Arun Lakshmanan

The Aha! Experience: Insight and Discontinuous Learning in Product Usage

Success of many products depends on how consumers learn to use them. This research suggests that initial product trial may lead to jumps in consumer learning. Such discontinuities in learning co-occur with the experience of insight—namely, a better conceptual understanding of how to use the product. Notably, such learning also positively affects downstream outcomes such as affect and usage intentions. Whereas exploration during initial trial facilitates insight-based learning, usage instructions seem to limit this type of learning. The implication for marketing managers is to structure initial trials in a manner conducive to exploration, thus leading to insight-driven learning and the associated positive outcomes.

Practice Makes Perfect? When Does Massed Learning Improve Product Usage Proficiency?

Previous research has shown that spacing of information (over time) leads to better learning of product information. We develop a theoretical framework to describe how massed or spaced learning schedules interact with different learning styles to influence product usage proficiency. The core finding is that with experiential learning, proficiency in a product usage task is better under massed conditions, whereas with verbal learning, spacing works better. This effect is demonstrated for usage proficiency assessed via speed as well as quality of use. Further, massed learning also results in better usage proficiency on transfer tasks, for both experiential and verbal learning. We also find that massed learning in experiential learning conditions leads not only to better usage proficiency but also to positive perceptions of the product. Overall, the pattern of results is consistent with a conceptual mapping account, with massed experiences leading to a superior mental model of usage and thus to better usage proficiency.

How Kinetic Property Shapes Novelty Perceptions

This article demonstrates a new substantive finding: that kinetic property in advertising, defined as direction changes in the paths of moving on-screen ad elements, enhances consumer judgments of product novelty. Across six studies, the authors first outline an inference-based theory as to why the novelty-enhancing effect of kinetic property manifests: kinetic property generates impressions of how visually lively an ad is, which leads to inferences of product atypicality and, consequently, higher novelty judgments. Second, they demonstrate boundary conditions by showing that (1) the positive effect for kinetic property is evident with incremental (and not radical) innovations, (2) the effect dissipates when figure-ground contrast in the ad makes kinetic property less discriminable, (3) contextual adaptation to kinetic property can mitigate this effect, and (4) kinetic property enhances novelty judgments primarily when product category characteristics such as perceived market dynamism match with kinetic property–based executions. The authors offer substantive implications for firms marketing new products as well as for multimedia advertising.

Narcissism and Self- Versus Recipient-Oriented Imagery in Charitable Giving:

Prior research documents extensively that high-narcissism individuals largely tend to be self-centered and often lack empathy. This research outlines the charitable appeal types that can activate empathic responses and other-centered behaviors from high-narcissism individuals. Across four studies, we show that donors who are higher in narcissism exhibit greater charitable intentions when appealed to via imagine-self charitable appeals (as opposed to imagine-recipient types of appeals). Imagine-self appeals enable high-narcissism donors to project themselves into the recipient’s situation and, in doing so, elicit greater empathy and, consequently, greater charity. This effect dissipates when projecting oneself is very difficult or impossible—such as with animal recipients or the other gender suffering a gender-specific ailment. We also explicate the underlying process role of self-focused imagination and empathy in heightening charitable outcomes from high-narcissism individuals.