Aydinli, A., Bertini, M., &Lambrecht, A. (2014). Price promotion for emotional impact. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 80-96.

Managers and academics often think of price promotions merely as incentives that entice consumers to accept offers that they might not have considered otherwise. Yet the prospect of paying a lower price for a product of given quality can also discourage deliberation, in a sense “dumbing down” the purchase encounter by making it less consequential. The authors examine this possibility in a dual-system theory of consumer behavior. Specifically, they argue that price promotion lowers a consumer’s motivation to exert mental effort, in which case purchase decisions are guided less by extensive information processing and more by a quicker, easier, strong conditioner of preference: affect. Field data from a large daily deal company and four controlled experiments support this idea and document its implications primarily for product choice, in turn providing insight into the form and cause of brand switching that manufacturers and retailers can leverage to improve the allocation of promotional budgets and category management.

 


Aydinli, A., Bertini, M., &Lambrecht, A. (2014). Price promotion for emotional impact. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 80-96.

https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.12.0338

 

 

 

 

 

Redelmeier, D. A., Katz, J., &Kahneman, D. (2003). Memories of colonoscopy: a randomized trial. Pain, 104(1-2), 187-194.

 

Patients’ memories of the past may influence their decisions about the future, yet memories are imperfect and susceptible to bias. We tested whether a memory failure observed in psychology experiments could be applied in a clinical setting to lessen patients’ memories of the pain of an unpleasant medical procedure. We studied consecutive outpatients undergoing colonoscopy who were medically stable, mentally competent, and able to speak English (n=682). By random assignment, half the patients had a short interval added to the end of their procedure during which the tip of the colonoscope remained in the rectum. Pain during the procedure was measured with a ten point intensity scale. Memory following the procedure was measured using both a rating scale and a ranking task. Randomization resulted in two similar groups. As theorized, patients who underwent the extended procedure experienced the final moments as less painful (1.7 vs. 2.5 on a ten point intensity scale, P<0.001), rated the entire experience as less unpleasant (4.4 vs. 4.9 on a 10 cm visual analogue scale, P=0.006), and ranked the procedure as less aversive compared to seven other unpleasant experiences (4.1 vs. 4.6 with eight as the worst, P=0.002). Rates of returning for a repeat colonoscopy (median duration of follow-up 5.3 years) averaged 50.4% and were slightly higher (odds ratio=1.41, P=0.038) for those who underwent the longer procedure controlling for prior colonoscopy, procedure indications, and abnormal findings. Memory failures observed in experimental conditions can be found in clinical settings involving awake patients and may offer opportunities for improving patients’ willingness to undergo future unpleasant medical procedures.

 

 

Redelmeier, D. A., Katz, J., &Kahneman, D. (2003). Memories of colonoscopy: a randomized trial. Pain, 104(1-2), 187-194.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3959(03)00003-4

 

 

Northcraft, G. B., &Neale, M. A. (1987). Experts, amateurs, and real estate: An anchoring-and-adjustment perspective on property pricing decisions.

 

The studies described in this paper investigated the use of a decisional heuristic—anchoring-and-adjustment—in an information-rich, real world setting. In order to assess the generalizability of laboratory research on this decision heuristic, students and real estate agents toured and made pricing decisions about real estate properties. It was hypothesized that manipulated listing prices would anchor values assigned to the properties. Results were consistent with the use of an anchoring-and-adjustment value estimation strategy in information-rich, real world settings. Implications for the understanding of judgmental expertise are discussed.

 

 

Northcraft, G. B., &Neale, M. A. (1987). Experts, amateurs, and real estate: An anchoring-and-adjustment perspective on property pricing decisions. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 39(1), 84-97.

https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(87)90046-X

 

Brown, W. M., Consedine, N. S., & Magai, C. (2005). Altruism relates to health in an ethnically diverse sample of older adults.

 

The existing literature indicates links between aspects of social network functioning and health outcomes. It is generally believed that networks that are larger or provide greater instrumental and emotional support contribute to improved health and, perhaps, greater longevity. Recently, it has been suggested that giving as well as receiving social support may be of benefit. On the basis of evolutionary theories of emotion and altruism, the current study sought to test this thesis in a large, ethnically diverse sample of community-dwelling older adults. As expected, levels of social support given were associated with lower morbidity, whereas levels of receiving were not. It is important that these relations held even when (a) socioeconomic status, education, marital status, age, gender, ethnicity, and (b) absolute network size and activity limitation were controlled for. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for theory regarding the relations among social exchanges, giving, and later life adaptation among older adults.

 

 

Brown, W. M., Consedine, N. S., &Magai, C. (2005). Altruism relates to health in an ethnically diverse sample of older adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 60(3), P143-P152.

https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/60.3.P143

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Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., &Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319(5870), 1687-1688.

Although much research has examined the effect of income on happiness, we suggest that how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn. Specifically, we hypothesized that spending money on other people may have a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself. Providing converging evidence for this hypothesis, we found that spending more of one’s income on others predicted greater happiness both cross-sectionally (in a nationally representative survey study) and longitudinally (in a field study of windfall spending). Finally, participants who were randomly assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend money on themselves.

 

 

Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., &Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319(5870), 1687-1688.

DOI: 10.1126/science.1150952

 

 

Peetz, J., &Buehler, R. (2009). Is there a budget fallacy? The role of savings goals in the prediction of personal spending.

The authors extend research and theory on self prediction into the realm of personal financial behavior. Four studies examined people’s ability to predict their future personal spending and the findings supported the two main hypotheses. First, participants tended to underestimate their future spending. They predicted spending substantially less money in the coming week than they actually spent or than they remembered spending in the previous week. Second, the prediction bias stemmed from people’s savings goals—defined as the general desire to save money or minimize future spending—at the time of prediction. Participants who reported (Studies 2 and 3) or were induced to experience (Study 4) a stronger savings goal predicted they would spend less money. However, savings goals were not related to actual spending and thus contributed to the bias in prediction.



Peetz, J., &Buehler, R. (2009). Is there a budget fallacy? The role of savings goals in the prediction of personal spending. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(12), 1579-1591.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167209345160

 

 

Easterlin, R. A., McVey, L. A., Switek, M., Sawangfa, O., &Zweig, J. S. (2010). The happiness–income paradox revisited.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201015962.

 

The striking thing about the happiness–income paradox is that over the long-term —usually a period of 10 y or more—happiness does not increase as a country’s income rises. Heretofore the evidence for this was limited to developed countries. This article presents evidence that the long term nil relationship between happiness and income holds also for a number of developing countries, the eastern European countries transitioning from socialism to capitalism, and an even wider sample of developed countries than previously studied. It also finds that in the short-term in all three groups of countries, happiness and income go together, i.e., happiness tends to fall in economic contractions and rise in expansions. Recent critiques of the paradox, claiming the time series relationship between happiness and income is positive, are the result either of a statistical artifact or a confusion of the short-term relationship with the long-term one

 

 

Easterlin, R. A., McVey, L. A., Switek, M., Sawangfa, O., &Zweig, J. S. (2010). The happiness–income paradox revisited.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201015962.

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1015962107

 

Van Hook, J., &Altman, C. E. (2012). Competitive food sales in schools and childhood obesity: a longitudinal study. Sociology of education, 85(1), 23-39.

 

The vast majority of American middle schools and high schools sell what are known as “competitive foods,” such as soft drinks, candy bars, and chips, to children. The relationship between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and snacks and childhood obesity is well established, but it remains unknown whether competitive food sales in schools are related to unhealthy weight gain among children. The authors examined this association using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class. Employing fixed effects models and a natural experimental approach, they found that children’s weight gain between fifth and eighth grades was not associated with the introduction or the duration of exposure to competitive food sales in middle school. Also, the relationship between competitive foods and weight gain did not vary significantly by gender, race/ethnicity, or family socioeconomic status, and it remained weak and insignificant across several alternative model specifications. One possible explanation is that children’s food preferences and dietary patterns are firmly established before adolescence. Also, middle school environments may dampen the effects of competitive food sales because they so highly structure children’s time and eating opportunities.

 

 

Van Hook, J., &Altman, C. E. (2012). Competitive food sales in schools and childhood obesity: a longitudinal study. Sociology of education, 85(1), 23-39.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040711417011

 

Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., Nathan DeWall, C., &Zhang, L. (2007). How emotion shapes behavior: Feedback, anticipation, and reflection, rather than direct causation.

 

Fear causes fleeing and thereby saves lives: this exemplifies a popular and common sense but increasingly untenable view that the direct causation of behavior is the primary function of emotion. Instead, the authors develop a theory of emotion as a feedback system whose influence on behavior is typically indirect. By providing feedback and stimulating retrospective appraisal of actions, conscious emotional states can promote learning and alter guidelines for future behavior. Behavior may also be chosen to pursue (or avoid) anticipated emotional outcomes. Rapid, automatic affective responses, in contrast to the full-blown conscious emotions, may inform cognition and behavioral choice and thereby help guide current behavior. The automatic affective responses may also remind the person of past emotional outcomes and provide useful guides as to what emotional outcomes may be anticipated in the present. To justify replacing the direct causation model with the feedback model, the authors review a large body of empirical findings



Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., Nathan DeWall, C., &Zhang, L. (2007). How emotion shapes behavior: Feedback, anticipation, and reflection, rather than direct causation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 167-203.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868307301033