This research examines the effects of social exclusion on a critical aspect of consumer behavior, financial decision-making. Specifically, four lab experiments and one field survey uncover how feeling isolated or ostracized causes consumers to pursue riskier but potentially more profitable financial opportunities. These daring proclivities do not appear driven by impaired affect or self-esteem. Rather, interpersonal rejection exacerbates financial risk-taking by heightening the instrumentality of money (as a substitute for popularity) to obtain benefits in life. Invariably, the quest for wealth that ensues tends to adopt a riskier but potentially more lucrative road. The article concludes by discussing the implications of its findings for behavioral research as well as for societal and individual welfare.S ocial exclusion (i.e., being alone, isolated, or ostracized, sometimes with explicit declarations of dislike, but other times not; Baumeister et al. 2005;Williams 2007) is a rather common experience. Romantic relationships dissolve; people are ignored at parties or in office conversations; offers of friendship are rebuffed. Suggestive of the universality of the phenomenon, metaphors such as "getting the cold shoulder," "being left behind," or "getting dumped" are found in numerous languages around the world. And while one might hope that recent advances in communiRod Duelos (rod.duclos@ust.hk) is assistant professor of marketing at the Hong

This research examines the interplay of self-construal orientation and victim groupmembership on prosocial behavior. Whereas consumers primed with an independent self-construal demonstrate similar propensities to help needy in-group and out-group others, an interdependent orientation fosters stronger commitments to aid in-group than out-group members. This interaction holds in both individualistic (i.e., the United States) and collectivistic (i.e., China) nations and seems driven by a belief system. For interdependents, the prospect of helping needy in-group (relative to out-group) members heightens the belief that helping others contributes to their own personal happiness, which in turn increases their propensity to act benevolently. Such in-group/out-group distinctions do not seem to operate among independents. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical implications of our findings for the cross-cultural, intergroup-relations, and prosocial literatures before deriving insights for practice. W hen a natural disaster strikes, consumers often face numerous requests (through advertisements and news coverage) to help devastated communities.

Consumers' welfare largely depends on the soundness of their financial decisions. To this effect, the present research examines how people process graphical displays of financial information (e.g., stock-prices) to forecast future trends and invest accordingly. In essence, we ask whether and how visual biases in data interpretation impact financial decision-making and risk-taking. Five experiments find that the last trading day(s) of a stock bear a disproportionately (and unduly) high importance on investment behavior, a phenomenon we coin end-anchoring. Specifically, a stockprice closing upward (downward) fosters upward (downward) forecasts for tomorrow and, accordingly, more (less) investing in the present. Substantial investment asymmetries (up to 75%) emerge even as stock-price distributions were generated randomly to simulate times when the market conjuncture is hesitant and no real upward or downward trend can be identified. Allying experimental manipulations to eye-tracking technology, the present research begins to explore the underpinnings of end-anchoring.