Ana Valenzuela

Pleasurable Surprises: A Cross-Cultural Study of Consumer Responses to Unexpected Incentives

Consumer reactions to a surprising event are generally stronger than those to an identical but unexpected event. But the experience of surprise differs across cultures. In this article, we examine differences between East Asian and Western emotional reactions to unexpected incentives. When given an unexpected gift, East Asians report less surprise and less pleasure than Westerners. East Asians’ dampened pleasure is explained by their motivation to maintain balance and emotional control, which leads to a reappraisal of perceived likelihood. However, if the unexpected gift is attributed to good luck, which is a desirable form of the unexpected, East Asians experience even greater pleasure than Westerners.

Are consumers aware of top-bottom but not of left-right inferences? Implications for shelf space positions.

We propose that the horizontal and vertical position of an item on a display is a source of information that individuals use to make judgments. Six experiments using 1 × 5 or 5 × 5 displays show that consumers judge that products placed at the bottom (vs. top) and on the left-hand (vs. middle and right-hand) side of a display are less expensive and of lower quality (Study 1a using a bar display, Study 1b using wine, and Study 1c using Swatch watches). Results support the claim that verticality effects (top-bottom) are attenuated when participants are less involved with the decision task (Study 2 using Swatch watches and chocolates) and when they are exposed to information that questions the diagnosticity of using vertical position as a cue (Study 3 using wine). However, the horizontality (left-right) effect is robust to both of these manipulations. Horizontality effects are exacerbated for participants primed with a number line (Study 4 also using wine), suggesting that exposure to the number line (where higher numbers are on the right) is a possible antecedent of the horizontality effect. The verticality effects may, on the other hand, reflect peoples retail experience of seeing higher priced products on higher shelves, which leads to their forming a similar expectation. The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical implications for visual information processing as well as practical implications for retail management.

Role of Information Asymmetry and Situational Salience in Reducing Intergroup Bias: The Case of Ultimatum Games

While majority of the literature documents the preponderance of social identity–related biases in favor of in-group members, this research investigates factors that may attenuate the bias. Examining intergroup bias within the realm of information availability and accessibility, this research highlights malleability of judgments and decisions as a function of social identity in both complete and incomplete information situations in the context of ultimatum games. Study 1 replicates the positive bias toward in-group members even in situations where individuals know that the counterpart is behaving unfairly. Study 2 shows that the intergroup bias is attenuated for relatively unfavorable offers in incomplete information situations. However, the intergroup bias is persistent for relatively favorable offers. Study 3 shows that making situational constraints salient also attenuates the intergroup bias for relatively favorable offers. Together, the findings identify conditions, based on information availability and accessibility, under which the intergroup bias can be corrected.

Male–Female Dynamics in Groups: A Field Study of The Weakest Link

This article develops an integrative framework for understanding gender-based group dynamics based on sex composition. The authors study decisions made by male and female members of a group to eliminate or promote other male and female group members. Study 1 uses game simulations modeled on the television show The Weakest Link to show how male and female players trade off individual versus group utility in a group setting and how such trade-offs affect group dynamics. They identify four patterns of sex-based group dynamics: old boys’ club, queen bee, bounded rationality, and females as finalists but not winners. These patterns are part of a mosaic based on differences in sex composition and sex differences between male and female group members discriminating positively, negatively, or not at all against other male and female group members. The authors propose that differences in the degree of competition versus cooperation in the group, the initial sex composition, and the mean and variance of players’ abilities by sex interactively determine which pattern will be noted. Study 2 uses observational data from The Weakest Link to test these predictions in a field setting. Implications for the motivational, cognitive, and strategic antecedents of gender effects based on sex composition of the group are discussed.