Patricia M. West

Beyond the "Like" Button: The Impact of Mere Virtual Presence on Brand Evaluations and Purchase Intentions in Social Media Settings

By 2011, approximately 83% of Fortune 500 companies were using some form of social media to connect with consumers. Furthermore, surveys suggest that consumers are increasingly relying on social media to learn about unfamiliar brands. However, best practices regarding the use of social media to bolster brand evaluations in such situations remain undefined. This research focuses on one practice in this domain: the decision to hide or reveal the demographic characteristics of a brands online supporters. The results from four studies indicate that even when the presence of these supporters is only passively experienced and virtual (a situation the authors term “mere virtual presence”), their demographic characteristics can influence a target consumers brand evaluations and purchase intentions. The findings suggest a framework for brand managers to use when deciding whether to reveal the identities of their online supporters or to retain ambiguity according to (1) the composition of existing supporters relative to targeted new supporters and (2) whether the brand is likely to be evaluated singly or in combination with competing brands.

Integrating Multiple Opinions: The Role of Aspiration Level on Consumer Response to Critic Consensus

Four studies examine the process by which consumers integrate critic opinions and attribute information into their product evaluations and how critic consensus affects this process. A reference-dependent model is proposed such that consumer response to consensus depends on whether the average critic rating for an alterative is above or below an aspiration level. Consensus is shown to be preferred for alternatives above an aspiration level, whereas critic disagreement is preferred for alternatives below an aspiration level. Consumers exhibited a tendency to prefer critic disagreement for high-priced products or decisions associated with high social risk because most alternatives fell below their high aspiration levels. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.

Predicting Preferences: An Examination of Agent Learning

Agent decision making occurs when an individual acts as a purchasing agent for another. Effective agent decision making requires that the agent learn to predict the targets preferences. Two experimental studies demonstrate the impact of providing agents veridical feedback. The results further our understanding of interpersonal prediction and learning from experience. Agents who are given the opportunity to learn from their own successes and failures do not exhibit the false consensus effect, or projection, that has been demonstrated in previous research. Any facilitative effect of similarity in tastes on predictive accuracy disappears when feedback is provided. Information theory is used to establish the informational value of individual instances, as well as an overall distribution of feedback. The results of the studies reported in the present article indicate that agents spend significantly more time considering informative than uninformative feedback, which improves their predictive accuracy. Copyright 1996 by the University of Chicago.

Altering Experienced Utility: The Impact of Story Writing and Self-Referencing on Preferences

This article examines the impact of writing stories on the evaluation of consumption objects. Generating a story creates greater liking for a painting than generating a dialogue about it. The positive impact of stories does not derive from generating more positive thoughts. Instead, stories generate fewer affective thoughts than do dialogues. The importance of generated stories derives from deeper elaboration, providing enhanced recollection of the coherent narrative, ease of generation, and more favorable attitudes toward the task. This work extends prior research on narratives and self referencing by making the consumer an active participant in the generation process, setting a rich agenda for future research.

Preference Exploration and Learning: The Role of Intensiveness and Extensiveness of Experience

In this article, the authors partition the construct of experience into intensiveness (i.e., amount) and extensiveness (i.e., breadth) and examine the impact of the two specific types of experience on preference learning. In the first three studies, the authors’ theory that experience can be partitioned into intensiveness (i.e., amount) and extensiveness (i.e., breadth) of experience and that extensiveness has a greater impact on preference learning is supported in environments where prior experience is measured. Further, in study 4 they demonstrate that extensiveness or breadth of experience exerts a larger influence on preference learning in an experiment where each unique type of experience is manipulated as well as measured.