Jaideep Sengupta

All Cues Are Not Created Equal: Obtaining Attitude Persistence under Low-Involvement Conditions

Attitude persistence research in consumer behavior has been predominantly associated with high- rather than low-involvement processing. Advertising, however, is most often processed as a low-involvement communication. The authors predict that different low-involvement cues lead to different degrees of attitude persistence. Consistent with this prediction, they find that under low-involvement conditions, when both related and unrelated peripheral cues evoke similar initial attitudes, only when the cue is related to the product category do attitudes persist over time. The results of two studies attest to the robustness of the phenomenon and add to current models of attitude persistence by showing that peripherally processed advertising cues (e.g., brand names and celebrity endorsers) may lead to persistence if they are related to the product being endorsed. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.

Two roads to updating brand personality impressions : Trait versus evaluative inferencing

This research examines the dynamic process of inference updating. The authors present a framework that delineates two mechanisms that guide the updating of personality trait inferences about brands. The results of three experiments show that chronics (those for whom the trait is accessible) update their initial inferences on the basis of the trait implications of new information. Notably, nonchronics (those for whom the trait is not accessible) also update their initial inferences, but they do so on the basis of the evaluative implications of new information. The framework adds to the inference-making literature by uncovering two distinct paths of inference updating and by emphasizing the moderating role of trait accessibility. The findings have direct implications for marketers attempting to understand the construction of brand personality, and they emphasize the constantly evolving nature of brand perceptions and the notion that both the consumer and the marketer have important roles to play in this process.

Effects of Inconsistent Attribute Information on the Predictive Value of Product Attitudes: Toward a Resolution of Opposing Perspectives

This article examines the effects of evaluative inconsistencies in product attribute information on the strength of the resultant attitude, as manifested in its predictive ability. The existing literature makes opposing predictions regarding the effects of information inconsistency on attitude strength. We seek to resolve this dilemma by investigating the likelihood of inconsistency reconciliation--that is, whether or not people elaborate on inconsistencies with the goal of achieving an integrated evaluation. A strengthening effect should result when the processing goal is conducive to reconciliation and goal-facilitating factors are present in the environment; however, a weakening effect should be obtained when conditions are unfavorable to inconsistency reconciliation. Results from three experiments provide support for this conceptualization and offer a possible resolution of the opposing theoretical perspectives present in the literature. Copyright 2002 by the University of Chicago.

Understanding impulsive eaters choice behaviors: The motivational influences of regulatory focus

This research attempts to understand the mechanism underlying the choice behavior of impulsive eaters. The authors propose a process according to which impulsive eaters (versus nonimpulsive eaters) spontaneously develop a promotion focus on exposure to hedonically tempting food, such as chocolate cake; their subsequent decision to consume the food is guided by this promotion orientation. Furthermore, the evoked promotion focus also influences subsequent choices in completely unrelated domains. A set of six experiments provides support for this mechanism and also examines its implications with regard to different ways of correcting impulsive eating behavior.

Sex in Advertising: Gender Differences and the Role of Relationship Commitment

This study draws on differences between men and womens attitudes about sex, either as an end in itself (men) or as inextricably linked to relationship commitment (women) to understand attitudes toward the gratuitous use of sex in advertising. In line with predictions, four experiments showed that womens spontaneous dislike of sexual ads softened when the ad could be interpreted in terms of commitment-related resources being offered by men to women. In contrast, mens positive attitudes toward sexual ads were relatively unaffected by the salience of relationship commitment cues. These results not only offer insights into consumer reactions to sexual advertising but also inform theories on how men and women conceptualize sexual behaviors and relationships.

Additivity versus attenuation : the role of culture in the resolution of information incongruity

Past research on dual process models of persuasion has documented that, when faced with information incongruity, individuals tend to form product evaluations by attenuating the less diagnostic information, relying solely on the more diagnostic information. The current research suggests that this way of resolving incongruity may be culture specific. Consistent with recent research in cultural psychology, this study shows that individuals in a North American culture tend to follow the attenuation strategy, whereas individuals in an East Asian culture tend to follow an additive strategy in which both pieces of information are combined to jointly influence evaluations (Experiment 1). Experiments 2 and 3 provide further support for the proposed psychological mechanism underlying these findings and also identify boundary conditions for these findings. Implications for understanding choice mind-sets, the moderating role of justification on evaluations, and cultural limitations in incongruity resolution are discussed.

Misrepresentation in the consumer context

Research in social psychology suggests that motives such as self-bolstering and impression management can lead people to engage in deliberate misrepresentations during interpersonal communications. This article extends our understanding of such behavior to a new domain; that of consumer communications. Drawing on research on lying behavior and symbolic consumption, we suggest that misrepresentation about products and possessions is particularly likely to occur when these products or possessions are used to create a positive self-image in the context of social interaction. Experiments 1 and 2 simulate a social interaction wherein misrepresentation about the purchase price of a product helps participants to manage impressions. A third experiment extends these findings by testing for wealth-related misrepresentation in the context of an interaction wherein participants actually communicate their familys wealth to a recipient. Consistent with predictions derived from existing research on symbolic consumption, all 3 experiments provide support for the critical importance of recipient status on the likelihood of misrepresentation. The first 2 experiments additionally examine the role of individual differences and brand differences. Results on these dimensions are also supportive of our underlying theoretical premise regarding the antecedents of lying behavior.

Recalling Past Temptations: An Information-Processing Perspective on the Dynamics of Self-Control

This research investigates how consumers respond to food-related temptations as a function of recalling their own behavior when faced with a similar temptation in the recent past. Bringing together different streams of relevant research, we propose and find that chronically nonimpulsive individuals display behavioral consistency over time - resisting (succumbing) when they recall having resisted (succumbed) earlier. In contrast, impulsive individuals show a switching pattern, resisting current temptations if they recall having succumbed, and vice versa. These propositions are supported by convergent results across four experiments involving real eating behaviors, response latencies, and hypothetical choices. Implications for consumer welfare are discussed and possible interventions are suggested.

Insincere Flattery Actually Works: A Dual Attitudes Perspective

This research uses a dual attitudes perspective to offer new insights into flattery and its consequences. The authors show that even when flattery by marketing agents is accompanied by an obvious ulterior motive that leads targets to discount the proffered compliments, the initial favorable reaction (the implicit attitude) continues to coexist with the discounted evaluation (the explicit attitude). Furthermore, the implicit attitude has more influential consequences than the explicit attitude, highlighting the possible subtle impact of flattery even when a person has consciously corrected for it. The authors also clarify the underlying process by showing how and why the discrepancy between the implicit and explicit attitudes induced by flattery may be reduced. Collectively, the findings from this investigation provide implications for both flattery research and the dual attitudes literature.

Absence Makes the Mind Grow Sharper: Effects of Element Omission on Subsequent Recall

The authors investigate the memorial consequences of deliberately omitting crucial elements from an advertisement. Research on the self-generation effect in cognitive psychology indicates that such element omission may actually lead to an improvement in recall. Support for this perspective is obtained in a series of experiments that explores the effects of feature omission in the context of both overt omission (in which the omission is highlighted by the advertiser) and implicit omission (in which the omission, though not highlighted in the advertisement, is noticed because of prior expectations for that ad type). Even under highly constrained processing conditions (e.g., exposure times as short as four seconds), an advertisement that omits a key element is shown to produce better recall than an equivalent advertisement that contains the element. The authors find that this recall improvement occurs along dimensions that are specifically related to the omitted element; therefore, leaving out an element related only to the product category (but not the brand) produces an improvement only in category recall, whereas brand recall is improved by the omission of an element related to the brand name. The authors discuss theoretical and managerial implications of these findings.