Explore the vast range of titles available.

We propose that consumers purchase brands in part to construct their self‐concepts and, in so doing, form self‐brand connections. We focus on reference groups as a source of brand meaning. Results from two studies show that brands with images consistent with an ingroup enhance self‐brand connections for all consumers, whereas brands with images that are consistent with an outgroup have a stronger negative effect on independent versus interdependent consumers. We propose that this differential effect is due to stronger self‐differentiation goals for consumers with more independent self‐concepts. We also find greater effects for more symbolic than for less symbolic brands.

Does the way that individuals pay for a good or service influence the amount of connection they feel after the purchase has occurred? Employing a multi-method approach across four studies, individuals who pay using a relatively more painful form of payment (e.g., cash or check) increase their post-transaction connection to the product they purchased and/or the organization their purchase supports in comparison to those who pay with less painful forms of payment (e.g., debit or credit card). Specifically, individuals who pay with more painful forms of payment increase their emotional attachment to a product, decrease their commitment to nonchosen alternatives, are more likely to publicly signal their commitment to an organization, and are more likely to make a repeat transaction. Moreover, the form of payment influences post-transaction connection even when the objective monetary cost remains constant and when the psychological cost is indirect (i.e., donating someone else’s money). Increasing the psychological pain of payment appears to have beneficial consequences with respect to increasing downstream product and brand connection.

Consumers often make decisions about outcomes and events that occur over time. This research examines consumers' sensitivity to the prospective duration relevant to their decisions and the implications of such sensitivity for intertemporal trade-offs, especially the degree of present bias (i.e., hyperbolic discounting). The authors show that participants' subjective perceptions of prospective duration are not sufficiently sensitive to changes in objective duration and are nonlinear and concave in objective time, consistent with psychophysical principles. More important, this lack of sensitivity can explain hyperbolic discounting. The results replicate standard hyperbolic discounting effects with respect to objective time but show a relatively constant rate of discounting with respect to subjective time perceptions. The results are replicated between subjects (Experiment 1) and within subjects (Experiments 2), with multiple time horizons and multiple descriptors, and with different measurement orders. Furthermore, the authors show that when duration is primed, subjective time perception is altered (Experiment 4) and hyperbolic discounting is reduced (Experiment 3).

The extent to which a possession is linked to self is a critical determinant of whether a possession elicits grief if lost. We propose a framework for understanding the formation of the possession–self link, arguing that a possession's ability to represent the important domains on which a person bases her self-worth affects the possession–self link. We also show that dispositional tendencies to incorporate possessions into the self moderate this relationship, while the monetary value of the possession does not affect the strength of the possession–self link.

We propose that consumers appropriate brand symbolism that comes from celebrity endorsements to construct and communicate their self-concepts. We also argue that consumers with high need to belong (NTB) look to celebrities to a greater extent than those who have lower needs to belong, because high-NTB consumers are more likely to look to celebrities for cues about which brands may aid these consumers’ attempts to meet their affiliation needs. High-NTB consumers are also prone to develop one-sided (parasocial) relationships with celebrities, and these parasocial relationships mediate the celebrity endorsement effect on self–brand connections. Three studies support these proposed relationships. Furthermore, the third study also manipulates the degree to which the celebrity’s image matches that of the brand being advertised, revealing that a symbolic match between the celebrity image and brand image is important for consumers who do not form parasocial relationships with celebrities (i.e., low-NTB consumers).

We examine how making mortality salient affects consumer choices. We develop a new theoretical framework predicting when consumer behaviors will be more (less) indulgent when mortality is salient, arguing that individuals focus more of their limited self‐regulatory resources on domains that are important sources of self‐esteem and less on domains that are not important sources. In two domains, food choice and charitable donations/socially conscious consumer behaviors, high mortality salience led to less indulgent choices among participants for whom that domain was an important source of esteem and more indulgent choices for participants for whom the domain was not an important esteem source.

In the course of daily encounters with other consumers, an individual may be incidentally exposed to various brands. We refer to these situations as incidental consumer brand encounters (ICBEs). This research examines how ICBEs influence brand choice. Four studies provide evidence that repeated exposure to simulated ICBEs increases choice of the focal brand for people not aware of the brand exposure, that perceptual fluency underlies these effects, and that these effects are moderated by perceivers’ automatic responses to the type of user observed with the brand.

This article investigates the effect of mimicry on consumer product consumption and appraisal. We propose and test two paths via which mimicry may influence product preferences. In the mimicking consumer path, we suggest that individuals automatically mimic the consumption behaviors of other people and that such mimicry then affects preferences toward the product(s) consumed. In the mimicked consumer path, we argue that being mimicked leads to increased prosociality, which affects preferences for products presented in dyadic interactions. Three studies confirm the two paths and suggest that mimicry can indeed influence product preferences.

Marketers often employ a variety of positive emotions to encourage consumption or promote a particular behavior (e.g., buying, donating, recycling) to benefit an organization or cause. The authors show that specific positive emotions do not universally increase prosocial behavior but, rather, encourage different types of prosocial behavior. Four studies show that whereas positive emotions (i.e., love, hope, pride, and compassion) all induce prosocial behavior toward close entities (relative to a neutral emotional state), only love induces prosocial behavior toward distant others and international organizations. Love's effect is driven by a distinct form of broadening, characterized by extending feelings of social connection and the boundary of caring to be more inclusive of others regardless of relatedness. Love—as a trait and a momentary emotion—is unique among positive emotions in fostering connectedness that other positive emotions (hope and pride) do not and broadening behavior in a way that other connected emotions (compassion) do not. This research contributes to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion by demonstrating a distinct type of broadening for love and adds an important qualification to the general finding that positive emotions uniformly encourage prosocial behavior.

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.