Cost Conscious? The Neural and Behavioral Impact of Price Primacy on Decision Making

Abstract

Price is a key factor in most purchases, but it can be presented at different stages of decision making. The authors examine the sequence-dependent effects of price and product information on the decision-making process at both neural and behavioral levels. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, the price of a product was shown to participants either before or after the product itself was presented. Early exposure to price, or “price primacy,” altered the process of valuation, as observed in altered patterns of activity in the medial prefrontal cortex immediately before making a purchase decision. Specifically, whereas viewing products first resulted in evaluations strongly related to products’ attractiveness or desirability, viewing prices first appeared to promote overall evaluations related to products’ monetary worth. Consistent with this framework, the authors show that price primacy can increase purchase of bargain-priced products when their worth is easily recognized. Together, these results suggest that price primacy highlights considerations of product worth and can thereby influence purchasing.

Dissociable components of the reward circuit are involved in appraisal versus choice

“…A second network -consisting of ventral striatum (VS), pgACC, and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) -tracked the positive affect that was evoked by the choice options, but not the difficulty of choosing. Activity in these areas, which we will refer to as the Dorsal Value Network, was consistent with a more automatic or reflexive appraisal of these items rather than a process of comparing between them, paralleling findings from research on the automatic evaluation of liking -but not necessarily choice -of individual items 3,[25][26][27] .…”

Business Ethics: The Promise of Neuroscience

“…As such, business ethics joins a wide range of scholarly fields employing neuroscience methodology to study human decision making, including economics Frydman et al, 2014), social psychology (Amodio, 2010), marketing (Karmarkar et al, 2015), and organizational behavior (Becker et al, 2011). Salvador and Folger (2009) provide an excellent review of neuroscience research in business ethics; although still in a formative stage, interest in the topic is increasing, as this special issue attests.…”

Effects of Shopping Orientation, Trust and Satisfaction on WOM Intention: Focusing on Undergraduates’ HMR Choices

“…Accordingly, undergraduates' trust in HMR is likely to mediate in between their shopping orientation and word-of-mouth intention. The roles of satisfaction in between trust and word-of-mouth intention are supported by primacy effects [27] and rapport [28]. That is, undergraduates who basically trust in HRM products, have various opportunities to experience positive initial results upon eating HRM foods or have rapport with HMR items after eating it is highly likely to act out some WOM behaviors.…”