Impression valence constrains social explanations: The case of discounting versus conjunction effects.

Roese, Neal J.; Morris, Michael W.

doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.3.437

Cited by 23 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…This is because the composition of the shopping basket may imply that the consumer is incontinent and had an "accident" in his or her pants-an inference that is otherwise unlikely to occur when the products are purchased separately. This prediction is also consistent with research on conjunction effects in causal attribution, which has shown that compatible explanations for observed behaviors are deemed to be more plausible when judged in combination rather than in isolation (McClure et al 1989;McGill 1990McGill , 1991Roese and Morris 1999;Tversky and Kahneman 1983). Thus, compared to purchasing either product alone, the simultaneous purchase of new undergarments and anti-diarrheal medicine may increase the plausibility of the explanation that the purchases are both caused by a severe case of incontinence, thereby emphasizing, rather than minimizing, the undesired public identity.…”

Section: The Basket Balance Hypothesissupporting

confidence: 87%

Balancing the Basket: The Role of Shopping Basket Composition in Embarrassment

Blair¹,

Roese²

2013

J Consum Res

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When consumers anticipate feeling embarrassed by a purchase, they often purchase additional products to mitigate the threat. The current research demonstrates that nonembarrassing additional purchases do not necessarily attenuate anticipated embarrassment but may, paradoxically, exacerbate it instead. Results further show that when additional purchases do attenuate anticipated embarrassment, they can do so independently of their effect on the salience of the embarrassing product. Five experiments provide converging evidence that additional purchases attenuate (vs. exacerbate) anticipated embarrassment to the extent that they are perceived to counterbalance (vs. complement) the undesired identity communicated during purchase. These results contrast with the traditional explanation for this strategy, which holds that additional purchases mitigate embarrassment because they compete with the embarrassing product for observers' attention. This research contributes to a more precise understanding of consumer coping and impression management by identifying shopping basket composition as an important factor in purchase embarrassment.

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Section: The Basket Balance Hypothesissupporting

confidence: 87%

Balancing the Basket: The Role of Shopping Basket Composition in Embarrassment

Blair¹,

Roese²

2013

J Consum Res

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“…Research on competing explanations to date has focused exclusively on causal explanations (McClure, 1998;Morris & Larrick, 1995;Roese & Morris, 1999). Here people were asked to evaluate competing explanations of different kinds-causal and functional.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What happens if we are faced with two plausible explanations for the same property? Most research on competing explanations has focused on the case where two competing explanations are of the same kind-causal explanation (McClure, 1998;Morris & Larrick, 1995;Roese & Morris, 1999). A robust finding, known as the discounting principle, states that the likelihood of one explanation is diminished in the presence of an alternative explanation.…”

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confidence: 99%

When functions and causes compete

Heussen

2010

Thinking & Reasoning

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The discounting principle states that 'the role of a given cause in producing a given effect is discounted if other plausible causes are present' (Kelley, 1972, p. 8). The principle has only been tested with cases where the two explanations are of the same kind (i.e., causal explanations). However, explanations of properties of objects, people, or events often involve functions. Zebras have stripes in order to be better camouflaged. Humans have eyebrows to keep sweat from running into their eyes. Adrenaline is secreted in order to modulate fight and flight responses. Thus, what happens when we are faced with two different kinds of explanation for the same property: one functional and one causal? People evaluated explanations of properties for natural kinds and artefacts. Functional explanations were discounted in favour of causal explanations, however this was only true for properties of artefacts. The presence of an alternative explanation for properties of natural kinds did not affect the plausibility of either kind of explanation.

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“…Perceivers often form impressions by integrating a variety of different types of information, including perceptions of motive (Kammrath, Mendoza-Denton, & Mischel, 2005;Read & Miller, 2005;Reeder, 2009b;Roese & Morris, 1999;Trafimow, 2009). When perceivers are uncertain about the intentionality of an agent's behavior, we suggest that they assess the extent to which the agent's actions (and their accompanying outcomes) match the motives of the agent.…”

Section: Perceived Motives and Intentionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%