This article examines how consumers evaluate hybrid products. Hybrid products possess features of more than one category and hence may be categorized into alternative categories. We combine two different streams of literature—traditional categorization and psycholinguistics—to demonstrate how beliefs about two different categories can be elicited for a hybrid product using a priming approach. We also find that relative category knowledge can moderate the elicitation of multiple category beliefs.
This research examines the effects of warning messages that emphasize the social consequences of negative health outcomes. The authors demonstrate that highlighting social (vs. health) consequences leads to greater perceived temporal proximity of and increased perceived vulnerability to the outcome, thereby affecting risk perceptions, behavioral intentions, and customer perceptions of actual experience. They document this effect across five studies in different health domains including flossing (Study 1), soda consumption (Study 2), smoking (Study 3), and unprotected ultraviolet light exposure (Studies 4 and 5). These findings point to the important role of the consequence type highlighted in warning messages, which can have a significant impact on risk perceptions and consumer experiences.
This research examines how school administrators can motivate children to make more healthful food choices using incentives, pledges, and competitions as interventions. A six-month field study was conducted across 55 elementary and middle schools, and the authors analyzed the data using a two-level Bayesian hierarchical linear model. All three interventions increased the choice of fruits and vegetables (the proportion of children choosing additional servings increased 3 to 24 percentage points) ten weeks after the interventions ended. However, younger (Grades 1 and 2) and older (Grades 3-8) children responded differently to the interventions. Although both younger and older children responded more favorably to the competition intervention than to the pledge or incentive interventions, the effects of the competition and incentive interventions were more pronounced among the younger children. A second field study, also with schoolchildren, examined the role of pledge reminders on adherence to the pledge. The presence of a visible reminder of a pledge resulted in significantly better outcomes than no reminder of a pledge.
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