People experience pain when they spend money. Because previous studies have shown that perceived social support reduces physical pain, this research examined whether perceived social support reduces spending pain. Our studies showed that both real and recalled social support reduced spending pain (Studies 1-3) and that perceived social support reduced the perceived importance of money as a protection mechanism, which in turn reduced spending pain (Studies 1 and 3). Moreover, the pain-buffering effect of social support was stronger for hedonic purchases than for utilitarian purchases (Study 2). This research broadens our understanding of the factors that enhance consumer experiences and the relationships among love, security, and pain.

We test the hypothesis that people, when observed, perceive their actions as more substantial because they add the audience's perspective to their own perspective. We find that participants who were observed while eating (Study 1) or learned they were observed after eating (Study 2) recalled eating a larger portion than unobserved participants. The presence of others magnified both desirable and undesirable actions. Thus, observed (vs. unobserved) participants believed they gave both more correct and incorrect answers in a lab task (Study 3) and, moving to a field study, the larger the audience, the larger the contribution badminton players claimed toward their teams' successes as well as failures (Study 4). In contrast to actions, inactions are not magnified, because they are unobservable; indeed, observed (vs. unobserved) participants believed they solved more task problems but did not skip more problems (Study 5). Taken together, these studies show that being observed fundamentally alters the subjective magnitude of one's actions. (PsycINFO Database Record

This research elucidates the conditions under which distress appeals can evoke the instinct to help without turning recipients away from uncomfortable situations. Five experiments demonstrated with behavioral evidence that evoking a sense of control by irrelevant causes prior to appeal exposure can increase the likelihood of registering as a volunteer (Studies 1 and 3) and the tendency to donate (Studies 2, 4, and 5) in a subsequent unrelated situation. The authors found that this effect was not evident in the absence of distress and for participants with enhanced distress tolerance. The results further showed that enhanced control increased distress tolerance, which mediated the observed effect on charitable acts but had no impact on self‐efficacy in contributing as a helper. The findings have both theoretical and managerial implications for promoting charitable behaviors.

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