Youngme Moon

Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers

Following Langer (1992), this article reviews a series of experimental studiesthat demonstrate that individuals mindlessly apply social rules and expecta-tions to computers. The first set of studies illustrates how individuals overusehuman social categories, applying gender stereotypes to computers and ethnicallyidentifying with computer agents. The second set demonstrates that people exhibitoverlearned social behaviors such as politeness and reciprocity toward comput-ers.Inthethirdsetofstudies,prematurecognitivecommitmentsaredemonstrated:Aspecialisttelevisionsetisperceivedasprovidingbettercontentthanageneralisttelevision set. A final series of studies demonstrates the depth of social responseswith respect to computer “personality.” Alternative explanations for these find -ings, such as anthropomorphism and intentional social responses, cannot explainthe results. We conclude with an agenda for future research.Computer users approach the personal computer in many different ways.Experienced word processors move smoothly from keyboard to mouse to menu,mixing prose and commands to the computer automatically; the distinctionbetween the hand and the tool blurs (Heidegger, 1977; Winograd & Flores, 1987).Novices cautiously strike each key, fearing that one false move will initiate anuncontrollable series of unwanted events. Game players view computers as

This computer responds to user frustration:: Theory, design, and results

Abstract Use of technology often has unpleasant side effects, which may include strong, negative emotional states that arise during interaction with computers. Frustration, confusion, anger, anxiety and similar emotional states can affect not only the interaction itself, but also productivity, learning, social relationships, and overall well-being. This paper suggests a new solution to this problem: designing human–computer interaction systems to actively support users in their ability to manage and recover from negative emotional states. An interactive affect–support agent was designed and built to test the proposed solution in a situation where users were feeling frustration. The agent, which used only text and buttons in a graphical user interface for its interaction, demonstrated components of active listening, empathy, and sympathy in an effort to support users in their ability to recover from frustration. The agents effectiveness was evaluated against two control conditions, which were also text-based interactions: (1) users’ emotions were ignored, and (2) users were able to report problems and ‘vent’ their feelings and concerns to the computer. Behavioral results showed that users chose to continue to interact with the system that had caused their frustration significantly longer after interacting with the affect–support agent, in comparison with the two controls. These results support the prediction that the computer can undo some of the negative feelings it causes by helping a user manage his or her emotional state.

Intimate Exchanges: Using Computers to Elicit Self-Disclosure from Consumers

This investigation examines the dynamics associated with soliciting intimate information from consumers via computers. Experiment 1 identifies two factors--reciprocity and sequence--that affect the likelihood that people will reveal intimate information about themselves via a computer. Experiment 2 provides evidence that intimate information exchanges can affect how consumers behave in subsequent interactions. Implications for marketing research and practice are discussed. Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.

Can computers be teammates

This study investigated the claim that humans will readily form team relationships with computers. Drawing from the group dynamic literature in human-human interactions, a laboratory experiment (n=56) manipulated identity and interdependence to create team affiliation in a human-computer interaction. The data show that subjects who are told they are interdependent with the computer affiliate with the computer as a team. The data also show that the effects of being in a team with a computer are the same as the effects of being in a team with another human: subjects in the interdependence conditions perceived the computer to be more similar to themselves, saw themselves as more cooperative, were more open to influence from the computer, thought the information from the computer was of higher quality, found the information from the computer friendlier, and conformed more to the computers information. Subjects in the identity conditions showed neither team affiliation nor the effects of team affiliation.

Are computers scapegoats? Attributions of responsibility in human-computer interaction

This study investigated how people make attributions of responsibility when interacting with computers. In particular, two questions were addressed: under what circumstances will usersblamecomputers for failed outcomes? And under what circumstances will userscreditcomputers for successful outcomes? The first prediction was that similarity between a users personality and a computers personality would reduce the tendency for users to exhibit a “self-serving bias” in assigning responsibility for outcomes in human?computer interaction. The second prediction was that greater user control would lead to more internal attributions, regardless of outcome. A 2×2×2 balanced, between-subjects experiment (N=80) was conducted. Results strongly supported the predictions: when the outcome was negative, participants working with asimilarcomputer were less likely to blame the computer and more likely to blame themselves, compared with participants working with adissimilarcomputer. When the outcome was positive, participants working with asimilarcomputer were more likely to credit the computer and less likely to take the credit themselves, compared with participants working with adissimilarcomputer. In addition, when users were given more control over outcomes, they tended to make more internal attributions, regardless of whether the outcome was positive or negative.

Personalization and Personality: Some Effects of Customizing Message Style Based on Consumer Personality

In this investigation, the extent to which a computers message style influences consumers with different personality types is investigated. Two experiments are presented. In Experiment 1, a computer is used to display advice and information regarding products that the participant is asked to consider purchasing. In Experiment 2, a computer is used to present participants with a variety of news and entertainment selections. The results indicate that computers are more effective as agents of influence when the computers message style matches the participants personality type. Theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed.

Don’t Blame the Computer: When Self-Disclosure Moderates the Self-Serving Bias

Internet shopping (or e-shopping) is emerging as a shopping mode and with its requirement of computer access and use, it is interesting to find out whether consumers associate e-shop-pers with any gender-specific stereotypes. Such stereotypes may be expected because shopping is considered a “female typed” activity whereas technology is considered to be in the male domain. In this article, we address this central question in an empirical study that varies the shopping context in terms of outlet type, product type, and purchase purpose. The respondents are college students with Internet access and familiarity with online shopping. The experimental results suggest that the global stereotype, held by both male and female respondents, is that of a shopper as a woman. This stereotype reverses when the product purchased is technical and expensive (DVD player). In terms of personality attributions, the female shopper is seen to be less technical, less spontaneous, and more reliable and attributions regarding personal characteristics are not influenced significantly by product type, outlet type, or purchase purpose.This article examines consumers’ intention to shop online during the information acquisition stage. Specifically, the study incorporates 3 essential variables, which are likely to influence consumer intentions: (a) convenience characteristic of shopping channels, (b) product type characteristics, and (c) perceived price of the product. Results indicate that convenience and product type influence consumer intention to engage in online shopping. When consumers perceive offline shopping as inconvenient, their intention to shop online is greater. Also, online shopping intention is higher when consumers perceive the product to be search goods than experience goods.The rapid growth of the Internet as an information medium has given rise to “infomediaries” that help aid consumers in making decisions. Recent research in the context of recommendation agents has shown that their use can lead to increases in consumer welfare. However, it is not clear if this varies by customer and by type of product. In this article, the role of category risk, product complexity, and customer category knowledge in moderating the impact of recommendation agents on consumer welfare is examined. A controlled experiment simulating a recommendation agent was used in conducting this study. Various product characteristics for which the recommendation agent provided information were manipulated. The results support some of the hypothesized effects. It is shown that category risk moderates the impact of recommendation agents on decision quality and product complexity moderates the role of recommendation agents on amount of search. The implications of this for theory and research on the Internet are discussed.This article examines consumers’ reactions to the provision of direct access to uncensored competitor price information within an electronic store. Based on notions derived from signaling theory, prior research on trust, and attribution theory, we propose that the facilitation of such access may have a positive impact on consumer preference for an online retailer. Furthermore, we predict that this effect will be moderated by how attractive a vendors prices are. The results of a laboratory experiment demonstrate the possibility that a retailers act of providing access to uncensored competitor price information may result in enhanced long-term preference for that vendor, especially if the latters prices are neither clearly superior nor obviously inferior to those of its competitors. Finally, this positive effect of facilitating access to competitors’ prices on consumer preference is mediated by the perceived trustworthiness of the online retailer.In this article we examine the effect of language, graphics, and culture on bilingual consumers’ Web site and product evaluations. We extend previous bilingual memory research to affective responses and to a new medium—the Internet. A series of studies suggests that attitudinal measures are influenced by the interaction of Web site language with two types of congruity: graphic congruity and cultural congruity. We conclude from our findings that both types of congruity influence bilinguals attitude-formation processes.Advances in information technology are making it possible to deliver multisensory stimuli over the Internet, giving rise to what we call second-generation electronic commerce, and to Web-based exchanges that approach in-store episodes and greatly exceed existing mass-market media in experiential richness. Delivery of multisensory stimuli is not enough, however, to fully activate, generate, and manage the embodied knowledge that is critical to consumer thinking about many types of products and services. Embodied knowledge refers to information elements that are generated and maintained outside the brain cavity and that are incorporated into consumer assessments of products and services. The view that consumers integrate embodied and conceptual knowledge into mental simulations of products and services is used as a foundation for a more general exposition of embodied knowledge and cognition. Three elements of embodied knowledge—body mapping and monitoring systems, proprioceptive knowledge, and body boundaries—are discussed, including their implications for e-commerce theory and practice and for marketing research in general. The methodological challenges of better understanding and managing embodied knowledge are also discussedConsumers often search the Internet for agent advice when making decisions about products and services. Existing research on this topic suggests that past opinion agreement between the consumer and an agent is an important cue in consumers’ acceptance of current agent advice. In this article, we report the results of two experiments which show that different types of past agreements can have different effects on the acceptance of current agent advice. In Study 1, we show that in addition to the overall agreement rate, consumers pay special attention to extreme opinion agreement when assessing agent diagnosticity (i.e., extremity effect). In Study 2 we show that positive extreme agreement is more influential than negative extreme agreement when advice valence is positive, but the converse does not hold when advice valence is negative (i.e., positivity effect). We conclude by identifying promising avenues for future research and discuss implications of the results for marketers in areas such as design of intelligent online recommendation systems and word-of-mouth management on the Internet.When consumers use computers to help make purchase decisions, how do they attribute responsibility for the positive or negative outcomes of those decisions? The results suggest that, in general, attributions of responsibility reflect a self-serving bias: Consumers tend to blame computers for negative outcomes and tend to take personal credit for positive ones. However, the results also suggest that, when consumers have a history of intimate self-disclosure with a computer, this pattern of attribution is significantly mitigated: Consumers are more willing to credit the computer for positive outcomes, and are more willing to accept responsibility for negative outcomes. In addition, this research provides evidence that the causal relation between self-disclosure and attributions of responsibility is partially mediated by attraction.In the context of online shopping, a major change in the consumer decision-making cognitive process is the partial shift of effort from consumers to electronic decision aids. The objective of this article is to investigate consumers’ perception of the “effort” expended by decision aids and how this perception influences their satisfaction with the decision process. The findings of two laboratory experiments show that, in comparison to human decision aids, consumers believe that electronic aids exert less effort but save them an equal level of effort. It is also shown that consumers’ satisfaction with the search process is positively associated with their perception of effort saved for them by electronic aids.Recently, it has been proposed that creating compelling experiences in the distinctive consumption environment defined by the Internet depends on facilitating a state of flow. Although it has been established that consumers do, in fact, experience flow while using the Web, consumer researchers do not as yet have a comprehensive understanding of the specific activities during which consumers actually have these experiences. One fruitful focus of research on online consumer experience has been on two distinct categories of consumption behavior— goal directed and experiential consumption behavior. Drawing distinctions between these behaviors for the Web may be particularly important because the experiential process is, for many individuals, as or even more important than the final instrumental result. However, the general and broad nature of flow measurement to date has precluded a precise investigation of flow during goal-directed versus experiential activities. In this article, we explore this issue, investigating whether flow occurs during both experiential and goal-directed activities, if experiential and goal-directed flow states differ in terms of underlying constructs, and what the key characteristics are—based on prior theory—that define “types” of flow experiences reported on the Web. Our approach is to perform a series of quantitative analyses of qualitative descriptions of flow experiences provided by Web users collected in conjunction with the 10th GVU WWW User Survey. In contrast with previous research that suggests flow would be more likely to occur during recreational activities than task-oriented activities, we found more evidence of flow for task-oriented rather than experiential activities, although there is evidence flow occurs under both scenarios. As a final note, we argue that the role that goal-directed and experiential activities may play in facilitating the creation of compelling online environments may also be important in a broader consumer policy context.The World Wide Web has the potential to change much about consumer behavior and consumer communication. Web-based chatting, the focus of this study, is one example. In this article, we provide an illustrative description of various consumer chatting situations, examine the motivations underlying Web-based chatting, and discuss the ways in which chatters act as “naive marketers” in their attempt to attract chatting partners. Using information gathered through the combined use of an Internet survey and a content analysis, we explore five research questions: who chats, why individuals chat, how chatters communicate, what links exist between Web chatting and other consumer behaviors, and which factors lead to a successful chatting experience? The findings provide some insight into how consumers market themselves in cyberspace and the effectiveness of their “personal advertisements” in attracting other chatters.Whereas the Internet itself poses unique challenges and opportunities, it is possible that the context of the Internet (a computer context) affects consumers differently than other contexts would, thereby causing people to think about and evaluate products differently. Drawing from learning theory and the functional theory of attitudes, it is predicted that computers, by being associated with the accessibility of detailed information, will elicit a need for meaning. Consequently, when a computer is present, people may think about and seek more product information than will those evaluating the product on paper (a print context). The results of an experiment support these hypotheses. Across two diverse products, the mere presence of a computer caused people to think more about and request more information about the product than those in the print context did. Furthermore, the attitudes of those in the computer context were more representative of both dimensions described in the advertisement, whereas the attitudes of those in the print context reflected the valence of the dimension that is typically used when evaluating the product. Implications for promoting products and conducting market research in computer environments are discussed.In the bricks-and-mortar environment, stores employ sales people that have learned to distinguish between shoppers based on their in-store behavior. Some shoppers appear to be very focused in looking for a specific product. In those cases, sales people may step in and help the shopper find what they are looking for. In other cases, the shopper is merely “window shopping.” The experienced sales person can identify these shoppers and either ignore them and let them continue window shopping, or intercede and try and stimulate a purchase in the appropriate manner. However, in the virtual shopping environment, there is no sales person to perform that role. Therefore, this article theoretically develops and empirically tests a typology of store visits in which visits vary according to the shoppers’ underlying objectives. By using page-to-page clickstream data from a given online store, visits are categorized as a buying, browsing, searching, or knowledge-building visit based on observed in-store navigational patterns, including the general content of the pages viewed. Each type of visit varies in terms of purchasing likelihood. The shoppers, in each case, are also driven by different motivations and therefore would respond differentially to various marketing messages. The ability to categorize visits in such a manner allows the e-commerce marketer to identify likely buyers and design more effective, customized promotional message.We propose an analytical framework for studying bidding behavior in online auctions. The framework focuses on three key dimensions: the multi-stage process, the types of value-signals employed at each phase, and the dynamics of bidding behavior whereby early choices impact subsequent bidding decisions. We outline a series of propositions relating to the auction entry decision, bidding decisions during the auction, and bidding behavior at the end of an auction. In addition, we present the results of three preliminary field studies that investigate factors that influence consumers’ value assessments and bidding decisions. In particular, (a) due to a focus on the narrow auction context, consumers under-search and, consequently, overpay for widely available commodities (CDs, DVDs) and (b) higher auction starting prices tend to lead to higher winning bids, particularly when comparable items are not available in the immediate context. We discuss the implications of this research with respect to our understanding of the key determinants of consumer behavior in this increasingly important arena of purchase decisions.

Article not available electronically: Pricing and Market Making on the Internet, Robert J. Dolan, Youngme Moon

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Adaptive agents and personality change: complementarity versus similarity as forms of adaptation

The idea that computer agents should be &laptive is a well-accepted tenet in the software indusuy. The concept of adaptivity is rarely defined in explicit terms, however. On the one hand, adaptivity could mean change in the direction of similarity; on the other hand, an agent could adapt in the direction of complementarily. The question for software developers is, Which type of adaptivity -similarity or complementari~ -does the user prefer? To investigate this qnestion, a laboratory experiment was conducted (N=88). Results indicate that, consistent with the gain-loss literature in the field of social psychology, subjects prefetmd interacting with a computer that became similar to themselves over time.

Localized Autocorrelation Diagnostic Statistic (LADS) for Sociological Models

Regression models in sociology, because they are often based on data sets with a surfeit of variables and an underlying connectivity pattern, permit the use of unique diagnostic techniques. This article elaborates on the localized autocorrelation diagnostic statistic, LADS, which determines the probability that in a model with N cases, a connected set of size C or more among the E most extreme, same-signed residuals occurred by chance. LADS can suggest variables to be included in a model and can be applied to time-series, geographic, group (i.e., cliques, blocks, clusters, and different values on a nominal variable), and network data. Exact formulas for LADS for time-series and grouped data, as well as principles for the robustness of LADS under global autocorrelation, are introduced, and a general algorithm for all data sets of connected cases is presented. Examples demonstrate how LADS can suggest new variables and improve the overall fit of models.