From dating profiles and social media accounts to online streaming services, consumers are often asked to express who they are by constructing an assortment. Apple Music, for example, asks new users to indicate “two or more” of their favorite types of music when they create an account. But while consumers might create such self-expressive assortments to communicate who they are, could the composition of these assortments also affect how people see themselves? Seven studies demonstrate that perceiving greater variety in a self-expressive assortment undermines self-continuity. This occurs because variety leads consumers to infer that their preferences are less stable, thereby decreasing the belief that their identity stays the same over time. Variety’s effect generalizes across multiple domains of self-expression (e.g., books, music, television) and has downstream consequences for service evaluation and even unrelated decision-making (e.g., intertemporal tradeoffs). The findings advance understanding of how choice shapes identity, the role of variety in consumers’ lives, and factors that affect self-continuity. The results also have implications for the marketers who encourage (and the consumers who construct) self-expressive assortments.
Prior approaches that leverage identity to motivate prosocial behavior are often limited to the set of people who already strongly identify with an organization (e.g., prior donors) or by the costs and challenges associated with developing stronger organization-linked identities among a broader audience (e.g., encouraging more people to care). In contrast, this research demonstrates that small prosocial gifts, such as tips or small donations, can be encouraged by framing the act of giving as an opportunity to express identity-relevant preferences—even if such preferences are not explicitly related to prosociality or the organization in need. Rather than simply asking people to give, the “dueling preferences” approach investigated in this research frames the act of giving as a choice between two options (e.g., cats vs. dogs, chocolate vs. vanilla ice cream). Dueling preferences increases prosocial giving by providing potential givers with a greater opportunity for self-expression—an intrinsically desirable opportunity. Seven experiments conducted in the laboratory, online, and in the field support this theorized process while casting doubt on relevant alternatives. This research contributes to work on self-expression and identity and sheds light on how organizations can encourage prosocial behavior.
From time, to money, to energy, many consumers are feeling more constrained than ever before. One potential solution to the pervasive feeling of constraint is self-gifting, which is the process of invoking a hedonic consumption experience with the a priori intention of boosting one’s emotional well-being. But despite being a potentially powerful tool for mood repair, are consumers effectively coping with constraint by engaging in self-gifting? And if not, what is stopping them? A correlational pilot and six studies examine the relationship between the feeling of constraint and self-gifting consumption. When consumers feel constrained, they are less (rather than more) interested in self-gifting, and this is driven by a belief that feeling constrained will hamper their ability to derive the emotional well-being benefits of self-gifting. Importantly, though, this belief is miscalibrated: Resource-constrained consumers can derive substantial well-being benefits from self-gifting, relative to those feeling less constrained. The effects generalize across several sources of constraint, do not occur for non-self-gifts, and cannot be explained by feelings of deservingness or justifiability. This research advances understanding of self-gifting, affective forecasting, and consumer decision-making, yields practical recommendations to marketers of self-gifting consumption, and has important consumer implications for people seeking to boost their well-being.
Whether watching a movie, sports game, or musical performance, consumers often seek entertainment experiences that are produced by one or more individuals. And although consumers often witness producers acting spontaneously, little is known about the preference for spontaneity in entertainment. Six studies, including real consumer-relevant decisions and a Facebook field experiment, reveal that consumers prefer spontaneity (vs. planned behavior) across several entertainment contexts, as spontaneous producers seem more authentic than planned producers. At the same time, however, spontaneous actions are also believed to beget lower-quality outcomes, suggesting that consumers generally prefer spontaneity even despite the possibility of reduced quality. Subsequent experiments examine characteristics of the entertainment context and producer to provide further insight into how consumers manage the authenticity-quality trade-off: By shaping when and why spontaneity is associated with increased authenticity and decreased quality expectations, as well as the relative importance of these dimensions, higher-stakes contexts (e.g., when consumers’ outcomes are enmeshed with the producer’s), negative inferences about spontaneity (e.g., laziness, lack of concern), and low-competence producers attenuate the effects. Together, this research advances knowledge about spontaneity and authenticity and has implications for those seeking to produce appealing entertainment experiences.
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