Rebecca Reczek: "Learning about the Self through Advertising: The Effect of Behaviorally Targeted Advertising on Consumer Self-Perceptions and Behavior"
“Behavioral targeting” is an Internet-based advertising strategy that uses a consumer’s online actions to tailor digital ads for
We introduce a simple solution to help people manage choices between healthy and unhealthy food options: vice-virtue bundles. Vice-virtue bundles are item aggregates with varying proportions of both vice and virtue, holding overall quantity constant. Five studies compare choice and perceptions of differently composed vice-virtue bundles relative to one another and to pure vice and pure virtue options. Results suggest that people prefer vice-virtue bundles with small (1⁄4) to medium (1⁄2) proportions of vice rather than large (3⁄4) proportions of vice. Moreover, people rate vice-virtue bundles with small vice proportions as healthier but equally tasty as bundles with larger vice proportions. Choice patterns are different from those predicted by variety-seeking or compromise accounts. Instead, these findings provide evidence of asymmetric goal balancing—the notion that a relatively small proportion of vice sufficiently addresses a taste goal, whereas a relatively large proportion of virtue is needed to address a health goal.
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Robin Soster: "Using Sunk Costs to Untether Consumers from Default Actions"
Scarcity promotions emphasize the limited availability (either in quantity or time) of a product, and are commonly used tactics by marketers. Drawing on several lines of research, we propose that such promotions increase feelings of threat (towards others), and more importantly, that aggressive behavior results. In three studies using actual video games, we show that shooting and punching behavior are heightened in response to such promotions. Boundary conditions and policy implications will be discussed.
Consistent with the sunk cost effect, we find that prior investment in pursuing a default action causes people to be overly- committed to the action when an appealing alternative is available. We also find that encouraging people to mentally transfer their sunk costs to the alternative action liberates them to pursue the alternative action, so long as the idea to transfer costs is made by a source without an ulterior motive. These findings inform the sunk cost literature, and provide a path to better choices.
