Ale Smidts

Effects of waiting on the satisfaction with the service: Beyond objective time measures

A major concern for service managers is to counteract negative effects of waiting. In this study, the effects of objective waiting time and waiting environment on satisfaction with the service were investigated. Two elements of the waiting environment were distinguished: the attractiveness of the waiting room and the presence of television (TV) as an explicit distracter. The mediating role of three subjective variables (perceived waiting time, acceptable waiting time and the (cognitive and affective) appraisal of the wait) was explored. Waiting appears to influence satisfaction quite strongly. The adverse effects of waiting can be soothed more effectively by improving the attractiveness of the waiting environment than by shortening the objective waiting time. Objective waiting time influences satisfaction mainly via a cognitive route: through perceived waiting time (in minutes) and the long/short judgment of the wait. Perceived attractiveness of the waiting environment operates mainly through affect, and thus serves as a mood inducer. The acceptable waiting time appears to be a critical point of reference, since surpassing it provokes strong affective responses. Although the presence of TV did not result in the expected effect of distraction, the tendency to watch it was found to be dependent on the length of the wait (and thus, boredom).

Testosterone Inhibits Trust but Promotes Reciprocity

The steroid hormone testosterone has been associated with behavior intended to obtain or maintain high social status. Although such behavior is typically characterized as aggressive and competitive, it is clear that high social status is achieved and maintained not only through antisocial behavior but also through prosocial behavior. In the present experiment, we investigated the impact of testosterone administration on trust and reciprocity using a double-blind randomized control design. We found that a single dose of 0.5 mg of testosterone decreased trust but increased generosity when repaying trust. These findings suggest that testosterone may mediate different types of status-seeking behavior. It may increase competitive, potentially aggressive, and antisocial behavior when social challenges and threats (i.e., abuse of trust and betrayal) need to be considered; however, it may promote prosocial behavior in the absence of these threats, when high status and good reputation may be best served by prosocial behavior.

Downregulation of the posterior medial frontal cortex prevents social conformity

We often change our behavior to conform to real or imagined group pressure. Social influence on our behavior has been extensively studied in social psychology, but its neural mechanisms have remained largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that the transient downregulation of the posterior medial frontal cortex by theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces conformity, as indicated by reduced conformal adjustments in line with group opinion. Both the extent and probability of conformal behavioral adjustments decreased significantly relative to a sham and a control stimulation over another brain area. The posterior part of the medial frontal cortex has previously been implicated in behavioral and attitudinal adjustments. Here, we provide the first interventional evidence of its critical role in social influence on human behavior.

Language abstraction in word of mouth

This research examines the language that consumers use in word of mouth. For both positive and negative product experiences, we demonstrate that consumers use more abstract terms when they describe experiences that are in line with the valence of their product attitude. This effect cannot be explained by differences in valence between abstract and concrete language. On the receiver side, abstract language in positive word of mouth leads to (1) the inference that the sender has a more favorable product attitude and (2) a higher buying intention for the product under consideration. The reverse is found for negative word of mouth.

The Herding Hormone Oxytocin Stimulates In-Group Conformity

People often conform to others with whom they associate. Surprisingly, however, little is known about the possible hormonal mechanisms that may underlie in-group conformity. Here, we examined whether conformity toward one’s in-group is altered by oxytocin, a neuropeptide often implicated in social behavior. After administration of either oxytocin or a placebo, participants were asked to provide attractiveness ratings of unfamiliar visual stimuli. While viewing each stimulus, participants were shown ratings of that stimulus provided by both in-group and out-group members. Results demonstrated that on trials in which the ratings of the in-group and out-group were incongruent, the ratings of participants given oxytocin conformed to the ratings of their in-group but not of their out-group. Participants given a placebo did not show this in-group bias. These findings indicate that administration of oxytocin can influence subjective preferences, and they support the view that oxytocin’s effects on social behavior are context dependent.

Brain responses to movie trailers predict individual preferences for movies and their population-wide commercial success

Although much progress has been made in relating brain activations to choice behavior, evidence that neural measures could actually be useful for predicting the success of marketing actions remains limited. To be of added value, neural measures should significantly increase predictive power, beyond conventional measures. In the present study, the authors obtain both stated preference measures and neural measures (electroencephalography; EEG) in response to advertisements for commercially released movies (i.e., movie trailers) to probe their potential to provide insight into participants’ individual preferences as well as movie sales in the general population. The results show that EEG measures (beta and gamma oscillations), beyond stated preference measures, provide unique information regarding individual and population-wide preference and can thus, in principle, be used as a neural marker for commercial success. As such, these results provide the first evidence that EEG measures are related to real-world outcomes and that these neural measures can significantly add to models predicting choice behavior relative to models that include only stated preference measures.

Cross-National Logo Evaluation Analysis: An Individual-Level Approach

The universality of design perception and response is tested using data collected from ten countries: Argentina, Australia, China, Germany, Great Britain, India, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, and the United States. A Bayesian, finite-mixture, structural-equation model is developed that identifies latent logo clusters while accounting for heterogeneity in evaluations. The concomitant variable approach allows cluster probabilities to be country specific. Rather than a priori defined clusters, our procedure provides a posteriori cross-national logo clusters based on consumer response similarity. To compare the a posteriori cross-national logo clusters, our approach is integrated with Steenkamp and Baumgartner’s (1998) measurement invariance methodology. Our model reduces the ten countries to three cross-national clusters that respond differently to logo design dimensions: the West, Asia, and Russia. The dimensions underlying design are found to be similar across countries, suggesting that elaborateness, naturalness, and harmony are universal design dimensions. Responses (affect, shared meaning, subjective familiarity, and true and false recognition) to logo design dimensions (elaborateness, naturalness, and harmony) and elements (repetition, proportion, and parallelism) are also relatively consistent, although we find minor differences across clusters. Our results suggest that managers can implement a global logo strategy, but they also can optimize logos for specific countries if desired.

Translating upwards: linking the neural and social sciences via neuroeconomics

The social and neural sciences share a common interest in understanding the mechanisms that underlie human behaviour. However, interactions between neuroscience and social science disciplines remain strikingly narrow and tenuous. We illustrate the scope and challenges for such interactions using the paradigmatic example of neuroeconomics. Using quantitative analyses of both its scientific literature and the social networks in its intellectual community, we show that neuroeconomics now reflects a true disciplinary integration, such that research topics and scientific communities with interdisciplinary span exert greater influence on the field. However, our analyses also reveal key structural and intellectual challenges in balancing the goals of neuroscience with those of the social sciences. To address these challenges, we offer a set of prescriptive recommendations for directing future research in neuroeconomics.

Exogenous testosterone in women enhances and inhibits competitive decision-making depending on victory–defeat experience and trait dominance

The present experiment tested the causal impact of testosterone on human competitive decision-making. According to prevailing theories about testosterones role in social behavior, testosterone should directly boost competitive decisions. But recent correlational evidence suggests that testosterones behavioral effects may depend on specific aspects of the context and person relevant to social status (win-lose context and trait dominance). We tested the causal influence of testosterone on competitive decisions by combining hormone administration with measures of trait dominance and a newly developed social competition task in which the victory-defeat context was experimentally manipulated, in a sample of 54 female participants. Consistent with the hypothesis that testosterone has context- and person-dependent effects on competitive behavior, testosterone increased competitive decisions after victory only among high-dominant individuals but testosterone decreased competitive decisions after defeat across all participants. These results suggest that testosterone flexibly modulates competitive decision-making depending on prior social experience and dominance motivation in the service of enhancing social status.

Organizing warehouse management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how warehouse management, understood as a cluster of planning and control decisions and procedures, is organized and driven by task complexity (TC) and market dynamics (MD).Design/methodology/approach – A multi‐variable conceptual model is developed based on the literature and tested among 215 warehouses using a survey.Findings – The results suggest that TC and MD are the main drivers of warehouse management, measured by planning extensiveness (PE), decision rules complexity, and control sophistication. Differences between production and distribution warehouses are found with respect to the relationship between assortment changes and PE. Furthermore, TC appears to be a main driver of the specificity of the warehouse management (information) system (WMS).Research limitations/implications – This paper is based on 215 warehouses in The Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium); future research may test the model on a different sample. More research should be con...