As consumers' political opinions become more divided and more central to their identities, it is important to understand how political ideology shapes consumers' attempts to differentiate from others in the marketplace. Seven studies demonstrate that political ideology systematically influences consumers' preferences for differentiation. Conservative ideology leads consumers to differentiate from others vertically in the social hierarchy through products that signal that they are better than others, and liberal ideology leads consumers to differentiate from others horizontally in the social hierarchy through products that signal that they are unique from others. This happens because conservatism endorses, and liberalism opposes, the belief that the dominance-based hierarchical social structure is a legitimate mechanism to distinguish individual qualities. The effect is robust across measured and manipulated ideology, hypothetical and real product choices, and online searches in conservative and liberal US states. Manipulating consumers' differentiation goals and perceptions of hierarchy legitimacy mitigates the effect. The findings advance existing research on political ideology, social hierarchy, and consumer divergence, and they contribute to marketing practice.

It is widely believed that increasing the equality of material possessions or income in a social group should lead people at the bottom of the distribution to consume less and save more. However, this prediction and its causal mechanism have never been studied experimentally. Five studies show that greater equality increases the satisfaction of those in the lowest tier of the distribution because it reduces the possession gap between what they have and what others have. However, greater equality also increases the position gains derived from status-enhancing consumption, since it allows low-tier consumers to get ahead of the higher proportion of consumers clustered in the middle tiers. As a result, greater equality reduces consumption when consumers focus on the narrower possession gap, but it increases consumption when they focus on the greater position gains (i.e., when consumption is conspicuous, social competition goals are primed, and the environment is competitive).

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for their help with the data collection. Dominique Hanssens served as associate editor for this article. PIERRE CHANDON and NAILYA ORDABAYEVA* Understanding consumer response to product supersizing and downsizing is important for policy makers, consumer researchers, and marketers. In three laboratory experiments and two field studies, the authors find that changes in size appear smaller when packages and portions change in all three spatial dimensions-height, width, and length-than when they change in only one dimension. Specifically, they show that size estimations follow an inelastic power function of the actual size of the product, especially when all three spatial dimensions change simultaneously. As a result, consumers are more likely to supersize their orders when products change in one dimension and are more likely to downsize their orders when products change in three dimensions. When changing dosage, consumers pour more product into and out of conical containers (e.g., martini cocktail glasses, in which volume changes in three dimensions) than cylindrical containers (e.g., highball glasses, in which volume changes in one dimension). Finally, consumers expect (and marketers offer) steeper quantity discounts when products are supersized in three dimensions than when they are supersized in one dimension, regardless of whether size information is present.

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Materialism represents a pervasive value in contemporary society and one that is associated with multiple negative consequences. Although a considerable amount of research has documented these consequences, little research has examined how materialism levels might be reduced. This article presents a research agenda for reducing materialism. The authors begin with an overview of the motivation theory of materialism, a humanistic perspective that holds that materialism is often an outward manifestation of deeper unmet psychological needs and insecurities. Thus, research that contributes to reducing materialism should do so by addressing these more fundamental inadequacies. To this end, the authors outline three emergent research areas that have potential to reduce materialism by enhancing self-esteem—namely, experiential consumption, prosocial giving, and healthy social development in children. The authors review research in each area, consider its relevance to the materialism question, and propose future research directions. They also present the public policy implications of these discussions.

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The present research proposes that luxury consumption can be a double-edged sword: while luxury consumption yields status benefits, it can also make consumers feel inauthentic, producing what we call the impostor syndrome from luxury consumption. As a result, paradoxically, luxury consumption may backfire and lead consumers to behave less confidently due to their undermined feelings of self-authenticity. Feelings of inauthenticity from luxury consumption may arise because consumers perceive luxury as an undue privilege. These feelings are less pronounced among consumers with high levels of chronic psychological entitlement, and they are reduced when consumers’ sense of entitlement is temporarily boosted. The effects are robust across studies conducted in the lab and in field settings such as the Metropolitan Opera, Martha’s Vineyard, a luxury shopping center, and the Upper East Side in New York, featuring relevant participant populations including luxury target segments and consumption contexts including consumers’ reflections on their actual past luxury purchases.