Seeking Freedom through Variety

Abstract

This article examines the effect of spatial confinement on consumer choices. Building on reactance theory and the environmental psychology literature, we propose that spatially confined consumers react against an incursion to their personal space by making more varied and unique choices. We present four laboratory experiments and one field study to support our theorizing. Study 1 demonstrates that people in narrower aisles seek more variety than people in wider aisles. Study 2 indicates that this effect of confinement in narrow aisles also extends to more unique choices. Study 3 shows that perceptions of confinement exert their strongest influence on people who are chronically high in reactance. Study 4 suggests that influencing perceptions of confinement is sufficient to evoke variety seeking. Finally, the field study uses crowding as a proxy for confinement and finds a positive relationship between crowding and variety seeking in real grocery purchases. (c) 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Actors conform, observers react: The effects of behavioral synchrony on conformity.

“…After this exercise stage, all participants completed a donation task similar to that used to assess conformity by Levav and Zhu (2009). Participants were given HK$10 (approximately US$1.25) that they could use for donating money to a list of six nonprofit organizations.…”

Power and consumer behavior: How power shapes who and what consumers value

“…Power can be distinguished from a number of other psychological states that have been studied within consumer behavior and might be seen as overlapping or associated with power. In particular, power is conceptually distinct from consumer mood (Labroo & Rucker, 2010; Pham, 1998; Raghunathan & Pham, 1999), mortality salience (Arndt, Solomon, Kasser, & Sheldon, 2004; Mandel & Smeesters, 2008), personal freedom (Levav & Zhu, 2009), and general uncertainty (e.g., Briñol, Petty, & Tormala, 2004; Tormala, Rucker, & Seger, 2008). There are additional psychological states that can be contrasted against power; however, we selected these constructs as illustrative examples because of their relevance to the consumer literature.…”

“…Although states of low power can be construed as a threat (Rucker & Galinsky, 2008, 2009), power also differs from other consumer threats such as mortality salience (Arndt et al, 2004; Mandel & Smeesters, 2008) and threats to one's personal freedom (Levav & Zhu, 2009). In the case of mortality salience, power has in common a shared feature of loss of control; however, that source of control is different.…”

“…Second, threats to personal freedom or control can arise outside of social situations and therefore outside of power. For example, Levav and Zhu (2009) find that threats to one's freedom can be activated by purely environmental factors (e.g., walking down a narrow grocery aisle) that are not tied to others in any capacity.…”

Consumers’ Variety Seeking: From an Information Perspective

“…The literature posits that variety seeking is closely related to psychological theories in the following aspects: (1) people prefer to choose a more diverse consumption bundle can be explained from diversification heuristic and exaggerating anticipated satiation in psychology (Fox, Ratner, & Lieb, 2005;Colin & George, 2004). (2) Variety seeking displays greater risk seeking and freedom seeking (Levav & Zhu, 2009). Since aggregate risk of the portfolio will be less than its components separately, people prefer variety seeking to hedge the potential risk.…”