Summaries per article with Consumer and economic psychology at University of Groningen 20/21

Summaries per article with Consumer and economic psychology at University of Groningen 20/21

Image

Check summaries and supporting content in full:
Testing a social-cognitive model of moral behavior: The interactive influence of situations and moral identity centrality - Aquino et al - 2009 - Article

Testing a social-cognitive model of moral behavior: The interactive influence of situations and moral identity centrality - Aquino et al - 2009 - Article

Our world has known many barbaric and sadistic people. People tried to explain this by accepting that some people are moral and others immoral. This, however, does not capture the full nature of human beings. Every person can violate standards that he or she holds dear and a horrible person can sometimes show kindness. It all depends on the situation we are in. Situations influence behaviour and they can also have an effect on moral conduct. One study showed that people were less likely to help a person in need when there was a time pressure (hurry up!). But characteristics also matter. Research has found that people with internalized altruistic values, a sense of social responsibility and empathic concerns are also more moral. The writers of this article propose that situational factors and a stable individual characteristic together influence moral behaviour. This stable individual characteristic is called the centrality of moral identity. Moral behaviour is the demonstration of actions that are socially oriented and to the needs and interests of others.

This article will look at how situational factors interact with individual characteristics to influence moral behaviour. This article looks at the social-cognitive theory of Bandura. According to this model moral-identity is a powerful choice of moral motivation because people desire to maintain self-consistency. So when you have moral characteristics and traits you will behave in a moral manner to maintain self-consistency. Also, this model suggests that certain facets of identity are not always that accessible in certain situations. This means that situational factors may activate a person’s moral identity or activate other facets of identity and make the moral identity more or less accessible.

Determinants of moral behaviour include moral reasoning, moral maturity, moral personality and moral commitment. None of these, however, is fully capable of predicting of situational variability in moral behaviour. Some researchers think that we have to look at the social-cognitive theory to predict variability in moral behaviour. Our life experiences create our knowledge structures and because of this individuals differ in their self-conception. When moral identity occupies a greater centrality within the self-concept of a person, the moral identity should be activated more strongly and frequently for this person. The writers of this article think that the greater the centrality of moral identity, the higher its activation potential and the stronger it affects moral behaviour. People also have different identities and play different roles. One person can be a parent, friend and teacher. Which identity somebody takes on at a certain moment depends on how accessible a certain identity is in a given situation. So when you find yourself in a certain situation in which the moral identity is very much accessible, you will probably take this moral identity on. Also, the writers of this article thing that it may depend on your goals which identity will be activated. When your goal is to affiliate or to form a community you will be more likely to activate the moral identity.

Experiment 1

In the first experiment, the researchers wanted to see how a moral prime and the centrality of moral identity influence moral behaviour. Participants first did a survey about the centrality of moral identity and demographic items. The next day, they went to a lab for the experiment. One half of the participants was in the control condition and the other half in the moral prime condition. They were told that they were going to be asked about their general knowledge and personal opinions about things and then had to make a series of decisions. So first they had to do the general knowledge task, then a measure of accessibility of moral identity in their self-concept, afterwards a measure of intention to enact a moral behaviour and demographic items.

The general task asked of the participants in the control condition to list the five largest cities in the United States. The participants in the prime condition received an additional task. They were asked to list as many of the ten commandments as they could. Afterwards, participants received a list with nine characteristics that described a person. The characteristics were construals of a moral prototype. Participants were asked to think about how the person who possesses these traits thinks, feels and acts. The participants were asked how they would feel if they possessed these traits. They were asked on a 7-point scale if they would feel good about themselves, if these traits are important to them, if they would feel ashamed, if these traits weren’t important to them and if they desire to have these traits. Afterwards, participants were asked to how they saw themselves at that moment. They could indicate on a 5-point scale and there were five identities: a moral person, a successful person, a family member, an independent person and a student. The last task was to read a story and to give the intention to act. Participants had to imagine that they were the manager of a cereal company and that a company that does good stuff for cancer patients had approached them and asked them to donate 25 cents for every sold product to their cancer fund. However, this would mean that you would probably not receive a year-end bonus. The participants were asked what the percentage chance was that they would initiate the cause-related marketing program and how likely they were to initiate the cause-related program.

The results show that when a situational factor (moral prime) activates a person’s moral self-schema this person will be more likely to act prosocial. The influences, however, is not the same across all people. People whose moral identity has low centrality will experience stronger affects from moral priming than people whose moral identity has high centrality. This is because priming has greater potential to increase the accessibility of moral identity in the working self-concept.

Experiment 2

In the second experiment participants were told they would participate in a negotiation study. Participants were told they had to complete two surveys and then had to do a 10 minute role playing negotiation task. The role playing game was not true, they only did the survey but experimenters needed to use the role play to justify the collection of behavioural intention measures. The first survey was about individual difference measures (one of them the centrality of moral identity), the second a pre-negotiation questionnaire. Participants received a set of confidential instructions about the negotiations they thought they would have to participate in. Participants were told that participants who performed well would receive 100 USD. Participants were told that they had to play the role of a manager and they had to negotiate with a job interviewee what their starting salary would be. The person that negotiates the lowest price would receive 100 USD. That is at least what they were told. Participants were asked what the chance was that they would tell a lie to the job interviewees.

The results show that the presence of a financial reward for a good performance during a negotiation increased the accessibility of an achievement-oriented identity and decreased the accessibility of a moral identity. This happened especially for the participants whose moral identity had higher centrality. Because of this, intentions to lie increased.

Experiment 3

The third experiment looked like the second. In this experiment, however, the participants did really negotiate about a salary. The participants had to fill in a certain questionnaire about demographics and some measures of centrality of morality. Two days later, they participated in the negotiation task. Some of the participants who played the manager were put in the experimental group and received the instruction to negotiate a low salary. Also, they knew that the job candidate would be eliminated from the job after six months. The participants who had to take on the role of the job employee received the instruction to not accept any salary offer unless they received a verbal guarantee from the managers that they would remain at the same job for at least two years. They were instructed to ask managers a question about job stability before discussing starting salary. The experimenters wanted to see whether the managers would lie about the job stability. The results were the same as for the second study. The presence of a financial incentive increased people’s willingness to lie during a negotiation. The financial incentive decreased the accessibility of moral identity and this was especially the case for participants with higher moral identity centrality.

Experiment 4

In the fourth experiment, participants first had to fill in a questionnaire that measured their centrality of moral identity and the social value orientation. Then participants came to the lab and they were assigned to the control group or primed group. The participants were given a handwriting task and the cover story was that the experimenter wanted to see whether somebody’s personality was reflected in their handwriting. Participants were given a matrix and this contained nine words. In the prime condition these words were about morality (like caring, compassion, fair) and in the control condition these words had no moral content (like book, chair). Each participant wrote down the words four separate times. The participants were then told to think about these words and write a short story about themselves with the use of each of these words at least once. Then participants took place behind a computer and they were told that they would be put into a group with four other people in the laboratory. They were told that they would participate in task about investment decisions. Also, they were told that the other participants gave them feedback after each decision, but this was in fact the feedback of the experimenter and everybody received the same feedback. Participants had to decide during every decision whether they wanted to invest in a joint account or a personal account. The points in the joint account would be shared equally among group members. Of course, it is tempting to put everything in a personal account, but if everybody would do that then the group would not earn interest. The results of this study showed that participants with higher moral identity centrality first cooperated with others, but after receiving the feedback about the selfish behaviour of others they decided to reduce the level of cooperation.

Looking back at these studies, it seems that the hypotheses of the experimenters were supported. It turned out that financial incentives decreased prosocial behaviour and this can be seen as a situational cue. When the moral identity was accessible, people showed more moral behaviour.

 

Access: 
Public
To have is to be? Psychological functions of material possessions - Dittmar - 2008 - Article

To have is to be? Psychological functions of material possessions - Dittmar - 2008 - Article

When people describe themselves they sometimes feel that the descriptions they use are not influenced by material context. But in fact, material possessions do influence how we see the identity of others. Material possessions also influence how people see themselves and how they want themselves to be. They give people control, independence and emotional comfort, all of which are important psychological functions. The link between material possessions and identity seems to be of central psychological importance.

Material possessions play a huge part in our everyday live. The television channels are full of advertisements and people seem to always talk about the clothes, cars or other stuff of others. The most material possessions we own are to make life more comfortable and controllable. People use cars to get from one place to another. Yet, it seems that material possessions that make our life easier also serve other psychological functions. The car you buy, for instance, can show others that you are part of a certain group. People who buy sports cars are seen as active and rich. Advertisements use symbolic links between consumer goods and identity of the buyer. Advertisements seem to suggest that a person is not good enough without the product that is being advertised and that the person can come closer to his or her ideal self if he or she buys the product. Most people would think that we are not that naive to believe advertisement and that we are clever enough to know that material goods are not part of our internal identity. This chapter, however, will try to show that material possessions are seen as integral parts of us and that they play a big part in the construction of self identity.

Parts of the self

There are many cultures that believe that material possessions are part of owns identity. Indians were buried with their weapons, because the others didn’t want to become contaminated with the identity of the deceased person. Researchers also shows that people see material possessions more closely to the self than to not-self. When asked in an open-ended interview to describe oneself, many people name material possessions. Material possessions are often seen as self-extensions of the identity and it is difficult to draw a line between material goods and the self-concept. The mere ownership effect means that owning a product makes it more attractive to us. People want to have positive self-image and they will therefore enhance what they own to enhance themselves. Research has shown that when people received feedback that they failed on a task, they displayed a stronger mere ownership effect. Self-image seems to be bolstered by an object. Because we use possessions for defining and evaluating the self, our self-esteem would be lessened when we lose a possession. Theft of property can involve more psychological trauma than we might think. Residential burglary probably has the strongest impact, because the home is seen as an identity shell. It is a place for privacy and has many possessions that are symbols of the self. The items reflect our history, personal value and attitudes. People can get seriously traumatized by this. People who lost their possessions because of natural disasters can also have severe psychological trauma.

Control

A cross-cultural study has been conducted that looked at the meaning of and reasons for possession. The participants in that study very children, adolescents and adults from America, Israeli from cities and Israeli kibbutzim. Kibbutzim are highly collective and don’t give too much about possessions, while the Israeli from cities and the Americans are individualistic. Furby proposed that infants want to control object (this is a universal motivation of the human) and this might become dangerous when children learn how to walk. Adults will occasionally try to stop them from touching certain things and the infant will (therefore) get attached to the things he or she is allowed to touch and see these things as belonging to them, while he or she will have no attachment to the things he or she isn’t allowed to touch and will see these things as belonging to someone else. Possessions draw a boundary between what is self and what is other. Furby also proposed that for adolescents and adults possession are important because they offer control over the social environments and because they are closely linked to the self. Research has supported the first claim. Many studies have shown that people use possessions to enhance control over their life. In the previous piece, it was told that people show a stronger ownership effect when they have been told that they didn’t do well on a task. Another research showed that when people are confronted with their own mortality, they focus more on material possessions. The second part of Furby’s claim (that material possessions are linked to the self) is controversial, because studies have different findings on this topic. One study looked at the link between possessions, values and attitudes. Possessions were divided into two groups: instrumental possessions and symbolic possessions where the former is a means of transport or a tool and the latter could be an expressions of the self or a sign of the possessor’s status. The data showed that there was a link between possessions (whether instrumental or symbolic) and values.

Symbols

Goffman’s classic study of self mortification shows how possession can be used to maintain self-identity. In his text he explains how prisoners are literally stripped of their identity, because their belongings are taken away from them. Not only do these prisoners feel humiliated, but they also feel like a number, because they no longer possess the things that make them into their own person (clothing, rings, chains). Another research shows that when you wear something that doesn’t define you as a person (like wearing a hoody or a cap) you can overcome certain boundaries that you normally would not have done (like hurting somebody). Other research has found that people who lived in elderly homes and were able to keep their belongings coped better than people who were not able to bring their belongings to the elderly home. They felt more in control, less helpless and more supported by staff.

The Symbolic Self-completion Theory proposes that people use material possessions to compensate for inadequacies in their self-concept. Material symbols can create and enhance identity. Material symbols can help us to get closer to our ideal self. A feminine symbol is wearing makeup and high heels. A young woman might wear makeup and high heels to show others (and herself) that she is feminine. Not everybody can use every symbol: symbols have to fit in with a person’s age, gender or social role. Research has showed that business students who lacked good qualifications showed more relevant material symbols, such as suits, briefcases and watches than students with good qualifications. Another study showed that law students made more use of material symbols of particular identity when they lacked experience in identity domains than practicing attorneys. This study also showed that first-year students made more use of material symbols than students further advanced in their study. This study unfortunately doesn’t show why students did this. Is it because the students really felt that their identity as lacking some things or because of peer pressure? Maybe there is yet another reason.

Wealth, status and group membership

Clothes are really strong symbols. The clothes somebody wears help us to identify which group the person is affiliated with and what his or her socio-economic status is. Some possessions serve as status symbols. Your house interior shows much about your status. Status symbols can also change over time. When things become easier available, they cease to serve as status symbols because they are not exclusive anymore. Once the television was a symbol of affluence, now almost everybody has it. The people who don’t have it are seen as poor. There are trickle-down and trickle-up effects. Low-status groups adopt status symbols of groups that are more affluent than they are until these groups adopt new ones to differentiate themselves. Sometimes people also adopt symbols that are not related to high-status but from rebellious subcultures, like punks. Fashion can have a big impact as it is adopted by different social groups. At an individual level though, people also chose certain symbols to differentiate themselves from other social groups. When another group also uses the same symbols, they will abandon these symbols and chose new ones as to differentiate themselves from others and communicate identity.

Stereotypes are usually ascribed through personal qualities. The writers of this article were curious as to whether there are stereotypes related to material possessions. They used three different social groups for this study (students, unemployed and business employees) and asked them to list what they thought were the favourite possessions of themselves and of the other two groups. The results showed that members from other groups were perceived as being more similar than they actually are: people listed possessions for other groups as less diverse than the possessions for their own group. Also, differences between groups were perceived as greater than they actually were. This is also found in other studies of discrimination. Results show outgroup homogeneity and between-group differentiation.

Material possessions show us which socio-economic group somebody belongs to and people hold stereotypes associated with these groups. This should also mean that first impressions of a person differ depending on which materials they are surrounded with. Are the objects of higher, middle or lower wealth? To test this hypothesis, participants were showed one of two videos.

In both videos a young man or woman comes home from his or her job, walks into the kitchen and goes to the living room and sits down with a newspaper. Almost everything in the videos is the same, except that in one of the videos the kitchen is high tech and a designer pine kitchen, while in the other video the kitchen is basic and not high tech. Also, in one of the videos the car that is driven by the person is expensive, while in the other video the car is rather small. The participants were from two different social backgrounds, an affluent middle-class and a working-class. The middle-class participants saw the affluent video as more similar to their background, whereas the working-class saw the less affluent video as more similar. According to the Social Identity Theory people form more positive impressions of people who are more similar to one owns ingroup. So according to this, people from the working-class should form a better first impression of the working-class than the affluent middle-class. But according to the wealth stereotypes, the two social groups should both like the affluent middle-class group better because they have more expensive possessions. The results showed that the wealth stereotypes were right: both social groups thought that the person with the expensive possession was more intelligent and more in control and therefore made a better impression. These attributes are valued culturally. Not everything was seen as positive though. The affluent person was seen as less warm and less expressive.

Integrative model of the functions of material possessions

Researchers have asked participants to list their favourite possessions and tell why their possessions are important to them. First, a distinction is made between functional-instrumental uses of possessions and symbolic-expressive functions. Functional-instrumental functions can be further divided into use-related uses and emotional uses. When you want to get from one place to the other, a car is use related. When this car also symbolizes the independence or sex-appeal of the owner, it has emotional use (the owner feels better about himself).

The symbolic-expressive functions can also be divided. One of these functions is categorical symbolism. Possessions can serve as signs of social identity. People can express their social standing, status, group and wealth. The second function is that of interpersonal relationships. The third function is that of self-expressive symbols. They are signs of personal identity and represent a person’s value, attitudes and qualities. Materials don’t have to be one of these uses, they can be several.

Differences in functions

The feelings towards certain possessions change through a lifetime. Infants usually develop a relationship with one or two material objects during the first two years of their life. This can be a transitional object and this teaches the child autonomy and gives the child emotional comfort through symbolising a person (mom) when he or she is not physically present. The child also learns to draw a boundary between the self and the external world. This, however, does depend on the culture. Most children from the Western society have an objects they take to bed, whereas children from Africa and India do not have such an object.

One research showed that younger persons found possessions important if they had a function for establishing autonomy and independence for them. Older people liked possessions more if they had a symbolic status for them, like photographs. Older children (age 10) named sports equipment and toys as the most important possessions because they give them feelings of enjoyment and freedom. Young adults liked material possessions like cars and jewelry because of their memorabilia and the enjoyment these things provide. This all has to do with different needs for the different ages. Whereas young people need security, old people have already formed bonds and want to remember and look back at those.

Possessions can differ for different cultures. The US has an individualist culture and privileges an independent self-construal and identity is autonomous and defined by personal goals. Collectivist cultures privilege an interdependent self-construal and identity is connected with that of others and defined by group goals. In Niger, for instance, people felt more connected towards certain possessions because of their status with the community and shared values. It seems that possessions symbolize personal identity in individualistic cultures and social identity in collectivistic cultures.

There is also a difference between men and women when it comes to their possessions. Men prefer action-oriented goods (like vehicle) and look more at the practical, control- and activity-related features of the possessions. Women choose sentimental possessions and they look at interpersonal relations of possessions and the emotional significance. This has to do with the way men and women construct their identity: men have an independent form of identity and women an interdependent form of identity. Men have instrumental and self-oriented perspectives whereas women have relational and symbolic perspectives. Gender differences are relative and not absolute.

Access: 
Public
Normative, gain, and hedonic goal frames guiding environmental behavior - Lindenberg & Steg - 2007 - Article

Normative, gain, and hedonic goal frames guiding environmental behavior - Lindenberg & Steg - 2007 - Article

Each person looks different at different situations. This will obviously determine how that person will behave in that situation. People have goal frames and these are the ways in which they process information and act upon it. Changing goals also means perceiving the information differently. When a goal is activated, we call it focal and the goal is a combination of a motivate and knowledge. A goal frame is a focal goal and its framing effects. This are effects on cognitive processing. People usually have more goals active at the same time but there will be one goal that dominates the framing process.

According to the goal-framing theory goals direct what knowledge and attitudes become cognitively accessible, which alternatives will be accessible, what people will do and how people will evaluate aspects of a situation. There are some goals that govern the whole are of subgoals, attitudes and knowledge. There are three of these that have been found and that have a connection to environmental psychology. The first one is the hedonic goal, which is the goal to make you feel better immediately. The second one is the gain goal, which guards and improves one’s resources and the third one is the normative goal, which makes you act appropriately. When a certain goal becomes active, it will guide people’s actions, perceptions and thoughts.

Hedonic goal frames activate certain subgoals that improve the way somebody feels in a particular situation (seeking pleasure, seeking self-esteem). People want to realize this goal to improve the way they feel. People in this frame are sensitive to the things that increase and the things that decrease their pleasure and have an effect on their mood. If you have a plastic bottle in your room you get a feeling of uncleanness you want to get rid of. A plastic bottle has to be brought back to the store or put in a bin that is made for plastic material. However, this costs energy. You can throw it away in your own bin and you will feel better because it didn’t cost you energy and there is no uncleanness anymore. A hedonic goal frame doesn’t last that long.

Gain goal frames will activate subgroups that improve one’s resources or the efficiency of resources. The time horizon of gain goal frame is medium to long. When a spray is harmful for the environment, but cheaper than a spray that is not harmful, people will probably chose the cheaper spray. In this situation, subgoals that have to do with resources (like having money) will be easily activated and subgoals that have to do with feelings and normative behaviour are not easily approachable.

A normative goal frame activates subgoals associated with appropriateness. People will become sensitive to what they think a person should do. The situation is normative, because the person looks at what people think they need to do and what the person himself or herself thinks he or she should do. The person also observes what people are doing. When somebody has a normative goal frame, this person will turn down the heating when a window is open, even if he or she does not have to pay for the heating bill. This person does this because it is the appropriate thing to do.

The subgoals that have to do with the way a person feels and personal resources are not important when the normative goal frame is activated.

The normative goal frame is all about acting appropriately. When you want to act appropriately, you must look in your memory or into the environment to figure out what the best way to act is. When the norms are abstract, it is difficult to know what behaviour is appropriate. These norms are called smart norms, because people really need to think hard about the abstract norm and translate this into a concrete decision. People need to know what is environmentally harmful rather than moral training when they want to deal with these norms. Maybe you really want to act appropriately, but you don’t know how. The gain goal or hedonic goal will replace the normative goal frame in this situation.

Motivations are usually heterogeneous. Having a normative goal frame does not mean that you don’t look at gains. One study shows that when the amount of the money to be divided increases, people will not distribute the money equally anymore, but more in favour of the divider. Sometimes the goal frame and background goals will be in conflict. Sometimes you want to be environmental and use environmental friendly paint, but this may be very expensive. The goal frame and background motives will be incompatible. The background motive will not affect the orientation (you still think in terms of appropriateness), but you may choose the less appropriate alternative. Background goals do not necessarily weaken workings of the goal frame. When the two are compatible, it can strengthen it. The hedonic goal frame seems to be the strongest, because it doesn’t require much support from the individual’s environment.

Environmental behaviour and goal frames

These three goals can fit within environmental psychology, by looking at one kind of motivation. The norm activation model looks at factors that make people act pro-environmentally. This looks like a normative goal frame applied to environment. The theory of planned behaviour is quit the opposite of this. This theory assumes that people are motivated by self-interest. They chose for high benefits and low costs. This looks much like the gain goal frame. Theories on affect focus on feeling good and this looks like the hedonic goal frame. But it’s hard to figure out in which condition which theory is the most powerful in explaining environmental behaviour.

Hedonic goal frames are focused on improvement of feelings. Factors such as mood and social atmosphere are important in this goal frame. Emotions and affect have a big impact on motivation and behaviour. Yet only a few studies have looked at the relationship between affect and environmental behaviour. One study found that affect was significantly related to environmental behaviour. The study found that people will act more environmental friendly when they derive pleasure and satisfaction from acting this way. Another study found a strong relationship between affect and car-use. People who are more emotionally attached to car-use also drive more frequently and are more against anti car-use campaigns. They also evaluate the use of cars as more favourable than the use of public transport.

These people will not look much at the finances of the whole picture and let their affect guide them more. Another study found that the more intense emotions people have to environmental degradation, the more likely they are to engage in pro-environmental behaviour.

Gain goals try to improve an individual’s personal resources. People are very sensitive to costs and benefits and scarce resources. According to the theory of planned behaviour, people are motivated by self-interest and they weigh expected costs and benefits of alternatives. According to this theory people first need the intention to behave in a specific manner and then they will behave in this manner. Intention depends on attitudes towards the behaviour, behavioural control and social norms. Attitudes are the beliefs about costs and benefits, social norms are the pressures to engage in a certain behaviour and behavioural control refers to the perceived possibility to perform the behaviour. Attitudes have the strongest effect on pro-environmental behaviours. Social costs and benefits have the biggest impact on travel mode choices.

When you look at the environmental context a normative goal frame suggests that people act environmentally without paying much attention to costs or hedonic factors. When people are aware of environmental problems, they will be much more willing to engage in pro-environmental behaviour. The people who were highly concerned with the environment, focused on environmental consequences of their behaviour, whereas people who were less concerned with the environment considered personal outcomes more. The norm-activation model (NAM) looks at normative concerns. According to this model, personal norms are responsible for behaviours. These norms can be activated when people are aware of the consequences of their behaviour to others and the environment and when they belief that they can avert these consequences. The NAM has been ‘transformed’ into another theory, the value-belief-norm theory of environmentalism (VBN theory). This theory suggests that awareness and consequences and ascription of responsibility are dependent on general beliefs about human-environmental relations. These two theories are good in explaining low-cost environmental behaviour, but not in explaining high-cost environmental behaviour (like behaviour that costs much and that is inconvenient).

One study showed that concerns with norms will be replaced by concerns with gains when the costs increase. Also, when people don’t know how to behave environmentally, they will switch from the normative-goal frame to a hedonic or gain goal-frame. Ambiguous information can also cause this to happen. People can deny the seriousness of problems, by minimizing the results of certain practices. Also, people may believe that they are not the cause of these problems and that the problems are a result of collective action. People often see authority figures or the industry as the cause of environmental problems. People may also not act environmentally, because they think that their actions will not have a big impact and that other people are needed or they think that they can’t act environmentally (they don’t have the knowledge, capacity).

Acting in one’s own self-interest seems to be very attractive, because driving cars is a part of our society and buying cheap food (not organic) seems to be in our best self-interest. However, we all know that in the long run our society would be better of if we acted pro-environmentally. It seems that environmental behaviour is caused by multiple motivations.

Stimulating pro-environmental behaviour

The normative goal-frame seems to be the most important one for pro-environmental behaviour. People who hold environmental norms, but are not in the mood to act environmentally (hedonic goal-frame) will not act environmentally friendly. People in the gain goal-frame will only act environmentally friendly if the costs are minimized. If the government would charge people for every garbage bag they leave in front of their house, the people in the gain goal-frame will act environmental friendly and bring the garbage to a garbage holder.

To achieve the normative frame and smart-norm behaviour, two things are necessary. The first thing is that high abstract smart norms must be linked to low level smart norms about environmental friendly behaviour and this should be linked to specific behaviour. The second thing is that hedonic and gain goals in the background must be made compatible with normative goals or they must be weakened. Normative goals can only affect behaviour when they are dominant and when people know which behaviour is appropriate in a given situation. This means that smart norms need to be translated to specific situations. People might not act according to smart norms if they don’t have enough knowledge of environmental problems and if they aren’t aware of the environmental impact associated with their behaviour. They therefore maybe do not know which behaviour is good for the environment. Environmental labelling may help translate smart norms into behaviour. Feedback may also help promote environmental friendly behaviour. A way in which hedonic and gain goals can compete with environmental smart norms is by making them subject of moralization. This means that if somebody shows environmental unfriendly behaviour, people will react with a negative emotion. Usually environmental smart goals are no fun and cost more (like organic food, which is expensive). Researchers need to find a way to make those goals more fun for people.

Access: 
Public
When going green backfires: How firm intentions shape the evaluation of socially beneficial product enhancements - Newman, Gorlin & Dhar - 2014 - Article

When going green backfires: How firm intentions shape the evaluation of socially beneficial product enhancements - Newman, Gorlin & Dhar - 2014 - Article

One of the most common ways for companies to make a product more desirable is to add more and new features. However, products with social benefits are increasingly popular: examples are products that are fair trade or environmentally friendly. The researchers in the article try to investigate what the effects of a green label on the purchase decisions are and what role firm communication has in this. When a firm created a new, green product, they can choose to state that the green benefit was intended; they could also state that the green benefits are just a side effect of the product.

Although the first option seems more preferable, literature shows that products that have green benefits as side effect are more popular by consumers than products whereby the green effect was intended.

Intentions may have influence on people’s judgements. For example, intended crimes are generally regarded as less moral than unintended crimes. Although there are lots of studies that investigate the influence of intentions on behavior, there are only few that concern the role that firm intentions may have on consumer behavior. In fact, the study described in the article has the hypotheses that green products may be evaluated worse if they are communicated as “intended to be green” than if a firm communicated the green effect as being just a side effect of the product.

Past research suggest that there’s a link between intentions and perceived effort. In case of an intended green product, consumers may believe that the firm devoted greater resources towards the greening of the product. In this case, intentions can be linked to the allocation of resources. Consumers may believe that if there are more resources used for the greening of the product, there are fewer resources invested in other quality aspects. Of course, this perception of quality may have strong influence on purchase intentions.

In the article, three hypotheses are important. The first one states that consumers believe that firms invest fewer resources in product quality when the green enhancement is intended (versus unintended). The second one states that consumers therefore infer lower product quality when green improvements are intended (versus unintended). The last one states that consumers will be less likely to buy a product when the green benefits are intended (versus unintended). To test the hypotheses, a series of four studies was conducted.

First study

The first study tested the central hypothesis that consumers are less likely to purchase a product when the green benefits are intended versus unintended. In the study, there were three conditions: intended green enhancement, unintended green enhancement and a control group. 303 participants were randomly assigned to these conditions. Their task was to read a description of two new products that claimed to be significantly better for the environment (except of the control group, in their descriptions was no claim). Next, the participants had to answer questions concerning purchase intent, product quality and resource allocation.

The outcomes confirmed the hypothesis: participants showed higher purchase intentions for the unintended green products. They also believed that companies diverted more resources away from product quality, in order to make intended green products. Intentions had also influence on the perception of product quality: participants rated product quality higher in the unintended condition than in the intended condition.

Second study

The second study consisted of two related sub-studies, each soughing to address an alternate explanation for the intended versus unintended effects. Experiment 2a was almost the same as the first experiment, but a fourth condition was added: this was the “care-about-both”-condition and described that the firm intended both green benefits and quality improvement. 404 participants took place in this study. Experiment 2b presented a new scenario in which the firm’s focus laid on the improvement of a particular dimension. In the intended condition, participants read that this improvement and green enhancement were both important. In the unintended condition, the focus laid on the improvement, but the green enhancement was mentioned as side effect. In this study, 514 adults took place.

The findings of study 2a were in line with the outcomes of the first study. The purchase intention for the care-about-both-condition was lower than in the unintended condition. There was no significant difference in quality perception between the care-about-both and the unintended condition. There were also no significant differences in resource allocation found between the care-about-both and the unintended condition. Also the outcomes of study 2b were in line with the former findings.

Third study

Previous studies confirmed that consumers are less likely to buy a intended green product versus an unintended green product. However, two categories of benefits can be differed. Green effects can be inherent to the product itself: examples are less harmful chemicals or the level of biodegradability. On the other hand, benefits like fair trade reflect the firm’s actions and are separate from the product characteristics. It is likely that there’s a key difference between those two categories; thus, there may be a key moderator that could explain the effects of firm intentions on purchase intentions.

The researchers predict that if benefits that are inherent to a product’s composition are intended, people will be less likely to buy them. On the other hand, in cases that the benefits are separate from the product's composition, they may be even more positive evaluated when intended.

The study was a 2x2 design, with the variables intended versus unintended and inherent versus separate. 400 participants were randomly allocated to one of these four conditions. They all had to read a description of a all-in-one cleaner; depending on the condition, some claims were made. Next, the participants reported their purchase intent, perception of the product’s cleaning ability, agreement with resource allocation and overall liking of the firm.

The outcomes of purchase intention confirmed the expectations: people in the inherent condition showed less purchase intentions when the benefits were intended versus unintended. However, benefits separate from the product were rated higher when intended. Intended benefits were estimated to draw more resources away from quality; however, the intention of benefits led to greater liking of a firm. Also other effects were visible. For example, intended green benefits had negative effects on the quality perception of a product, but only when the benefits were inherent to the product and vice versa.

Fourth study

The forth study focused on the effects of intention in general. The former studies all focused on green, environmentally friendly or fair trade products; the forth study was concerned with health perception. 295 adults were recruited from an online survey pool. All of them had to read an article about a new way to produce ice cream: half of them read that this method was developed because of both the health and taste benefits; the other half read that the method was developed to improve taste, but had healthiness as side effect. Next, the participants had to answer questions about the perceived quality of the product and resource allocation. Lastly, there was a manipulation check to confirm that the participants were able to recall if they read about intended or unintended benefits.

In line with the outcomes of former studies, people in the unintended condition believed that the quality of the ice cream was better, compared to people in the intended condition. People in the unintended condition were also more likely to think that firms drew resources away from quality improvement. There was no significant difference in purchase intention between the two conditions.

Conclusion

The idea that the intention of being green actually has negative effects on purchase intent may be ironic. However, studies 1 and 2 confirmed this statement. Experiment 3 identified an important underlying moderator: benefits inherent to a product have other effects on consumer’s perception than benefits separate from the product. Finally, the fourth study showed that the effects of intention are generalizable and may have influence on other dimensions.

 

Access: 
Public
Social marketing of water and sanitation products: A systematic review of peer-reviewed literature - Evans, Pattanayak, Young, et. al. - 2014 - Article

Social marketing of water and sanitation products: A systematic review of peer-reviewed literature - Evans, Pattanayak, Young, et. al. - 2014 - Article

Social marketing

Marketing is about an exchange of value: the product provides value for the customer, in exchange for financial benefit for the marketer. Social marketers promote causes with a social benefit, or behaviors that benefit the audience. They make use of the 4 Ps: place, price, product and promotion. When marketing behavior, price can be seen as time, effort or convenience. Product would be the benefits, social or functional, that the behavior provides. Recently, social marketing has been used to promote healthy drinking water and sanitation, together with preventive treatments for water-related illnesses like diarrhea. The authors of this article set out to study this field by reviewing peer-reviewed literature and identify:

  1. The presence or absence of social marketing activities in specific interventions
  2. The presence or absence of the 4 Ps in these interventions
  3. The outcome of the evaluation in these interventions

Product

Over one third of the studies used the Safe Water System (SWS), which promotes the treatment of water at the point of use (by means of a sodium hypochlorite solution), safe storage and behavior change. Marketing techniques can be recognized in the use of a brand name and logo. However, other interventions used unbranded products, like water vessels or latrines. In some cases, the entire campaign was branded: hygiene behaviors in one study were marketed as a ‘Clean Life Campaign’. All studies also had health gains that resulted from a hygiene-related behavior as a product.

Place

In social marketing, place refers to the distribution channels that are used to make tangible products available to consumers. It may also refer to the location where a customer engages in the desired behavior. Some interventions focused on the exchange of a product, others facilitated availability and easy access by using local resources. Local volunteers were trained to educate households about the benefits of hygienic behaviors. Another way was to use public spaces in the community to promote behavior, such as village loudspeakers or local mosques, or through health education in schools.

Price

Price can refer to providing monetary subsidies (which may not be very effective) or the time and effort expended by individuals to adopt the intervention. In the surveyed interventions, water treatment solutions were sold at low rates made possible by subsidies. Sales occurred both to the customers as well as to local wholesalers and retailers to stimulate sales. When the interventions were investments in sanitation infrastructure, households were often asked to pay for part of the construction, as well as provide labor.

Promotion

Perhaps the most visible aspect of social marketing is promotion. As mentioned before, a common technique in the interventions was to train volunteers to spread knowledge about hygiene. Another strategy was to organize neighborhood meetings to promote awareness. Health education in schools was also a common way to spread knowledge, as well as advertisements on radio and TV and in newspapers and other printed media.

Effectiveness of the Safe Water System and other interventions

Over many different interventions, the SWS led to a significant increase in sales of chlorine bottles, as well as safe storage containers for water. More people were using safe hand washing techniques at the end of the intervention. An effective way to promote behavior changes with the SWS was motivational interviewing. Other interventions that promote correct handwashing techniques and proper stool disposal through media campaigns, house-to-house visits and schools also showed an increase in handwashing with soap. Print media seems to have the best effect, especially when illustrations are used. Oral rehydration therapy is the most cost-effective way to lower childhood mortality due to diarrhea. Social marketing saves lives by promoting the use of oral rehydration packets.

BulletPoints

  • Social marketers promote causes with a social benefit, or behaviors that benefit the audience. They make use of the 4 Ps: place, price, product and promotion. When marketing behavior, price can be seen as time, effort or convenience. Product would be the benefits, social or functional, that the behavior provides.
  • Over many different interventions, the SWS led to a significant increase in sales of chlorine bottles, as well as safe storage containers for water. More people were using safe hand washing techniques at the end of the intervention. Other interventions that promote correct handwashing techniques and proper stool disposal through media campaigns, house-to-house visits and schools also showed an increase in handwashing with soap. Print media seems to have the best effect, especially when illustrations are used.
Access: 
Public
What is ego depletion? Toward a mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control - Inzlicht & Schmeichel - 2012 - Article

What is ego depletion? Toward a mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control - Inzlicht & Schmeichel - 2012 - Article

Self-control, also known as willpower, is an essential ability. It allows us to override our direct temptations, so we could focus on other ambitions. The lack of self-control caused, and still causes, many woes in human society. Therefore, it is important for social sciences to study this phenomenon.

A central role in the theory of self-control is formed by the existence of an energy resource in the self. Self-controlling acts draw on this energy source, causing depletion. This state of mental exhaustion is called ego depletion and has played a central role in many studies. Because of the diminished energy resources, ego depletion leads to decreased abilities to control oneself.

What is ego depletion?

The article presents an alternate model that could help explain why an act of self-control at one time causes impairments on other self-controlling tasks at a time afterwards. The authors of the article propose that self-controlling behavior leads to shifts in both attentional focus and motivational orientation. Those two processes are interrelated an can be seen as two meshed gears: because the motivation shifts from controlling behavior to impulsive acts of behavior, the attentional focus will change. Thus, ego depletion is not the mysterious result of energy resource depletion: it is simply a shift in motivation and attention.

Research on ego-depletion states that the self has a limited resource of energy, out of which self-controlling behaviors draw their energy. But, what is that exact resource? Studies from Gailliot, Baumeister, and colleagues showed that acts of self-control consume glucose, and that a state of ego-depletion can be cured by drops of glucose. In that way, the mysterious energy resource could just be a metaphor for blood glucose levels. However, the glucose findings are controversial: the studies could not prove that acts of self-control do not reliably reduce glucose levels in the blood. There may be a link between those two, but the relationship is probably more complex than the study outcomes imply.

Other studies also challenged the resource model. A study by Muraven and Slessareva showed that ego depletion is more a motivational deficit rather than a resource deficit; research by Clarkson, Hirt, Jia, and Alexander showed that ego depletion may be more driven by subjective perceptions rather than by a diminished energy resource. Studies by Tice, Baumeister, Shmueli and Muraven had the outcome that positive affects could have influence on the level of ego depletion.

The mechanistic model of ego depletion

Although the existence of an energy resource may be a myth, the question what makes self-control limited hasn’t been answered. As mentioned before, two processes play a central role in causing ego depletion, respectively motivation and attention.

The process of motivation can be split in two separate processes. The first one is the will to control oneself. Self-control can require hard work, and after the job is done, people may feel that they owe a break. In other words, they are not motivated to regulate themselves anymore. This vision is consistent with the before-mentioned glucose theory and many studies had outcomes that supported this idea of motivation. However, those studies did not adequately distinguish a lack of willpower and a lack of ability. More research needs to be done to find out if depletion is really an effect of diminished motivation.

Not only the level of motivation is important: after one’s become ego-depleted, he or she will be stronger inclined to act on impulse. Studies find that acts of self-control lead to more approach-motivated impulse strength. But once again, more research is required.

The process of attention can also be split in two apart processes. The fist one concerns the need that someone feels to control himself. Self-control may fail in cases people don’t notice they have to control themselves. Cybernetic loop models can help to explain this process: they explain control with three components, namely goals or standards, comparators or monitors and effectors or operators. According to this theories, self-control may fail as a result of problems with the operators of control, missing the ability to regulate oneself. It can also fail due to problems with monitoring: in that case, people don’t have the insight of discrepancies between their goal state and their current state. Studies show that participants who exert self-control, have more difficulty with attentional control in further tasks that require self-control. The other attentional process mentioned is the possibility of rewards. When depleted, people tend to focus on rewards and pleasure. This is caused by motivation systems, like the behavioral activation system, the fight-or-flight system and the behavioral inhibition system.

As mentioned before, the processes motivation and attention interact. Shifts in motivation lead to shifts in attention; the reverse is also possible. If people don’t recognize the cues for the need to control themselves, they will focus more on rewards: their attention will shift away from control and towards the gratification of impulses.

The mechanistic model integrated with other models

Though the process model isn’t in line with the common used resource model, it sure align with other theories. One of these theories is the attentional myopia model of self-control by Mann and Ward. According to this model, failing self-control could be the result of a too strong focus on central cues, instead of more peripheral. This is in line with the processes of attentional shift and the focus on rewards that play a central role in the process model. Another model comes from research by Kivetz, Simonson, Mukhopadhyay and Johar. Their studies suggest that self-control fails because people don’t want to control themselves, rather than just lacking abilities to regulate themselves. Again, there are similarities with the motivational process from the process model.

Access: 
Public
Social norms as solutions - Nyborg, Anderies, Dannenberg & de Zeeuw - 2016 - Article

Social norms as solutions - Nyborg, Anderies, Dannenberg & de Zeeuw - 2016 - Article

[toc]

Formal institutions can help address mayor issues, in the form of laws and treaties, but cannot always enforce the desired outcomes. A great deal of power lies in informal institutions, like social norms, but can formal institutions help in bending these in the right direction? Social norms are different per group (discipline, economy, etc.), and can be defined as predominant behaviour patterns within their context, stabilized by social feedback and supported by the corresponding acceptable actions. Mechanisms behind a change from an undesirable social norm to a desirable social norm differ, but are usually related to conformity and/or convenience. To do as others do is the strongest factor, thus creating tipping points in social norm change. Policy can play a hand in this by making choices more visible and/or creating incentives/consequences. In this manner policy can help provide reasons for people to change their expectations, which studies have shown plays a crucial role in how people behave. Furthermore, policies with material incentives signal that a majority finds these incentives important and/or expects certain behaviours. Next to these mechanisms behaviours spread best if it benefits the individual, is visual, easily copied, and modelled by a socially infectious group. Interestingly these mechanisms and social norms also influence political feasibility, therefore possibly limiting the abilities of policy-makers, creating either a vicious or a virtuous circle.

Access: 
Public
Metacognitive experiences in consumer judgment and decision making - Schwartz - 2004 - Article

Metacognitive experiences in consumer judgment and decision making - Schwartz - 2004 - Article

Most theories think that we form judgments on the basis of information that is available at that time. According to this, we should evaluate something more favourable when more positive characteristics come to mind. However, it is not just that simple. Sometimes information can’t be brought that easily to mind and new information can’t be processed as easily as old information. Because of this, judgments and decisions deviate from what we might predict on basis of accessible information. Subjective experiences seem to add implications to the making of the decision and usually the decision will be the opposite to what the accessible information seems to imply. Accessible information, metacognitive experiences, the perceived information value of these experiences and the naive theories used to interpret these things can cause complexities.

What if somebody asked you to make a list of the ten best cafeterias in Amsterdam. The first two will probably come quickly to mind, but the other eight might be difficult to recall. What will this difficulty tell you? That you don’t know many cafeterias? That you don’t know much about Amsterdam? That you have other things in mind and can’t concentrate on the cafeterias? All these things cause a difficulty of recall. One naive theory will use as explanation that it is easy to recall things when there are many things. Another naive theory suggests that it is hard to recall things when you are preoccupied with something else. These different theories may have different conclusions.

One study asked participants to recall either six or twelve examples of their assertive or unassertive behaviour and afterwards they were asked to rate their assertiveness. When people were asked to recall six things, they rated themselves as more assertive after recalling the assertive things than after recalling the unassertive things. But when people were asked to recall 12 things, the opposite effect happened. People who were asked to recall 12 examples of assertive behaviour rated themselves as less assertive than people who were asked to recall 12 examples of unassertive behaviour. People who recalled 12 assertive behaviours rated themselves as less assertive than people who had to recall 6 assertive behaviours. Because it was more difficult to come up with twelve examples than with six, people felt that they were not as assertive after all, or else it wouldn’t be so difficult to come up with 12 examples.

Naive theories

One of the naive theories mentioned before, is that the more exemplars exist, the easier it is to bring some to mind. Frequent exemplars are easy to bring to mind, therefore frequent and also more typical for their category. Examples that come to mind are relatively typical. Experienced ease of recall resulted in judgments that were consistent with recalled content and difficulty of recall resulted in judgments opposite to the recalled content. One study found that students liked Tony Blair more when they had to recall a few rather than many favourable thoughts about him.

Another study found that students reported using their bicycle more often after recalling a few rather than many instances of bicycle use. Another set of naive theories is about representations in memory. Categories that are well represented in memory are easier to recall than categories that are not well represented in memory. When people can recall things more easily, they will be more positive about the thing recalled. One study found that people were more positive about their childhood when they were asked to recall four childhood events than twelve childhood events. People think that when things are more important to them they are also better represented in their memory than things that are unimportant. Accessibility seems to be connected with personal relevance and judgments of interest. There are also multiple naive theories. These are combinations of the previous mentioned theories. One study showed that the ease of recall increases when people’s confidence in the recall increases. Higher confidence in the recalled can come into existence because there are many examples, because the person pays much attention to the question, because the person knows much about the subject or because the person has a good memory about the subject. There are different naive theories that can be used, but sometimes you can draw wrong conclusions when you use one theory to explain certain things. When you are asked to recall many examples of an event and you can’t find many, you may think that there aren’t many, that the events happened a long time ago, that your memory is poor for the certain event, that you are not very interested in the subject and so on. Some explanation excludes the others, while sometimes you may also choose the wrong explanation.

Access: 
Public
Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases - Kahneman & Tversky - 1974 - Article

Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases - Kahneman & Tversky - 1974 - Article

People base their decision making often on the likelihood of a particular event, however, they estimate the likelihood of events with the help of heuristics. Heuristics can be useful because they make the assessment of probabilities easier but they can also lead to systematic errors. Judgements are often made based on information that is not completely valid. Subsequently, this information is processed according to heuristic rules which leads to errors in the estimation. An example is the estimation of distance based on clarity. An object that has a higher clarity is perceived as being closer which is partly true but not always. In this article three heuristics leading to several biases are described.

Representativeness

The representativeness heuristic is used “when probabilities are evaluated by the degree to which A is representative of B, that is, by the degree to which A resembles B’’ . This heuristic can lead to bias when people are asked to estimate the likelihood that a description of certain personal characteristics belongs to someone who is engaged in a particular profession. If this occurs there are several factors that are not taken into account.

Base-rates

People should take base-rates into account but they often show insensitivity to prior probability of outcomes. In some professions are more people engaged than in other professions. If probability estimates are based on representativeness, prior probabilities will not be considered. This has been studied in experiments in which the base-rats were manipulated after which the subjects had to estimate the likelihood that someone was engaged in a certain profession based on descriptions. For instance, in a group of 70 engineers and 30 lawyers, the odds of being an engineer are higher than those of being a lawyer. Results show that participants base their evaluation on whether the description was stereotypical (was representative of a certain group) instead of prior probabilities. However, they did use prior probabilities if no additional information was provided to them. When no specific evidence was provided, the base-rates are accurately used but when useless evidence was given, the base-rates were neglected.

Insensitivity for sample size

Also in estimating the probability of getting a particular result in a sample drawn from a specified population, the representativeness heuristic is often used. People assume that if in a random sample the average height of men is 180 centimetres, this will be the average height in the population as well. People do not take the sample size into account. An experiment in which they had to estimate the distribution of average height for various sample size found that people produce the same distribution for all sample sizes. This was even the case when it was emphasized to take sample sizes into account. In another study people were told about a large hospital and a small hospital and that about 50% of the babies born were boys. At some days the percentage of boys reaches 60% and it was asked whether this would happen more often in the small or large hospital or that it would be about the same. People think that it happens as often in small as in large hospitals but according to sampling theory, the expected amount of days on which more than 60% of the born babies are boys is much greater in the small hospitals because a large sample is less likely to deviate from 50%. In addition, people do not take posterior probability into account. Posterior probability refers to the probability that a sample has been drawn from one population rather than from another. Estimations are often only based on sample proportion and not by the size of the sample which is necessary to know in order to estimate the posterior odds, which are often being underestimated.

Misconceptions of chance

Misconceptions of chance refers to the expectation that the sequence of events generated by a random process will be representative even if the sequence is very short. For instance, people estimate it to be more likely to get the sequence H-T-H-T-T-H than the sequence H-H-H-T-T-T because the first looks more randomly chosen. Also, H-T-H-H-H-H is estimated to be more unlikely because the fairness of the coin is not shown in this sequence. It can be concluded that people expect the essential characteristics of a process to be reflected even in a very small sample, this is called locally representativeness. One study found that these false estimations are also present in experienced research psychologists, who, as a result, used to small samples and overestimated their results.

Insensitivity to predictability

Predictions are often made based on representativeness, for instance, if one is asked to estimate the future profit of a company based on a short description, this will be influenced by the favourability of the description. In these kind of situations, people often use only favourableness and do not consider the reliability of the descriptions.

Illusion of validity

People often make predictions based on the outcome that fits best with certain input, that is, the outcome that is most representative of the input. the extent to which one is confident about his prediction also depends heavily on representativeness but not on reliability, therefore it is called an illusion of validity. This occurs in selection interviews, although it has been shown that they are highly fallible, they are still frequently used. In addition, redundancy (expressing statements multiple times to increase reliability) in input decreases the accuracy while it increases confidence.

Misconceptions of regression

Often, regression to the mean can be observed. This refers to the fact that individuals scoring high on one test score somewhat lower if they take the same test again whereas individuals who score low the first time, are more likely to score higher on the second test. This kind of regression is often not taken into account if decisions have to be made in daily life, maybe because people have the idea that the outcome should be representative of the input. because of this misconception, the effectiveness of punishment is overestimated and the effectiveness of reward is underestimated.

Availability

People often estimate probabilities of frequencies based on the ease that something pops up in their minds. An example is how often a certain event has occurred among your friends. A problem is that availability Is not only dependent on frequency and probability, therefore, basing decisions on availability leads to biases. These biases can be the result of the retrievability of instances (how difficult is it to retrieve a similar situation). This is influenced by familiarity, since familiar events come easier to mind. salience, referring to certain concepts being activated, is another aspect that is of influence. People can also be biased because of the effectiveness of a search set. This can be illustrated with a task in which people are asked whether there are more words starting with an r or with an r as third letter. they start thinking of as many words as they can and it is just easier to search for words by their first letter. Another bias is the bias of imaginability which refers to people generating instances on which they base frequency estimates. How easy they can construct instances determines their estimation of frequency. This has been tested by the question how many different committees you can form of k members if there are 10 people. The answer is maximal 252 for k=5. If the answer is based on imaginability, one would think of much more small committees than of large committees which contrasts the correct bell-shaped function. Risk estimation based on what comes easily to mind can lead to under and overestimation. The occurrence of two events at the same time is also often misinterpreted. People perceive correlations between things that are actually not correlated. This is called the illusory correlation.

Adjustment and anchoring

People often base their estimates on a starting value that they adjust to get a final value. the adjustment of the starting value is often wrong because different starting values lead to different final estimates, this is called anchoring. Giving people arbitrary starting values influences the estimate despite rewarding for the right answer. In addition, anchoring can take place in case of incomplete computation. This occurs when people have to do a multiplication with higher numbers at the beginning, they will overestimate the outcome. There can also be biases in the evaluation of conjunctive and disjunctive events. This happens when people are asked to bet on a conjunctive or a simple event whereas the conjunctive event has a lower probability of success compared to the simple event. Because of anchoring, the overall probability will be overestimated in conjunctive problems and underestimated in disjunctive problems. This is also why people underestimate probabilities of failure in complex systems. In decision analysis, experts are asked to assess a quantity such as the average value of the Dow-Jones on a certain day in the form of a probability distribution. A judge is someone who is calibrated which means that he can assess a certain percentage of quantities correctly. Getting probability distributions for a certain quantity can be done in two ways: 1. Asking the subject to select values that correspond to specified percentiles of his probability distribution and 2. By asking for the probability that a true value will exceed some specified values. Nevertheless, these methods do not yield the same results. It can be concluded that the success of calibration goes together with the used procedure to obtain the results.

Discussion

Several judgemental heuristics are described in this article and it has become clear that everyone can be affected by the resulting biases, both laymen and experienced researchers. Interestingly, people do not discover the principles of sampling and regression themselves even though they have been exposed to them their entire life. This is mainly because people do not attend to the relevant instances in life. The main contribution of modern decision theory is that it gives us a subjective interpretation of probability that can be applied to all kinds of events while being embedded in a general theory of rational decision. Although there is no formal way to test the compatibility of probability judgements with all the beliefs of the judge, compatibility of his judgements with his own knowledge, heuristics and biases is the aim of a rational judge.

 

Access: 
Public
Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases - Kahneman & Tversky - 1974 - Article

Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases - Kahneman & Tversky - 1974 - Article

People base their decision making often on the likelihood of a particular event, however, they estimate the likelihood of events with the help of heuristics. Heuristics can be useful because they make the assessment of probabilities easier but they can also lead to systematic errors. Judgements are often made based on information that is not completely valid. Subsequently, this information is processed according to heuristic rules which leads to errors in the estimation. An example is the estimation of distance based on clarity. An object that has a higher clarity is perceived as being closer which is partly true but not always. In this article three heuristics leading to several biases are described.

Representativeness

The representativeness heuristic is used “when probabilities are evaluated by the degree to which A is representative of B, that is, by the degree to which A resembles B’’ . This heuristic can lead to bias when people are asked to estimate the likelihood that a description of certain personal characteristics belongs to someone who is engaged in a particular profession. If this occurs there are several factors that are not taken into account.

Base-rates

People should take base-rates into account but they often show insensitivity to prior probability of outcomes. In some professions are more people engaged than in other professions. If probability estimates are based on representativeness, prior probabilities will not be considered. This has been studied in experiments in which the base-rats were manipulated after which the subjects had to estimate the likelihood that someone was engaged in a certain profession based on descriptions. For instance, in a group of 70 engineers and 30 lawyers, the odds of being an engineer are higher than those of being a lawyer. Results show that participants base their evaluation on whether the description was stereotypical (was representative of a certain group) instead of prior probabilities. However, they did use prior probabilities if no additional information was provided to them. When no specific evidence was provided, the base-rates are accurately used but when useless evidence was given, the base-rates were neglected.

Insensitivity for sample size

Also in estimating the probability of getting a particular result in a sample drawn from a specified population, the representativeness heuristic is often used. People assume that if in a random sample the average height of men is 180 centimetres, this will be the average height in the population as well. People do not take the sample size into account. An experiment in which they had to estimate the distribution of average height for various sample size found that people produce the same distribution for all sample sizes. This was even the case when it was emphasized to take sample sizes into account. In another study people were told about a large hospital and a small hospital and that about 50% of the babies born were boys. At some days the percentage of boys reaches 60% and it was asked whether this would happen more often in the small or large hospital or that it would be about the same. People think that it happens as often in small as in large hospitals but according to sampling theory, the expected amount of days on which more than 60% of the born babies are boys is much greater in the small hospitals because a large sample is less likely to deviate from 50%. In addition, people do not take posterior probability into account. Posterior probability refers to the probability that a sample has been drawn from one population rather than from another. Estimations are often only based on sample proportion and not by the size of the sample which is necessary to know in order to estimate the posterior odds, which are often being underestimated.

Misconceptions of chance

Misconceptions of chance refers to the expectation that the sequence of events generated by a random process will be representative even if the sequence is very short. For instance, people estimate it to be more likely to get the sequence H-T-H-T-T-H than the sequence H-H-H-T-T-T because the first looks more randomly chosen. Also, H-T-H-H-H-H is estimated to be more unlikely because the fairness of the coin is not shown in this sequence. It can be concluded that people expect the essential characteristics of a process to be reflected even in a very small sample, this is called locally representativeness. One study found that these false estimations are also present in experienced research psychologists, who, as a result, used to small samples and overestimated their results.

Insensitivity to predictability

Predictions are often made based on representativeness, for instance, if one is asked to estimate the future profit of a company based on a short description, this will be influenced by the favourability of the description. In these kind of situations, people often use only favourableness and do not consider the reliability of the descriptions.

Illusion of validity

People often make predictions based on the outcome that fits best with certain input, that is, the outcome that is most representative of the input. the extent to which one is confident about his prediction also depends heavily on representativeness but not on reliability, therefore it is called an illusion of validity. This occurs in selection interviews, although it has been shown that they are highly fallible, they are still frequently used. In addition, redundancy (expressing statements multiple times to increase reliability) in input decreases the accuracy while it increases confidence.

Misconceptions of regression

Often, regression to the mean can be observed. This refers to the fact that individuals scoring high on one test score somewhat lower if they take the same test again whereas individuals who score low the first time, are more likely to score higher on the second test. This kind of regression is often not taken into account if decisions have to be made in daily life, maybe because people have the idea that the outcome should be representative of the input. because of this misconception, the effectiveness of punishment is overestimated and the effectiveness of reward is underestimated.

Availability

People often estimate probabilities of frequencies based on the ease that something pops up in their minds. An example is how often a certain event has occurred among your friends. A problem is that availability Is not only dependent on frequency and probability, therefore, basing decisions on availability leads to biases. These biases can be the result of the retrievability of instances (how difficult is it to retrieve a similar situation). This is influenced by familiarity, since familiar events come easier to mind. salience, referring to certain concepts being activated, is another aspect that is of influence. People can also be biased because of the effectiveness of a search set. This can be illustrated with a task in which people are asked whether there are more words starting with an r or with an r as third letter. they start thinking of as many words as they can and it is just easier to search for words by their first letter. Another bias is the bias of imaginability which refers to people generating instances on which they base frequency estimates. How easy they can construct instances determines their estimation of frequency. This has been tested by the question how many different committees you can form of k members if there are 10 people. The answer is maximal 252 for k=5. If the answer is based on imaginability, one would think of much more small committees than of large committees which contrasts the correct bell-shaped function. Risk estimation based on what comes easily to mind can lead to under and overestimation. The occurrence of two events at the same time is also often misinterpreted. People perceive correlations between things that are actually not correlated. This is called the illusory correlation.

Adjustment and anchoring

People often base their estimates on a starting value that they adjust to get a final value. the adjustment of the starting value is often wrong because different starting values lead to different final estimates, this is called anchoring. Giving people arbitrary starting values influences the estimate despite rewarding for the right answer. In addition, anchoring can take place in case of incomplete computation. This occurs when people have to do a multiplication with higher numbers at the beginning, they will overestimate the outcome. There can also be biases in the evaluation of conjunctive and disjunctive events. This happens when people are asked to bet on a conjunctive or a simple event whereas the conjunctive event has a lower probability of success compared to the simple event. Because of anchoring, the overall probability will be overestimated in conjunctive problems and underestimated in disjunctive problems. This is also why people underestimate probabilities of failure in complex systems. In decision analysis, experts are asked to assess a quantity such as the average value of the Dow-Jones on a certain day in the form of a probability distribution. A judge is someone who is calibrated which means that he can assess a certain percentage of quantities correctly. Getting probability distributions for a certain quantity can be done in two ways: 1. Asking the subject to select values that correspond to specified percentiles of his probability distribution and 2. By asking for the probability that a true value will exceed some specified values. Nevertheless, these methods do not yield the same results. It can be concluded that the success of calibration goes together with the used procedure to obtain the results.

Discussion

Several judgemental heuristics are described in this article and it has become clear that everyone can be affected by the resulting biases, both laymen and experienced researchers. Interestingly, people do not discover the principles of sampling and regression themselves even though they have been exposed to them their entire life. This is mainly because people do not attend to the relevant instances in life. The main contribution of modern decision theory is that it gives us a subjective interpretation of probability that can be applied to all kinds of events while being embedded in a general theory of rational decision. Although there is no formal way to test the compatibility of probability judgements with all the beliefs of the judge, compatibility of his judgements with his own knowledge, heuristics and biases is the aim of a rational judge.

 

Access: 
Public
Willingness to pay for organic products: Differences between virtue and vice foods - Van Doorn & Verhoef - Article

Willingness to pay for organic products: Differences between virtue and vice foods - Van Doorn & Verhoef - Article

The market for organic food is full of potential: many consumers desire natural foods, considering the environment, animal welfare and health benefits. Due to extensive media coverage, the awareness of environmental issues grows. Organic farming does not involve the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, products that potentially have a harmful effect on the environment. Thus, the choice for organic products can be an ethical one. Other important reasons for consumers to prefer organic products are the health concerns associated with these products. Because of the growing interest of consumers in organic products, the organic market has become an attractive one. Yet, the actual market shares of organic food remain quite low. The most common explanation for this phenomenon is that regular food is less expensive than organic food. Although consumers prefer organic products, they are not willing to pay the high prices.

Just few studies had been concerned wit the willingness to pay (WTP) for organic products. This article focuses on the extent in which consumers are willing to pay a price premium for organic products, and especially why they are either willing or not willing to pay that price. The researches assume that there are two kinds of motives that influence the willingness to pay: these motives are either individual and pro-social. In this study, the researchers differentiate between virtue and vice products. Relative vices are products that are appealing in the short term, but can lead to negative outcomes on the long run. Relative virtues on the other hand, may be less appealing in the short term but have less negative effects in the long term than vices. So, virtues may be a better choice.

Studies found that consumers are more responsive for promotions of organic virtue food. It is likely that the willingness to pay may differ between the two different product categories.

Variables that may influence WTP

The choice for or against organic food can be seen as a social dilemma. Individual motives have to be weighted against more social or collective motives. Because organic products are different from regular products, consumers are willing to pay a higher price for them. But, the extent in which consumers are willing to pay more for organic claims may very under different conditions.

Individual motives are quality and healthiness. Organic food products may taste better than conventional food products. On the other hand, unsatisfactory quality is one of the main reasons not to buy organic food. The influence that an organic claim can have for the perceived quality of a product, may be different for vice and virtue products. Organic claims are likely to have a negative effect on the quality perception of vice foods, because the amount of excitement and fun may be reduced by the idea of wholesomeness that the claim signals. Virtue food products are already associated with wholesomeness, so an organic claim can positively affect the consumers perception of quality for these products. The same counts for perception of healthiness: because virtue products are more healthful, a organic claim may have stronger effects on the health perception of these products. Yet, the difference in perception between vice products with and without an organic claim may be larger, because vice products are in nature not healthy: an organic claim may suggest that they are not that unhealthful.

Other motives for consumers to buy organic products, are more pro-social. Examples are environmental issues and animal welfare. Organic products are perceived as more pro-social than regular products, but the effect may differ between vice and virtue products.

Vice products are commonly seen as “bad” and may evoke feelings of guilt. An organic claim may be guilt-reducing, because organic products are linked with contribution to good causes. So, organic claims are more likely to have stronger positive effects on vice products than on virtue products.

Previous studies state that the perception of quality have positive effects on the willingness to pay. The same counts for the link between health perception and the willingness to pay.

The connection between the willingness to pay en prosocial motives has not been explored yet. Prosocial perceptions may lead to higher purchase intentions: however, this does not always mean that the products are actually purchased. Previous literature stated that consumers are selfish and that their own individual motives are more important than prosocial motives when it comes to buying products. Consumers buy virtue food products already with virtuous motives; consumers of vice food products may need justification. Therefore, organic claims may have more effect on vice than virtue products.

Consumer characteristics and demographic variables may play an important role for the willingness to pay for organic foods. Consumers who are in higher level concerned with the environment, are more likely to buy organic foods. Women are more concerned with social and communal goals than man, so they tend to are more willing to buy organic foods. Also higher educated consumers are more likely to buy organic foods because they understand the complex relation between organisms and the environment better. Due to the higher prices of organic foods, consumers with higher incomes are more willing to pay for organic products.

The first study

The first study was concerned with priming virtue versus vices. The investigators made use of a 2x2 between-subjects experimental design. The first variable was virtue versus vice priming; the second concerned a product with or without organic claim. The dependent variable was the price the participants were willing to pay for the product.

The experiment was conducted with 172 students from a large Dutch university. To prime a virtue of vice mindset, their first task was to unscramble ten scrambled sentences. Seven of these sentences had something to do with virtues or vices, the other three were neutral. Then, all of the participants had to answer questions about orange juice with or without an organic claim. The investigators used orange juice as product because it can be perceived as either vice or virtue product. At the end of the study, participants were asked how much they were willing to pay for the orange juice.

The study shows that an organic claim has a negative effect on the quality perception of vice products, but a positive effect on virtue products. Quality perceptions had a strong impact on the willingness to pay for organic virtue products. However, health perceptions did not have the expected impact on the willingness to pay. The study also stated that the positive effect of prosocial motives on the willingness to pay was stronger for vice than for virtue products.

The second study

The second study focused on the willingness to pay for vice and virtue product categories. A large-scale survey amongst Dutch consumers from an online panel was conducted. The final sample contained 709 cases, in which 375 were virtues and 334 were vices.

Supporting the first study, the investigators found that an organic claim had negative effects on the quality perception of vice food products. Surprisingly, they also found that organic claims also had negative effects on the quality perception of virtue products. As expected, the positive effects of organic claims on the perceived prosocial benefits were stronger for vice products. In line with the first research, quality perceptions had a strong impact on the willingness to pay for organic virtue products and health perceptions had not.

In addition, the researchers investigated the influence of the consumer’s demographic characteristics on the willingness to pay. The extend of concern wit the environment had influence on the perception of the products, but no effects on willingness to pay were found. Consumers with high concern of the environment were willing to pay up to 13% more for organic virtue products. However, negative effects on the perception of organic vice product were found, resulting in a lower willingness to pay.

Third study

The third study existed of a 2x2 between-subjects design with 233 Dutch students as participants. This study also had the goal to investigate what the effects of (the absence of) an organic claim were on the willingness to pay for vice and virtue food products: this third and the first study were very much alike. However, unlike the previous studies, the participants actually had to buy products. They had a 50% chance of winning ten Euro in a lottery: if they won this prize, they were obliged to buy a product.

This study supported that organic claims have a positive influence on health perception of virtue food products, that the effect of prosocial benefits had influence on the health perception of vice products and that this effect was stronger on vice than on virtue products.

Fourth study

In this study, the empirical price of premiums and shares of wallet for vice and virtue organic food were explored. Data were collected from a large Dutch household panel, which contains information of food purchases from above 4000 households. An exploration of the data stated that the households bought significantly more virtue than vice organic foods (p<0.05). However, there was no significant difference between vice and virtue products in the demanded premium price. Actual market data show that consumers are more reluctant to buy organic vice than organic virtue products. However, it is likely that other variables, like accessibility of the products and advertising also play a role.

Conclusion

The studies showed that there was a link between organic claims and perceived prosocial benefits. This effect seemed to be stronger for vice than for virtue products, implying that organic claims may work as a guilt-reducing mechanism. This may also count for health perception: when an organic claim is added to a vice product, people believe it is more healthy than its conventional counterpart.

All studies confirmed that there is a relation between quality and willingness to pay. There was no link found between health perception and willingness to pay. Also prosocial benefits played just a minor role: only in combination with vice food products, there was a positive effect on the willingness to pay. Finally, the presence of an organic claim on itself had a positive effect on the willingness to pay. An explanation is that consumers may be aware of the higher costs that come with the production organic foods. Therefore, they are willing to pay a higher price because they believe this price is justified.

Stronger environmental concerns have a positive effect on the willingness to pay; health concerns do not. Also demographic characteristics have little effect. However, young people tend to be more concerned with the environment and therefore buy more organic products. Also woman have a more positive attitude towards organic products, because they are more concerned with community goals.

Year of article

2011

Access: 
Public
Opinion leaders’ role in innovation diffusion: A simulation study. The Journal of Product Innovation Management - Van Eck, Jager & Leeflang - 2011 - Article

Opinion leaders’ role in innovation diffusion: A simulation study. The Journal of Product Innovation Management - Van Eck, Jager & Leeflang - 2011 - Article

One important requirement for marketing is understanding consumers. Sellers and developers need to recognize the decision-making process that individual customers and groups of customers undergo. Nowadays, in the modern digital world, it is really important to understand word of mouth (WoM) and the role of social media (Facebook and Twitter). The use of social media is one of the top three breakthroughs for marketing in 2008. In the past years, there has been an increase in the number of potential channels for addressing people, like television channels (telemarketing) and the rise of the internet and because of this, marketers should reconsider their focus on mass media efforts. It is important to know how information communicated through mass media (external influence) and then spread through WoM (internal influence) affects the process of consumer adoption. This means that the new product diffusion has great importance. Many studies have looked at the role and measurement of WoM. Bass suggested forty years ago that the dispersion of new products and practices can be studied by suggesting aggregate modelling. This type of research tries to explain how marketing mix strategies can affect new product diffusions and the studies found that WoM effectively encourages people to start using a product. There are also other types of modelling which researchers have used to study WoM. The current study used agent-based simulation models to investigate the role of WoM in processes of diffusion.

Agent-based simulation models are useful when the population is heterogeneous or when the topology of the interactions is heterogeneous. This methodology also allows to incorporate findings from other fields that focus on individual differences and social network structures (for explaining the process of WoM). But these social marketing interactions have complex dynamics and because of this, it is difficult to predict outcomes. Consumers can use social networks to express their opinion about a product, read reviews online or influence each other by using the product in a visible way. To address all these different influences, multi-agent simulation models use different WoM dynamics and investigate various viral marketing strategies of product diffusion in a social network. These models look at different types of heterogeneity, like the different consumers, the network structures that may affect consumer decision making and the various types of influence that consumers can have. There is limited empirical evidence for the assumption on which these models are based. There are only a few studies that relate individual agent properties to their network positions.

The current study investigates how the knowledge and personal characteristics of influential consumers affect the adoption process. The writers think that different types of influential consumers possess varying characteristics, which implies their varying influence on the consumers around them. The writers mark three different types of consumers:

Innovators/ early adopters: they influence other consumers through their innovative behaviour and knowledge about a specific product

Market mavens: they may not have knowledge about a specific product category but they have knowledge about markets in general

Opinion leaders: they represent a combination of innovative behaviour and market knowledge

    Opinion leaders and early adopters have similar characteristics and the writers think that opinion leaders are early adopters and vice versa. However, there is a difference between these two. The concept of early adopters refers only to the position of the consumer in the adoption process and the concept of opinion leaders refers to the influence those consumers have on others. Opinion leaders are therefore interesting to study.

    There are many studies that have attempted to understand the roles and attributes of opinion leaders. Studies found that their central position, innovativeness and interpersonal influence may affect their influence. There are two important types of interpersonal influence. The first one is informational and the second one is normative influence. The former refers to the tendency to accept information from other people as evidence of reality. Opinion leaders often influence other people by giving them advice and directions about their purchase or use of a product. The latter type of influence refers to the tendency to conform to the expectations of others. Normative opinion leaders will show social pressure and social support and will in that way influence the decision-making process of the consumer. People want to have meaningful social relationships and they will therefore show behaviour that is approved by others, like adopting a product to appeal to other people who have that same product. The situation as well as the product will determine which type of influence is more important. Privately consumed goods will go more together with the informational influence, whereas publicly consumed goods will go together with both types of influence.

    When you compare an opinion leader to somebody who seeks their advice, you will notice that the opinion leader has more experience or expertise with the product, has been exposed to more information about the product, exhibits more innovative behaviour with the product and shows higher levels of involvement with the product category. There have been many studies about the characteristics of opinion leaders, but no research combines their characteristics.

    The study

    The writers of this article wanted to assess the assumption that opinion leaders have more contact, exert different types of influence and are among the earliest adopters and they conducted an empirical study. In that study they considered the role of opinion leaders in the diffusion of free Internet games for children. This study helps to distinguish between normative and informative influences and helps to show more about how children influence each other. This study also notes the influence of different characteristics of opinion leaders, which can help give some insight into how influential affect the behaviour of others. The writers assumed that opinion leaders play an important role in the diffusion of information about products and the products themselves. They therefore investigated the diffusion of both information and product. Opinion leaders may influence diffusion by increasing the speed of diffusion and/or increasing the maximum adoption percentage. The writers also decided to investigate two factors which may affect the role of opinion leader in the adoption process. These are the use of mass media by firms and the number of opinion leaders within the network. These two factors might affect how the opinion leader influences the speed of the information or product diffusion and the maximum adoption process.

    Hypotheses

    The writers of this article focus on three main characteristics of opinion leaders. They think that an opinion leader’s innovative behaviour might enhance the adoption percentage rate. Opinion leaders exert social pressure and social support, so their normative influence makes it more likely that followers adopt the product as well. The writers hypothesized that innovative behaviour by opinion leaders results in a higher adoption percentage, and that that effect is stronger if normative influence is more important to followers.

    As said before, opinion leaders spread information by giving advice and directions to costumers. That active, informational influence may increase the speed of information diffusion. The follower is more likely to follow the opinion leader, because the opinion leader has more expertise. This means that the informational influence of the opinion leader enhances the speed of information diffusion. Both types of influence are important, but the writers think that opinion leaders and followers differ in the type of influence that is more important to them. The second hypothesis of the writers is that for opinion leaders the importance of normative influence relative to informational influence is lower than it is for the followers. The lower importance of normative influence leads to a higher adoption percentage and this adoption percentage increases more when the importance of normative influence for opinion leaders decreases.

    The third hypothesis of the writers is that opinion leaders are better at judging products, which results in a faster information and product diffusion.

    According to the writers, there are also other factors influencing the role of the opinion leader and they also had two hypotheses about these factors. According to the writers, Word of Mouth should be more likely than mass media to activate people to act upon received advice. There are many scientists who think that Word of Mouth has the most important influence in the consumer making decision-process. However, there are also many scientists who say that high mass media by firms can increase the speed of information diffusion, since more people come aware of a product. If mass media are extensive, than Word of Mouth may become less important as a means to make people aware of the product and this means that there will be a decrease in the role the opinion leader plays in the information diffusion process. The fourth hypothesis is that less extensive use of mass media by firms leads to a stronger influence of the opinion leader’s product-judgment quality on the speed of information and product diffusion.

    For some products, there are many opinion leaders. This is because for some things, many people have an opinion. Almost everybody has an opinion about music and movies. Social media makes it relatively easy to share opinions and influence a great number of other people. With complex and extensive products, like computers and cell phones, people should be less likely to make a decision on the basis on messages on Twitter or Facebook. There will be no big group of opinion leaders, because it takes time to become an expert about these products. Fewer opinion leaders will also probably result in a lower adoption percentage. Their fifth hypothesis is that a smaller percentage of opinion leaders in a network enhances the influence of innovative behaviour of the opinion leaders in terms of increasing the adoption percentage. This is especially the case if normative influence is important to followers.

    Empirical study

    In the empirical study, the writers wanted to know more about the Word of Mouth behaviour of children. This was done in the context of the diffusion of free Internet games. The games in the study invite children to make their own radio or television program. They can be used easily and messages can be send to friends to invite them to see the creations. Children may also talk about these games at school. The investigate the role of children as opinion leaders, the writers used an online questionnaire. The writers used three big online applications. Visitors of the three sites can see the work of others. On the sites, only the best news items are broadcast and so it is an honour if the children’s news items are broadcast on the site. If a child wishes to get his or her news item broadcast on the main site, he or she is probably sensitive to normative influences because wanting your news item to come on the main site, means you care about what others think of your work. To identify opinion leaders, the writers used an opinion leadership scale and they defined the 29,4% who score highest on the scale as opinion leaders (OL). The other 70,6% of the subjects are followers or non-leaders (NL).

    Results

    They found that opinion leaders exhibit more innovative behaviour than followers do. They also found that the opinion leader children were more involved with the product than the other children and talked more about it, even when they were not using the product. They are also more likely to involve others in the use of the product (such as inviting them to join). The data also shows that opinion leaders do not know more about the product than followers, but they can help others better in using the product. The finding that opinion leaders can help others indicates that they are more capable of interpreting the information they receive and this might be the result of their higher involvement in the product and more expertise with the product. However, it was difficult to obtain information about the actual interactions patterns. The writers did find that opinion leaders used more sources than followers, but that mass media is equally important to both groups. Because opinion leaders used more social sources, they were likely to take a more central position in the network. Also, opinion leaders score high on both informational and normative influence, whereas followers score high on normative influence but not so high on information influence. This supports the second hypothesis: for opinion leaders, the importance of normative influence is lower than for followers. With the help of these results, the writers include three characteristics of opinion leaders in their model. The first one is that opinion leaders are better at judging product quality. Even if they do not know more about the product, they can better interpret the information they receive. The second one is that normative influence is less important for opinion leaders than it is for followers. The third one is that opinion leaders are more innovative than followers. The data also suggests that opinion leaders take a more central role in the network.

    The simulation study

    The writers developed an agent-based model to test their hypotheses. The model distinguishes between informational and normative influences. Opinion leaders or non-leaders can decide to adopt the product on the basis of the product quality (informational influence) or because the neighbouring agents adopt a product and the agent may feel social pressure to adopt the product as well. In their research, the writers vary five parameters systematically. These five are the innovativeness of opinion leaders, the weight of normative influences, the number of opinion leaders in the network, the reach of mass media and the quality of the product judgment of opinion leaders. They used a certain reference model and the specific parameters and value distributions can be found in the tables of pages 193 and 194 of the article. To test whether opinion leaders have an influence on the product diffusion and the adoption percentage of a product, the writers compared it to another model that excludes opinion leaders.

    Results

    The writers found that if opinion leaders are active in social networks, information spreads faster, the product diffuses faster over the network and the adoption percentage is significantly higher than in a network without opinion leaders. The capability of opinion leaders to judge product quality is important to the speed of information and product diffusion. Informational influence has a dominant effect on the adoption speed of the product and on the speed of information sharing. The lower sensitivity to normative influence of opinion leaders and their innovative behaviour is more important for the adoption percentage.

    The writers found that if followers become more sensitive to normative influence, the adoption percentage declines. This can be due to the stronger effect of innovation behaviour when informational influences increase in the network. But it is more likely that this effect is driven by the low adoption percentage. Opinion leaders can’t force the network to surpass a threshold when the normative pressure against the adoption of the product is higher than the normative pressure in favour of the adoption. The writers also found that a more extensive use of mass media further decreases the effect that opinion leaders have on the speed of information and product diffusion. This is because consumers become aware of the product at a later point in time.

    The findings are valuable for marketers because they may help explain why some products fail and they also suggest strategies for introducing new products. It is difficult to ensure that enough people adopt the product to make the product successful. Opinion leaders may be innovative, but they may not be numerous enough to make the product a success. Through online social networks, opinion leaders can reach many people and thus exert their normative influence. In their study, the writers found that opinion leaders immediately recognize a good application and therefore also quickly initiate the diffusion process. Also, they affect the popularity of the online application. The opinion leaders from the study involved other children in the application and they are able to help other children sometimes to use complex applications. Other children might be discouraged to use complex applications without the help of opinion leaders. The writers also found that there needs to be a focused campaign (and not just the random use of mass media) to reach the opinion leader who can initiate the diffusion process. This campaign can only be successful if the opinion leader adopts the product and starts talking about it. If the normative influence in the network is too strong, than opinion leaders might not adopt the product. So a marketing campaign focused on opinion leaders seems to be most successful if opinion leaders do not care that much about normative influence and if the importance of normative influence in the network is relatively low.

    The writers found that opinion leaders play a significant role in the adoption process and spread of information about products. Opinion leaders exert normative and informational influences. They also found that opinion leaders are early adopters. Opinion leaders are not (only) influential because of the number of relations they have. All these characteristics should be taken into account when investigating the role of influential consumers.

    Access: 
    Public
    Spent resources: self-regulatory resource availability affects impulse buying - Vohs & Faber - 2007 - Article

    Spent resources: self-regulatory resource availability affects impulse buying - Vohs & Faber - 2007 - Article

    Introduction & Literature

    Current technologies stimulate around the clock consumerism, making it difficult to resist impulses to buy things right away, and making it so situational forces can largely govern purchasing behaviour. Research has suggested that this has changed the rate and frequency of impulsive buying.

    Impulse buying can be defined as a dominant urge to buy that presents itself suddenly, and does not involve thoughtful consideration. This phenomenon is thus not dependent on the product, but on the consumer, and can occur with any individual. Impulse buying has been shown to be associated with pleasure, in accordance with which Hoch and Loewenstein (1991) formulated their view that consumer decisions are formed by an ever-shifting conflict between desire and willpower. Two mechanisms are highlighted in this view: (1) wanting to buy things and (2) being able to control this desire.

    This article focuses on the role of self-control with regards to impulsive spending. There has been previous research that indeed suggests that good self-control decreases impulsive buying, but methodological issues make that there are several alternate explanations for these results.

    Self-regulation is thought to have three core ingredients:

    Establishing goals/standards

    Being aware of the distance between the current status and the goal

    Moving towards the goal

      This research utilizes a limited-resource model in which self-regulatory resources are hypothesized to work by substituting undesirable responses with desirable responses. This model thus defines regulatory resources as a limited resource, a claim which is backed-up by research. The authors hypothesize that understanding of how this resource is depleted can help predict when and why impulse buying occurs. In the studies described here they expect that using these resources in a self-control task will increase subsequent impulse buying.

      Experiment 1

      A common self-restraint tactic is to lower one’s valuation of the desired product. In accordance to this it can be expected that diminished self-control resources will make a person willing to pay more for desired products. This was tested in the following manner: (1) Participants watched a 3 minute video in which the research group was instructed to ignore visual cues. (2) Participants filled in the state version of the positive and negative affective schedule (PANAS). And (3) the participants were shown pictures of products and asked to list what they were willing to pay for them. Results indicate that the control group was willing to pay more, proving the hypothesis right.

      Experiment 2

      It is likely that trait impulsivity will also have an effect on the rate of impulse buying. As people with higher impulsivity generally need to exert greater control over their impulses, it can be hypothesized that a decrease in self-regulatory resources will more strongly affect these individuals. This was tested in the following manner: (1) Participants complete the buying impulsiveness scale (BIS). (2) Participants were told to write down their thoughts; the research group was told not to think of a white bear and to mark the paper every time they did. (3) Participants filled in the PANAS. (4) Participants were given an opportunity to spend their earnings. Results show that the research group portrayed more spontaneous buying behaviour, and that this effect was greater with impulsive individuals. There was no significant difference between both groups in the control.

      Experiment 3

      Shiv and Fedorikhin (1999) devised a model (B) similar to that proposed by the authors (A). Namely, they proposed that cognition decides behaviour more than emotion does when someone utilizes self-control. There are three main differences between these models:

      In A self-regulation is a global resource for many acts of self-control. In B it involves only cognitive resources in a consumption decision.

      A predicts current spending behaviour on the basis of earlier self-regulation exercise. in B cognitive resources are depicted as only predictive of consumption choice at that moment.

      A predicts controlled or non-controlled spending. B predicts product choice.

        This experiment is designed to test which model is more accurate. This was tested in the following manner: (1) Participants complete the BIS. (2) Participants are instructed to read multiple pages of dry text; the research group is told to do this in a happy and enthusiastic manner. (3) Participants filled in the PANAS. (4) Participants were given an opportunity to spend their earnings on food items, with half being healthy (cognitive choice) and half being unhealthy (emotional choice). Results showed that the research group bought more of both kinds of items, and that this was more so among highly impulsive individuals.

        General discussion

        Overall these experiments were successful in proving the hypotheses. There are, however, three limitations to this study: (1) It is possible that filling out the PANAS affected subsequent behaviour, (2) no difference was found between impulsive and non-impulsive individuals in the non-depletion condition, and (3) the sample size for experiment 3 was somewhat small.

        The results of experiment 3, that impulsive buying after depletion of self-control is not dependent on the type of product, is supported by various approaches:

        Research that shows that impulsive spending is not caused by a product but by factors within the consumer.

        There are parallels with research of binge-eaters, compulsive buyers, and kleptomaniacs, which show that the quality of product does not matter in these compulsions.

        There is evidence that the “wanting” and “liking”-systems in the brain are separate.

          The failure of finding a difference between impulsive and non-impulsive individuals in the non-depletion condition of experiment 2 does actually make sense. Highly impulsive people are, after all, likely to restrain themselves in a situation with buying opportunities, and should be able to succeed in this when in full possession of their regulatory resources. Studies involving eating show a similar pattern.

          This research successfully adds to the knowledge of theoretical factors that can contribute to situational impulse buying. It was already known that proximity (physical and/or temporal) and mood can be situational causes. The current research adds weakened restraints to this list. Furthermore, information from the participants suggest an interplay between regulatory resources and the strength of the urge towards impulse buying.

          Access: 
          Public
          Social-cognitive factors mediating interventions effects on handwashing: a longitudinal study - Contzen & Inauen - 2015 - Article

          Social-cognitive factors mediating interventions effects on handwashing: a longitudinal study - Contzen & Inauen - 2015 - Article

          The importance of handwashing

          Diarrhea is the main cause of death in children under the age of five worldwide. The most effective preventive measure for diarrhea is handwashing by the primary caregivers, especially after giving food or potential contact with stool. In most developing countries (and even many developed countries) this remains a challenge. Health promoting agencies therefore focus mainly on the development and implementation of handwashing programs. The effectiveness of these programs is increased when they are based on multiple behavioral theories.

          RANAS

          RANAS is the Risk, Attitudes, Norms, Abilities, Self-Regulation approach, a multi-theoretical framework to design water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) interventions in developing countries. The RANAS approach uses quantitative identification of the social-cognitive factors that determine the key behavior in the target population, and selects behavior change techniques (BCTs) expected to target exactly these factors for intervention development. In a study in Ethiopia, the following determinants of handwashing were found:

          • The descriptive norm: behaviors typically practiced by and therefore copied from others.
          • The injunctive norm: behaviors typically approved or disapproved of by others.
          • Impediments: anticipated barriers and distractions to a behavior.
          • Forgetting: forgetting to execute a behavior at a specific time or situation.
          • Inconvenience of the present handwashing technique.

          The BCTs selected to target these factors were public commitment, facilitating resources, and reminders. These proved far more effective than a standard education intervention, showing that using theory-based interventions is indeed preferable.

          Mechanisms of change

          A public commitment (making a promise to oneself or the public) is linked to an increase in commitment strength and the injunctive norm. In addition, seeing others commit should affect the descriptive norm. Public commitment should also serve as a reminder, to counter forgetting. Impediments can be decreased by providing resources, such as installing a handwashing station and making water and soap more easily accessible. Using the handwashing infrastructure provided should lead to increased motivational and volitional self-efficacy. This is the belief that one is able to initiate and execute the behavior and the belief in one’s capability to maintain the behavior and recover from relapse. Time and energy already invested by the household should serve to create more commitment to using the handwashing stations by enhancing the injunctive norm. Because they are constructed in public areas, the descriptive norm should also be enhanced. The authors of this article set out to test these assumptions in southern Ethiopia.

          Research design

          This article tested the change processes of two handwashing interventions, a public commitment intervention with reminder and an infrastructure promotion intervention with reminder. These conditions were compared to an education-only intervention. The interventions were developed to be theory-based and tailored to the target population.

          Effectiveness of the interventions

          Infrastructure-promotion with reminder and education, alone and in combination with public commitment with reminder, largely predicted changes in social-cognitive factors as expected. The interventions’ effects on handwashing were mediated by these social-cognitive factors. Motivational self-efficacy and social norms were enhanced, while impediments and forgetting were decreased.

          Volitional self-efficacy

          However, volitional self-efficacy was only affected by infrastructure-promotion with reminder in combination with public commitment. It is possible that the public commitment bolstered the infrastructure-promotion’s effect on volitional self-efficacy.

          Food-related versus stool-related commitment strength

          It seems that only food-related commitment strength, but not stool-related commitment strength, was affected by the interventions. This shows that these two types of commitment strength should be considered separately when designing an intervention.

          Injunctive norm and commitment strength

          Public commitment with reminder did not increase the injunctive norm and commitment strength. This difference may have been caused by the subjects not having to read their intentions to the group, but only pledge for themselves. The effect of the reminder in the form of the commitment sign (a headscarf) was also not found, likely because the subjects also forgot to wear the headscarf since they were not accustomed to it. When developing an intervention, the commitment signs need to be designed to ensure that they are made public and are seen as a request to engage in the target behavior.

          Conclusion

          This study shows that theory-based population-tailored interventions are more successful in changing handwashing than a standard education intervention. The interventions that were used successfully changed the critical social-cognitive factors in the target population. This emphasizes the importance of investigating interventions’ underlying change processes.

          BulletPoints

          • Diarrhea is the main cause of death in children under the age of five worldwide. The most effective preventive measure for diarrhea is handwashing by the primary caregivers, especially after giving food or potential contact with stool.
          • RANAS is the Risk, Attitudes, Norms, Abilities, Self-Regulation approach, a multi-theoretical framework to design water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) interventions in developing countries. The RANAS approach uses quantitative identification of the social-cognitive factors that determine the key behavior in the target population, and selects behavior change techniques (BCTs) expected to target exactly these factors for intervention development.
          • This study shows that theory-based population-tailored interventions are more successful in changing handwashing than a standard education intervention. The interventions that were used successfully changed the critical social-cognitive factors in the target population. This emphasizes the importance of investigating interventions’ underlying change processes.
          Access: 
          Public
          Spillover effects in environmental behaviors, across time and context: a review and research agenda - Nilsson, Bergquist, & Schultz (2017) - Article

          Spillover effects in environmental behaviors, across time and context: a review and research agenda - Nilsson, Bergquist, & Schultz (2017) - Article

          Environmental behavior Spillover effects in environmental issues

          Individual changes in environmental behavior have been shown to make a difference, where government policy falls short. Education campaigns are relatively ineffective in producing behavior change, slightly more so than price incentives (or disincentives). In specific situations, goal setting, social norms, and prompts have had some success.

          Spillover effects in environmental issues

          The concept of spillover means that by engaging in one behavior, people will adopt a more pro-environmental orientation and will engage in other pro-environmental related behaviors. The precise definition is: the extent to which engaging in one behavior influences the probability of conducting a subsequent behavior. This can be very effective, but the downside is that it can also work in a negative direction, where people use one behavior as a rationale for not performing other acts. There are three types of spillover effect (not mutually exclusive):

          • Spillovers across behavior: one behavior causes another behavior
          • Spillovers across time: one behavior causes the same behavior to occur again in the future
          • Spillovers across contexts: one behavior causes the same behavior again in a different context

          Theoretical basis of positive spillovers

          Following now are several theories that can explain the positive spillover effect.

          Cognitive dissonance theory

          This theory states that perceived incongruence between elements of cognitions or behaviors will lead to feelings of discomfort. This motivates dissonance reduction strategies, such as behavioral change. When someone behaves inconsistently concerning the environment, cognitive dissonance might cause them to change their behavior to be more consistently pro-environmental, especially if first pro-environmental behavior is relevant for the self-concept.

          Self-perception theory

          This theory predicts that people use their own behavior as cues when forming evaluative cognitions (attitudes, norms, values). Describing peoples past behaviors as pro-environmental is associated with stronger moral obligations and higher positive pro-environmental attitudes.

          Action based learning

          This is grounded in the assumption that beliefs about outcomes affect behaviors, and that increased learning about the outcomes of a specific behavior can extend to other behaviors. Buying energy effective light bulbs may influence beliefs about energy conservation in general and thus elicit positive spillover effects.

          Theoretical basis of negative spillovers

          While in positive spillovers a first behavior promotes a second that is more of the same, in negative spillover the first behavior creates permission for a second behavior that is the opposite of the first. For example, recycling might decrease the feeling of obligation for waste prevention when shopping.

          Moral licensing: credits and credentials

          In this concept, an initial moral action results in a subsequent immoral action. This can be explained by two hypothesis: moral credentials and moral credits. Moral credentials predicts that engaging in a behavior that is perceived as morally good will boost the self-concept. These positive emotions inhibit the influence of discomfort when conducting a perceived immoral behavior. Moral credits predicts that engaging in a behavior which is perceived as morally good creates room for perceived immoral behaviors. Think of this like a credit account, where you build up credit by being ‘good’, which you will then spend on behavioral transgressions.

          Spillover across behaviors

          Positive spillover across behavior

          Positive cueing is a tool used to stimulate self-perception via framing of past behavior as ‘diagnostic’ of pro-environmental behavior. Reminding people of past pro-environmental behavior can therefore lead to increased pro-environmental judgments and intentions, mediated by self-identity. That means the first behavior must lead to a more pro-environmental self-identity to cause positive spillover.

          Rebound effects

          A rebound effect occurs when technological improvements create decreased costs, leading to increased demand. This means that improved efficiency of an appliance or technology causes more people to buy that appliance, which offsets the actual energy savings achieved. A direct rebound effect occurs like described above, for example when an energy efficient vehicle subsequently gets driven more often. An example of indirect rebound effects is if the money saved on household energy conservation is spent on a more extensive holiday, leading to increased rather than decreased environmental impact.

          Negative spillover across pro-environmental behaviors

          In one study that gave participants weekly information about water usage, increased energy consumption was found. This indicated that the intervention campaign stimulated a negative spillover effect of increased energy usage. The direction of spillover seems to depend on whether the first behavior serves as an identity signal. Positive spillover occurs more often when the first behavior was a high-cost behavior. When the first behavior is low-cost, negative spillover is more likely to occur.

          Negative spillovers promoting environmental actions

          So far, negative spillovers have been exemplified as a first pro-environmental behavior leading to subsequent pro-environmental inaction. Negative spillover could also go the other way: first an environmentally unfriendly behavior promoting a second environmental friendly behavior. When participants in a study are made mindful of a past transgression, they are more likely to engage in a second (similar) behavior that is pro-environmental.

          Temporal spillover

          In contrast to spillovers spreading between behaviors, in temporal spillover a behavior at time 1 will affect the same behavior at time 2. As in behavioral spillover, the effect may be positive or negative: people may feel like they are ‘a pro-environmental person’ and execute the behavior more often, or they may feel they have done their share and don’t execute the behavior again soon.

          Post-decisional dissonance

          This effect means that people who choose from two alternatives immediately have stronger attitudes towards the chosen alternative. This shows that engaging in behavior A in time 1 can affect people’s attitudes toward that behavior in a positive direction.

          Contextual spillover

          Contextual spillover occurs when a behavior A spreads from context 1 to context 2, for example a spillover effect of energy saving behavior between work settings and home settings. The effect is especially strong when similar equipment is used in both contexts and both have similar triggers. The support for negative spillovers between contexts is ambiguous, but there is consistent evidence for positive pro-environmental contextual spillovers.

          Moderating factors for positive and negative spillover

          Moderating the strength of spillover effect

          Moderators for the strength of spillover effect are:

          • Similarity in material content and process between contexts
          • Similarity between two behaviors over time
          • A high score on Personal Preference for Consistency (PFC)
          • Pro-environmental self-identity
          • Framing behavior in terms of self-transcendence or normative goals toward environment

          Moderating positive vs. negative spillover effect

          Positive spillover seems to induce PFC or stability, via a long term goal achievement, an abstract level of construal (recalling a distant moral action), or a rule-based mindset (ethical strategy of conforming to moral norms). Negative spillovers seem to be associated with the focus on outcome or a concrete action in the present.

          Techniques for promoting positive spillover effects

          In automatic techniques, researchers measure a first behavior or set of behaviors, and assume that merely conducting these behaviors will spread to additional behaviors, times or contexts. Intervening techniques use an active strategy to affect the mediating psychological constructs. Spillover effects induced by cognitive dissonance are likely unreliable, because it is easier to use small behaviors as justification than to change behavior to be more consistent. Targeting self-perception seems a more clear and stable way to promote positive spillover.

          Conclusion

          Cognitively based intervention techniques are most likely to elicit positive pro-environmental spillovers. This means techniques such as cueing seem to provide a stronger and more stable basis for pro-environmental behaviors to elicit positive spillover compared to automatic interventions. However, most studies use correlational evidence, so more research is needed to look at causal relationships. Often positive and negative spillover are studied in isolation, but psychological processes that may influence both should be varied in experimental settings.

          BulletPoints

          • The concept of spillover means that by engaging in one behavior, people will adopt a more pro-environmental orientation and will engage in other pro-environmental related behaviors. The precise definition is: the extent to which engaging in one behavior influences the probability of conducting a subsequent behavior. Spillover can happen across behavior, across time, or across contexts.
          • While in positive spillovers a first behavior promotes a second that is more of the same, in negative spillover the first behavior creates permission for a second behavior that is the opposite of the first. For example, recycling might decrease the feeling of obligation for waste prevention when shopping.
          • Moderators for the strength of spillover effect are: similarity between contexts or behaviors, a high score on Personal Preference for Consistency (PFC), pro-environmental self-identity, framing in terms of self-transcendence or normative goals toward environment.
          • Cognitively based intervention techniques are most likely to elicit positive pro-environmental spillovers. This means techniques such as cueing seem to provide a stronger and more stable basis for pro-environmental behaviors to elicit positive spillover compared to automatic interventions.
          Access: 
          Public
          Beyond Purchasing: Electric Vehicle Adoption Motivation and Consistent Sustainable Energy Behaviour in The Netherlands - Peters, A. M., Van der Werff, E., & Steg, L (2016) - Article

          Beyond Purchasing: Electric Vehicle Adoption Motivation and Consistent Sustainable Energy Behaviour in The Netherlands - Peters, A. M., Van der Werff, E., & Steg, L (2016) - Article

          Exam ticket

          • Write down and explain the two hypotheses and the main results of the paper ‘Beyond purchasing'.

          In recent years, people increasingly use smart energy technologies, such as photovoltaic solar panels and electric vehicles (EV). Such smart energy technologies can significantly reduce fossil energy use and the emission of greenhouse gases. However, to do so, it is important not only to adopt smart technology, but also to use it in a sustainable way. The present study aims to provide insight into which factors affect the likelihood of using EVs in a sustainably way.

          Which factors affect whether EV adoption encourages other types of sustainable energy behavior?

          Spill-over effects reflect the extent to which engaging in one sustainable energy behavior affects the likelihood on engaging in other sustainable energy behaviors. Spill-over affects can be positive and negative. A positive spill-over effect refers to the situation in which engagement in one sustainable energy behavior increases the likelihood of engaging in other sustainable energy behavior. However, the reverse can also occur: when people feel licensed to counteract (thus not engaging in sustainable energy behavior) after doing a ‘good job’ by engaging in certain sustainable energy behavior. This is called negative spill-over effect.
          In prior studies, it is found that people are more likely to show positive spill-over effects, when the initial sustainable energy behavior increases environmental self-identity. Environmental self-identity is the extent to which you see yourself as a type of person who acts environmentally-friendly. To encourage positive spill-over effects, it is thus important to identify which factors support the likelihood that using EV increases one’s environmental self-identity.
          The present study examines whether the motivation for EV adoption is key in developing environmental self-identity, and hence to create a positive spill-over effect. More specifically, when a person adopts using EV for environmental reasons, the likelihood that this persons perceives his or her choice to adopt an EV as a sustainable choice, increases. Vice versa, when people adopt an EV for other reasons (for example financial or technological reasons), they are less likely to develop environmental self-identity, thereby lowering the likelihood of a positive spill-over affect.

          In sum, the present study examines two hypotheses:

          1. The more people adopt an electric vehicle (EV) for environmental reasons, the more likely the EV adoption is to increase environmental self-identity, thereby promoting consistent sustainable energy behavior (positive spill-over effect).

          2. The more people adopt an electric vehicle (EV) for other (here: financial and technological) reasons, the less likely the EV adoption is to increase environmental self-identity, thereby not promoting consistent sustainable energy behavior (negative spill-over effect).

          How is the (positive) spill-over effect studied?

          To study which factors affect whether EV adoption encourages other types of sustainable energy behavior, two studies are conducted, which are summarized below.

          Study 1

          Participants were recruited via Dutch for a and Facebook pages, devoted to EV’s. All participants possessed an EV. Of the 112 people who started the questionnaire, 74 completed the questionnaire. Most participants were highly educated men with a relative high income. This is also the typical profile of EV users.
          The participants were shown different environmental, financial and technological motivations to adopt an EV and asked to indicate how important those reasons where for their decision to adopt an EV. Some examples of motivations are given below:

          • Environmental motivation: my EV emits little CO2.

          • Financial motivation: I pay little or no vehicle tax for my EV.

          • Technological motivation: An EV is equipped with the latest technology.

          In addition, they measured how often participants engaged in several other types of sustainable energy behavior. These sustainable energy behaviors were subdivided in the following four categories:

          1. Sustainable EV use (e.g. I charge my EV with renewable energy)

          2. Direct energy saving behavior (e.g. I shower less than 3 minutes)

          3. Indirect energy saving behavior (e.g. I buy seasonal products)

          4. Energy efficient investment behavior (e.g. My house has double-glazed windows)

          Each mediation analysis was conducted separately in PROCESS macro for SPSS with bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals. Thus, each analysis analysed the effect of one adoption motivation (independent variable) on sustainable use of EV and other types of sustainable energy behavior (dependent variable) via environmental self-identity (mediator), controlling for all other adoption motivations.
          The results partly support the first hypothesis: the more people adopted an EV for environmental reasons, the stronger their self-identity, which next was positively related with direct and indirect energy saving behavior, but not to sustainable EV use and energy efficient investment behavior. In other words: environmental motivation is a mediator for both direct and indirect energy saving behavior, but environmental behavior is not a mediator between environmental motivation and sustainable use of the EV.
          The results partly support hypothesis 2: non-environmental motivations (financial and technological) resulted in a lower likelihood to strengthen environmental self-identity and to encourage consistent sustainable energy. It is important to understand that the results did not show a negative relationship between non-environmental motivation and development of environmental self-identity, but a positive and significant relationship, which was much weaker than the relationship between environmental motivation and environmental self-identity. Furthermore, financial motivation to adopt an EV did not lead to a higher likelihood of using the EV in a sustainable way via environmental self-identity.

          Study 2

          A second study is conducted aimed to replicate the findings of study 1 with a larger sample. In addition, some items of adoption motivation are changed with the aim to increase the internal consistency of the financial and technological EV adoption motivation scales.
          Participants are members of a Dutch organization, which connects the Dutch electricity grid with the public charging stations for EVs. Participants are recruited via e-mail. The final sample consisted of 251 people, of which, again, the majority male (231), highly educated and a relatively high income.
          The same instruments are used, except some adaptions for the financial and technological motivational scales. Consequently, the internal consistency of these scales increased, but remained somewhat low for the financial EV adoption motivation scale. Most scales used a 7-point scale ranging.
          This second study confirmed both hypotheses. Thus,

          1. A mediating relationship is found for environmental motivation to adopt an EV  strengthen environmental self-identity  sustainable use of the EV (and several other types of sustainable energy behavior)

          2. It is found that, when people about an EV for non-environmental (thus: financial or technological) reasons, this is not consistently related to environmental self-identity and sustainable energy behavior.

          What is the take-home message from this paper?

          Because this study conducted two cross-sectional questionnaire studies among individuals who already had adopted an EV, rather than focusing on behavior induced in a lab setting, the external validity of these two studies increased.
          This study shows that having environmental reasons to adopt an EV increases the likelihood to strengthen one’s environmental self-identity, which in turn increases the likelihood to use the EV in a sustainable way. In contrast, when people adopt an EV for other (financial or technological) reasons, this behavior is less likely to strengthen one’s environmental self-identity, which in turn does not increase the likelihood of using an EV in a sustainable way.
          The current study is the first to show that motivation for engaging in initial sustainable energy behavior can play an important role in promoting positive spill-over effects. More specifically, other study already showed the first relationship (environmental reasons strengthen environmental self-identity) but this study adds to prior findings by proving the second relationship (strengthened environmental self-identity increases the likelihood of consistent sustainable energy behavior). Future studies could aim to replicate these findings by other smart technologies, such as solar panels. In addition, other samples could be used (this study merely focused on male, highly educated and with a relatively high income). Finally, policy makers are recommended to emphasize environmental, rather than financial or technological reasons for adopting an EV, because people seem more likely to use the EV in a sustainable way and to engage in other types of energy saving behavior, when they adopt an EV for environmental reasons.

          BulletPoints

          • Hypothesis 1 is confirmed: environmental motivation for EV adoption leads to strengthened environmental self-identity, which in turn leads to sustainable use of the EV (and several other types of sustainable energy behavior)

          • It is found that, when people about an EV for other than environmental (financial or technological) reasons, this is not consistently related to strengthening environmental self-identity and, in turn does not increase the likelihood to show sustainable energy behavior.

           

          Access: 
          Public
          The psychology of advertising (chapter 1) - Fennis & Stroebe (2010) - Article

          The psychology of advertising (chapter 1) - Fennis & Stroebe (2010) - Article

          When an identified sponsor uses a form of paid communication to inform or persuade audiences about a product or idea we call this advertisement. The first type of advertisement is outdoor advertisement. Archaeologists have found certain advertisement signs from ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Mesopotamia and ancient Rome. These signs were from traders and they wrote on their sign what they had in their store to sell and what the price of that product would be. During the Industrial Revolution, advertisement became more common and this was obviously because all the goods that could be made quickly and more easily needed to be sold. Markets were first local, later on they were regional and nowadays they are global. Without advertisement, we wouldn’t be aware that certain products exist and thus we would not buy these products. Without many buyers the production of that product will decline. Advertisement seems to channel the needs of people by reshaping them into wants for specific products and manufacturers can supply us with these products which will in turn satisfy our needs.

          The side effect of advertisement is the growing importance of the consumer brand (like Adidas and G-star). During the Industrial Revolution many companies were able to produce a lot of products and they therefore had to design a certain sign on the product as to show that it was their product. Consumers could recognize their product choice against other alternatives by these label names or signs. The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) was created and this means that the brand was differentiated from the competition. The Depressions years and World War I and II temporarily slowed down production, but after those periods came the economic bloom and even more people enjoyed new products. With the intervention of television, advertisements could reach more people. Nowadays the Internet is an advertisement medium.

          So first clay tablets were used as advertisement medium, later on it became poster bills and billboards. Newspapers and magazines are also popular advertising media and they display advertisements of known products and unknown products. Even though we now have the television and Internet, the newspaper is still a big advertising medium. The television still seems to be the most important advertising medium. Even though the Internet is a big and popular medium, it seems to be a complementary medium instead of a substitute medium.

          When we look at commercials from the past, we might remember the good old days but we might also think that the language use was weird. It seems that advertisements used to be different than they are now. Researchers, however, don’t agree completely with this statement. Researchers show that advertisements from 1800 and today’s advertisements use the same approach: informational or argument-based appeal. These advertisements tell people what they can buy, for what price and where they can buy it. This is also called the ‘tell’ approach and it is a more subtle form of the ‘hard-sell’ or ‘reason-why-approach.’ These hard approaches had a set of persuasive arguments to convince people to buy the product. In the early 1900s a ‘soft-sell’ approach was developed. This approach used emotions or a affect-based appeal to influence the feelings of consumers rather than their thoughts. This approach was used in that time, because people thought that human beings acting according to their instinct and emotions and non-rational processes. Nowadays, the ‘hard-sell’ and ‘soft-sell’ approach are both used.

          Advertisement and functions

          Sometimes we might think that a world without advertisement is better. There are no terrible salespersons and no annoying commercials that interrupt movies we watch on the television. But without advertisement, there would maybe be no television, magazines or radio. These media depend on advertisements for their existence. There would be fewer good sports matches, because they largely depend on commercial sponsorships. Also, without advertisements we wouldn’t be much informed about what products are out there. Advertisement seems to be a part of our society and it has certain functions in it. These functions will be discussed in the next part.

          The first function of advertisement is facilitating competition amongst firms. Firms can communicate with consumers through advertisement and through this firms can compete with each other for the attention of consumers, preferences of consumers and financial resources of consumers. The second function of advertisement is to inform consumers of new products. When one firm has developed a new product that is cheaper but as good as the product of another firm, they have to tell consumers about this. The way to achieve this is through advertisement. The competitor may lower his selling price and the two firms will compete against each other. The third function of advertisement is the funding of mass media in the world. Newspapers, radio, television and certain Internet sites would not exist without advertisement. Some countries (like Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany) also have public service broadcasting because they do not want to depend fully on advertisement. These public services are financed publicly rather than commercially. The fourth function is that the advertisement industry is an important employer. Worldwide more than 300.000 people work for advertising related industries. Without advertisement there would be fewer jobs, less competition and less economic activity.

          These functions are societal functions. There are also two functions on the individual level. One of those is to inform consumers, the other is persuading consumers. Informing means creating knowledge and beliefs. Persuading means generating or changing responses so that the advertisement brand is seen as more favourable. The informational appeal is used to introduce a new product. Most of the products from the informational appeal are durable products. That means that those products can be used repeatedly, like refrigerators. The information about the product is usually about performance, availability, price, quality and special offers. In developed, industrialized countries (Netherlands, USA) there are more informational ads than in less developed countries (Latin America, India).

          Every product has a life cycle. A product has an introduction stage, a growth stage, a maturity stage and decline stage. In the first stage advertisers must create brand awareness, during the growth stage advertisers build market share and improve the product, during the maturity stage consumers show the brand loyalty and during the decline stage new uses for the product may be conveyed. Informational appeals are also used when there are problems with a product. Sometimes advertisers are forced to inform consumers that a product needs to be returned for repair or funding. This is called product recall. Products can get bad names in that way (also in other ways). When advertisers want to restore the name of a product, people might still think that something is wrong with it. A while ago, somebody said that the McDonalds’ hamburgers are made out of worms. Although this turned out to be false, people kept making the association between McDonalds and worms because this was in their memory. The sales declined. One way in getting people to buy the product again is to persuade. Persuasion is intended to change consumer responses rather than informing consumers. In order to get positive responses from consumers, persuasive appeals will flank information in advertisements about a product. There are two strategies that can be used, alpha strategies and omega strategies. Alpha strategies increase the tendency to move towards the advertised position and influence the approach motivation. Omega strategies reduce the tendency to move away from a position and they therefore influence the avoidance motivation. Alpha strategies usually tell people that a product is only available for a short time or limited period. Omega strategies use fear and guilt and want to distract consumers.

          Effects of advertising

          This article will be about the psychological approach on the effects of advertisement. However, there are more approaches to advertisement. The psychological approach looks at the thoughts, feelings and actions of consumers and their behavioural and cognitive responses. Cognitive responses are thoughts and beliefs about brands and services and include brand awareness and recognition. Attitudes and preferences are also considered to be cognitive responses. Affective responses include emotions and moods that occur after seeing or during an advertisement. Behavioural responses include the intention and actual behaviour in response to advertising.

          Relationships can be causal and correlational. Correlation means that when an advertisement stimulus changes, the consumer response also changes and that these changes are associated with each other. A positive correlation means that an increase in one also means an increase in the other. A negative correlation means that an increase in one means a decrease in the other. However, psychologists usually look at causality. This means that one causes the other. The usually use experiments to find causality.

          Appealing source

          Advertisements will be more effective if they seem to tell the truth. That is, if they seem credible. If the source is credible, people want to process the message and may be persuaded by it. That’s the reason why advertisement companies want to foster expertise and trustworthiness. Another way in making the product more appealing, is by using attractiveness. In many advertisements, attractive people are used. Sometimes this makes sense, like when you are selling make-up. Usually, however, it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes attractive women are used to sell a car. Research has showed that using an attractive person helps sell the product. This is because people think that what is attractive is automatically good. People also use celebrities to sell their product. Potential buyers will see the celebrity and will also think that this product must be good, because a celebrity is using it. Another thing that can be used to make a source more appealing is the message structure. This means the way that a message is communicated and presented. Using the best arguments first or last seems to make a message more appealing than using them in the middle.

          People used advertisements with positive arguments only. Research have found that this may result in resistance. Nowadays, many companies also use two-sided advertisements in which they have positive and negative arguments. Messages do not just use argument-based appeals. They can also work on the emotions and this is the affect-based appeal. In choosing which appeal to use, companies need to look at what they are selling. Usually, electronics (like television and washing machines) are communicated with argument-based appeals. Another type of appeal is the use of fear. This appeal is called the fear-arousing communication. these advertisements can warn people for physical, social and financial risks.

          Access: 
          Public
          The psychology of food choice: some often encountered fallacies - Köster (2003) - Article

          The psychology of food choice: some often encountered fallacies - Köster (2003) - Article

          A new, popular science is the sensory science. This science has a multidisciplinary character and unites psychology, chemistry, food technology and food chemistry to try and understand eating and drinking behaviour as well as trying to make more accepted food products. Every type of science wants to be considered a ‘real’ science and therefore these sciences want to use experimental paradigms. Sensory food science has borrowed experimental paradigms that were valid in other fields, but this was not completely a smart thing to do. In borrowing paradigms from other fields, sensory food science forgot the true nature of the phenomena studied. This was especially the case for the application of psychology. As you all know, psychology is the study of human behaviour and its explicit (conscious) and implicit (non-conscious) determinants.

          Sensory psychologists are usually trained in the higher senses (these are visual and audition senses) and they apply the same methods on the lower senses (smell, taste and touch) without really seeing these sensory types as different. Our vision and audition are involved in the spatial orientation and they are strong inborn mechanisms and they guarantee that almost all humans perceive the same direction, forms and distances in a similar way. Our lower senses in the nasal cavity do not have strict inborn mechanisms, but rely on learning. At birth, children don’t like bitter but do like sweet, but later at life we can learn to eat bitter things. This is actually an advantage to our human race, because we are omnivores and can readily adapt to multiple food sources. But there is one consequence and that is that there are large differences in what people perceive and like. Our vision and audition are almost always in the centre of our conscious attention, but the lower senses almost never are. Because of the difference in conscious attention, it is easier to describe visual forms than flavours. But flavours and smells are stronger related to emotions than visual experiences. This may all have serious consequences for the paradigms used in psychological research of the different senses. The current practices in sensory science and consumer research are not always satisfactory from a psychological point of view.

          The problems

          The problems psychologists are faced with, are that food science research and consumer research are rather diverse. But most of them are related to fallacies that are known to psychologists, because they occur in the same way in psychology.

          The fallacy of consumer uniformity

          Some people assume that behaviour differs in degree, but not in essence. This fallacy assumes that all subjects in an experiment are comparable and that they perform the same task in the same way. This is one of the most studied fallacies and there is much debate about how to deal with individual differences. Some scientists want new scaling methods, because they may reduce individual variability. There has been not much attention paid to the underlying factors that determine the individual differences.

          For instance, one might ask whether people perceive a certain stimulus differently or whether they perceive the task differently. If they perceive the stimulus as different, is this a matter of learning? And if they perceive the task as different, is it due to a difference in understanding the instructions or is it because they use different problem-solving strategies.

          When you ask someone how familiar a certain product is, he or she may think that you want to know how often he or she has encountered this product or he or she might think that you want to know how much this product resembles other products.

          That person will look into his or her memory, but in the first case he or she will think about the number of encounters with the product, whereas in the other case he or she will scan other products he or she knows for similarity. The question asked should be replaced with a more specific question.

          Another mistake based on the uniformity fallacy, is the use of stimulus categories that are based on averaged results from other studies. For instance, in a certain study the writers stated that six pleasant and six unpleasant odours were used. But you need to study the pleasantness of an odour in the group and treat the data on the basis of the individually perceived pleasantness. For instance, one research found that the odour of lavender is liked by the people who recognize it, but disliked by people who don’t recognize it. Also, many studies do not balance for gender and some of them even don’t state the proportion of men and women in the study. Women are more sensitive to odours and flavours than men and also have probably better memory for known odours and this should be taken into account in a study. People should also take into account the different groups. For instance, there are people who bite chocolate and those who suck it. These two groups differ considerably and when one wants to make a certain chocolate product, he or she needs to take these differences into account.

          It certainly does pay off the take differences into account. It is however difficult to know beforehand in what respects consumers of a product may differ. This can only be solved by observation and analysis of consumption behaviour and should be tested by analysing a representative group of consumers. Sensory science has come much further with the help of multivariate analysis and segmentation of subjects. But researchers should take into account that situations can influence a person. A certain woman can be seen as a rigid cook when she cooks Sunday dinner for her husband and kids, but she can be seen as a convenience seeker when she prepares food on weekdays after work.

          The two situations and their accompanying roles may create very different demands in the same person. Scientists need to ask themselves, how consistent people are.

          The fallacy of consumer consistency

          The fallacy of consumer consistency is based on the idea that consumers don’t change. Most of the methods in sensory food and consumer science are based on this idea. These sciences want to look decent and assumed that an experiment when repeated under the exact same circumstances will produce the same results. But, what these scientists don’t keep in mind is that consumers really can change. The consumers has a memory and the second encounter with a certain product may not mean the same as the first encounter with that product. In some studies, this won’t matter, but in hedonic judgments and choice processes (in which more personal interest is involved), it will play an important role. It can be shown that changes in preference and choice do take place and in such degree that it can cast a doubt on the predictive validity of hedonic and consumer studies that rely on single measurement sessions. Many recent studies have shown that less than 50% of the participants stayed by their first choice of a certain product.

          Psychological theories about choice and preference behaviour also show/predict that there will be a change rather than stability of such behaviour. the mere exposure theory of Zajonc says that the more people are exposed to new stimuli, the more they will like them. There have been studies that found this to be true, but for a number of stimuli there is also a clear decrease of liking to be found. Many researchers therefore argue that Zajonc’s theory represents a special case of Berlyne’s arousal theory. Berlyne made a distinction between diversified exploratory behaviour and exploratory behaviour. In the exploratory behaviour stage a consumer is in a conflictual state because he or she has not much information about the nature of a stimulus and curiosity and novelty will therefore prevail. In the diversified behaviour state, the consumer is no longer in the conflictual state and therefore other stimulus properties, like arousal and stimulus complexity, become predominant. According to Berlyne, there is an inverted U-form relationship between arousal potential (perceived complexity) and liking. This means that for each individual there is an optimal arousal potential level for different stimuli this optimal level is different for different people and depends on learning and experience.

          Exposure to stimuli that are a bit more complex than the optimal level would make the subject change his optimal level in the direction the more complex stimulus and exposure to stimuli of a lower than optimal complexity level would leave the optimal level unchanged. Research looking at this has found that products with a stimuli lower than the optimal complexity level leads to product boredom. Product boredom can help explain why certain products flop. According to Walker, prolonged experience with a stimulus, even one of optimal complexity, will reduce its perceived complexity to some extent. If one accepts the idea that this is the cause of product boredom than one should not introduce the most liked product for introduction in the market.

          It is better to introduce a slightly less liked, but more complex product. There is also another cause of flops and this is slowly rising aversion. This slowly arising aversion occurs in products that are well liked, but at the same time have a minor defect that raises a slight feeling of doubt in the consumer. The feelings of doubt will grow and the positive feelings about the products will slowly diminish as a result of habituation. Over time, the consumer will dislike the product. This phenomenon is different than product boredom. Product boredom leads to indifference with regard to the product and slowly rising aversion leads to real dislikes. Raising perceived complexity will solve the problem of product boredom, whereas with slowly rising aversion, the source of the minor dissatisfaction must be identified and eliminated.

          Single hedonic measurements are good to measure immediate acceptance, but they will not provide information about long term appreciation of a product. There should be combination of repeated laboratory testing with intermediate well controlled exposure will give us that information. Shifts in perceptual measurements do also occur. Certain foods are too complex in flavour to grasp all the aspects of them at once. Sensory adaptation plays a big role in shifts. Also, foods and drinks are eaten in different combinations and this may influence the perception of them.

          The fallacy of conscious choice

          This fallacy is based on the implicit idea that people are reasonable and make rational choices. Most people see themselves as autonomous and they think that they make decisions based on rational grounds, except in extremely emotional situations. We rationalize our motives and often over-stress certain points in our story to make other people understand us better and we under-stress some socially undesirable aspects of our decisions. In science too, we favour certain hypotheses over others without knowing exactly why. This means that it even may occur that the right hypothesis is never tested or it will get tested, but may have difficulty to get generally accepted or published. In psychology and sensory science, the fallacy of conscious choice becomes dangerous, because putting a question to a subject will always result in an answer, even if the question is actually unanswerable. People may be polite and might not want to disappoint the researcher or they don’t want to look stupid and they think up an answer. Subjects try to guess what the subject of an experiment is and they respond in the way they think the investigator would want to hear. They give socially desirable answers or think of answers instead of saying that they do not know. Because many people give answers, it strengthens the investigator’s conviction that his question was perfectly legitimate. Researchers should not base conclusions on these answers. People usually don’t analyse what they eat or drink, and if they try to do so, they will have difficulty finding words for their feelings and thoughts about a product.

          Direct questions, or ‘why’ questions are bad. Indirect questions about certain food preferences are much better, especially when they are about the frequency of behaviour and not about feelings. Direct questions are not always as easy as they seem and can lead to misleading conclusions. This is especially the case when generally accepted ideas about desirable behaviour and about the relation between eating and health are involved. There are certain investigators who report the results obtained from questionnaires about attitudes and values without checking whether these results are related to actual food choice.

          Perceptual fallacy

          The perceptual fallacy is based on the assumption that what can be observed will be remembered and that what is not perceived can’t be remembered. Most of sensory and consumer research is based exclusively on perception and the role of memory is often forgotten. Even in most studies of experience, one would expect that memory of previous experiences with the product or products that look like that particular product plays a major role, but many researchers remain with only studying perception. They may study the perception of the packaging on the perception of the product, but not what is remembered about the product itself. Research has shown that stimuli that remained implicit and unnoticed in the learning phase, were later remembered. Studies have also shown that unconsciously learned odours and flavours are remembered in everyday life. Everyday experiences show that we have learned more about a product without any previous analysis. For instance, if your favourite chocolate bar tastes different, because the makers have changed certain properties of it, you will realize that you have learned unconsciously a lot about the properties of that chocolate bar, without having analysed all the ingredients and the tastes of all the ingredients. Also, research suggests that what people remember and the way in which they remember it, may depend on the meaning it has to them.

          The situational fallacy

          The situational fallacy is based on the assumption that perceptual situations are only defined by objective criteria and not by the subjects’ conscious and subconscious intentions. People can change with their intention the situation and the things around you can show different meanings which are closely related to their previous experience with them or their knowledge about them. Things are never without meaning for the perceiver and for psychologists, there are no pure sensations that exist independent of meaningful perception. When researchers ask ‘why’ questions, they will maybe not receive an honest answer (discussed above). True meaning is often based on very intricate and often hidden motives and they usually can’t be brought to consciousness. Also, if they can be brought to consciousness, it is difficult to express them verbally. So meaning can’t be measured by blunt questions, but with indirect and less verbal methods. Hedonic responses need to be measured in a more meaningful context.

          There are three misunderstandings, which often occur in research about the influence of context on the perception of food:

          Food context: this is the combination with other foods, food packaging, naming and culinary tradition.

          The eating situation: the physical and social environment in which the food is eaten.

          The individual: food aversions and food preferences, food expectations and variety seeking tendencies.

            Researchers can’t ask people directly about these food properties. A situation-oriented approach should be done to figure certain things about food preferences out. In this approach a consumer is not seen as a fixed individual with constant characteristics, but as someone who has many roles in his or her life and who has different intensions and wishes in these roles. In different situations, different roles become apparent. A family dinner is a different situation than dining in a restaurant with friends. Certain cravings, like wanting to eat a chocolate ice-cream, are acceptable in some situations and not in others. For instance, when you’re alone at home you can have that ice-cream, but when you’re at a friend’s house, you can’t just ask for an ice-cream.

            But how can situational-oriented research be carried out? Researchers can evoke situations with the help of visual and/or auditory means and give the consumer food. Then the consumer is asked to rate how well this food would be appreciated in the situation and how often he or she would like to eat it in that situation. But there are some difficulties. People may have much more in common in the way they experience situations than it seems at first site. Much of our personal history is influenced strongly by cultural traditions, by the school system and common values and beliefs of our generation.

            Communication of feelings would be impossible if situations were really private and completely individual. Another problem is evoking the situations in the laboratory. When you try to evoke situations with visual cues, you need to make sure that all your participants can relate to these cues. People from different cultures, have different eating habits. Some cultures eat with their hands, while others only use forks. Some cultures sit on the floor, while others sit at the dining table on chairs. It is therefore difficult to show visual cues, unless you show general situations. Auditory stimulation is better, because one can imagine his or her own private situations.

            The conclusion of the writers is that we need to try to get aware of certain fallacies. There may be a strong dissociation between what we think and do on the one hand and what we actually are and actually do on the other. Most of our actions are implicit and when we think about them, it is difficult to find words for them.

            Access: 
            Public
            Expected taste intensity affects response to sweet drinks in primary taste cortex - Woods, Lloyd, Künzel et. al. (2011) - Article

            Expected taste intensity affects response to sweet drinks in primary taste cortex - Woods, Lloyd, Künzel et. al. (2011) - Article

            Recent studies have shown that expectations about a food or drink’s taste can influence how it is subsequently perceived. The questions is whether the effects of expectation represent a change in taste perception or arise at a later stage of processing, via response bias. In this study, the researchers used MRI to look into these two accounts. The writers of this article hypothesized that if expectation effects are indeed perceptual in origin, they must influence activation within the taste cortex in a top-down manner. If there is no influence of expectancy on the primary taste cortex, then the response bias account is supported.

            Scientists know that the primary taste cortex lies within the insula, but the exact location of it is unclear. Many studies have found taste activity in the anterior, anterior-dorsal, anterior-mid, middle and mid-posterior insula. The researchers used a meta-analysis to identify regions responding to taste (eleven studies) to help localize the primary taste cortex in this study. There are only two studies that have examined the effect of expectation on taste cortex. One study found that activation in the secondary taste cortex (area associated with food liking) was influenced by how a certain drink was hedonically labelled. A ‘rich and delicious taste’ label enhanced activation in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whereas a ‘boiled vegetable water taste’ label did not. In the other study, a similar modulation of activation was observed in the middle and posterior insula after providing a hedonic label. In that last study, participants tasted either a pleasant (sweet) or intense or mild aversive (bitter) stimuli and visual symbols provided cues for the upcoming taste. What the writers of that study found, was that activation to the same intensely bitter stimuli was less when it was cued with a ‘mildly aversive’ expectation rather than a ‘highly aversive’ expectation. The middle-posterior insula region is associated with disgust and it is therefore possible that this represents an expectation of disgust, instead of taste. The researchers of the current article therefore want to know if perceptual expectations also impact upon primary taste cortex activity. In the current study, they tested if taste expectation (sweetness) influences food taste properties rather response bias, within a region that was defined as the primary taste cortex by the meta-analysis. If the response bias was responsible for the effect, then the writers would predict no effect on primary taste cortex.

            Method

            There were nineteen participants for this research. All participants didn’t smoke and reported no food allergies or cold symptoms. The participants received a drink and had to indicate on five-point scales (from not sweet to very sweet and from neutral to very pleasant) what they thought about the drink. The drinks they received were either 100% commercially available orange juice or a 50% orange juice and 50% water mix. The reason orange juice was used, was because it is recognizable and therefore more likely to promote effects of expectation. Also, there was a neutral tasting artificial saliva mouthwash. Participants tasted 0.75 ml of stimulus and 0.75 ml of mouthwash per trial and there were 40 trials per participant.

            On each trial a text cue was presented to the participant to prompt a taste expectation. The text cue was either Very Sweet or Less Sweet. After two seconds, the drink (100% juice or 50% juice) was delivered. On half of the trials, the text cue and taste stimulus were congruent (so when presenting Very Sweet, the 100% juice was delivered and when presenting Less Sweet, the 50% juice was delivered) and on the other half of the trials, the text cue and taste stimulus were incongruent (Very Sweet with 50% juice and Less Sweet 100%). The participants were told that they should move the drink once around their mouth and then to hold their tongue still. When a green cross appeared on a screen, they were allowed to swallow the drink. The participants rated the stimulus for sweetness and liking on the scales. Afterwards, a mouthwash was delivered using the same protocols as for the drink stimulus, except there was no visual text cue. The stimulus order was randomized. MRI data were collected using a MR scanner and this was done for the purpose visualisation of brain activity.

            Results

            The results showed that the 100% drink was reported sweeter than the 50% drink and that the Very Sweet cue led to drinks being reported sweeter than the Less Sweet cue. However, posthoc tests revealed that Very Sweet (100%) and Less Sweet (50%) drinks did not differ, whereas the sweetness reported in the Very Sweet-50% condition was significantly greater than that in the Less Sweet-100% condition. This means that expectation enhanced the sweetness of the 50% orange drinks, but it had no impact on the 100% drinks. The researchers found that there was an activation in the primary taste cortex and this was in support for the hypothesis that the Very Sweet cue enhances activation above that of the Less Sweet cue for 50% drinks. There was also significantly more activation to Very Sweet cues than to Less Sweet cues and this implies that the expectation of tasting a Very Sweet drink acted to enhance the sweetness of the drink, relative to the expectation of drinking a Less Sweet drink. The data also showed that there was an activation in orbitofrontal cortex, but no activation in medial orbitofrontal cortex.

            Discussion

            The writers of this article found, with the help of MRI, that the presentation of taste labels (Very Sweet and Less Sweet) influenced activity within the primary taste cortex. This supports the previous study discussed in the beginning in the text, which found that behavioural observations of the apparent perceptual effects of expectations represent underlying changes in food perception, rather than being driven by response bias. The writers found that a drink (50% juice) labelled as Very Sweet led to it being reported to taste sweeter and produced more insula activation than the same drink with a Less Sweet label. The observed insula activation overlapped with that of a meta-analysis of 11 recent studies from the literature. The visual text cues may not have prompted an expectation of sweet or Less Sweet orange juice, but rather a general expectation of Very Sweet and Less Sweet drinks. It kind of seems that expectation would affect congruent and not just incongruent trials.

            The activation found in this study was more inferior than that found in the meta-analysis. The writers think that different stimuli might activate different areas of primary taste cortex. The activation in the meta-analysis highlights only activation common across all studies. The findings of this study do not tell us a lot about top-down mechanisms by which primary taste cortex activity is influenced by expectation. The writers did observe activation to taste expectation outside the insula, like the orbitofrontal cortex. Past research has shown that orbitofrontal cortex activity may reflect a top-down modulation of activation through expectations of drink liking. The activation region of this study does not overlap with the medial orbitofrontal cortex activation of that mentioned in the study in the beginning of the text and that study tested explicitly for top-down hedonic effects on taste, but other studies have reported the involvement of lateral and posterior orbitofrontal cortex in reward.

            The expectation of perceived intensity can influence neural activation to sweet stimulus within primary taste cortex in the 50% drinks. The behavioural and neural responses to the 100% drink was not affected. The writers think that this happened, because this resulted from too large a discrepancy between what the participants expected and what they tasted. Their findings show that expectation does indeed modulate basic taste perception.

            Limitations

            Just like most research, this research also has some limitations. This model was formalized using empirical data and for the purpose of generalization it should be tested in other settings, like industries. Also, these findings might not be directly generalized to adult markets (because children were used). There is no high risk of using free Internet applications, because the children don’t lose anything if they don’t like the applications. The children don’t need to evaluate the quality of the product extensively and thus the interpersonal influence might not be very strong in this application. The writers think that their results may be even stronger in different markets in which it is more difficult to judge product quality, because the influence of opinion leaders might increase. Further research should focus on other markets. The writers also suggest that future research should explore the relationship between the innovativeness of a consumer and the importance of the normative influence for this consumer. This study used a simple network structure and network structures are important, because they have a big influence on the results of the model. Future research should use other network structures.

            Access: 
            Public
            The total product experience and the position of the sensory and consumer sciences: More than meets the tongue - Dijksterhuis (2012) - Article

            The total product experience and the position of the sensory and consumer sciences: More than meets the tongue - Dijksterhuis (2012) - Article

            Usually food research looks at the physical and chemical product characteristics. This is also revered to as ‘hard sciences’. The psychological sciences look at the use of a product, the consumer side of it, its choice and its perception. The Total Product Experience is important in the hard sciences. The Total Product Experience is built on four principles:

            Top-down effects: ideas, expectations, information and emotions in combination with direct sensory perception affect the liking and perception of the product.

            Unconscious influences: a lot of information about products and their sensory perception is consciously and volitionally available to the consumers.

            Multi sensory perception: humans use all their sensory systems to perceive products and the systems interact in many ways.

            Consumer-product interactions: oral ingestion is not the only interaction consumers can have with a food product. The interaction is much wider.

              The following text will be about these four principles.

              Multi sensory perception

              Human beings possess more senses than the five most people know. Everybody knows that our senses are hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling and tasting. Many distinct sensory systems are put together under the sense of touch and the internal senses are usually ignored altogether. There are actually twelve distinct sensory systems that can be distinguished! Often, the senses of cold, heat and pain are overlooked, but these are very important in food perception. All those systems can interact in numerous ways. There are a lot of interactions, think about handling, preparing and consuming food. Almost every system is involved in food consumption. You look and see the food, you smell the food, you feel the food, its texture in your mouth and you can even hear the sound the food makes when you break it into small pieces in your mouth. But you can also feel the carton when you open u food box and hear the cracking noise a wrapping paper makes. Interactions between flavour, taste and texture are and will always be important for food products and with the recent developments in multisensory science, you are able to use these interactions to a larger extent than seems to be happening right now. Internal states, like emotions, also need to be studied because they can be seen as contributing to multisensory interactions.

              Top-down effects

              There is an overlooked interplay of conception (forming ideas and understanding abstractions) and perception. When the stream of information comes from the sensory system, this is called bottom up. However, this information does not build the total picture of what we perceive of a food product. There is much more information that we add to this picture and this comes from our brains. For instance, we may have previous experience with a product, memories of an advertisement about this product and our own thoughts and ideas which all exert their influence on how you perceive and what you perceive. One study presented subject with a certain odour. The subjects who were told that the odour came from a cheese liked the odour more than subjects who were told that the same odour was a body odour. The brain regions that were activated depended on the cognitive labels received. Another study showed a similar effect. Participants were told that they would receive a very sweet drink and other participants were told that they would receive a not-so-sweet drink. The very sweet label resulted in the activation of the primary taste brain region. These top down effects as labels can impact low-level neural perceptual processes. It seems that they change the perceptual reality of the subject. Research has also found that emotions have shown to exert these types of influence on food perception, but many of these influences are often unconscious.

              Unconscious influences

              According to studies, many of the emotions, perceptions and sensations related to a food product will remain out of our conscious awareness. Many food impressions are stored in memory inattentively and these impressions help to build our total experience of a product, they affect our dislikes and likes, they shape our expectations and in doing so they affect our buying behaviour. Consumers usually can’t relate the motivation for their food choice reliably. Behaviour is not always the result of consciously willing it. Some researchers speak about adaptive unconscious, which guides us through a complicated environment and helps us with decisions through intuition. This is all happening without our conscious knowledge and even without the possibilities of knowledge (people can’t observe how they are unconsciously categorizing things, just as they can’t observe how their stomach works). This has a big implication for food choice. It is difficult to talk to consumers to find out anything about their motivation for buying certain products. The only thing you will receive, is the part of the conscious awareness, shaped through an explicit reasoning process. But this might be unrelated to any psychological process that actually makes the consumers’ behaviour. So basically you will only get information about how consumers reason explicitly and how they express themselves about products. This can be useful for advertisement purposes, but it is of limited worth in understanding how consumers’ purchase behaviour and dislikes are shaped. Research has shown that sensory perceptions can be stored in memory and that they can later shape choice in an implicit way (the consumer is not aware of it). So it seems that there are sensory perceptions being processed outside our awareness but stored in our memory. Even the experience of smell and taste are things one is not completely aware of.

              Unconscious influences of emotions are also possible. Inductions of affective states can take place without the subject being aware of it.

              Consumer-product interaction

              Usually people think that the eating or drinking experience begins when somebody puts foods or drinks in their mouth. But, the interaction between the consumer and the product takes place long before ingestion occurs. The first contact somebody has with a product is usually hearing about it, seeing it in the store or seeing an advertisement or commercial. Then, the consumer might feel the packaging material or look at it in more detail. When you buy a product in a shop, you will have to open the packaging, unwrap it, perhaps shake it. It will be eaten directly or prepared and our senses of smell, sight, taste, pain, audition and temperature will work together to build a sensory experience out of all those impressions. The liking or disliking of the product will be passed on to the memory. In this way, the Total Product Experience will emerge. This is the combination of events, memories and sensations that occur during, before or after the sensation proper. The different disciplines involved in product development can be harmonized by the use of the Total Product Experience.

              Conclusion

              With all that being said, what good is it for the consumer scientists? We have known the principles for a while, but scientists have not explored their methodological consequences fully. The only thing that is fully explored, is multisensory perception. There are many studies about consumption that look at multisensory perception. The effect of cognition on perception should be explored more thoroughly. It is not difficult to produce a product with a good taste, but it is hard to present this product in such a way that consumers repeatedly want it. Top-down effects, like packaging, information and marketing will make the difference. Scientists must find a way to understand the interplay between cognitive input, perception, liking and purchase behaviour. They also need to look more at consumer-product interactions. Some studies about food behaviour are done without the consumer actually using the product, in the form of questionnaires. Other studies only focus on the in-mouth aspects of a product. Studies should not only look at product-oriented sensory testing, but also look at consumers and a product-as-marketed. Researchers do know that there are many non-rational effects on choice and behaviour, but there are not many resulting innovations in the field of food perception. Sensory science is developing from a product oriented approach to a wider field with an increasing psychological and consumer-oriented view.

              Access: 
              Public
              Increasing saltiness perception through perceptual constancy created by expectation - Dijksterhuis, Boucon, Le Berre (2014) - Article

              Increasing saltiness perception through perceptual constancy created by expectation - Dijksterhuis, Boucon, Le Berre (2014) - Article

              Nowadays, consumer salt intake is too high. This may result in various health consequences, like lower hypertension, an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and an increase risk of stroke. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the reduction of salt intake is likely to have large effects on public health.

              The high salt intake may be due to the fact that there’s many hidden salt in processed foods. Food companies are in a dilemma: in the one hand they have to reduce the amount of salt in their products; on the other hand, the products have to stay appealing to consumers.

              The studies described in the article focus on investigating the effect of saltiness perception. There are many variables that may influence taste perception; however, top-down effects of expectation may play a large role. There are many ways such a expectation may be developed. For example, a study by Pangborn, Bang and Hansen showed that pink-colored white wine was reported to taste sweeter than the same, uncolored withe wine. In this case, visual perception played a role in the forming of an expectation. Also past experiences may have influence on expectations.

              Hypotheses and testing

              In the article, two hypothesis were described. The first one states that perceptual expectations from past experiences with similar products could smooth the taste variability in one product. The second hypotheses is that perceptual expectations depend strongly on the first bite taken from a product.

              To test the first hypotheses, sandwiches with heterogeneous amounts of salt were compared to sandwiches with the same overall salt concentration. The heterogeneous sandwiches were made in such a way that each mouthful had another level of salt.

              To test the second hypotheses, sandwiches with a different salt concentration in the first bite were compared with homogeneous sandwiches.

              Participants of the study were 198 German consumers who regularly consume savory sandwiches. They were unaware of the test objective and knew little about the tasting procedure. All of the participants were in good general health: pregnant or breastfeeding women, people with blood pressure issues or people allergic to some kinds of food were excluded.

              Four kinds of sandwiches were used, each existing of three different parts. Sandwich A had a salt distribution of 33%-33%-33%; the amount of salt was equally spread along the sandwich. Sandwich B had a salt distribution of 50%-0%-50%. Sandwich C had a distribution of 70%-0%-30% and sandwich D had a distribution of 90%-0%-10%. The average total amount of salt was the same in all of the sandwiches.

              The task of the participants was to compare the homogeneous sandwich A with each of the other, heterogeneous sandwiches. Each time, they had to indicate which one was more salty.

              Only one participant commented that there was sometimes a difference in saltiness between the bites. The other participants were not aware of the differences in saltiness within one sandwich.

              Results

              The results showed that the heterogeneous sandwiches were more often indicated as salty than the homogeneous ones. The order in which the sandwiches were displayed, also had effects on saltiness perception: when the heterogeneous sandwich was presented last in the pair, participants tend to perceive them more often as most salty. This may imply a “first bite effect” as described in the second hypotheses, together with a recency effect. The effect of the first bites also implies that expectations on previous experiences can actually smooth out differences within one product.

              Access: 
              Public
              Smelly primes – when olfactory primes do or do not work - Smeets & Dijksterhuis (2014) - Article

              Smelly primes – when olfactory primes do or do not work - Smeets & Dijksterhuis (2014) - Article

              Introduction

              The aim of the current article is to establish a connection between the effects of olfactory stimuli on information processing and research on priming. In addition, guidelines with regard to how odors can be used to prime people are described.

              Priming in the social sciences

              Priming involves stimuli that are influencing higher-order cognitive and behavioral processes although the individual is not aware of this being the case. Higher mental processes refers to judgement and social behavior. Environmental stimuli can prime (influence) behavior, for instance perceiving a stimulus can influence your behavior. Four different types of priming are described by Loersch and Payne (2011):

              Semantic priming (looking for categories)

              Construal priming (judgement)

              Behavior priming (action)

              Goal priming(motivation)

                Which type occurs is dependent on the situation one is in, therefore, the different priming types can all have different effects depending on the situation and personal characteristics. Next to these categories, priming can be divided into”

                Perceptual priming (when the perceptional characteristics of the prime and the target are equal, this is not the same as semantic priming).

                Repetition priming (quicker processing of stimuli that have been presented multiple times. The stimulus becomes the prime)

                Affective priming (when there is an unintentional influence of a first affective response, which acts as a prime, on the processing of a target stimulus).

                  The ideo-motor action principle, developed by William James, states that if a cognitive representation becomes activated, the likelihood that an action will follow increases. Spreading of activation (nodes in memory activate each other), can also lead to priming. This all happens without taking effort and involuntarily. In cognitive psychology, the lack of awareness is seen in light of the capacity to perceive a presented stimulus whereas in social psychology, it is about being unaware of the influence that stimuli can have, regardless of whether one is able to see the stimulus or not. Being influenced without being aware of it is called subliminal priming whereas being aware of it is called supraliminal. Both types have been found to be effective.

                  Properties of olfaction

                  Odorants are the chemical substances that can cause the experience of an odor, thus, the odor is only an experience. Odor objects are odors stored in memory, they consist of one perceptual event but can be elicited by different odorants. Odorants are less frequently noticed by people than those of other sensory systems. This can be caused by the fact that the source of odorants are more difficult to recognize. Odors are also perceived differently depending on the attentiveness level. People adapt easily to odors but although you do not notice the odor anymore, it can still have an effect. Given that priming works best if one is unaware of it and that odors are adapted to quickly, they are very appropriate to use in priming. Odors can also trigger emotions which makes them interesting for affective primes. People have difficulties naming odors, therefore, odor object identification is vulnerable to ambiguity. This has consequences for the priming because it will be harder to establish a clear link between an odor and a target.

                  The most important dimension of odors is their valence, which can range from unpleasant to pleasant. Other dimensions are intensity, edibility and familiarity which, from an evolutionary perspective, can lead to approach or avoidance behavior. A relevant question is whether priming with odors is different from priming with visual stimulation.

                  Motivation priming

                  Odors are as well-functioning as visual stimuli in preventing us from running into environmental hazard. Because the link between stimuli and action is very clear in these situations, it can be argued that this does not count as priming. Odors can also be goal primes. For example, food odors can cause people to start eating which is used in the supermarket where it smells of freshly baked bread. In a study in France, presenting odor of melon led to people choosing melon as starter more often whereas pear, often eaten as dessert, led to more fruit desserts chosen. This shows that odors can result in goal priming but in different ways.

                  Semantic and construal priming

                  It is the question whether the odor of camembert cheese primes words related to other French foods (or maybe cheeses) or also to a French sport event (Tour de France). From a semantic perspective, the camembert odor might function as a prime for French food or cheese, however people might not be able to identify the smell as being French or being cheese. It is dependent on the interpretation which effects will be elicited and also the valence can vary according to interpretation. Therefore, from a valence perspective, the camembert can lead to affective responses because one can like or dislike the smell leading to increased accessibility of other liked or disliked products. The word camembert is expected to evoke a shorter reaction time when other French words are presented, measured with a Lexical Decision Task. The priming can also be based on autobiographical memory. Camembert might activate concepts as being on holiday in France. Another priming route is based on mood which means that mood at time of a judgement is used in making a judgement. Odors can also function as mood enhancers that subsequently lead to certain behaviors that are associated with a particular mood state. Odors are problematic in semantic priming but can be explained by alternative routes such as memory.

                  Applications of odor priming

                  It can be concluded that odors can lead to behavioral and goal primes because of their valence. Odors can be good affective primes because they are evaluated mainly in terms of good or bad. Based on how they are being evaluated, odors can lead to approach or avoidance behavior. This is already used in, among others, stores, at the workplace and in health care settings. However, odors can only called primes if people stay unaware of their influence, therefore it is better to use only small amounts of odor. Specific priming is possible with semantic priming but not if odors are used because it is difficult to know how an odor is being categorized by the individual. It is better if odors fit a category that is common and a prototype for the category. A study in which semantic olfactory priming was shown has been conducted by Holland et al. (2005). In this study a citrus odor led to increased cleaning behavior because of the activation of a cleaning concept. In another study of Dijksterhuis et al. (2013) subjects were presented with 3 different odors (2 pleasant and 1 unpleasant) that were not noticed. Cleaning actions were counted and in the unpleasant condition, less cleaning was recorded. This study shows that, in addition to semantic priming, other priming types are of influence. Namely, the affective value of the odor might explain the difference in cleaning. Being able to name an odor interferes with the implicit priming effects, probably because spreading of activation is different because of cognitive input.

                  Priming with odor via memory can lead to consumers buying more goods, however, memories are personal so the effects on buying behavior can vary a lot. The focus can be on odors linked to pleasant experiences, to enhance a product’s attractiveness (odor of sunscreen is associated with holidays). The focus can also be on the relation between an odor and an experience. This has been studied with subjects doing tasks in a room where an odor was spread. Subsequently, different odors were presented and the most appropriate one for the room had to be chosen by the subjects who did not explicitly recognize the odors.

                  Multi-modal priming

                  Laboratory settings can interfere if an association between an odor and a concept has to be established. Subjects often report that they smell computers or rubber. A solution would be to establish cross-modality correspondences using combinations of olfactive stimuli and stimuli of other modalities, such as pictures. Another option is to create an appropriate context, for instance with pictures, in addition to the odor. By doing so, the odor will be more likely to work as semantic prime than affective prime. Degel and Koster (1998) describe recommendations for effective odor priming:

                  The test does not supply explicit information about stimuli.

                  The test acknowledges the nonverbal character of odor perception and memory

                  The test allows perception of odors in a situation which is for the most part a biotic, normal everyday situation (this is why priming in laboratories is often ineffective).

                    Priming is a promising concept, especially olfactory priming, nevertheless, a lot of future research has to be conducted in order to get to know how priming has to be applied accurately.

                    Access: 
                    Public
                    Music and consumers - Kellaris (2008) - Article

                    Music and consumers - Kellaris (2008) - Article

                    Music can influence consumers. Music is often used in on radio, television and internet advertisement. Music is also used in telephone conversations when you have to wait but it is also a form of consumption itself. People buy CD’s or download songs and music is used in sporting events or ceremonial events. It seems that music has a rich context and it can give us information about auditory perception, attitude, emotion and memory recall. However, it is difficult to study music-related issues. One of the reasons for this, is because music research in consumer psychology is not about music per se, but is about musical stimuli in experimental investigations of other things. So it is difficult to classify music research in consumer psychology. Another problem about music and consumer research is that the research is conducted in another discipline and then applied to consumer psychology. However, it is difficult to know whether research in another discipline can be applied to consumer topics. A third problem for music and consumer research is that consumer research treats music as an independent variable, but research focuses on outcomes of interests. Another problem for this type of research is that there is not a definition for music. What is music? In research music can be background sound, instrumental music, vocal music and many more. Normative, gain, and hedonic goal

                    Music in the ancient world was seen as closely related to philosophy, cosmology, metaphysics and mathematics. Modern scientific investigation of music focused on the effect of speed and pitch on subjective reactions. Later on, the idea was developed that musical preference and personality correlate. Musical preference can be used to convey information about people and to form impressions of others. Scientists also found that music can increase the productivity in the workplace. During the second half of the 20th century, musical influence on consumers increased because of the new media and popular culture.

                    Key literature

                    There are three articles that are important in the literature on music and consumption. In the next section these three articles will be discussed. Bruner studied the influence of music on consumer’s emotional and behavioural responses in commercial contexts. He found that time (tempo and rhythm), pitch (melody and harmony) and texture (tone and volume) may be of influence on reactions. He showed that certain properties of music can evoke certain effects. One example is that fast music evokes arousement. Bruner was of big importance for the research on music, because he showed that music evokes feelings and meanings and studies didn’t look anymore at the presence versus the absence of music because Bruner already showed what impact music can have. The work of Bruner, however, did not focus on other aspects of music. His work only looked at music and affect but music can also have cognitive outcomes. Also, his work didn’t look at the interaction between music and individual’s characteristics. Maybe one person can be affected by the music of Beethoven, but another person will not be affected by this music. The effects of music depend on traits of the music and on individual traits.

                    The second article is of Hargreaves and North. They also found many influences of music on consumers. Some of their studies were about music in advertisement, entertainment and retail shops. They showed that music in advertisement can elicit certain feelings and that listeners will associate these feelings with the advertised product. Their research also showed that the loudness and speed of music in stores can influence the pace of store traffic and the duration people stay in the store. Also, their research showed that music influences perception of time. Some critical points can be made on their research. One is that their research does not investigate alternative explanations. Some researchers think that it was not the music per se that influenced people, but the lyrics.

                    The third article is that of Turley and Milliman. They also looked at the effects of environmental music on shoppers. The current article doesn’t tell much about the research of Turley and Milliman. It only tells that they advice researchers to look at atmospheric music and that this is really hard to do. When you really want to measure the influence of music, you must get inside the head of shoppers and not only look at the time they spend shopping.

                    Recent work on music

                    Work since 1990 has shown that music shapes affective states of consumers in commercial contexts and that it can be used as a mood inductor in experimental research. Music can elicit feelings of pleasure, sadness, happiness, anger and fear. It can help you relax, influence cognitive activity and produce positive evaluations. One study showed that evoking enthusiasm during a positive message can make you feel more positive about the message than before and effect desirable outcomes. Evoking feelings of fear increases the negative thoughts about the message. This study was done during a democratic campaign and it shows that music can influence important things, such as democratic processes during campaign ads. There are some things that should also be studied. If positive music makes people happy and enthusiastic, then why do some individuals listen to sad music? Future research should look at this. Another thing that should be studied is the distinction between consumers’ affective reactions to music (music makes you feel happy) and consumers’ judgments of music’s affective character (the music sounds happy). Music that is experienced as being happy in character does not necessarily make people feel happy.

                    Research also found that there is a link between music and recall. Sung messages (rather than spoken messages) may improve recall of advertisements under certain conditions. Research found that music that ads with specially made music was better remembered than ads with already known music. But current trends in advertisement is to use popular music. Research has shown that people can recall things better when instrumental rather than vocal versions of popular hits are used. This is because instrumental music may encourage people to sing along mentally. When the lyrics in an ad campaign convey the message, it is more easily to remember. When the goal is not recall but persuasion, popular hits draw attention and thus encourage a less critical mind-set. Music does not only draw attention, it can also reduce intention. One study found that music can disrupt recall, but when the music stops and there is a silence before an important message, that message is remembered better.

                    Research has also focused on music and time duration. In general it seems that when less arousing music is heard intervals seem longer. Music that is not really familiar does not reduce perceived time. Not many studies have looked at the link between music speed and the speed in waiting lines. This is something that has to be done. When the cognitive load is not high, the perceived duration time is perceived as shorter. The type of music may also have an effect on perceived time. Research found that relaxing music, makes people perceive the time longer than it was and that ‘wild’ music, like jazz, made people feel that the time was shorter than it was.

                    Music may also have effects on behaviour. One study found that people were willing to wait longer while listening to music. Music that was liked especially had this effect. Preferred music also let people stay longer in restaurants. Because of the nice music people sat longer under the illusion that their stay was shorter. Restaurant visits were longer when the music was popular and on a low volume. Another study found that the sale of French wine increased when French music was playing in the background and the sale of German wine increased when German music was playing in the background. Fast music also results in a faster pace of drinking.

                    The ear worm phenomenon is that a song gets stuck in the head without hearing the song from an external source. Whether you like the song or not, you will keep hearing it in your head. Just like some physical properties can make the skin itch, certain properties of songs may itch the brain and cause the repetition of the song in your head. Researchers have also looked at the link between ear worms and personality traits, but have not found a real link. One thing that was found, however, was that the frequency of ear worm episodes were associated with neuroticism. People who have a low need for cognition are prone to longer ear worm episodes. Music that is simplistic, repetitive and has incongruous features is most likely to become an ear worm.

                    The theory of ironic processes of mental control may also help explain the ear worm effect. This theory thinks that there are two processes that involve mental control. The first one is an operating process and this process looks for mental contests consistent with one’s goal (not thinking of a particular tone) and the second is a monitoring process that looks at inconsistencies with one’s goals (how frequently you think about a song you’re not supposed to think of). The first process can be influenced by cognitive load and when the cognitive load is high, it is difficult to not think of a song.

                    Access: 
                    Public
                    The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals - Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai et. al. (2001) - Article

                    The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals - Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai et. al. (2001) - Article

                    Theories that look at goal pursuit usually look at conscious choices that guide behaviour. But psychology also looks at non-conscious processes, as it seems to be an important factor for human behaviour. Many studies look at memory, attention, judgment, social perception and emotional appraisal and it seems to be that non-conscious determinants are no exceptions. In this article, the writers look at the non-conscious activation of goals. The writers think that goals can be triggered outside of awareness and get completed. There is no conscious intervention needed for this. This is because non-consciously activated goals will cause the same processing and same attention of information that is relevant for the goal and will overcome obstacles in the same way as consciously activated goals. The hypothesis therefore is that whether a goal is activated consciously or non-consciously, it will guide the behaviour and cognition that is needed to reach the goal.

                    Many researchers have seen the impact of non-conscious processes on behaviour, but they still believe that goal pursuit needs to be instigated by an act of conscious will. In other words, they don’t believe that goals can’t be activated without conscious will. The writers of this article, however, think that goals can be activated without conscious instigation. The writers think that goals are represented mentally just as other concepts are. Goals will therefore also become capable of automatic activation. When a goal is constantly activated in the same situation, the goal will become automatically activated when the person encounters that situation. The goal representation and the association of the situation will be linked together. This will eventually result in an unconscious process, because no activation will be needed for the goal. The contextual cues would be enough to activate the goal. Automatic goals are in line with a person’s valued goals and purposes.

                    Similarity between conscious and non-conscious goals

                    Chartrand and Bargh found that goals activated by environmental cues operated as effectively as when consciously chosen. They conducted an experiment in which they gave participants a Scrambled Sentence Test. In this test the words of a sentence were presented in a scrambled order and the participant was asked to put the words in the correct order. Some participants were exposed to words related to judgment and impression formation (judge, evaluate), while other words were related to memorization (absorb). The participants were asked to form an impression of a certain person and those participants that were primed with the impression formation words, had better free recall of the behaviours of the person they had to form an impression of than participants who were primed with the memorization words. These results show that primed information-processing goals have the same outcomes as goals that were consciously activated by will.

                    Experiment 1

                    In the first experiment participants were asked to fulfill a word-search puzzle. This was a 10x10 matrix of letters which contained 13 words to be found. There were two conditions in which participants could be put in. One condition was the high-performance goal condition and the other the neutral condition. As you can imagine, the participants in the neutral condition received a word-search puzzle with neutral words in it, like shampoo and river. The participants in the high-performance goal were asked to find words relevant to the concept of high-performance. Some of these words were ‘success’, ‘compete’, ‘strive’, ‘master’ and ‘achieve’. The words that had to be found were listed below the puzzle. After this puzzle, the participants were asked to do three other experimental word-search puzzles. This was the dependent measure of the study. These puzzles had three themes: foods, bugs and colours. This means that the words that were supposed to be found in those puzzles had to be from that particular category. The words that had to be found were not listed below the puzzle. In each puzzle, there were ten words hidden. The total number of words found in the three experimental puzzles was the dependent variable. The results of this experiment were that participants in the high-performance goal condition did better on the experimental word puzzles that participants in the neutral condition. This means that performance goals can become non-consciously activated and that they can regulate behaviour towards fulfilment of the desired outcome. Some critics might argue, however, that the participants wanted to find as many words as possible and that this means, in fact, that there is a conscious goal in place. This is the reason why the writers of this article conducted another experiment.

                    Experiment 2

                    The second experiment was basically a resource-dilemma task. The participants played against another presumed participant and they had divide the resources amongst themselves. They could choose to take everything for themselves or to cooperate. The dilemma was that if both participants took the maximum for themselves, the resources would quickly run out. So the participant basically had to choose between gaining the highest self-profit, or cooperating for the good of all. The participants were free in every choice they made. There were 2x2 conditions in this experiment: participants were either primed to be cooperative or not primed at all and they either had no conscious goal or a cooperation conscious goal. First participants received a variation of the Scrambled Sentence Test. In the priming condition, participants received words related to the concept of cooperation (like helpful, honest and tolerant). Afterwards, participants participated in a resource-management game. The participants were asked to take the role of a fisherman (there were two types of fishermen). The lake the fisherman fished in had 100 fish. They were told that the total amount of fish was not allowed to go below 70 fish. In every round the participant caught 15 fish and he or she had to decide how many fish he or she wanted to keep and how many fish he or she wanted to return to the lake. The participants all got a piece of paper on which they could see what would happen if they kept the fish and what would happen if they returned the fish.

                    There were two types of roles of fishermen. One fishermen type was primed with the conscious-cooperation-goal-condition and the other did not receive a conscious goal.

                    The participants in the conscious-cooperation-goal condition were explicitly told to cooperate as much as they could. There were a couple of rounds and in each round the participant had to decide what to do. Afterwards he or she had to wait until the other participant (which in fact were just the experimenters) had made his or her decision. After each round the participants received messages about how many fish there were in the pool. They always received the message that there were more than 70 fish in the pool. After five rounds (the participants didn’t know how many rounds the game would last) they were done and had to fill in a questionnaire with questions about cooperation. One of these questions asked how important it was to the participant to act in a cooperative manner during the game, while another was how successfully they felt in their cooperation.

                    The results showed that in the priming condition and the conscious-goal condition people cooperated. There was more cooperation in the conscious-goal condition. There was also much cooperation in the goal-priming condition and this shows that there is no conscious goal needed for the activation of a goal. There were no differences found between the answers on the questionnaire. The third experiment will look more at this.

                    Experiment 3

                    The writers thought that the priming task could influence the behaviour of participants. In a couple of studies some priming tasks have produced ambiguously relevant behaviour. The writers of this study were afraid that participants from the first study might have noticed that the priming task wanted to prime high performance and as a result they made the conscious decision to perform the best they can. Also, the writers thought that perceptual priming could have mediated between the goal-priming manipulation and the effects. They decided to use a delay manipulation. They did this to dissociate the perceptual and behaviour consequences of the priming manipulation. The delay manipulation means that the half of the group that received a certain priming task did the experimental task immediately after the priming task and the other half did it five minutes later. The participants in the no-delay task first had to draw their family tree. They had five minutes to do this. After this task, participants had to do a priming task in which they were primed to a neutral of high-performance condition. The participants in the delay condition were first assigned to the priming task and then to the family-tree task. Then they were either assigned to the word search task, this was the performance task, or to the impression-formation task (to read a story about a person and form an impression of this person). People in the delay condition had to wait five minutes after completing the priming task to begin with the independent measure, whereas people in the no-delay condition could do the independent measure immediately.

                    The results show that perceptual priming effects decay over time. The writers found that participants in the high-performance-goal related stimuli who were assigned to the impressions formation task saw the target person more as a high achiever than the participants in the neutral priming task. These effects, however, vanished after the five minute delay. In the word-search task, people in the high-performance condition performed good on the task, whether there was a delay or not.

                    Performance on the word-search task was even better for the participants in the delay situation than participants in the non-delay situation! This experiment shows that the performance in the high-performance-goal priming condition was due to the non-conscious activation of the goal to perform well.

                    Experiment 4

                    In the fourth experiment participants were again primed with either a high-performance-goal condition or a neutral prime. They then were asked to do a word-search task. In the previous experiments, participants received 10 minutes to complete this task. In this experiment, however, the time was cut short and while the participants were doing the task they were told through the room intercom system that they had to stop. This was two minutes after starting the task and the writers wanted to do this so they could see what the high-performance participants would do when they did not get enough time to fulfill their goal. In every room there was a hidden camera and the researchers wanted to see whether participants in the high-performance condition would continue working on their task to try and receive a higher score. After the stop sign, the participants could have continued for three minutes, because the experimenter came to collect the papers three minutes after the stop sign. The results showed that the participants in the high-performance condition kept working on the word-search task. Apparently, the non-consciously activated goal seems to be stronger than the consciously activated goal to stop performing.

                    Experiment 5

                    In the fifth experiment the researchers wanted to find out whether participants with a high-performance prime would want to keep going on with the Scrabble-word task or do another tests which was very enjoyable. Participants first did a word-search test with either a neutral or high-performance-goal prime. Afterwards they saw a set of seven letters on a projector screen and had to write down as many words as possible from the projector. This was the Scrabble-word task. But after one minute, the experimenter secretly switched the projector off (with a hidden button under his desk). He pretended that he was surprised and that he thought that the projector bulb was broken. He told the participants that he would leave the room to get another projector bulb. By the time he got back he said there was not enough time to complete the whole experiment and that the participants could choose whether they wanted to finish the Scrabble-word task or do a cartoon-humour rating task.

                    This cartoon-humour rating task meant that they had to rate how funny certain cartoons were. This task was obviously more fun than the Scrabble-word task. The results showed that a much higher proportion of the high-performance participants kept on doing the Scrabble-word task instead of the cartoon-humour rating task.

                     

                    Access: 
                    Public
                    Access: 
                    Public

                    Image

                    Join WorldSupporter!
                    Search a summary

                    Image

                     

                     

                    Contributions: posts

                    Help other WorldSupporters with additions, improvements and tips

                    Add new contribution

                    CAPTCHA
                    This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
                    Image CAPTCHA
                    Enter the characters shown in the image.

                    Image

                    Spotlight: topics

                    Image

                    Check how to use summaries on WorldSupporter.org

                    Online access to all summaries, study notes en practice exams

                    How and why use WorldSupporter.org for your summaries and study assistance?

                    • For free use of many of the summaries and study aids provided or collected by your fellow students.
                    • For free use of many of the lecture and study group notes, exam questions and practice questions.
                    • For use of all exclusive summaries and study assistance for those who are member with JoHo WorldSupporter with online access
                    • For compiling your own materials and contributions with relevant study help
                    • For sharing and finding relevant and interesting summaries, documents, notes, blogs, tips, videos, discussions, activities, recipes, side jobs and more.

                    Using and finding summaries, notes and practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter

                    There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.

                    1. Use the summaries home pages for your study or field of study
                    2. Use the check and search pages for summaries and study aids by field of study, subject or faculty
                    3. Use and follow your (study) organization
                      • by using your own student organization as a starting point, and continuing to follow it, easily discover which study materials are relevant to you
                      • this option is only available through partner organizations
                    4. Check or follow authors or other WorldSupporters
                    5. Use the menu above each page to go to the main theme pages for summaries
                      • Theme pages can be found for international studies as well as Dutch studies

                    Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?

                    Quicklinks to fields of study for summaries and study assistance

                    Main summaries home pages:

                    Main study fields:

                    Main study fields NL:

                    Follow the author: Vintage Supporter
                    Work for WorldSupporter

                    Image

                    JoHo can really use your help!  Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world

                    Working for JoHo as a student in Leyden

                    Parttime werken voor JoHo

                    Statistics
                    1140 1