Ellis A. van den Hende

Detecting affiliation in colaughter across 24 societies

Significance Human cooperation requires reliable communication about social intentions and alliances. Although laughter is a phylogenetically conserved vocalization linked to affiliative behavior in nonhuman primates, its functions in modern humans are not well understood. We show that judges all around the world, hearing only brief instances of colaughter produced by pairs of American English speakers in real conversations, are able to reliably identify friends and strangers. Participants’ judgments of friendship status were linked to acoustic features of laughs known to be associated with spontaneous production and high arousal. These findings strongly suggest that colaughter is universally perceivable as a reliable indicator of relationship quality, and contribute to our understanding of how nonverbal communicative behavior might have facilitated the evolution of cooperation. Laughter is a nonverbal vocal expression that often communicates positive affect and cooperative intent in humans. Temporally coincident laughter occurring within groups is a potentially rich cue of affiliation to overhearers. We examined listeners’ judgments of affiliation based on brief, decontextualized instances of colaughter between either established friends or recently acquainted strangers. In a sample of 966 participants from 24 societies, people reliably distinguished friends from strangers with an accuracy of 53–67%. Acoustic analyses of the individual laughter segments revealed that, across cultures, listeners’ judgments were consistently predicted by voicing dynamics, suggesting perceptual sensitivity to emotionally triggered spontaneous production. Colaughter affords rapid and accurate appraisals of affiliation that transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries, and may constitute a universal means of signaling cooperative relationships.

To Be or Not to Be in Thrall to the March of Smart Products

ABSTRACT This article explores how perceived disempowerment impacts the intention to adopt smart autonomous products. Empirically, the paper builds on three studies to show this impact. Study 1 explores the relevance of the perceived disempowerment in respect of smart autonomous products. Study 2 manipulates autonomy of smart products and finds that perceived disempowerment mediates the link between smart products’ autonomy and adoption intention. Study 3 indicates that an intervention design―that is, a product design that allows consumers to intervene in the actions of an autonomous smart product―can reduce their perceived disempowerment in respect of autonomous smart products. Further, Study 3 reveals that personal innovativeness moderates the role that an intervention design plays in product adoption: an intervention design shows a positive effect on adoption intention for individuals with low personal innovativeness, but for those with high personal innovativeness no effect of an intervention design is present on adoption intention. The authors suggest that managers consider consumers’ perceived disempowerment when designing autonomous smart products, because (1) perceived disempowerment reduces adoption and (2) when targeted at consumers with low personal innovativeness, an intervention design reduces their perceived disempowerment.

Drivers and Consequences of Narrative Transportation: Understanding the Role of Stories and Domain‐Specific Skills in Improving Radically New Products

This article investigates the role of transportation in concept tests (i.e., a vivid mental image of a new product concept and the way of using it) for radically new products. Based on transportation literature, the article proposes that concept descriptions in a story format can stimulate transportation. Further, the article builds on the literature on domain‐specific skills to propose that technological reflectiveness (i.e., the ability to think about the impact of a technological product on its users and society in general) and product expertise increase transportation. The article explores the effect that transportation has on the ability of consumers to enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of a radically new product and on their ability to provide valuable concept improvement ideas (i.e., ideas that are highly novel, feasible, and beneficial for consumers). A quasi‐experiment with 253 participants demonstrates that a story format, product experience with related product categories, and technological reflectiveness increased transportation with regard to radically new products. The empirical research also showed that transportation facilitates the enumeration of the advantages and the disadvantages of a concept, resulting in more valuable concept improvement ideas. These findings suggest that innovation managers should strive to evoke transportation in concept tests for radically new products, as transportation allows consumers to provide more valuable input.

How exposure to logos and logo varieties fosters brand prominence and freshness

Purpose This study aims to propose that a brand can be kept both prominent and fresh by using existing logos as well as logo varieties (i.e. slight modifications to the brand’s existing logo). Design/methodology/approach In two experimental studies, the authors exposed respondents to either the existing brand logo or to logo varieties, and examined their influence on brand prominence and freshness. Findings The findings suggest that consumers subconsciously process logo varieties to which they are exposed in a similar way as they subconsciously process the existing logo of the brand, making both types of logo exposure effective for building brand prominence and freshness. Research limitations/implications It would also be worthwhile to study the effect of logo varieties using other dependent measures than the ones employed in this study, such as purchase intent and behavioral measures (such as consumption behaviors). Practical implications This research shows that logo varieties can be used alongside the existing brand logo to build prominence and freshness. These findings diverge from the findings typically reported in the branding literature that state that consumers resist changes to logos. Originality/value This research not only demonstrates that exposure to logo varieties and existing logos evokes automatic effects (both types of logos outperform a control group in fostering brand-related outcomes) but also confirms that exposing consumers to the existing logo or logo varieties give less differential effects than one may think.