Lauren G. Block

When to accentuate the negative: The effects of perceived efficacy and message framing on intentions to perform a health-related behavior.

The authors explore the relationship between perceived efficacy, depth of processing, and message framing. They conduct two experiments on varying health-related issues: sexually transmitted diseas...

Increasing the Persuasiveness of Fear Appeals: The Effect of Arousal and Elaboration

We investigate the conditions under which messages that prompt low and high levels of fear are likely to be effective. Our premise is that when a low level of fear is ineffective, it is because there is insufficient elaboration of the harmful consequences of engaging in the destructive behavior. By contrast, when appeals arousing high levels of fear are ineffective, it is because too much elaboration on the harmful consequences interferes with processing of the recommended change in behavior. We find support for these expectations in the context of a communication advocating that people stop smoking. The elaboration-enhancing interventions used, self-reference and imagery processing, increased the persuasiveness of a low-fear appeal by prompting elaboration on the harmful consequences of smoking, whereas the use of two elaboration-suppressing interventions, reference to others and objective processing, increased the persuasiveness of a high-fear appeal by decreasing the extent to which consumers deny harmful consequences. Copyright 1996 by the University of Chicago.

Vividness Effects: A Resource-Matching Perspective

The authors present a resource-matching perspective to explain the relationship between vividness and persuasion. Three experiments confirm the predicted inverted-U relationship between resource allocation and persuasion for vivid information, and a positive linear relationship between resource allocation and persuasion for nonvivid information when vivid information is less resource demanding than nonvivid information. This persuasion pattern is reversed in experiment 4, where nonvivid information is less resource demanding than vivid information; that is, there is an inverted-U relationship for nonvivid information, and a positive linear relationship for vivid information. The contrasting persuasion functions for vivid and nonvivid information can predict when vivid information will be more versus less persuasive than nonvivid information. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.

When Consumers Do Not Recognize "Benign" Intention Questions as Persuasion Attempts

We demonstrate that the mere-measurement effect occurs because asking an intention question is not perceived as a persuasion attempt. In experiments 1 and 2, we show that when persuasive intent is attributed to an intention question, consumers adjust their behavior as long as they have sufficient cognitive capacity to permit conscious correction. In experiment 3 we demonstrate that this finding holds with product choice and consumption, and we find that persuasion knowledge mediates the effects. In experiment 4, we show that when respondents are educated that an intention question is a persuasive attempt, the behavioral impact of those questions is attenuated.

From Nutrients to Nurturance: A Conceptual Introduction to Food Well-Being

The authors propose a restructuring of the “food as health” paradigm to “food as well-being.” This requires shifting from an emphasis on restraint and restrictions to a more positive, holistic understanding of the role of food in overall well-being. The authors propose the concept of food well-being (FWB), defined as a positive psychological, physical, emotional, and social relationship with food at both individual and societal levels. The authors define and explain the five primary domains of FWB: food socialization, food literacy, food marketing, food availability, and food policy. The FWB framework employs a richer definition of food and highlights the need for research that bridges other disciplines and paradigms outside and within marketing. Further research should develop and refine the understanding of each domain with the ultimate goal of moving the field toward this embodiment of food as well-being.

The question–behavior effect: What we know and where we go from here.

Researchers have consistently shown that questioning people about a future behavior influences the subsequent performance of that behavior. Since its first demonstration by Sherman (1980), two groups of researchers have built parallel streams of research investigating the self‐prophecy and mere‐measurement phenomenon. Both sets of scholars have clearly demonstrated the importance of questioning as a social influence technique and have shed light on at least two of the theoretical processes underlying observed effects. In the current paper, these researchers formally adopt a common label—the question–behavior effect—for these and similar effects. After providing a review of prior work in the area, the authors detail directions for future researchers interested in joining the investigation of this unique and persuasive form of social influence.

Window displays and consumer shopping decisions

Abstract Window displays are an ubiquitous and prominent but under-researched element of retail strategy. This paper explores how the store and product category information communicated by a stores windows are related to consumers’ shopping decisions, such as store entry and product purchase, and how these relationships vary for consumer segments that differ in terms of their knowledge of the retailers product(s). Results of a study conducted in the context of clothing retailers demonstrate that the store entry decision is related both directly as well as indirectly (through acquisition of inferred, store-related information) to the acquisition of observed, store-related information from window displays. However, it is product category-related information (e.g. fashion and product-self fit) rather than store-related information (e.g. merchandise and store image) that is more strongly associated with the product purchase decision. Moreover, consumers with medium levels of clothing knowledge are more influenced by windows in their shopping decisions than those with low or high levels.

Conscious and Nonconscious Components of Superstitious Beliefs in Judgment and Decision Making

Despite the large impact that superstitious beliefs have on the marketplace, we currently know very little about their implications for consumer judgment and decision making. We document the existence of the influence of superstitious beliefs on consumer behavior and specify their conscious and nonconscious underlying properties. In particular, we show that superstitious beliefs have a robust influence on product satisfaction and decision making under risk. However, these effects are only observed when superstitious beliefs are allowed to work nonconsciously. Using a process-dissociation task, we further demonstrate the distinct conscious versus nonconscious components of the effect of superstition on decision making under risk. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Simply Asking Questions About Health Behaviors Increases Both Healthy and Unhealthy Behaviors

Several recent lines of survey research demonstrate that the simple act of asking a question can lead to changes in a respondents subsequent behavior. In the current research we asked college students their likelihood to either (i) exercise or (ii) use illegal drugs in the coming 2 months. After 2 months we asked the same college students to report their exercising and illegal drug use behaviors. The findings provide further evidence that these “question–behavior” effects occur for socially normative personal health behaviors, a domain that should have high levels of respondent vigilance and defensive processing. Of more concern, we demonstrate that when a question is asked about a socially non‐normative health behavior (i.e., illegal drug use), instead of decreases in the behavior we see increased rates of the non‐normative behavior.

The Placebo Effect in Marketing: Sometimes You Just Have to Want It to Work

In their article, Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely (2005, hereinafter SCA) document for the first time that nonconscious expectations about the relationship between price and quality can influence consumers in a placebo-like manner. Even when the price paid for a good has absolutely no relationship to its actual quality, consumers’ nonconscious beliefs about the price‐quality relationship change their actual experience with the good. As Berns (2005) notes, performance is enhanced beyond the baseline by drawing attention to the marketing claims surrounding the product. Broadly speaking, a placebo has been defined in the medical literature as “a substance or procedure that has no inherent power to produce an effect that is sought or expected” (Stewart-Williams and Podd 2004). In more colloquial terms, a placebo is essentially a “sugar pill.” Such placebo effects have been observed in numerous medical settings, from relatively benign maladies, such as warts and the common cold, to more serious diseases, such as diabetes, angina, and cancer (Kirsch 1997). Across multiple medical domains, the placebo effect has been shown to be enduring and even capable of reversing the effects of active medications (Kirsch 1997). In marketing, a placebo of this form might be a brand that claims to have certain properties that it does not actually possess and, through such claims, changes the consumer’s behavior. In their work, SCA demonstrate that expectations play an important role in marketing placebo effects. Indeed, support for the efficacy of expectations goes back more than 1700 years: “He cures most in whom most are confident” (Galen, qtd. in Jensen and Karoly 1991). In the study we report herein, we extend SCA’s results by demonstrating the importance of motivation—a person’s desire to experience the product’s purported benefits—as a driver of marketing placebo effects. Motivation has also been shown to play a strong role in medical placebo studies such that when people want the physical symptoms, a placebo effect more likely will manifest (Jensen and Karoly 1991; Vase et al. 2003). We also extend and support SCA’s findings by documenting for the first time a sugar pill placebo effect for everyday