This paper examines attention checks and manipulation validations to detect inattentive respondents in primary empirical data collection. These prima facie attention checks range from the simple such ...as reverse scaling first proposed a century ago to more recent and involved methods such as evaluating response patterns and timed responses via online data capture tools. The attention check validations also range from easily implemented mechanisms such as automatic detection through directed queries to highly intensive investigation of responses by the researcher. The latter has the potential to introduce inadvertent researcher bias as the researcher's judgment may impact the interpretation of the data. The empirical findings of the present work reveal that construct and scale validations show consistently significant improvement in the fit statistics—a finding of great use for researchers working predominantly with scales and constructs for their empirical models. However, based on the rudimentary experimental models employed in the analysis, attention checks generally do not show a consistent, systematic improvement in the significance of test statistics for experimental manipulations. This latter result indicates that, by their very nature, attention checks may trigger an inherent trade-off between loss of sample subjects—lowered power and increased Type II error—and the potential of capitalizing on chance alone—the possibility that the previously significant results were in fact the result of Type I error. The analysis also shows that the attrition rates due to attention checks—upwards of 70% in some observed samples—are far larger than typically assumed. Such loss rates raise the specter that studies not validating attention may inadvertently increase their Type I error rate. The manuscript provides general guidelines for various attention checks, discusses the psychological nuances of the methods, and highlights the delicate balance among incentive alignment, monetary compensation, and the subsequently triggered mood of respondents.
Picking Gifts for Picky People Cheng, Andong; Meloy, Margaret G.; Polman, Evan
Journal of retailing,
06/2021, Letnik:
97, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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•A survey of 7000+ shoppers indicated that 4 out of 10 gifts are for someone picky.•Per the NYT, “the biggest challenge for gift givers is shopping for picky people.”•The judgment, ...“picky person,” is someone with narrow-and-unpredictable preferences.•When people choose gifts for picky people, they buck typical gift-giving norms.•A strategy for retailers is tested, which helps consumers choose for picky people.
Shoppers report that 39% of their holiday gift-purchases are for someone “picky.” However, despite the ubiquity of shopping for picky people, little research has examined how people choose gifts for picky people. In the present research, we define the “picky gift recipient” as someone perceived to have narrow and unpredictable preferences, and we show how shopping for someone picky alters gift giving behavior. We find that although gift giving norms prescribe that gift givers spend effort, time, and money on gifts to strengthen their social ties, an exception to this rule occurs when a gift recipient is picky. When shopping for someone picky, givers believe that increasing their resources on a gift will not result in greater recipient-satisfaction with the gift itself—a lay belief that ultimately demotivates givers, causing them to spend fewer resources on picky people (even picky friends). That said, we find that consumers are more willing to spend money on superficial gift-features for picky people, such as professional wrapping, to “dress up” their gifts. Based on this preference, we developed and tested a novel promotion strategy that retailers could implement to recoup some of the lost spending by consumers who are shopping for picky people. In all, this research contributes to the literature on gift giving dynamics, and provides insights more broadly into how shoppers negotiate the burden of shopping for someone whom they anticipate will not like their choice.
This study empirically investigates consumer perceptions of remanufactured consumer products in closed‐loop supply chains. A multi‐study approach led to increasing levels of measure refinement and ...facilitated examination of various assumptions researchers have made about the consumer market for remanufactured products. Based in part on the measure building studies, an experimental study examined remanufactured product perceptions from a national panel of consumers. The consumers responded to remanufactured product descriptions that manipulated price discount and brand equity. The results indicate that discounting had a consistently positive, linear effect on remanufactured product attractiveness. Curiously, the brand equity manipulation proved less important to consumers than specific remanufactured product quality perceptions. The results also show that green consumers and consumers who consider remanufactured products green typically found remanufactured products significantly more attractive. Finally, the findings introduce the concept of negative attribute perceptions, such as disgust, that had a significantly detrimental effect on remanufactured product attractiveness.
We experimentally investigate whether mass customization enhances sustainability and firm outcomes in a fast fashion context. Fast fashion delivers fashion trends to consumers quickly and cheaply but ...has detrimental effects on the environment (e.g., waste accumulation, water pollution). To mitigate these harmful effects, we examine how different points of customer involvement in mass customization affect the anticipated number of months to product disposal and willingness‐to‐pay for mass‐customized products. We employ a series of experiments and find that consumer perceptions of the degree of customization increase as the point of customer involvement shifts upstream from Use to Assembly to Fabrication to Design and that the anticipated number of months to disposal and willingness‐to‐pay increase as the point of customer involvement shifts upstream to Design. We also find that the implementation of customer involvement in mass customization matters. Overall, these results provide evidence that mass customization via Design may not only help slow fast fashion down, which has major sustainability implications, but it may also present a win‐win opportunity for both the environment and firms (in terms of the bottom line—provided, of course, that it does not have any major cost disadvantages).
Highlights
We examine how four different points of customer involvement in mass customization affect the anticipated number of months to product disposal and willingness‐to‐pay for mass‐customized products in a series of experiments.
We find that consumer perceptions of the degree of customization increase as the point of customer involvement shifts upstream from Use to Assembly to Fabrication to Design and that the anticipated number of months to product disposal and willingness‐to‐pay increase as the point of customer involvement shifts upstream to Design.
Our results provide evidence that mass customization via Design may help slow fast fashion down by encouraging longer use, thus delaying product disposal with major sustainability implications, and present a win‐win opportunity for both the environment and firms.
Disorder and Downsizing Ross, Gretchen R; Meloy, Margaret G; Bolton, Lisa E
The Journal of consumer research,
04/2021, Letnik:
47, Številka:
6
Journal Article
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Abstract
The consequences of overconsumption and the recent popularity of simple living point to consumer interest in reducing belongings. They also raise an interesting question—what is a useful ...approach to downsizing and decluttering? We investigate how dis/order (messy vs. tidy items) affects downsizing and find, across nine focal studies, that (a) consumers retain fewer items when choosing from a disordered set because (b) order facilitates the comparisons within category that underlie the tendency to retain items. The impact of dis/order is altered by consumers’ comparison tendencies, waste aversion, and decision strategy (selection vs. rejection), which serve as theoretically and pragmatically relevant moderators. Though consumers’ lay beliefs favor rejecting from order (i.e., choosing what to get rid of from tidy items), our findings point to the usefulness of selecting from disorder (i.e., choosing what to keep from messy items) as a downsizing strategy. Together, this research has implications for consumer downsizing activities, the burgeoning home organization and storage industries, as well as sustainability.
We study the effectiveness of two theoretically and practically relevant interventions designed to increase familiarity with and thereby stimulate the appeal of and willingness to pay (WTP) for ...remanufactured (refurbished) consumer products that are often found repulsive by consumers: (1) educating consumers about the remanufacturing process, (2) providing physical exposure to remanufactured products. We find that education does not cause an increase in the appeal of and WTP for remanufactured consumer products. Providing physical exposure to remanufactured products, relative to text and text‐plus picture or video modalities, significantly increases both the appeal and WTP as a result of increasing perceived quality and decreasing disgust. Sellers can benefit from marketing remanufactured consumer products through physical channels (i.e., brick‐and‐mortar, outlet, showroom stores) as opposed to solely through online channels, which is the common practice among many sellers.
Abstract
How does coping with a resource loss of time, space, or money change a consumer? In the current work, we argue that resource losses that give rise to budget contractions require a coping ...strategy that not only influences choice in the moment but also changes underlying consumer preferences. We show that the preference restructuring that occurs when coping with a budget loss also leads to stabilization of preferences. Specifically, a consumer who allocates a budget to a set of items prior to a budget contraction and allocates that same budget post-contraction when the budget is fully restored will allocate the restored budget to fewer options in the set. Coping with the contraction helps consumers prioritize what matters to them, leading to refinement of preference. This within-consumer preference refinement effect exists for budgets of time, space, and money. We identify boundary conditions (i.e., significant budget contractions and self-determined contraction allocations are necessary for prioritization to occur) and rule out non-prioritization explanations (e.g., anchoring and under-adjusting). These findings suggest that marketers should focus on capturing consumers who are dealing with budget contractions as this is one of the moments where individuals revisit and rediscover what matters most to them.
Consumer product returns in the United States are approaching three-hundred billion dollars annually. In the majority of cases, the returned products are perfectly functional convenience returns. ...Managers have a multi-billion dollar profit opportunity to reuse the products by strategically employing remanufacturing. Yet, remanufacturing has multiple barriers that must be understood and addressed. This article addresses several key managerial issues regarding remanufactured consumer products. First, will consumers buy remanufactured products? Second, will the green consumer segment desire remanufactured products? Third, will remanufactured product sales cannibalize new product sales? Finally, this article provides guidance regarding pricing and cannibalization mitigation strategies.
This research explores how the experience of a jilt—the anticipation and subsequent inaccessibility of a highly desirable, aspirant option—influences preference for incumbent and non-incumbent ...options. The authors conceptualize jilting as a multi-stage process, which consists of a pre-jilt anticipatory phase that is initiated on the introduction of an aspirant option and a post-jilt phase that is initiated when the aspirant option becomes inaccessible. They show that during the anticipatory phase, a process of denigration specific to the incumbent option is engendered. The subsequent jilt elicits a negative emotional response. During the affectively charged post-jilt phase, preference shifts away from the nowdenigrated incumbent option, yielding a jilting effect. In four field and laboratory studies, the authors establish this jilting effect, rule out alternative accounts, and discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.
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