Reducing Satiation: The Role of Categorization Level

Redden, Joseph P.

doi:10.1086/521898

Cited by 216 publications

(217 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Specifically, we find that recalling the varied experiences one has had in the past can have the inverse effect of reducing satiation and accelerating recovery for that item. Our work also differs from the few studies that have shown that subcategorization of consumption experiences can affect liking during repeated consumption (Raghunathan and Irwin 2001;Redden 2008). These prior works focused on preventing changes in liking before they happen, making particular aspects more salient during consumption, and considering fewer episodes from the past as relevant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Satiation during consumption varies as a function of how stimuli are categorized (Redden 2008), so it is reasonable to assume that the same may be true for recovering from satiation. In our second study, had we framed the decision not as that of listening to a favorite song but, rather, as doing something entertaining, then perhaps thoughts of television shows (our control condition) would also have helped people recover from satiation since they would fall into that category.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Electronically published May 8, 2009 or can subcategorize the consumption episodes (Raghunathan and Irwin 2001;Redden 2008). These approaches all act as preventive measures that slow satiation.…”

Section: John Deighton Served As Editor and Mary Frances Luce Served mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a general process can help account for why people seem to satiate on nearly everything, whether it be more physiological, like eating food, or less physiological, like watching TV. For example, satiation has been found in a wide range of experiences, such as massages (Nelson and Meyvis 2008), nature and animal photographs (Redden 2008), and sexually arousing stimuli (O'Donohue and Geer 1985). As a general rule, people enjoy stimuli less as they are repeatedly exposed to them (though see Zajonc [1968] for an exception).…”

Section: Repeated Consumption and Enjoymentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variety Amnesia: Recalling Past Variety Can Accelerate Recovery from Satiation

Galak¹,

Redden

Kruger

2009

J Consum Res

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Consumers frequently consume items to the point where they no longer enjoy them. In a pilot study and two experiments spanning three distinct classes of stimuli, we find that people can recover from this satiation by simply recalling the variety of alternative items they have consumed in the past. And yet, people seem to exhibit "variety amnesia" in that they do not spontaneously recall this past variety despite the fact that it would result in a desirable decrease in satiation. Thus, rather than satiation being a fixed physiological process, it appears that it is at least partially constructed in the moment. We discuss some of the theoretical implications of these findings and provide some prescriptive measures for both marketers and consumers.C onsumers frequently consume products and experiences to the point where they no longer enjoy them, a process commonly referred to as "satiation" (Coombs and Avrunin 1977). This happens for a variety of stimuli ranging from the primarily physiological, such as food (Rolls, van Duijvenvoorde, and Rolls 1984) and sex (O'Donohue and Geer 1985), to the primarily nonphysiological, such as music (Ratner, Kahn, and Kahneman 1999), television programs (Nelson, Meyvis, and Galak 2009), art (Berlyne 1971), homes (Hsee et al., forthcoming), and cars (Frank 1999). In fact, satiation is often cited as a primary barrier to enduring happiness since, regardless of how satisfying a stimulus might be initially, that satisfaction tends to fade with repetition (Brickman and Campbell 1971).One way to reduce unwanted satiation is to change the consumption experience. Prior work has shown that people satiate less when they consume more slowly (Galak, Kruger, and Loewenstein 2009) John Deighton served as editor and Mary Frances Luce served as associate editor for this article.Electronically published May 8, 2009 or can subcategorize the consumption episodes (Raghunathan and Irwin 2001;Redden 2008). These approaches all act as preventive measures that slow satiation. In the present work, we instead explore remedies that can be used after satiation has occurred. If people can recover quickly and easily from a satiated state, then satiation poses a smaller problem for consumer enjoyment and happiness. In other words, people can fight satiation by either limiting it in the first place or reversing it after the fact. We focus on the latter.Prior work has identified some antecedents of recovery from satiation, including the passage of time Nelson and Meyvis 2008), and temporary exposure to a novel stimulus (Epstein et al. 1993;Hetherington et al. 2006). We build on this work by demonstrating that merely recalling the consumption of a variety of stimuli can have the same effect. Thus, we demonstrate how consumers can reduce their satiation using a simple and low-effort technique.There has been little research to date on the extent to which people spontaneously recover from satiation. Generally speaking, the literature on satiation says very little about what drives recovery or to what extent it ha...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: John Deighton Served As Editor and Mary Frances Luce Served mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Repeated Consumption and Enjoymentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Variety Amnesia: Recalling Past Variety Can Accelerate Recovery from Satiation

Galak¹,

Redden

Kruger

2009

J Consum Res

Self Cite

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“…Specifically, Redden (2008) demonstrated that when repeated consumption was subcategorized, feelings of satiation decreased. More specifically, when consumers perceive more components to a consumption experience, they perceive greater variability and thus experience less satiation.…”

Section: Disrupting Adaptation To Television Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing the Television-Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruptions

Nelson¹,

Meyvis²,

Galak³

2009

J Consum Res

125

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Consumers prefer to watch television programs without commercials. Yet, in spite of most consumers' extensive experience with watching television, we propose that commercial interruptions can actually improve the television-viewing experience. Although consumers do not foresee it, their enjoyment diminishes over time. Commercial interruptions can disrupt this adaptation process and restore the intensity of consumers' enjoyment. Six studies demonstrate that, although people preferred to avoid commercial interruptions, these interruptions actually made programs more enjoyable (study 1), regardless of the quality of the commercial (study 2), even when controlling for the mere presence of the ads (study 3), and regardless of the nature of the interruption (study 4). However, this effect was eliminated for people who are less likely to adapt (study 5) and for programs that do not lead to adaptation (study 6), confirming the disruption of adaptation account and identifying crucial boundaries of the effect.P eople like watching television, but they dislike watching television commercials. Indeed, entertainment technology is substantially guided by a nearly universal desire to remove disruptions. Consumers will pay extra to subscribe to broadcasts, invest in technological innovations, or purchase recordings in pursuit of an uninterrupted viewing experience. On the one hand, given that television viewing is one of the most popular leisure activities, consumers could be expected to have the knowledge and experience to maximize their enjoyment. This suggests that removing commercials indeed increases consumers' enjoyment of the shows they are watching-as it often probably does. On the other hand, the decision to remove commercials requires consumers to accurately forecast the hedonic consequences of that decision, and this type of forecasting falls in the domain of a particularly common human shortcoming. People tend to be poor at predicting how their enjoyment of an experience will progress over time and how changes in the

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Utility

Morewedge¹

2015

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making

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Modern conceptions of utility are rooted in the system that Jeremy Bentham proposed to determine which actions and laws most benefit the most people. Bentham believed that the value of every action could be quantified in terms of its utility -the intensity of pleasure or pain that it caused, as well as the duration of its influence, its uncertainty, and its propinquity or remoteness. The value of every action was thus a function of the total pleasure and pain it elicited, weighted by its duration, certainty, and when it would happen (Bentham, 1789). This system, which fell out of favor among economists of the twentieth century, serves as the basis of much of the research examining the pleasure and pain derived from experiences and normative decision making today (Bruni & Sugden, 2007;Read, 2007). In this chapter, I review the history of the concept from Bentham to the present (Historical Background), distinctions between different kinds of utility and judgments (Components and Judgments of Experienced Utility), how utility is measured (Measuring Instant and Total Utility), contextual factors that influence the utility associated with experiences (Context Dependence), how experienced utility is evaluated prospectively and retrospectively (Predicted and Remembered Utility), and why people make decisions that do not maximize utility (Maximization Failures). Historical BackgroundBentham recognized that the cardinal utility of a given action -the precise amount of pleasure or pain it would evoke -was not necessarily known before it was performed. Still, cardinal utility could serve as a normative and prescriptive standard by which to judge individual actions, decisions, and societies: If act X provides more pleasure and less pain than act Y, act X is better and should be chosen. If the citizens of society X experience more pleasure than the citizens of society Y, then society X is the better society. His conception of utility included more than sensory stimuli and 10 0002503639.indd 295 7/31/2015 4:44:44 PM

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Reducing Satiation: The Role of Categorization Level

Cited by 216 publications

References 33 publications

Variety Amnesia: Recalling Past Variety Can Accelerate Recovery from Satiation

Variety Amnesia: Recalling Past Variety Can Accelerate Recovery from Satiation

Enhancing the Television-Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruptions

Utility

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