Nostalgia, which is induced by reminiscing about a positive past experience, can counteract loneliness and promote prosocial behavior. However, the process of recalling and thinking about a nostalgic experience can have quite different effects. Because nostalgic experiences rarely reoccur, people are motivated to savor them by prolonging the time they reminisce about them. The tendency to savor these experiences generalizes to situations that participants encounter later, thus increasing consumer patience. For this effect to emerge, however, consumers must be aware that waiting will be beneficial to the attainment of a benefit. Moreover, the relationship between nostalgia and consumer patience is diminished when people perceive a nostalgic experience to be repeatable or when they intensify their memory of the experience rather than prolonging it. Eight studies confirmed these effects and processes that underlie them.

Comfortable ambient temperatures can influence consumer preferences for conformity. The results of three laboratory experiments suggest that warm (vs. cool) temperatures dispose consumers toward using others' opinions as the basis for product preferences, stock price forecasts, and betting. Warm temperatures increased the participants' perceptions of social closeness to other decision‐makers, thus leading them to consider the opinions of those decision‐makers to have greater validity. This enhanced validity, in turn, rendered them more likely to conform to the crowd. This effect was confirmed in an analysis of betting behavior at the racetrack over a three‐year period. Bets were more likely to converge on the “favorite” (i.e., the majority‐endorsed option) when the temperature at the track was warm.

This research examines the contrasting effects of incidental pride on consumers' tendency to seek uniqueness. Across four experiments, we show that incidental pride can lead to either more or less uniqueness-seeking, depending on the inferences made from the pride experience. Specifically, people who attribute their felt pride to personal traits (i.e., hubristic pride) are more likely to seek uniqueness in unrelated situations, compared to those who attribute pride to effort (i.e., authentic pride). Further, we show that people's lay theories of achievement determine these attributions: people who hold an entity (vs. incremental) lay theory tend to attribute their felt pride to their traits (vs. efforts), and are therefore motivated to be unique and "get ahead of" (vs. conform to and "get along with") others. Consequently, lay theories determine the contrasting effects of incidental pride on uniqueness-seeking. This is the Pre-Published Version Pia has just masterminded a new product launch, and is walking out from a board meeting where the initial sales reports were presented (above expectations!) and the CEO lavished her with praise. Needless to say, she is feeling really proud, and is headed straight to a fancy restaurant to celebrate. At the restaurant, she needs to choose what drink to order -the restaurant's signature bestselling cocktail, or a limited-edition handcrafted microbrew. Might the pride that Pia is feeling play a role in her choice of tipple? Our research suggests that it might. Indeed, we suggest that her decision to go with the unique versus the popular option might well depend on how Pia thinks about her feelings -whether she attributes her pride to who she is, a star executive with a blue-label MBA, or to what she has done, i.e., invested much effort that is now bearing fruit.

Feeling crowded in a shopping environment can decrease consumers’ evaluations of a product or service and lower customer satisfaction. However, the present research suggests that a crowded environment can sometimes have a positive impact on consumer behavior. Although feeling crowded motivates consumers to avoid interacting with others, it leads them to become more attached to brands as an alternative way of maintaining their basic need for belongingness. The effect does not occur (a) when the crowding environment is composed of familiar people (and, therefore, is not considered aversive); (b) when individuals have an interdependent self-construal (and consequently, high tolerance for crowdedness); (c) when people are accompanied by friends in the crowded environment; (d) when the social function of the brands is made salient; (e) when people have never used the brand before; or (f) when the brand is referred to as a general product rather than a specific brand.

This research examines how incidental exposure to death-related information in the media affects consumers’ value orientation and scope sensitivity to marketing stimuli. Five studies demonstrate that, in contrast to thoughts about one's own mortality, exposure to death-related information in the media can shift consumers’ focus from extrinsic to intrinsic values. This leads them to pay less attention to the marketing stimuli, which are generally associated with extrinsic values, and consequently results in lower sensitivity to the magnitude of products and services. These effects are reversed when the marketing stimuli are associated with intrinsic values. Moreover, we found that exposure to death-related media information will generate effects similar to those of mortality salience when the information is perceived to be self-relevant and thus could induce death anxiety. The authors discuss implications and possible extensions.