This research examines the vitality produced by vices-products that offer immediate gratification at the cost of long-term adversity. While vices are intrinsically enjoyable, they also induce guilt. Our conceptualization incorporates these opposing forces to argue that vice consumption is unique in that lowering the consumer's sense of autonomy actually results in higher vitality-in contrast to the positive relationship between autonomy and vitality that has been robustly documented in the literature. An examination of the vitality construct further suggests that low-autonomy vice consumption should consequently result in improved creativity as well as self-regulation. A set of four studies provides support for these and related implications. The obtained findings advance knowledge regarding vitality and its consequences, while they also provide insights into when and why vice consumption might actually be beneficial.

While most research in the area of product anthropomorphism examines how making products more humanlike can influence subsequent consumer reactions to those products, the present research examines how the act of anthropomorphizing products can influence consumers themselves. We propose that when consumers have an insufficient sense of either connectedness or competence, anthropomorphizing a product satisfies these deficiencies and increases vitality. Furthermore, this enhanced vitality has positive implications for individuals' capacity to exert selfcontrol in unrelated domains. A set of three studies provides support for these hypotheses. By demonstrating the positive effect of anthropomorphism on consumer vitality and self-control, this research illuminates the nature of anthropomorphism. In doing so, we also connect two streams of literature: one on anthropomorphism and the other on vitality, which share an inherent connection that has not been explicated by past research.Fangyuan Chen (fychen@polyu.edu.hk) is an assistant professor of marketing at

According to temporal construal theory (Trope & Liberman, 2003, 2010, people are likely to evaluate a product on the basis of global, highlevel criteria (e.g., the intrinsic desirability of its features) if they consider it for future consumption but consider situation-specific (e.g., feasibilityrelated) criteria if they consider it for immediate use. However, this may be true only when people are unmotivated to assess the implications of all of the information they have available, and this motivation, in turn, is a function of both their mood and the goal they happen to be pursuing. When individuals' objective is to make a good decision, the theory's implications are more likely to be supported when they are happy (and believe they have enough information to make a good judgment) than when they are sad. When their goal is to enjoy themselves, however, the theory is more strongly supported when they are sad (and are unmotivated to engage in extensive processing) than when they are happy.

Although shoppers often want to evaluate products to make a purchase decision, they can also shop for enjoyment. In each case, the amount of time they spend on shopping and the number of options they consider can depend on the mood they happen to be in. We predicted that mood can signal whether the goal has been attained and when people should stop processing information. When people are primarily motivated to purchase a particular type of product, positive mood signals that they have done enough. Thus, they consider less information if they are happy than if they are unhappy. When people shop for enjoyment, however, positive mood signals that they are still having fun. Thus, they consider more information when they are happy than when they are not. Four experiments among university students (N = 827) examined these possibilities. Experiment 1 provided initial evidence for the interactive effects of mood and goals on search behavior and product evaluation. Other studies examined the implications of this conceptualization for different domains: (a) the relative impact of brand and attribute information on judgments (Experiment 2), (b) gender differences in shopping behavior (Experiment 3), and (c) the number of options that people review in an actual online shopping website (Experiment 4).