study time and get reminders for it. The other versions added either a commitment device (a practice deadline), a contingent micro-incentive, or both. The results of N = 58 participants suggested micro-incentives had a positive effect whereas the commitment device had a negative effect of deadlines on daily practice. We discuss the implications of these findings to behavior design and the use of technology in behavior change, with a focus on designing for behavior over time.Keywordsbehavior changepersuasive technologyhabit formationincentivesdeadlinesremindersplanning
... These experiences are somewhat similar to a field experiment conducted by [47] on the effect of deadline length on task completion, where they found that their respondents procrastinated more on the task with the 1-month deadline. In addition, it was revealed in the study authored by [48] that tasks with long deadlines would most likely cause higher procrastination tendencies among students despite providing flexibility and more leeway in task completion. ...
... Other factors may instigate aversiveness strategies as well. Long deadlines may make the individual infer that the task at hand is difficult, which may prompt unnecessary delay (Zhu et al., 2019). Physical effort is itself inherently aversive (Eisenberger, 1992), and individuals are more likely to procrastinate on effort-demanding tasks (Milgram et al., 1988). ...
Academic procrastination – habitually delaying work with academic tasks to the extent that the delays become detrimental to performance, wellbeing, and health – represents a substantial personal, systemic, and societal problem. Still, efforts to prevent and reduce it are surprisingly scarce and often offered as treatment regimens rather than preventive efforts. Based on the principles of functional analysis and a broad examination of factors that are important for academic procrastinatory behaviors, this paper aims to describe a strategy for analyzing individual controlling conditions for procrastination and give parallel advice on how to change those controlling conditions. Both are ideographic, allowing for individual and dynamic analyses of factors responsible for instigating and maintaining procrastination, as well as tailor-made remedies that address controlling conditions in preventive and curative efforts to reduce procrastination. Although functional analysis integrates well with important research findings in the procrastination field, this approach suggests new criteria for identifying procrastinatory behaviors and an alternative model for analyzing their control conditions. We conclude that a functional approach may supplement procrastination research and efforts to prevent and alleviate this detrimental habit.
... Our hypothesis is in line with research on heuristics and biases, showing that people sometimes overgeneralize the use of reliable cues and sound judgment strategies to domains where they are no longer valid or useful (Arkes & Ayton, 1999;Haws et al., 2017;Hsee et al., 2019;Hsee et al., 2015;Peysakhovich & Rand, 2016;Zhu et al., 2019). This hypothesis also follows from research in different domains of psychology showing that people have difficulty in ignoring information -for instance, research on the perseverance effect (McFarland et al., 2007;Ross et al., 1975), repetition effects (Unkelbach et al., 2007;Weaver et al., 2007), and redundancy (Alves & Mata, 2019). ...
Expertise is a reliable cue for accuracy-experts are often correct in their judgments and opinions. However, the opposite is not necessarily the case-ignorant judges are not guaranteed to err. Specifically, in a question with a dichotomous response option, an ignorant responder has a 50% chance of being correct. In five studies, we show that people fail to understand this, and that they overgeneralize a sound heuristic (expertise signals accuracy) to cases where it does not apply (lack of expertise does not imply error). These studies show that people 1) tend to think that the responses of an ignorant person to dichotomous-response questions are more likely to be incorrect than correct, and 2) they tend to respond the opposite of what the ignorant person responded. This research also shows that this bias is at least partially intuitive in nature, as it manifests more clearly in quick gut responses than in slow careful responses. Still, it is not completely corrected upon careful deliberation. Implications are discussed for rationality and epistemic vigilance.
... The risk of procrastination may be reduced by more granular subgoals because subgoals yield more immediate consequences. Specifically, breaking an overarching goal into a series of more granular subgoals produces more frequent and immediate deadlines, and more frequent and immediate deadlines help combat procrastination (Ariely & Wertenbroch, 2002;Janakiraman & Ordóñez, 2012;Lieberman et al., 2021;Zhu et al., 2019). For example, Ariely and Wertenbroch (2002) found that participants who were assigned subgoals in the form of three intermediate deadlines for different proofreading tasks were more proficient at their work than participants who were simply assigned an overarching deadline for all assignments. ...
Research suggests that breaking overarching goals into more granular subgoals is beneficial for goal progress. However, making goals more granular often involves reducing the flexibility provided to complete them, and recent work shows that flexibility can also be beneficial for goal pursuit. We examine this trade-off between granularity and flexibility in subgoals in a preregistered, large-scale field experiment (N = 9,108) conducted over several months with volunteers at a national crisis counseling organization. A preregistered vignette pilot study (N = 900) suggests that the subgoal framing tested in the field could benefit goal seekers by bolstering their self-efficacy and goal commitment, and by discouraging procrastination. Our field experiment finds that reframing an overarching goal of 200 hr of volunteering into more granular subgoals (either 4 hr of volunteering every week or 8 hr every 2 weeks) increased hours volunteered by 8% over a 12-week period. Further, increasing subgoal flexibility by breaking an annual 200-hr volunteering goal into a subgoal of volunteering 8 hr every 2 weeks, rather than 4 hr every week, led to more durable benefits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... For example, studies have demonstrated that short term time scarcity due to deadlines influences goal pursuit (Zhu et al., 2019) and that space constraints in hypothetical shopping tasks influence consumption of vice products (Xu & Albarracin, 2016). Consumers facing chronic resource scarcity exhibit long-lasting differences in choice behaviour (Griskevicius et al., 2011). ...
Resource scarcity, manifested through limited time, money or space, is a prevalent aspect of family life. Drawing on depth interviews with 30 families from diverse demographic backgrounds, this study develops a framework to demonstrate how families respond to resource scarcity. Our research examines how multi-dimensional, concurrent and/or consecutive life events, such as job changes, house moves, or childbirth, create a mismatch between available and required resources to trigger situational resource scarcity. We identify different patterns of adjustments in consumption and resource investment over time, based on families' chronic resources and reliance on support networks. Notably, the greater flexibility afforded by multiple family members is constrained by collective goals, domains of control, tensions and negotiations.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-022-00882-7.
... This psychology of scope perception is consistent with recent research showing that longer (vs. shorter) imposed deadlines for achieving a goal might lead to inferences about greater goal difficulty (Zhu, Bagchi, Hock, & Diehl, 2018). ...
Time limits and deadlines are pervasive in organizational settings. Managers work under time limits themselves and also manage time limits for others. While the motivational effect of time limits on individual and group performance has been studied, little is known about how time limits shape people’s consequential decisions that involve reasoning about others’ behavior. We investigate the effect of time limits on managers’ choice of compensation schemes for hiring temporary workers in games with financial consequences. We find a biased preference among managers for flat fees over time-metered fees, particularly under longer time limits, resulting in lost earnings for managers. The sub-optimal choices occur because managers over-estimate task completion time, which in turn is driven by both beliefs about workers’ behavior and about the perceived scope of the task. The bias is accordingly eliminated only when both workers’ incentives are decoupled from time limits and managers are provided with information about the scope of work. The robust effect of longer time limits on preference for flat fees, even when the time limits are irrelevant and non-informative, is observed regardless of whether task quality is fixed or variable, and persists among actual managers.
... Other research, focusing on planning, has demonstrated that individuals tend to underestimate the necessary time it takes to complete tasks (the planning fallacy; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979;Kahneman and Lovallo, 1993) and to prefer longer deadlines when allowed to choose (Solomon and Rothblum, 1984). Recently, Zhu et al. (2019) demonstrated that long deadlines induce an inference of the focal task as more difficult, thereby making the student to allocate more time and resources to the task. However, the downside is that such elevated resource estimates may induce longer intention-action gaps (time before starting the task) and higher likelihood of quitting. ...
Procrastination is common among students, with prevalence estimates double or even triple those of the working population. This inflated prevalence indicates that the academic environment may appear as “procrastination friendly” to students. In the present paper, we identify social, cultural, organizational, and contextual factors that may foster or facilitate procrastination (such as large degree of freedom in the study situation, long deadlines, and temptations and distractions), document their research basis, and provide recommendations for changes in these factors to reduce and prevent procrastination. We argue that increased attention to such procrastination-friendly factors in academic environments is important and that relatively minor measures to reduce their detrimental effects may have substantial benefits for students, institutions, and society.
... Based on the accessibility literature Bone et al. (2017) showed that starting a feedback survey by asking consumers something about their positive purchase experience (open-ended positive solicitation) makes positive memories more accessible, and as a result consumers spend more money in their subsequent purchases from the company. Zhu, Bagchi and Hock (2018) showed that deadlines have an effect on the amount of both time and money consumers spent. Based on the inferences account they showed that, when the deadlines are longer, consumers perceive the goal more difficult and tend to spend more money and time resources for goal pursuit. ...
Different disciplines such as economics, sociology, philosophy, and psychology have examined the different dimensions of money construct from different perspectives. In this paper, our aim is to review, summarize and categorize the previous literature on money that has used a consumer behavior point of view. By this aim, we reviewed 213 articles found in four recognized marketing categorized the research found in these journals under six perspectives. These six perspectives on money research include 1) perceiving money, 2) managing and allocating money 3) spending money 4) giving money, 5) having money, 6) saving money. We investigated the related research under each perspective in detail and mentioned future research areas. This review could help researchers to see the gaps in the literature and direct their future research into these areas.
... Hamari, Hassan, and Dias (2018) emphasize the importance of projecting oneself into the end-goal situation as being one of the most powerful ways in which to achieve personal goals. Zhu et al. (2019) defines a goal "as a dream with a deadline." ...
... In their seminal paper introducing the availability, representativeness, and anchoring-and-adjustment heuristics, Tversky and Kahneman (1974) characterize these heuristics as generally useful, but sometimes conducive to serious errors, implying that people overovergeneralize their habit of using these heuristics from situations in which the heuristics are useful to situations in which they are counterproductive. Other researchers have also evoked the notion of overgeneralization to explain their findings (Amir & Ariely, 2007;Arkes & Ayton, 1999; Baron, 2000;Chinander & Schweitzer, 2003;Haws, Reczek, & Sample, 2017;Hsee, Tu, Lu, & Ruan, 2014;Hsee, Yang, & Ruan, 2015;Peysakhovich & Rand, 2015;Yang, Vosgerau, & Loewenstein, 2013;Yeung & Soman, 2007;Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2019). For example, Baron (2000) argues that people overgeneralize their belief that morality serves self-interest from situations in which the belief reflects reality to situations in which it does not. ...
People show systematic biases in judgment and decision making. We propose that many seemingly disparate biases reflect a common underlying mechanism—insensitivity to the relevance of some given information—and that manipulating the relevance of the information can eliminate or even reverse the original bias. We test our theory in four experiments, each focusing on a classic bias—the sunk cost fallacy, non-regressive prediction, anchoring bias, and base rate neglect, and show that people over-rely on a given piece of information when it is irrelevant, thus exhibiting one bias, and under-rely on the same piece of information when it is highly relevant, thus showing a reverse bias. For example, when a past cost is irrecoverable and hence irrelevant to future cost, people over-rely on it when making a decision for the future, thus exhibiting the classic sunk cost fallacy, but when the past cost is fully recoverable and hence highly relevant to future cost, people under-rely on it, thus showing the reverse of the sunk cost fallacy. We also find that when people are made sensitive to the relevance of the information, both the original biases and their reverse biases are attenuated. This research offers a new look at these “old” biases, suggesting that each individual bias is not general because it can be reversed, but collectively, these biases are general because they all reflect relevance insensitivity.
... This happens because allocating less time to activities forces people to find ways to be more efficient (Halkjelsvik, Jørgensen, & Teigen, 2011). Indeed, having more time does not necessarily facilitate goal pursuit and, by extension, performance (Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2019). Similarly, people can expand their time (Kirchmeyer, 1992;Marks, 1977) by engaging in activities that might benefit other activities. ...
... This happens because allocating less time to activities forces people to find ways to be more efficient (Halkjelsvik, Jørgensen, & Teigen, 2011). Indeed, having more time does not necessarily facilitate goal pursuit and, by extension, performance (Zhu, Bagchi, & Hock, 2019). Similarly, people can expand their time (Kirchmeyer, 1992;Marks, 1977) by engaging in activities that might benefit other activities. ...
Stroke is a highly time‐sensitive medical emergency, and earlier treatment is crucial. Drawing on Temporal Motivation Theory, we investigate a “deadline effect” in stroke care and analyze how two deadlines, that is, a medically oriented one (administering Tissue Plasminogen Activator, TPA, within 4.5 h of symptom onset) and a goal‐oriented one (the 60‐min in‐hospital target from Target : Stroke ), shape care consistency. We define a deadline effect as a variable task processing rate under time pressure from a pending task completion deadline, which can cause inconsistent care. Clinicians may work more slowly when patients arrive soon after symptom onset, given ample time remains before the 4.5‐h TPA window. Using an accelerated‐failure‐time model and addressing patient selection bias, we find that shorter onset‐to‐door times correlate with longer door‐to‐needle times, and vice versa, confirming the medically oriented deadline effect. As a result, care time may vary considerably based on how much of the TPA window remains. Under Target : Stroke , a goal‐driven national initiative in the United States to improve stroke care quality, stroke teams face an additional 60‐min in‐hospital deadline. Our findings show that the initiative prompts stroke teams to prioritize the tighter goal and maintain a more consistent care pace, regardless of patients' arrival times. Our mechanism analyses reveal two boundary conditions for the main findings: (i) when the downstream time segment ends with a mid‐point patient care milestone rather than the strict TPA administration deadline or (ii) when the system congestion level is high, the main findings do not hold, advancing the deadline effect literature from an operational standpoint. Furthermore, our major findings are robust to other confounding factors and model assumptions, ruling out alternative explanations. Notably, post hoc analyses confirm that Target : Stroke fosters consistent time performance without adversely affecting other health outcomes, advocating its efficacy. In sum, we highlight the operational implications of multiple deadlines in stroke care, extending the broader deadline effect literature. For hospital clinicians, properly set goals can stabilize care processes and strengthen overall performance, emphasizing the strategic value of well‐designed deadlines in time‐critical healthcare settings.
Individuals often have difficulties completing tasks in a timely manner. Whether it be scheduling a doctor's appointment, purchasing a birthday gift, or booking an airline ticket, waiting until the very last minute can carry serious consequences. In two experimental studies, we explore how individuals can be encouraged to finish tasks promptly. We provide evidence for the “fresh start effect” by showing that a temporal landmark signaling a new beginning helps speed up their task completion. Notably, we demonstrate that the “fresh start nudge” can facilitate early task completion through the underlying processes of meaningfulness and motivation. We also report the moderating role of task openness, supporting the claim that the fresh start effect is stronger when the task is perceived to be relatively closed (rather than open) and must therefore be completed in fewer steps without interruption.
In the last two years, consumers have experienced massive changes in consumption – whether due to shifts in habits; the changing information landscape; challenges to their identity, or new economic experiences of scarcity or abundance. What can we expect from these experiences? How are the world's leading thinkers applying both foundational knowledge and novel insights as we seek to understand consumer psychology in a constantly changing landscape? And how can informed readers both contribute to and evaluate our knowledge? This handbook offers a critical overview of both fundamental topics in consumer psychology and those that are of prominence in the contemporary marketplace, beginning with an examination of individual psychology and broadening to topics related to wider cultural and marketplace systems. The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology, 2nd edition, will act as a valuable guide for teachers and graduate and undergraduate students in psychology, marketing, management, economics, sociology, and anthropology.
We propose that externally induced time limits on a task overly affect predictions of other people’s completion times for that task, due to an over-generalized association between the time available and inferred task scope. We find higher estimates of the time needed to complete a given task by another person when the time limit is longer. While such predictions could be normative when time limits are informative, the effect persists even when the decision-maker knows that the limit is arbitrary and is unknown to the other person, and therefore, cannot affect behavior. Perception of task scope mediates the relationship between time limits and completion time estimates, and weakening the association between time limits and task scope attenuates the effect. The over-learned cognitive bias persists even among experienced decision-makers making estimates in a familiar setting. Our findings have implications for people who make decisions that use judgments of others’ task completion time as an input.
In judgment and choice, consumers show a variety of biases, from the sunk cost fallacy and projection bias to usage frequency neglect and erroneous price–quality inferences. This article explains these seemingly disparate biases and predicts new biases using an overarching framework based on the relevance insensitivity theory proposed by Hsee et al. (2019). According to the theory, many biases arise because people are insufficiently sensitive to the relevance (i.e., weight) of a cue variable to the target variable (the dependent variable). The direction of the bias depends on the normative relevance of the cue—people over‐rely on the cue when it is normatively irrelevant and under‐rely on the cue when it is normatively highly relevant. We show that ostensibly unique and universal biases are neither unique nor universal: All are manifestations of relevance insensitivity, and each bias attenuates or reverses as the cue variable's relevance changes.
Background
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have grown rapidly in popularity since becoming available worldwide in 2012. There are currently >30,000 MOOCs available from >900 universities. However, despite their global reach, MOOCs typically have low completion rates.
Objective
To evaluate reasons for non-completion among enrolees in the Understanding Multiple Sclerosis (MS) MOOC.
Methods
This was a mixed methods study evaluating quantitative and qualitative data collected in an online questionnaire administered to Understanding MS enrolees who did not complete the course. The quantitative data was evaluated using frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations. The qualitative data was assessed using textual analysis.
Results
We recruited 397 participants (4.5% of non-completers). Both the qualitative and quantitative data suggests that the primary reasons for non-completion were time constraints and/or limitations. Some of these were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. People with MS also cited MS-related symptoms as a reason for non-completion. Suggested changes to the course reflected these results and included extending the course open period and making it self-paced.
Conclusion
Although it was impossible to determine if study participants were representative of all non-completers due to selection bias, the results provide useful information for developing future MS educational resources. Accessibility, particularly addressing potential challenges related to MS symptoms and time constraints, should be a primary consideration when developing an educational resource for the MS community.
Very little is known about the compliance behavior of first-time taxpayers although their tax paying habits may affect the long-run functioning of a tax system. This paper studies the compliance behavior of new entrants to the tax system using data from a large-scale natural field experiment that was implemented in collaboration with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). We examine the effectiveness of a welcome letter from the tax authority that aims to nudge first-time taxpayers to lodge their first income tax return. We compare this letter to a standard letter that emphasizes the possibility of penalties and interest charges. We find that both letters have surprisingly similar effects on tax compliance, suggesting that the main channel through which the letters affect individual behavior is by providing information. By contrast, the type of messaging and the way in which information is presented to first-time taxpayers appear to be relatively unimportant. Our analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects indicates that both letters are most effective for young entrants to the tax system and, within this group, more effective for Australian citizens than for visa holders.
Though modern organization theory views organizational decision making from a very rational perspective, it is known that actual organizational decision-makings are often done through organized anarchy with “many autonomous actors operating with bounded rationality in an environment with ambiguous goals, an unclear link, between cause and effect, and fluid participation with the activities and subgroups of the organization”, which is well-described by so-called “the garbage can model.” In this study, we investigate how much the introduction of time constraints into the decision of garbage cans (opportunities) can improve the problems arised from organized anarchy. The analyses show that the introduction of time constraints can decrease the number of unsolved problems and also that the number of solved problems is maximized at some length of time constraints in specific organizational structures. These results as a whole indicate the mere introduciton of deadline may improve problems caused by organized anarchy.
Food waste can be observed in the entire food industry, and it negatively impacts the social, environmental and economic spheres. This study aims to identify the predictive factors for such behavior, specifically those relating the propensity to procrastinate, and the “food control” and “perceived effort” variables as mediators of food waste behavior. To this end, data were collected by way of an online survey, resulting in a consistent final sample of 279 respondents, with the hypotheses being analyzed by structural equation modeling. As the key results of this study, procrastination was not significant for explaining food waste behavior, while food control reduces perceived effort. This study has also clarified that greater, intuitive control is counterproductive. As for its contributions to management, the urgent need to use booklets and training to disseminate food control techniques and access to information on the shelf life of food products stands out.
KEYWORDS:
Procrastination; food control; perceived effort; food waste; consumer behavior
Food waste can be observed in the entire food industry, and it negatively impacts the social, environmental and economic spheres. This study aims to identify the predictive factors for such behavior, specifically those relating the propensity to procrastinate, and the “food
control” and “perceived effort” variables as mediators of food waste behavior. To this end, data were collected by way of an online survey, resulting in a consistent final sample of 279 respondents, with the hypotheses being analyzed by structural equation modeling. As the key results of this study, procrastination was not significant for explaining food waste behavior, while food control reduces perceived effort.
This study has also clarified that greater, intuitive control is counterproductive. As for its contributions to management, the urgent need to use booklets and training to disseminate food control techniques and access to information on the shelf life of food products stands out.
In both personal and professional spheres, consumers decide when to initiate action on important tasks. Often, for important yet seemingly less-pressing tasks (e.g., saving for retirement), action initiation begins too late. This research is based on the novel insight that for purportedly non-pressing tasks, increasing perceived task complexity acts as a signal of urgency and prompts action, especially for novices. Studies 1 and 2 use a retirement savings context to demonstrate that, for novice investors (millennials, new job-market entrants, individuals with low financial literacy) who perceive retirement saving as non-pressing, framing the task as complex (versus simple) signals urgency and increases likelihood of action. In two additional studies, we replicate these effects to nudge individuals to take immediate online action (pilot) and protect online security (study 3). We discuss implications for corporations, policy makers, and consumers.
To date lifelong learning has in turn taken on empowerment perspective for women in developing countries in view of the occurrence of adult illiteracy among women. Studies have shown that lifelong learning focused mostly on improving adult literacy across African regions (UNESCO, Literacy and education for sustainable development and women’s empowerment. UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Hamburg, 2014). Therefore, research conducted on lifelong learning beyond improved adult literacy has been limited. Recently UNESCO institute for lifelong leaning (2014) focuses on the central importance of improved literacy for women through lifelong learning. However, this study focuses on women who are literate, and in fact many of the women are in possession of at least a bachelor’s degree. The intention of this study was to use a broader conception of lifelong learning – one beyond the limitations of literacy. The aim of the study was to investigate how lifelong learning may facilitate the career advancement of women already on a career track. The study focused specifically on categories of working women in a communication setting in Nigeria which, thus, may possibly progress to the pinnacle of their careers through lifelong learning. Three senior Nigerian women managers with more than 10 years’ experience apiece were interviewed. The analysis of the interviews indicated a theme, namely, career choice.
While much of the prior research focused on the acquisition and accumulation aspect of technological resources, this study turns attention to a firm’s decision to divest its technological resources. It is important to continuously rearrange and reevaluate existing resources and make room for the additional acquisition through divestiture. This study mainly assumes technological resource divestitures as a proactive strategy rather than a result of upper level decision. This work expects that divestiture leads firms to enhance innovation performance. Suggesting newly coined concept, technological resource divestiture, this study examines the direct effect of resource divestiture on firms’ innovation in the technological domain. Moreover, this study scrutinizes the influence of the rhythm of divestiture and diversity of divesting technological dimension on innovation. It is conducted with data on patent expirations before the maximum granted duration and sell-offs in pharmaceutical industry provided by USPTO.
A particular point in time can be framed as either the start or end of a given time period. However, limited research is available on how such temporal landmarks influence consumers' judgments. This research addresses this issue by investigating how start vs. end temporal landmarks influence consumers' attentional focus and subsequent judgments. Six studies demonstrate that framing a temporal landmark as the start of a time period shifts visual attention to the left, while framing a temporal landmark as the end of a time period shifts visual attention to the right. By changing attentional focus within the visual-spatial environment, a temporal-spatial congruity between a temporal landmark (start vs. end) and the location of a target object (left vs. right) increases people's preference for that target object. Overall, these findings provide valuable implications for marketing theory and practice.
We study how to foster engagement in the energy sector, where signals about consumption are opaque and infrequent. We evaluate an energy company's large-scale communication campaign for promoting natural gas self-reading. Self-readings allow utilities to bill customers on the basis of real - as opposed to estimated - consumption. Exploiting variation in campaign messages, we test the impact of imposing a sense of urgency on customers through a deadline for submitting a meter reading. We find that messages that induce a sense of urgency are twice as effective than generic messages in encouraging self-readings, consistent with recent research on the urgency effect. The increased sense of urgency moves to action customers with both high and low levels of baseline engagement; the effect is stronger on the former.
People adopt comfortable postures for the end states of motor actions (end-state comfort; Rosenbaum & Jorgensen, 1992). The choice to end comfortably often elicits adoption of uncomfortable beginning states, demonstrating that a sequence of movement is planned in advance of movement onset. Many factors influence the choice of comfortable end-state postures including the greater precision and speed afforded by postures at joint angle mid-ranges (Short & Cauraugh, 1999). To date, there has been little evaluation of the hypothesis that postures are chosen based on minimizing the time spent in uncomfortable postures. The aim of this experiment was to examine how the relative time required to hold beginning and end-state postures influenced the choice of posture. Participants moved a two-toned wooden dowel from one location to another with the requirement to grasp the object and place a specified color down. Participants completed four conditions where no postures were held, only one posture was held, or both postures were held. We predicted more thumb-up postures for positions held longer regardless of whether these postures were at the end or beginning state. Results verified that the constraint of holding the initial posture led to decreased end-state comfort supporting the hypothesis that estimation of time spent in postures is an important constraint in planning. We also note marked individual differences in posture choices, particularly when the object was moved to the left.
Consumers often encounter reminders of resource scarcity. However, relatively little is known about the psychological processes that such reminders instantiate. In this article, we posit that reminders of resource scarcity activate a competitive orientation, which guides consumers' decision making towards advancing their own welfare. Further, we reveal that this tendency can manifest in behaviors that appear selfish, but also in behaviors that appear generous, in conditions where generosity allows for personal gains. The current research thus offers a more nuanced understanding of why resource scarcity may promote behaviors that appear either selfish or generous in different contexts, and provides one way to reconcile seemingly conflicting prior findings.
Prior research indicates that a stimulus can reinforce an action if the stimulus is a reward (i.e., a priori positive) or carries useful information. The current research finds that if a stimulus is perceived as a reaction to an action, it can reinforce the action even if the stimulus is a priori nonpositive and noninformative. Mere reactions are reinforcing. Specifically, eight experiments, including a field experiment, demonstrate that individuals are more likely to repeat an action (e.g., inserting money in a donation box or typing a message in a textbox) if the action is followed by a stimulus (e.g., the emission of a sound or the flash of an image) than if it is not, even if the stimulus is a priori negative (e.g., an annoying sound or an aversive image) and carries no useful information. Moreover, the effect just described will occur only if the stimulus is contingent on (immediately follows) the action and perceived as a reaction to the action. Finally, by serving as a reaction, an a priori nonpositive stimulus can become positive. The present work yields theoretical implications for stimulus–response relationships and practical implications for designs of consumer products and loyalty programs.
In general, consumers enjoy products less with repeated consumption. Unfortunately, there are few known ways to slow such satiation. The authors show that consumers satiate more slowly on a product when it is available for consumption only at limited times. Specifically, they find that perceived limited availability made a product more enjoyable, and yet this effect largely emerged only after repeated consumption. The authors attribute this finding to an urge to take advantage of a rare consumption opportunity, which leads people to pay less attention to the quantity consumed and subsequently to experience less satiation. A series of studies establish the effect of perceived limited availability on the rate of satiation, show that it influences how much people eat, provide mediation evidence of the proposed theoretical account, and eliminate the effect by making salient the total amount consumed. The authors conclude with implications of these findings.
It could be argued that success in life is a function of a consumer’s ability to get things done. The key step in getting things done is to get started. This research explores the effect of the categorization of time on task initiation. Specifically, we theorize that consumers use a variety of cues to categorize future points in time (events) into either events that are like the present event or those that are unlike the present event. When the deadline of a task is categorized in a like-the-present category, it triggers the default implemental mind-set and hence results in a greater likelihood of task initiation. A series of field and lab studies among farmers in India and undergraduate and MBA students in North America provided support to this theorizing. Our findings have implication for goal-striving strategy and choice architecture.
This research examines how individuals’ relationship with others sharing the pursuit of the same individual goal may change from the early to later stages of the pursuit. In one qualitative field study, one lab study, and a 7-day field experiment, consumers demonstrated a tendency to view others in shared pursuit as “friends” to seek support from and alleviate uncertainties during the early stage of the pursuit; however, once they reached the advanced stage and felt more certain about how to approach and complete the goal, this closeness significantly reduced. This shift in the relationship further influenced consumers’ interaction with others, such as the sharing of helpful tips and information. The findings provide insights into the autonomous information-sharing behaviors of consumers in shared goal pursuit and the key drivers behind the effectiveness of shared-pursuit programs (e.g., Weight Watchers, AA).
In juxtaposition to the common belief that marketing cues highlighting product effectiveness will generate positive influences on consumer demand, the authors argue that signaling effectiveness is a double-edged sword. While effectiveness cues may increase initial purchase, they can curb postpurchase consumption and potentially decrease longterm product sales. Four studies demonstrate that salient cues in advertising or packaging (e.g., pictures, brand names) can increase perceived product efficacy and lead to a lower usage amount on a single occasion. The authors show that the impact of effectiveness cues on product usage is driven by inference making and is moderated by cue salience and people's need for cognition. Furthermore, the authors find that promoting effectiveness with certain cues does not increase product choice yet reduces product usage. These results stress the importance of seeking salient cues that work to stimulate both choice and usage.
Consumers often make inferences to fill in gaps in knowledge when they do not have complete information regarding products. Eight experiments show that consumers often have contradictory naive theories about the implications of common market phenomena and that they draw different conclusions as a function of which naive theory is primed, even when available information is held constant. Results indicate that conflicting naive theories about pricing, sales promotion, product popularity versus scarcity, and technical language drive product evaluation. Consumers who have expertise in a given product category are less susceptible to the priming of a naive theory. This research contributes to more precise understanding of how consumers will respond to different levels of key marketing variables and how marketing tactics can backfire.
In juxtaposition to the common belief that marketing cues highlighting product
effectiveness will generate positive influences on consumer demand, we argue that signaling
effectiveness is a “double-edged” sword. While effectiveness cues may increase initial
purchase, they can curb post-purchase consumption, potentially decreasing long-term product
sales. Four studies demonstrate that salient cues in advertising or packaging (e.g., pictures
and brand names) can increase perceived product efficacy and lead to a lower usage amount
on a single occasion. The authors show that the impact of effectiveness cues on product usage
is driven by inference making and is moderated by cue salience and individuals’ need for
cognition. Further, the authors find that promoting effectiveness with certain cues does not
increase product choice yet reduces product usage. These results stress the importance of
seeking salient cues that work to stimulate both choice and usage.
It is common for authors discovering a significant interaction of a measured variable X with a manipulated variable Z to examine simple effects of Z at different levels of X. These “spotlight” tests are often misunderstood even in the simplest cases, and it appears that consumer researchers are unsure how to extend them to more complex designs. We explain the general principles of spotlight tests, show that they rely on familiar regression techniques, and provide a tutorial showing how to apply these tests across an array of experimental designs. Rather than following the common practice of reporting spotlight tests at one standard deviation above and below the mean of X, we recommend that when X has focal values, researchers report spotlight tests at those focal values. When X does not have focal values, we recommend researchers report ranges of significance using a version of Johnson and Neyman’s (1936) test we call a “floodlight”.
Drawing from recent developments in social cognition, cognitive psychology, and behavioral decision theory, we analyzed when and how the act of measuring beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors affects observed correlations among them. Belief, attitude, or intention can be created by measurement if the measured constructs do not already exist in long-term memory. The responses thus created can have directive effects on answers to other questions that follow in the survey. But even when counterparts to the beliefs, attitudes, and intentions measured already exist in memory, the structure of the survey researcher's questionnaire can affect observed correlations among them. The respondent may use retrieved answers to earlier survey questions as inputs to response generation to later questions. We present a simple theory predicting that an earlier response will be used as a basis for another, subsequent response if the former is accessible and if it is perceived to be more diagnostic than other accessible inputs. We outline the factors that determine both the perceived diagnosticity of a potential input, the likelihood that it will be retrieved, and the likelihood that some alternative (and potentially more diagnostic) inputs will be retrieved. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Tested 3 hypotheses concerning people's predictions of task completion times: (1) people underestimate their own but not others' completion times, (2) people focus on plan-based scenarios rather than on relevant past experiences while generating their predictions, and (3) people's attributions diminish the relevance of past experiences. Five studies were conducted with a total of 465 undergraduates. Results support each hypothesis. Ss' predictions of their completion times were too optimistic for a variety of academic and nonacademic tasks. Think-aloud procedures revealed that Ss focused primarily on future scenarios when predicting their completion times. The optimistic bias was eliminated for Ss instructed to connect relevant past experiences with their predictions. Ss attributed their past prediction failures to external, transient, and specific factors. Observer Ss overestimated others' completion times and made greater use of relevant past experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
One of the main themes that has emerged from behavioral decision research during the past 2 decades is the view that people's preferences are often constructed in the process of elicitation. This concept is derived in part from studies demonstrating that normatively equivalent methods of elicitation often give rise to systematically different responses. These "preference reversals" violate the principle of procedure invariance that is fundamental to theories of rational choice and raise difficult questions about the nature of human values. If different elicitation procedures produce different orderings of options, how can preferences be defined and in what sense do they exist? Describing and explaining such failures of invariance will require choice models of far greater complexity than the traditional models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Investigated the frequency of 342 college students' procrastination on academic tasks and the reasons for procrastination behavior. A high percentage of Ss reported problems with procrastination on several specific academic tasks. Self-reported procrastination was positively correlated with the number of self-paced quizzes Ss took late in the semester and with participation in an experimental session offered late in the semester. A factor analysis of the reasons for procrastination Ss listed in a procrastination assessment scale indicated that the factors Fear of Failure and Aversiveness of the Task accounted for most of the variance. A small but very homogeneous group of Ss endorsed items on the Fear of Failure factor that correlated significantly with self-report measures of depression, irrational cognitions, low self-esteem, delayed study behavior, anxiety, and lack of assertion. A larger and relatively heterogeneous group of Ss reported procrastinating as a result of aversiveness of the task. The Aversiveness of the Task factor correlated significantly with depression, irrational cognitions, low self-esteem, and delayed study behavior. Results indicate that procrastination is not solely a deficit in study habits or time management, but involves a complex interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and affective components. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The sunk cost effect is a maladaptive economic behavior that is manifested in a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made. The Concorde fallacy is another name for the sunk cost effect, except that the former term has been applied strictly to lower animals, whereas the latter has been applied solely to humans. The authors contend that there are no unambiguous instances of the Concorde fallacy in lower animals and also present evidence that young children, when placed in an economic situation akin to a sunk cost one, exhibit more normatively correct behavior than do adults. These findings pose an enigma: Why do adult humans commit an error contrary to the normative cost–benefit rules of choice, whereas children and phylogenetically humble organisms do not? The authors attempt to show that this paradoxical state of affairs is due to humans' overgeneralization of the "Don't waste" rule.
This research explores the impact of merely altering the name of a food on dieters’ and nondieters’ evaluations of the food’s healthfulness and taste, as well as consumption. Four studies demonstrate that when a food is identified by a relatively unhealthy name (e.g., pasta), dieters perceive the item to be less healthful and less tasty than do nondieters. When the identical food is assigned a relatively healthy name (e.g., salad), however, dieting tendency has no effect on product evaluations. This effect, which results in differences in actual food consumption, is explained by nondieters’ insensitivity to food cues as well as dieters’ reliance on cues indicating a lack of healthfulness and tendency to employ heuristic information processing when evaluating foods. These findings contribute to the body of literature that explores both individual and contextual factors that influence food evaluation and consumption.
Quantitative information can appear in different units (e.g., 7-year warranty = 84-month warranty). This article demonstrates that attribute differences appear larger on scales with a higher number of units; expressing quality information on such an expanded scale makes consumers switch to a higher-quality option. Testifying to its practical importance, expressing the energy content of snacks in kilojoules rather than kilocalories increases the choice of a healthy snack. The unit effect occurs because consumers focus on the number rather than the type of units in which information is expressed (numerosity effect). Therefore, reminding consumers of alternative units in which information can be expressed eliminates the unit effect. Finally, the unit effect moderates relative thinking: consumers are more sensitive to relative attribute differences when the attribute is expressed on expanded scales. The relation with anchoring and implications for temporal discounting and loyalty programs are discussed.
This paper shows that increases in the minimum wage rate can have ambiguous effects on the working hours and welfare of employed workers in competitive labor markets. The reason is that employers may not comply with the minimum wage legislation and instead pay a lower subminimum wage rate. If workers are risk neutral, we prove that working hours and welfare are invariant to the minimum wage rate. If workers are risk averse and imprudent (which is the empirically likely case), then working hours decrease with the minimum wage rate, while their welfare may increase.
Consumer decision making has been a focal interest in consumer research, and consideration of current marketplace trends ( e.g., technological change, an information explosion) indicates that this topic will continue to be critically important. We argue that consumer choice is inherently constructive. Due to limited processing capacity, consumers often do not have well-defined existing preferences, but construct them using a variety of strategies contingent on task demands. After describing constructive choice, consumer decision tasks, and decision strategies, we provide an integrative framework for understanding constructive choice, review evidence for constructive consumer choice in light of that framework, and identify knowledge gaps that suggest opportunities for additional research. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.
This study explores consumers' inference strategies in a mixed choice task involving memory,external information, and missing information on attribute values for some brands. Accessibility of relevant information was manipulated, and both instructed and uninstructed or natural inferences were studied. Instructed inference by low accessibility subjects confirmed more with prior overall evaluations of the brands, displaying evaluative consistency. Instructed inferences by high accessibility subjects tended to follow a correlational role linking missing information to other attribute information in memory, displaying probabilistic consistency. Choices conformed to inferences, and both are more variable when inferences were uninstructed. Copyright 1990 by the University of Chicago.
This article examines the dissimilar use of product information cues in product evaluations by differentially familiar subjects. Specifically, the use of price cues and intrinsic product cues for the assessment of product quality is hypothesized to depend on prior knowledge. For a product with a positive quality-price association in the marketplace, the study shows that low-familiar and highly familiar subjects tend to perceive a stronger price-quality relationship than do moderately familiar subjects. Moreover, as subjects product familiarity increases, the use of intrinsic cues for product quality assessments tends to become relatively stronger.
In six experiments we show that initial valuations of familiar products and simple hedonic experiences are strongly influenced
by arbitrary “anchors” (sometimes derived from a person's social security number). Because subsequent valuations are also
coherent with respect to salient differences in perceived quality or quantity of these products and experiences, the entire
pattern of valuations can easily create an illusion of order, as if it is being generated by stable underlying preferences.
The experiments show that this combination of coherent arbitrariness (1) cannot be interpreted as a rational response to information, (2) does not decrease as a result of experience with a good,
(3) is not necessarily reduced by market forces, and (4) is not unique to cash prices. The results imply that demand curves
estimated from market data need not reveal true consumer preferences, in any normatively significant sense of the term.
This research demonstrates that as people approach a goal, external representations, which increase the ease of visualizing the goal, enhance goal pursuit. Specifically, consumers judge easy-to-visualize goals to be closer than difficult-to-visualize goals, which in turn increases effort and commitment. Ease of visualization affects performance in swimming competitions and the physical effort exerted in the lab. Visualization also affects commitment toward savings, willingness to wait for service, and performance in a simulated sales task. Importantly, the beneficial effects of visualization exist only when people are close to the goal. In addition, the effect of visualization attenuates when the goal is split into subgoals. Managers can use these results to enhance consumer goal pursuit, influence consumer satisfaction in online service encounters, and motivate employees to improve performance. In these varied contexts, visual representations of goal progress (e.g., progress bars) enhance motivation as people approach their goal.
In everyday life, people are often faced with choices between tasks of varying levels of urgency and importance. How do people choose? Normatively speaking, people may choose to perform urgent tasks with short completion windows, instead of important tasks with larger outcomes, because important tasks are more difficult and further away from goal completion, urgent tasks involve more immediate and certain payoffs, or people want to finish the urgent tasks first and then work on important tasks later. The current research identifies a mere urgency effect, a tendency to pursue urgency over importance even when these normative reasons are controlled for. Specifically, results from five experiments demonstrate that people are more likely to perform unimportant tasks (i.e., tasks with objectively lower payoffs) over important tasks (i.e., tasks with objectively better payoffs), when the unimportant tasks are characterized merely by spurious urgency (e.g., an illusion of expiration). The mere urgency effect documented in this research violates the basic normative principle of dominance—choosing objectively worse options over objectively better options. People behave as if pursuing an urgent task has its own appeal, independent of its objective consequence.
Academics have shown a growing interest in the effects of resource scarcity—a discrepancy between one's current resource levels and a higher, more desirable reference point. However, the existing literature lacks an overarching theory to explain the breadth of findings across different types of resources. To address this, we introduce a self-regulatory model of resource scarcity. In it, we propose that consumers respond to resource scarcity through two distinct psychological pathways: a scarcity-reduction route aimed at reducing the discrepancy in resources and a control-restoration route aimed at reestablishing diminished personal control by attaining security in other domains. We explain how a key determinant of which route the consumer will pursue is the perceived mutability of the resource discrepancy. We also specify moderators, based on our proposed model, to identify when each of the two routes is pursued. This model is assessed in the context of alternative theoretical perspectives, including commodity theory, life history theory, and models of compensatory behavior. Finally, we provide a research agenda for those interested in studying the psychology of resource scarcity from a self-regulatory perspective. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Marketing strategies are often tied to how consumers spend time (e.g., waiting in lines, searching across stores) in return for money (e.g., receiving a discount). Viewing such time-money tradeoffs in terms of a reservation wage rate for consumers, we identify a wage-rate asymmetry between two elicitation procedures: (a) Money-Elicit (MEL): state the minimum amount of money, M, that you would accept in return for spending a given number of hours, T; and (b) Time-Elicit (TEL): state the maximum number of hours, T, that you would spend in return for accepting a given amount of money, M. While these procedures are normatively equivalent, we propose that TEL (vs. MEL) wage rates are higher because time scarcity receives a higher weight in TEL judgments. In eight studies including both hypothetical and real settings, we document the wage-rate asymmetry, the time scarcity process, and a downstream consequence of TEL (vs. MEL) reducing the likelihood of accepting a time-money tradeoff. We discuss the implications for practice, and for research on wage rates, time versus money, procedural invariance, and scarcity.
Marketers frequently use scarcity promotions, where a product or event is limited in availability. The present research shows conditions under which the mere exposure to such advertising can activate actual aggression that manifests even outside the domain of the good being promoted. Further, we document the process underlying this effect: exposure to limited-quantity promotion advertising prompts consumers to perceive other shoppers as competitive threats to obtaining a desired product and physiologically prepares consumers to aggress. Seven studies using multiple behavioral measures of aggression demonstrate this deleterious response to scarcity promotions.
This research examines how a general sense of resource availability influences consumers’ product use creativity. The authors propose and demonstrate that the salience of resource scarcity versus abundance enhances the novelty of product use solutions in independent consumption environments. An investigation of the underlying process finds that scarcity salience activates a constraint mindset which persists and manifests itself through reduced functional fixedness in subsequent product usage contexts (i.e., makes consumers think beyond the traditional functionality of a given product), consequently enhancing product use creativity. This work advances the extant creativity literature, which is currently limited to examining the effects of context-specific resource constraints, by establishing a context-independent linkage between resource availability and product use creativity. Furthermore, this research contributes to the scarcity literature, which has primarily focused on investigating the quantity and frequency of consumption, by examining the impact of scarcity on the quality of consumption solutions.
Consumer choices concerning the selection, consumption, and disposal of products and services can often be difficult and are important to the consumer, to marketers, and to policy makers. As a result, the study of consumer decision processes has been a focal interest in consumer behavior for over 30 years (e.g., Bettman, 1979; Hansen, 1972; Howard & Sheth, 1969; Nicosia, 1966). One can infer from recent trends in the nature and structure of the marketplace that the importance of understanding consumer decision making is likely to continue. Rapid technological change, for instance, has led to multitudes of new products and decreased product lifetimes. In addition, new communications media, such as the World Wide Web, have made enormous amounts of information on options potentially available (Alba et al., 1997). Further, consumers are often asked to make difficult value tradeoffs, such as price versus safety in purchasing an automobile, environmental protection versus convenience in a variety of goods, and quality of life versus longevity in complex health care decisions.
How do consumers cope with the decisions they must make, some of which involve difficult tradeoffs and uncertainties? One approach to studying consumer decisions has been to assume a rational decision maker with well-defined preferences that do not depend on particular descriptions of the options or on the specific methods used to elicit those preferences. Each option in a choice set is assumed to have a utility, or subjective value, that depends only on the option.
Drawing from recent developments in social cognition, cognitive psychology, and behavioral decision theory, we analyzed when and how the act of measuring beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors affects observed correlations among them. Belief, attitude, or intention can be created by measurement if the measured constructs do not already exist in long-term memory. The responses thus created can have directive effects on answers to other questions that follow in the survey. But even when counterparts to the beliefs, attitudes, and intentions measured already exist in memory, the structure of the survey researcher's questionnaire can affect observed correlations among them. The respondent may use retrieved answers to earlier survey questions as inputs to response generation to later questions. We present a simple theory predicting that an earlier response will be used as a basis for another, subsequent response if the former is accessible and if it is perceived to be more diagnostic than other accessible inputs. We outline the factors that determine both the perceived diagnosticity of a potential input, the likelihood that it will be retrieved, and the likelihood that some alternative (and potentially more diagnostic) inputs will be retrieved. This article examines the effects of measurement operations on revealed correlations among survey measures of belief, attitude, intention, and behavior. The potential reactivity of measurement has long been of concern in psychology. Methodologists (e.g., Campbell & Stanley, 1966; Cook & Campbell, 1979; Runkel & McGrath, 1972) warn of measurement-induced distortions relating to social desirability, evaluation apprehension, and sensitization to experimental treatments. Although it is true that the problem of reactivity of measurement affects work in both the social and physical sciences, in the physical sciences, measurement effects are expressed in terms of substantive theory. For instance, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle links basic
This research examines how the salience of scarcity influences choices of individual items from a product class. The authors propose that overall perception of scarcity versus overall perception of abundance increases choice share of the most-preferred item from a product class. They argue that this phenomenon occurs because scarcity induces arousal and the heightened arousal polarizes the evaluations of individual items contained in the choice set. The results from five experiments show that scarcity versus abundance broadens the discrepancy between the liking of the favorite and nonfavorite items and leads to a greater choice share of the favorite item. The findings provide support for the arousal-based explanation, showing that the effect of scarcity salience on choices is mediated by consumers' reported arousal level and moderated by an experimentally induced arousal state.
To study productive thinking where it is most conspicuous in great achievements is certainly a temptation, and without a doubt, important information about the genesis of productive thought could be found in biographical material. A problem arises when a living creature has a goal but does not know how this goal is to be reached. Whenever one cannot go from the given situation to the desired situation simply by action, then there has to be recourse to thinking. The subjects ( S s), who were mostly students of universities or of colleges, were given various thinking problems, with the request that they think aloud. This instruction, "Think aloud", is not identical with the instruction to introspect which has been common in experiments on thought-processes. While the introspecter makes himself as thinking the object of his attention, the subject who is thinking aloud remains immediately directed to the problem, so to speak allowing his activity to become verbal. It is the shift of function of the components of a complex mathematical pattern—a shift which must so often occur if a certain structure is to be recognized in a given pattern—it is this restructuration, more precisely: this transformation of function within a system, which causes more or less difficulty for thinking, as one individual or another tries to find a mathematical proof.
This research demonstrates that as people approach a goal, external representations, which increase the ease of visualizing the goal, enhance goal pursuit. Specifically, consumers judge easy-to-visualize goals to be closer than difficult-to-visualize goals, which in turn increases effort and commitment. Ease of visualization affects performance in swimming competitions and the physical effort exerted in the lab. Visualization also affects commitment toward savings, willingness to wait for service, and performance in a simulated sales task. Importantly, the beneficial effects of visualization exist only when people are close to the goal. In addition, the effect of visualization attenuates when the goal is split into subgoals. Managers can use these results to enhance consumer goal pursuit, influence consumer satisfaction in online service encounters, and motivate employees to improve performance. In these varied contexts, visual representations of goal progress (e.g., progress bars) enhance motivation as people approach their goal.
Everyday decisions present consumers with several trade-offs. In turn, these trade-offs can influence the decision outcome. The authors show that the level at which people construe a choice can affect trade-off making, such that a high construal of a choice decreases comparative trade-offs relative to a low construal. They use six studies to illustrate the idea in three important trade-off-relevant context effects. The results show that a high (versus a low) construal decreases the compromise and background-contrast effects and increases the attraction effect by reducing attribute-level trade-offs.
Loyalty programs offer rewards via mediums of different magnitudes (e.g., “$6 off when you accumulate 1,000 [100] points. Earn 10 [1] points/dollar”). The program medium presents two key pieces of information: reward distance (points required to redeem reward) and step size (points earned per dollar). In higher-magnitude (vs. lower-magnitude) programs, both reward distances (1,000 vs. 100) and step sizes (10 vs. 1 point[s]/dollar) are larger. How do these two pieces of information affect consumers' postenrollment inferences of progress, store loyalty, and recommendation likelihood? Do consumers always integrate both pieces? We identify a moderator, step-size ambiguity, and show that when ambiguity is high, only reward distance affects inferences. When ambiguity is lower, consumers integrate step size with reward distance, but in a biased manner. Implications arise in goal following and in physical and psychological distance estimation contexts (e.g., weight loss, savings) where distances and step sizes can vary (e.g., as a function of units: kilograms vs. pounds), but especially in loyalty rewards contexts.
Two experiments were designed to test the effects of different time limits on time taken to complete a task (Parkinson's law) and to determine whether goal-setting mediated the effects of time limits on performance rate. It was hypothesized that the different time limits would produce differences in performance rate only if and to the degree that different goals were set by Ss in the different conditions. Two groups were run in each experiment. On the first three trials, the Excess-time Ss were given twice as much time as was needed to complete an addition task, and the Minimum-time Ss were given just enough time to finish it. On the fourth trial, the Ss in both groups were allowed to work at their own pace, and on the fifth trial the Ss in both groups were asked to work as fast as their estimated “fastest possible” time. Both groups in both experiments performed in accordance with Parkinson's Law on trials 1 to 3 (the Excess Ss taking longer to complete the task), and the hypothesis that goal setting mediated the Parkinson effect was supported. It was also found, however, that the same goal could mean different things in different contexts. For instance, the Ss in the Excess group who were trying to work “quickly but not as fast as possible” on trials 1 to 3 worked at a significantly slower pace on these trials than the Minimum Ss who said they were working for the same goal during this period. Although the Parkinson effect did not extend to trials 4 and 5, goals were related to performance within groups on these trials.
The authors demonstrate that partitioning an aggregate quantity of a resource (e.g., food or money) into smaller units reduces the consumed quantity or the rate of consumption of that resource. Partitions draw attention to the consumption decision by introducing a small transaction cost; i.e., they provide more decision making opportunities so that prudent consumers are able to control consumption. Thus, individuals are better able to constrain consumption when resources associated with a desirable activity (which individuals are trying to control) are partitioned rather than when they are aggregated. This effect of partitioning is demonstrated for consumption of chocolates (study 1) and gambles (study 2). In study 3 process measures reveal that partitioning increases recall accuracy and decision times. Importantly, the effect of partitioning diminishes when consumers are not trying to regulate consumption (studies 1 and 3). Finally, study 4 explores how habituation may decrease the amount of attention that partitions draw to consumption. In this context, partitions control consumption to a greater extent when the nature of partitions changes frequently.
Quantitative changes may be conveyed to consumers using small units (e.g., change in delivery time from 7 to 21 days) or large units (1–3 weeks). Numerosity research suggests that changes are magnified by small (vs. large) units because a change from 7 to 21 (vs. 1–3) seems larger. We introduce a reverse effect that we term unitosity: changes are magnified by large (vs. small) units because a change of weeks (vs. days) seems larger. We show that numerosity reverses to unitosity when relative salience shifts from numbers to units (study 1). Then, arguing that numbers (units) represent a low-level (high-level) construal of quantities, we show this reversal when mind-set shifts from concrete to (studies 2–4). These results emerge for several quantities——height of buildings, time of maturity of financial instruments, weight of nutrients, and length of tables——and have significant implications for theory and practice.
Do people's perceptions that they live in a harsh environment influence their food choices? Drawing on life-history theory, we propose that cues indicating that the current environment is harsh (e.g., news about an economic crisis, the sight of people facing adversity in life) lead people to perceive that resources in the world are scarce. As a consequence, people seek and consume more filling and high-calorie foods, which they believe will sustain them for longer periods of time. Although perceptions of harshness can promote unhealthy eating, we show how this effect can be attenuated and redirected to promote healthier food choices.
The study explores the relationship between people's self-report of the use of time management practices and estimates of task duration. The hypothesis is that those who are good time managers will be good at estimating how long a future task will take (expected); how long a previously executed task has taken (retrospective); and how long a task is taking while in process (prospective). In the expected setting results indicate that those who perceive themselves as good time managers are most accurate at estimating the duration of a future task. Of those who do not perceive themselves as good time managers, some grossly overestimate and many underestimate to quite a considerable extent. The latter finding thus provides support for the ‘planning fallacy’ (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). In the prospective setting results indicate those who perceive themselves as good time managers tend to underestimate time passing. It is suggested that this is a motivational strategy designed to enhance a sense of control over time. Findings are discussed in relation to existing theories of time estimation.
Because products are rarely described completely, consumers often form inferences that go beyond the information given.We review research on the processes, bases, and the judgment contexts in which inferences are formed. The most basic processes are induction (inferences from specific instances to general principles) versus deduction (inferences from general principles to specific instances). Stimulus-based inferences are formed on-line (as information is encountered) using situationally available information, whereas memory-based (or theory-based) inferences are formed using prior knowledge and experience. Inferences can pertain to a single product judged in isolation (a singular judgment context) or to multiple products considered in relation to one another (a comparative judgment context). this2×2×2(Induction vs. Deduction × Stimulus-Based vs. memory-Based × Singular vs. Comparative Judgment) theoretical framework suggests that there are 8 different types of inferences that consumers may form. Based on this framework, we identify gaps in the literature and suggest directions for future research.
Decision makers have a strong tendency to consider problems as unique. They isolate the current choice from future opportunities and neglect the statistics of the past in evaluating current plans. Overly cautious attitudes to risk result from a failure to appreciate the effects of statistical aggregation in mitigating relative risk. Overly optimistic forecasts result from the adoption of an inside view of the problem, which anchors predictions on plans and scenarios. The conflicting biases are documented in psychological research. Possible implications for decision making in organizations are examined.
Four studies examined the prediction of construal level theory that the more distant future events would be construed in higher-level, more abstract, and simple terms. Objects were categorized into broader categories when they pertained to distant future situations than to near future situations (Study 1). Positive and negative experiences in the more distant future were expected to be more prototypical—less variable and more extreme (Study 2). More distant future coping experiences were expected to be less variable (Study 3). Preferences for events and activities that were expected in the distant future were organized around simpler structures than preferences for the same events when they were expected in the near future (Study 4). These results support the principle of temporal construal, according to which the more distant future is represented in a more schematic, abstract, and coherent way.
This article investigates how temporal distance influences consumers' self-control. We demonstrate that self-control is dependent on the content of currently active information in decisions for the future. When indulgence information is currently active, decisions for the future tend to be oriented toward self-control. When self-control information is currently active, decisions for the future tend to be oriented toward indulgence. In four experiments investigating two self-control domains (healthy eating and saving money), we find evidence for an information activation/inhibition account of the influence of temporal distance on self-control decisions. (c) 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
Traditional explorations of inference making have examined consumers' reactions to product descriptions that lack information about salient attributes. Such studies frequently report systematically lower evaluations of incompletely described alternatives along with a generally low incidence of unprompted attribute-to-attribute inference. We argue that the nature and likelihood of an inference are dependent on the cues available at the time of decision making, and that some cues may exert a disproportionate influence on inference behavior. In several experiments in which subjects were presented with competing cues that implied different values of a missing attribute, we show that intuitive beliefs about the relationships between attributes are perceived as a particularly reliable basis for interattribute inference. Strong beliefs appear capable of superseding other compelling cues and may induce consumers to generate inferences spontaneously. Copyright 1994 by the University of Chicago.
Recent models of procrastination due to self-control problems assume that a procrastinator considers just one option and is unaware of her self-control problems. We develop a model where a person chooses from a menu of options and is partially aware of her self-control problems. This menu model replicates earlier results and generates new ones. A person might forgo completing an attractive option because she plans to complete a more attractive but never-to-be-completed option. Hence, providing a nonprocrastinator additional options can induce procrastination, and a person may procrastinate worse pursuing important goals than unimportant ones. © 2000 the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The literature overwhelmingly demonstrates that feelings of ease are good and that objects that are easy to process are much liked. We propose, and demonstrate across three experiments, that this is not the case when people are pursuing a goal. This is because people pursuing a goal (e.g., "become kinder") usually invest efforts in whichever means (e.g., donate to a particular charity) they perceive as most instrumental for attaining their goal. Consequently, in their minds there is a correspondence between instrumentality of a means and feelings of effort. This correspondence becomes reversed in people's minds during goal pursuit, and they also come to view an object that is associated with feelings of effort rather than ease as more instrumental for goal attainment and consequently more desirable. When an object is not a means to fulfill an accessible goal, or when goals relating to the means are not accessible, subjective feelings of ease improve evaluation, as found in previous research on ease of processing.