Executive Summary
The hedonic principle that people approach pleasure and avoid pain has been well documented and has also been examined in consumer research, especially in the domain of gain- and loss-framed messages. Prospect theory posits that framing effects result from the people’s susceptibility to changing reference points, such that negative frames lead to perceptions of loss through a downward movement on the value function, whereas positive frames lead to perceptions of gains through an upward movement on the value function. Emerging research has proposed that this movement in relation to a reference point leads negative message frames to induce avoidance behavior and positive frames to induce approach behavior.
The authors propose that consumers’ implicit theory will influence their susceptibility to these movements from the reference point. Because of entity theorists’ belief in the immutability of attributes, they should be less susceptible to perceived movements from reference points, which they should consider fixed. This prediction is also based on the tendency of entity theorists to focus more on the object than on the context and be more evaluative of the outcome or the end result. Because message frame is a contextual cue, entity theorists will be insensitive to framing and focus on the information content. Thus, target evaluations should not differ by frames, and they should be equally persuaded by approach and avoidance frames. In contrast, incremental theorists, who believe in the malleability of their environment, are sensitive to the context and alter their evaluations based on contextual information. Because changing frames result in changed contexts and altered reference points, incremental theorists should incorporate contextual information and differ in their object evaluation under different message frames.
This proposition is supported in two studies that feature advertising messages. In the first study, which features derogatory (avoidance) and nonderogatory (approach) comparative toothpaste advertisements, the authors find that entity theorists are persuaded equally by the two types of comparisons, while incremental theorists find nonderogatory comparisons more persuasive. A second study, which features gain- and loss-framed comparative airline messages, provides converging evidence of evaluations and offers process insight. Because entity theorists are more outcome focused, they engage in more outcome-based thinking. Furthermore, because outcomes of the two types of messages are invariant, entity theorists evaluate the advertised brands equally in the gain- and loss-framed messages. Because incremental theorists are more process oriented, they engage in more advertising tactics–related thinking. In addition, because loss-framed comparisons elicit more suspicion regarding the advertiser’s motives, incremental theorists evaluate the advertised brand more highly when the message is gain framed.
A third study examines how violation of a consumer’s implicit theory influences the processing of approach/avoidance messages and subsequent evaluations. The findings suggest that when entity theorists are led to believe that the world order is changeable, their processing and judgments mirror those of incremental theorists (i.e., they find approach frames more persuasive than avoidance frames). When incremental theorists are led to believe that the world order is fixed, they find the two frames equally persuasive.
Biography
Shailendra Pratap Jain (Shelly) is Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business in the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, Seattle. He holds a BE in Chemical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and an MPhil and a PhD in Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He has worked for six years in industry in sales, brand management, advertising, and general management. Before the Foster School, Shelly was on the marketing faculty at Indiana University’s Kelley School and University of Rochester’s Simon School. He has also been a visiting faculty member at Cornell University’s Johnson School and the Indian School of Business. His research interests include branding, categorization, comparative advertising, the economics of information, cross-cultural differences, construal (e.g., self-regulation, implicit theories), motivated reasoning, and warranties. His research has appeared in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Marketing Letters, and Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Shelly is on the editorial board of Journal of Consumer Psychology and has won several teaching awards, both at the undergraduate and the graduate levels.
Pragya Mathur is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York. She holds a BA in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies at the University of Delhi, India, and an M Phil and a PhD in Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Her doctoral thesis examines the impact of multiple sources on brand alliance effectiveness. Her research interests also include consumer information processing related to source effects, branding, and individual differences (cognitive style and implicit theories). Before joining academia, she worked for six years in industry in brand and distribution management.
Durairaj Maheswaran (Mahesh) is Paganelli-Bull Professor of Marketing and International Business in the Stern School of Business at New York University. He received a PhD in Marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He holds a BTech in Chemical Engineering from Regional Engineering College, Trichy, and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He has six years of industry experience in advertising and marketing research. He has published widely in leading publications, such as Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Journal of Consumer Psychology. He is editor of Journal of Consumer Psychology. He is a past-president of the Society of Consumer Psychology and was an associate editor with Journal of Consumer Research. He is a recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award at New York University.
J Marketing Research, Volume 46, Number 1, February 2009
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