Despite the ubiquity of pets in consumers’ lives, scant research has examined how exposure to them (e.g., recalling past interactions with dogs and cats, viewing ads featuring a dog or a cat) ...influences consumer behavior. The authors demonstrate that exposure to dogs (cats) reminds consumers of the stereotypical temperaments and behaviors of the pet species, which activates a promotion- (prevention-) focused motivational mindset among consumers. Using secondary data, Study 1 shows that people in states with a higher percentage of dog (cat) owners Google more promotion- (prevention-) focused words and report a higher COVID-19 transmission rate. Using multiple products, Studies 2 and 3 demonstrate that these regulatory mindsets, when activated by pet exposure, carry over to influence downstream consumer judgments, purchase intentions, and behaviors, even in pet-unrelated consumption contexts. Study 4 shows that pet stereotypicality moderates the proposed effect such that the relationship between pet exposure and regulatory orientations persists to the extent consumers are reminded of the stereotypical temperaments and behaviors of the pet species. Studies 5–7 examine the role of regulatory fit and evince that exposure to dogs (cats) leads to more favorable responses toward advertising messages featuring promotion- (prevention-) focused appeals.
Beige/brite adipocytes are induced within white adipose tissues (WAT) and, when activated, consume glucose and fatty acids to produce heat. Classically, two stimuli have been used to trigger a ...beiging response: cold temperatures and β3-adrenergic receptor (
) agonists. These two beiging triggers have been used interchangeably but whether these two stimuli may induce beiging differently at cellular and molecular levels remains unclear. Here, we found that cold-induced beige adipocyte formation requires
1, not
, activation.
1 activation stimulates WAT resident perivascular (
+) cells to form cold-induced beige adipocytes. In contrast,
activation stimulates mature white adipocytes to convert into beige adipocytes. Necessity tests, using mature adipocyte-specific
deletion strategies, demonstrated that adipocytes are required and are predominant source to generate
-induced, but not cold-induced, beige adipocytes. Collectively, we identify that cold temperatures and
agonists activate distinct cellular populations that express different β-adrenergic receptors to induce beige adipogenesis.
The current research examines consumers’ responses to sensory endorsements from virtual influencers. The authors reveal that consumers perceive virtual and human influencers to have similar distal ...sensory (i.e., visual and auditory) capacities. Consumers, however, perceive virtual influencers as having lower proximal sensory (i.e., haptic, olfactory, and gustatory) capacities. Consequently, when endorsements focus on proximal sensory experiences, consumers have lower purchase intention toward products and services endorsed by a virtual (vs. human) influencer. The findings further reveal that imagery difficulty and perceived sensory capacity serially mediate this effect. Importantly, this effect is mitigated when endorsements focus on distal sensory experiences, when sensory information is not explicitly mentioned, and when consumers are informed of new technology that enables virtual influencers to have proximal sensory experiences. These findings offer actionable insights for marketers to effectively utilize virtual influencers in sensory-driven campaigns, providing practical strategies to improve consumer responses to sensory endorsements and enhance marketing effectiveness.
Five experiments document that the mere circularity and angularity of a brand logo is powerful enough to affect perceptions of the attributes of a product or company. It is theorized and shown that ...circular- versus angular-logo shapes activate softness and hardness associations, respectively, and these concepts subsequently influence product/company attribute judgments through a resource-demanding imagerygeneration process that utilizes the visuospatial sketchpad component of working memory. There are no logo shape effects on attribute judgments when the visuospatial sketchpad component of working memory is constrained by irrelevant visual imagery, when people have a lower disposition to generate imagery when processing product information, and when the headline of the ad highlights a product attribute that differs from the inference drawn from the logo shape. Further, there are shape effects even when the shape is incidentally exposed beforehand using a priming technique rather than being a part of the logo itself, demonstrating the generalizability of our findings. When taken together, the results have implications for working memory, consumer imagery, and visual marketing.
Cold temperatures induce formation of beige adipocytes, which convert glucose and fatty acids to heat, and may increase energy expenditure, reduce adiposity and lower blood glucose. This therapeutic ...potential is unrealized, hindered by a dearth of genetic tools to fate map, track and manipulate beige progenitors and 'beiging'. Here we examined 12 Cre/inducible Cre mouse strains that mark adipocyte, muscle and mural lineages, three proposed beige origins. Among these mouse strains, only those that marked perivascular mural cells tracked the cold-induced beige lineage. Two SMA-based strains, SMA-Cre(ERT2) and SMA-rtTA, fate mapped into the majority of cold-induced beige adipocytes and SMA-marked progenitors appeared essential for beiging. Disruption of the potential of the SMA-tracked progenitors to form beige adipocytes was accompanied by an inability to maintain body temperature and by hyperglycaemia. Thus, SMA-engineered mice may be useful to track and manipulate beige progenitors, beige adipocyte formation and function.
The question of how to improve the effectiveness of charitable solicitation has long been a subject of investigation for charity organizations. Through six studies, including four ...incentive-compatible studies and a field study, the present research demonstrates an easy, actionable, and widely applicable semantic-framing strategy that can be utilized to promote charitable giving. Semantically framing charitable giving as a gift (rather than a donation) increases not only donors’ intention to contribute but also their actual contribution amount (Studies 1–3). Both mediation (Study 4) and moderation (Study 5) approaches provide convergent evidence that the effect of framing charitable giving as a gift rather than a donation on contribution is driven by donors’ perceived social distance from beneficiaries. The authors further find that this framing effect is weakened when soliciting contributions from donors who see social distance as desirable (e.g., those with a high need for status; Study 6). The current work contributes to the literature streams on charitable giving, social exchange, and semantic framing and provides strong managerial implications for charity organizations.
Life-role transition is a state wherein people pass through different life stages, involving changes in identities, roles, and responsibilities. Across six studies, the current research shows that ...consumers under life-role transition have more favorable attitudes toward distant (i.e., low- or moderate-fit) brand extensions than consumers who are not under life-role transition. The effect is driven by a sense of self-concept ambiguity associated with life-role transition, which subsequently prompts dialectical thinking that helps improve perceived fit between a parent brand and its extension, finally resulting in more favorable brand extension evaluation. This effect diminishes for (1) near (i.e., high-fit) brand extensions that do not require dialectical thinking for perceiving fit; (2) for sub-brand (vs. direct brand) architecture, for which there is less of a need to use dialectical thinking to reconcile the inconsistencies between a parent brand and its extension; and (3) when consumers perceive they have resources to cope with the life-role transition, which attenuates self-concept ambiguity. This research offers important theoretical and managerial insights by focusing on life-role transition—an important aspect of consumers’ lives that has been largely underresearched—and by demonstrating how and why it elicits more favorable attitudes toward brand extensions.
This study examines the effects of social exclusion on consumers’ brand and product switching behavior. Five studies were conducted, which revealed that consumers who perceive themselves as being ...chronically or temporarily excluded exhibit more switching behavior than their peers who do not feel socially excluded. This effect is mediated by a decreased sense of control after social exclusion. The effect disappears when the incumbent option possesses the function of maintaining social belongingness (e.g., when the incumbent option is socially conformed or symbolizes social connection).
Assessing residual consciousness and cognitive abilities in unresponsive patients is a major clinical concern and a challenge for cognitive neuroscience. Although neuroimaging studies have ...demonstrated a potential for informing diagnosis and prognosis in unresponsive patients, these methods involve sophisticated brain imaging technologies, which limit their clinical application. In this study, we adopted a new language paradigm that elicited rhythmic brain responses tracking the single-word, phrase and sentence rhythms in speech, to examine whether bedside electroencephalography (EEG) recordings can help inform diagnosis and prognosis. EEG-derived neural signals, including both speech-tracking responses and temporal dynamics of global brain states, were associated with behavioral diagnosis of consciousness. Crucially, multiple EEG measures in the language paradigm were robust to predict future outcomes in individual patients. Thus, EEG-based language assessment provides a new and reliable approach to objectively characterize and predict states of consciousness and to longitudinally track individual patients' language processing abilities at the bedside.
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