Chen Wang

Given the proliferation of digital cameras on smartphones, selfies have become ubiquitous in consumers' daily lives, and many companies have employed consumer selfies in their marketing campaigns. However, research on selfies in the domain of consumer behavior is still lacking. This research investigates how consumer selfies, namely, self-portrait photos featuring consumer faces and products, influence consumers' variety seeking. Through field, online, and laboratory studies and a content analysis of Instagram data, we show that if people will take a consumer selfie with the products they are going to purchase, their self-presentational concern is heightened, which, in turn, increases their variety seeking in product choices. However, we also find that the consumer selfie effect on variety seeking diminishes when people will take a group (vs. an individual) consumer selfie. Finally, we also show that individual differences in self-consciousness moderate the consumer selfie effect on variety seeking.

Purpose Marketing persuasive materials are often displayed on a curved surface (e.g. a curved hallway). This study aims to investigate how the curvature (concave vs convex) of a display surface influences the persuasion of the marketing appeals presented on it. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual framework was tested in a field experiment, a lab experiment and two online experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Analyses of variance and mediation analysis were used to test the hypotheses. Findings This research demonstrates that a concave (vs convex) display surface may increase persuasion for marketing materials with social appeals. This occurs because a concave surface enhances consumers' perception of self-other overlap, which is matched with the content of the social appeal presented on it, thereby enhancing the appeal's persuasiveness. It further identifies the appeal content as an important moderator of the effect; a convex (vs concave) display would enhance persuasion when the marketing materials contain personal appeals. Research limitations/implications Future research could investigate how a time delay (e.g. hours, days) and the curvature of a display board or wall would play a role in the effect of display curvature. Practical implications The findings offer a novel, simple and cost-effective approach to enhance persuasion for both nonprofit and for-profit marketing materials. Originality/value This research contributes to the persuasion literature by investigating the impact of one ubiquitous but overlooked aspect of the message setting (i.e. the curvature of the message's display surface) on persuasion while holding the message source and content constant. It also advances knowledge on consumer shape perception by examining an underexplored shape (i.e. the curved shape of a display surface) that is nondiagnostic in message persuasion.

Purpose This paper aims to examine how, why and when incidental curiosity might have an influence on consumers' unhealthy eating behaviors in a subsequent, irrelevant context. Design/methodology/approach Three experiments were conducted. Study 1 tested the basic main effect; Study 2 further tested the proposed process; Study 3 identified an important moderator and offered additional support for the mechanism. Findings Study 1 demonstrated the basic main effect that incidental curiosity increases consumers' preference for unhealthy food. Study 2 replicated the effect in a simulated grocery-shopping task and further provided direct process evidence that a reward-approaching orientation underlies the effect of curiosity on unhealthy food choice. Finally, Study 3 identified information nature as an important moderator of the effect. That is, when people are curious about threatening information, they are likely to adopt an avoidance motivation, which prevents them from seeking any unhealthy food. Originality/value This research contributes to the curiosity literature by demonstrating that incidental curiosity could have motivational impacts in the non-information domain, such as food choice. It also adds to the food decision literature by documenting incidental curiosity as an important situational factor of consumers' food decisions.

Innovative solutions are flourishing in today’s consumption environment. Yet responding positively to innovation has proved difficult for consumers. Little is known about whether subtle contextual cues play a role in shaping a positive consumer response. This research examines the effect of ambient illuminance on consumer response to innovative solutions. We propose that dim (vs. bright) illuminance enhances consumers’ positive response. This is predicted to occur because dim illuminance reduces their inhibition, which in turn encourages them to respond positively to innovative solutions. The results from three laboratory studies provide support for the thesis. The findings suggest a cost-effective and easy-to-manage approach—namely, dimming the light—as a powerful tool to enhance consumers’ response to innovative solutions.

This research investigates the impact of a sales team's entitativity-the extent to which a group of individuals is perceived as a unified single entity-on customer satisfaction. Four studies demonstrate that a sales team entitativity cue, either based on appearance (e.g., wearing the same outfit) or based on behavior (e.g., explicit coordination in service), leads to heightened perceptions of service quality, which subsequently enhances customer satisfaction. Further, these two entitativity cues are shown to have interactive effects. Specifically, when both cues indicate high entitativity, customer satisfaction with the sales team exceeds the average evaluation of individual team members. However, if at least one cue suggests low entitativity (e.g., different outfits or no explicit coordination), the positive influence of the entitativity cue is undermined and customer satisfaction with the team's service is mitigated. Product category is identified as an important moderator of the main effect.

This research examines how incidentally induced consumer curiosity influences subsequent indulgent decisions. Prior research has primarily focused on the effect of curiosity on information seeking in the present domain. The current research goes further to propose that the curiosity effect can spill over to prompt consumers to prefer indulgent options in other, unrelated domains (e.g., food, money). This situation is likely to occur because curiosity motivates individuals to seek the missing information as the specific information reward in the current domain. Such desire to obtain the information reward primes a reward-seeking goal, which in turn leads to increased preferences for indulgent options in subsequent, unrelated domains. Furthermore, the impact of curiosity on indulgent options possesses goal-priming properties as identified by the literature. That is, the effect should (1) persist after a time delay, and (2) diminish when the reward-seeking goal is satiated by the obtainment of a reward before the indulgent task. We conduct a series of studies to provide support for our hypotheses. This research contributes to both curiosity and indulgence decision literature and offers important practical implications.

Eliciting empathy plays a significant role in encouraging charitable donations. However, we know little about how incidental, contextual cues can facilitate empathy. In a series of behavioral, neuroscience, and field studies, we show that incidental exposure to haptic sensation of roughness (vs. smoothness) increases individuals' attention to the unfortunate others. Such heightened attention subsequently leads to enhanced empathic responses. These findings not only underscore the power of subtle contextual cues on shaping important behaviors but also point to the possibility of developing novel intervention strategies for promoting empathy and prosociality.

Knowledge of online functional brain mechanisms of locomotion is scarce due to technical limitations of traditional neuroimaging methods. Using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) we evaluated task-related changes in oxygenated hemoglobin levels (HbO2) in real-time over the pre-frontal-cortex (PFC) regions during simple (Normal Walk; NW) and attention-demanding (Walking While Talking; WWT) locomotion tasks in a large cohort of non-demented older adults. Results revealed that the assessment of task-related changes in HbO2 was internally consistent. Imposing greater demands on the attention system during locomotion resulted in robust bilateral PFC increases in HbO2 levels during WWT compared to NW and the cognitive interference tasks. Elevated PFC oxygenation levels were maintained throughout the course of WWT but not during the NW condition. Increased oxygenation levels in the PFC were related to greater stride length and better cognitive performance but not to faster gait velocity in WWT. These findings elucidate online brain mechanisms of locomotion, and confer significant implications for risk assessment and intervention for major mobility outcomes.