Just a feeling
(De)contaminating product preferences: A multi-method investigation into pathogen threat's influence on used product preferences
Julie Huang, Joshua Ackerman & Alexandra Sedlovskaya
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, May 2017, Pages 143-152
Abstract:
How does being motivated to avoid infectious disease affect the kinds of products people value and buy? Using population-level and experimental data, six studies converge to indicate that infectious disease cues can negatively impact evaluation of secondhand, but not new, products. Studies 1-2 demonstrate that used merchandise retailer revenues are lower in states with elevated pathogen prevalence. Studies 3a-3b echo this relation on an individual level, showing that experimental manipulation of infectious disease threat weakens interest in used products. Such effects are eliminated when sellers are known to buyers and when buyers engage in a behavior (hand-washing) associated with infection prevention (Studies 4-5). Internal meta-analyses reveal that disease threat consistently decreased used goods preferences and elevated valuation of new products across our experimental studies. This research advances our understanding of how disease avoidance motivation changes reactions to everyday objects, thereby highlighting how infectious disease psychology influences important domains of individual and societal life.
Brand-Aid
Martin Reimann, Sandra Nuñez & Raquel Castaño
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can close brand relationships insulate against physical pain? The idea that close interpersonal relationships help people cope with pain has received increasing support in social psychology. It is unknown, however, whether close brand relationships can do the same and, if so, why. Seven studies are reported here to fill this knowledge gap. Experiments 1a 1b are the first to demonstrate that when confronted with a loved brand (vs. control), consumers are able to insulate themselves against physical pain. Experiment 2 provides evidence that the pain-insulating effectiveness of close brand relationships is not just due to brands representing mere distractions. Using a multi-study, multi-method approach to test for mediation, experiments 3 through 5 provide convergent empirical support for the hypothesis that feelings of social connectedness mediate the effect of close brand relationships on pain. Study 6 categorizes the 1,105 brand love essays participants had written in our experiments to show that loved brands provide feelings of social connectedness, mostly metaphorically and indirectly and, to a lesser extent, directly. In summary, close brand relationships can help insulate consumers against physical pain due to brands' ability to provide a semblance of social connectedness.
Costs of Selective Attention: When Children Notice What Adults Miss
Daniel Plebanek & Vladimir Sloutsky
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
One of the lawlike regularities of psychological science is that of developmental progression-an increase in sensorimotor, cognitive, and social functioning from childhood to adulthood. Here, we report a rare violation of this law, a developmental reversal in attention. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-year-olds (n = 34) and adults (n = 35) performed a change-detection task that included externally cued and uncued shapes. Whereas the adults outperformed the children on the cued shapes, the children outperformed the adults on the uncued shapes. In Experiment 2, the same participants completed a visual search task, and their memory for search-relevant and search-irrelevant information was tested. The young children outperformed the adults with respect to search-irrelevant features. This demonstration of a paradoxical property of early attention deepens current understanding of the development of attention. It also has implications for understanding early learning and cognitive development more broadly.
The Ugliness-in-Averageness Effect: Tempering the Warm Glow of Familiarity
Evan Carr et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mere exposure (i.e., stimulus repetition) and blending (i.e., stimulus averaging) are classic ways to increase social preferences, including facial attractiveness. In both effects, increases in preference involve enhanced familiarity. Prominent memory theories assume that familiarity depends on a match between the target and similar items in memory. These theories predict that when individual items are weakly learned, their blends (morphs) should be relatively familiar, and thus liked - a beauty-in-averageness effect (BiA). However, when individual items are strongly learned, they are also more distinguishable. This "differentiation" hypothesis predicts that with strongly encoded items, familiarity (and thus, preference) for the blend will be relatively lower than individual items - an ugliness-in-averageness effect (UiA). We tested this novel theoretical prediction in 5 experiments. Experiment 1 showed that with weak learning, facial morphs were more attractive than contributing individuals (BiA effect). Experiments 2A and 2B demonstrated that when participants first strongly learned a subset of individual faces (either in a face-name memory task or perceptual-tracking task), morphs of trained individuals were less attractive than the trained individuals (UiA effect). Experiment 3 showed that changes in familiarity for the trained morph (rather than interstimulus conflict) drove the UiA effect. Using a within-subjects design, Experiment 4 mapped out the transition from BiA to UiA solely as a function of memory training. Finally, computational modeling using a well-known memory framework (REM) illustrated the familiarity transition observed in Experiment 4. Overall, these results highlight how memory processes illuminate classic and modern social preference phenomena.
Inhibition of Pre-SMA by Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation Leads to More Cautious Decision-making and More Efficient Sensory Evidence Integration
Tuğçe Tosun et al.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Decisions are made based on the integration of available evidence. The noise in evidence accumulation leads to a particular speed-accuracy tradeoff in decision-making, which can be modulated and optimized by adaptive decision threshold setting. Given the effect of pre-SMA activity on striatal excitability, we hypothesized that the inhibition of pre-SMA would lead to higher decision thresholds and an increased accuracy bias. We used offline continuous theta burst stimulation to assess the effect of transient inhibition of the right pre-SMA on the decision processes in a free-response two-alternative forced-choice task within the drift diffusion model framework. Participants became more cautious and set higher decision thresholds following right pre-SMA inhibition compared with inhibition of the control site (vertex). Increased decision thresholds were accompanied by an accuracy bias with no effects on post-error choice behavior. Participants also exhibited higher drift rates as a result of pre-SMA inhibition compared with the vertex inhibition. These results, in line with the striatal theory of speed-accuracy tradeoff, provide evidence for the functional role of pre-SMA activity in decision threshold modulation. Our results also suggest that pre-SMA might be a part of the brain network associated with the sensory evidence integration.