Circles, Squares, and Choice: The Effect of Shape Arrays on Uniqueness and Variety Seeking
Published 12/1/2008
Author: Michal Maimaran and S. Christian Wheeler
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Executive Summary
Imagine that a consumer is at a store, looking for a notebook to buy, and his or her shopping cart is decorated with novel arrays of shapes, such as OOOO□OO. What effect, if any, would these arrays have on the consumer’s choice? Could simple exposure to the array make the consumer more likely to choose a uniquely colored notebook? Although it may seem that such a simple array, which has no prior cognitive associations for this person, should not affect his or her choices, the current research suggests otherwise.
Building on the extensive literature on automatic processes, the authors test the effect of simple stimuli that have no inherent meaning or prior associations, such as arrays of geometrical shapes, on consumers’ choices. Across five studies, they find that these arrays affect consumers’ actual choices without their awareness in two different choice domains—uniqueness seeking and variety seeking.
Study 1 finds that exposure to variety arrays (e.g., DOO□OD□) increases variety seeking. Specifically, compared with participants who saw homogeneous arrays (e.g., OOOOOOO), those who saw variety arrays were more likely to choose different flavors of chocolates. Study 2 extends the investigation to uniqueness-seeking tendencies and finds that exposure to uniqueness arrays (e.g., OOOO□OO) increases choice of unique over common chocolates. Study 3 replicates this effect when choosing among memo pads, even when exposure to the arrays is only incidental. Moreover, it shows that the effect of these arrays on choice of unique items interacts with chronic uniqueness-seeking motivation such that either factor is sufficient to induce uniqueness-seeking. Studies 4a and 4b show that the two studied constructs—uniqueness and variety—are distinct in this context. Specifically, it is demonstrated that only variety arrays (not uniqueness arrays) lead to variety seeking (Study 4a) and only uniqueness arrays (not variety arrays) lead to uniqueness seeking (Study 4b). These studies show that people automatically extract concepts (e.g., variety, uniqueness) from novel abstract stimuli that can significantly affect their behavior without their intention or awareness.
Biography
Michal Maimaran is a doctoral candidate in Marketing at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. She holds a BSc in Mathematics and Psychology and an MA in Psychology, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She received the Best Student Paper Award by the Society of Consumer Psychology for this article. Her research interests include judgment and decision making, nonconscious effects on consumer behavior, and perceptual effects on judgment and behavior.
S. Christian Wheeler is Associate Professor of Marketing at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on marketing management, attitudes and persuasion, and research methodology. He received his BA from the University of Northern Iowa before moving to Ohio State, where he completed his MA and PhD. His research has been published in top marketing, organizational behavior, and psychology journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personality and Social Psychology Review, and Psychological Bulletin. His research interests include automaticity and nonconscious processes, attitudes and persuasion, the self-concept, and consumer choice.
J Marketing Research, Volume 45, Number 6, December 2008
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