Assortment size has been shown to influence whether consumers make a choice, but could it also influence what they choose? Five studies demonstrate that because choosing from larger assortments is often more difficult, it leads people to select options that are easier to justify. Virtues and utilitarian necessities are generally easier to justify than indulgences; consequently, choosing from larger assortments often shifts choice from vices to virtues and from hedonic to utilitarian options. These effects reverse, however, when situational factors provide accessible reasons to indulge, underscoring the role of justification. Implications for choice difficulty and justification processes are discussed. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Consumers are constantly exposed to subtle situational cues that can influence behavior by priming either goals or “mere” semantic representations such as personality traits. However, little is known about when exactly such priming leads to goal activation, which can have enduring behavioral effects, and when the same prime leads to semantic activation, characterized by short‐lived effects. This research proposes an activation‐striving model, which proposes that behavioral effects of primes are moderated by discrepancies between the prime and the self‐concept. Three studies suggest that self‐consistent primes are more likely to influence choice via semantic activation, whereas self‐discrepant primes are more likely to influence choice via goal activation.

Can subtle wording changes in marketing communications, such as saying "you and [the brand]" as opposed to "we," affect people's evaluations of real-world brands? Despite their importance in interpersonal communication, the effects of such variations in relationship-implying language on consumers' perceptions of brands have received little research attention. Four experiments demonstrate that closeness-implying pronouns (e.g., saying "we" rather than "you and the brand") can have either positive or negative effects on consumers' attitudes toward real-world brands with which they have real working relationships. The experiments show that these effects depend on whether the closeness implied by the pronoun is consistent with people's expected interactions with the brand. These effects are moderated by people's affiliation with the brand (i.e., customers vs. noncustomers), brand type, and the extent of cognitive elaboration and are mediated by perceived brand trustworthiness. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Together we'll go far. (Wells Fargo Bank, http:// www.wellsfargo.com) Imagine a global financial firm with the heart and soul of a two-person organization. A worldleading wealth management company that sits down with you to understand your needs and goals.. .. You & Us. (UBS, http://www.ubs .com) M arketers often desire to promote consumers' feelings of being in a close relationship with the brands they

People often get unnecessarily mired in trivial decisions. Four studies support a metacognitive account for this painful phenomenon. Our central premise is that people use subjective experiences of difficulty while making a decision as a cue to how much further time and effort to spend. People generally associate important decisions with difficulty. Consequently, if a decision feels unexpectedly difficult, due to even incidental reasons, people may draw the reverse inference that it is also important and consequently increase the amount of time and effort they expend. Ironically, this process is particularly likely for decisions that initially seemed unimportant because people expect them to be easier (whereas important decisions are expected to be difficult to begin with). Our studies demonstrate that unexpected difficulty not only causes people to get caught up in unimportant decisions but also to voluntarily seek more options, which can increase decision difficulty even further. P eople often find themselves mired in seemingly trivial decisions. We agonize over what toothbrush to buy, struggle with what flight to purchase, and labor over which shade of white to paint the kitchen. While common wisdom and much research suggest that people should deliberate harder the more important the decision (Chaiken and Maheswaran 1994; Petty and Wegener 1998), why do people sometimes get stuck in seemingly minor choices?We suggest that metacognitive inference contributes to a process we name "decision quicksand," whereby people get sucked into spending more time on unimportant decisions. Our central premise is that people use the subjective difficulty experienced while making a decision as a cue to how much further time and effort to spend. More important decisions are often more difficult because they involve higher Aner Sela (aner.sela@warrington.ufl.edu) is assistant professor of marketing, University of Florida, 204 Bryan Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611. Jonah Berger (jberger@wharton.upenn.edu) is the James G. Campbell Jr. Memorial Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 700 Jon M. Huntsman Hall, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. The authors thank Adam Alter, Lyle Brenner, Joshua Clarkson, Wendy Liu, Cassie Mogilner, Danny Oppenheimer, Deborah Small, and Zak Tormala for helpful comments on this article. They dedicate this article to their families, whose struggles with seemingly simple decisions inspired this research. Debbie MacInnis and Mary Frances Luce served as editors and Gavan Fitzsimons served as associate editor for this article.Electronically published October 27, 2011 stakes that call for laborious scrutiny. As a result, people tend to expect decisions regarding significant matters to be difficult and decisions regarding trivial matters to be easy. Consequently, if a decision feels unexpectedly difficult, due to even incidental reasons, we propose that people may draw the reverse inference that it is also important and deserving of more attention. This, in...

While constructed preferences have received a great deal of attention, there has been virtually no research regarding the genetic basis of consumer judgment and choice. In this research, we examine a wide range of previously unexplored heritable effects on consumer choices and judgments. Moreover, whereas prior research on heritable traits has typically employed a piecemeal approach, demonstrating each heritable trait separately, we propose an alternative way to simultaneously explore common mechanisms and links among heritable traits and behaviors. Using a classic twins study design, we find a large heritable effect on preferences for (a) compromise (but not dominating) options, (b) sure gains, (c) an upcoming feasible, dull assignment, (d) maximizing, (e) utilitarian options, and (f) certain products. Conversely, we do not find significant heritable effects regarding judgment heuristics, discounting, and other decision problems. We tentatively propose that the pattern of findings might reflect a generic heritable individual difference relating to “prudence.” We discuss the implications of our research with respect to the determinants of preferences and future research on heritable aspects of judgment and choice.