Text

theses

My dissertation advances our understandings about how chance and romantic motives influence consumer behavior. The first essay examines why chance events are often perceived more favorably and how such events impact the consumer experience. A series of studies demonstrate that consumers come to infer a stronger link between a chance event and their own self-concept. This increased self-product connection occurs as a means to restore a sense of control over chance events. This effect occurs regardless of limited mental resources, suggesting that the proposed effect is not due to increased elaboration during chance encounters. Consistent with the conceptualization, this effect is attenuated when control is restored, when the product has a negative valence, and when consumers are led to focus on others and not the self. This research is the first to examine the hidden factors that lead chance to become associated with good fortune. The second essay considers whether romantic pair-bond motivations influence numerical preferences. Across cultures and throughout history, the number “2” has been symbolic of a romantic pair bond. I propose that reminders of romance should lead people to prefer the number “2” and associated even numbers. A series of studies demonstrate that romantic motives – goals related to forming a romantic pair-bond – increase preference for the number “2” and other numbers of its parity (i.e., even vs. odd numbers) and marketing stimuli featuring even (vs. odd) numbers. This effect is specific to romantic motives and does not occur for other relationship motives such as those related to work relationship, kinship, and friendship. Consistent with a motivational perspective, the desire to form a romantic relationship statistically mediated the effect of romantic cues on preference for even numbers. Subsequently, the effect of romantic motives on preference for even numbers is suppressed when mating goals are easy to achieve or a committed romantic pair-bond (with one partner) is not important. Across two essays, my dissertation provides novel insight into the hidden influences of chance and romantic motives on the consumer experience. This work has important implications for consumers, marketers, and researchers. Namely, the conceptual underpinning advanced in both essays provides a richer understanding of two unknown, persistent biases in consumer behavior. Insights from this work can help consumers and marketers design optimal decision environments to enhance enjoyment and find work-arounds for biases in preferences, as well as advance future research.

ETD_8734

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Aekyoung Kim

doi:10.7282/T3D2221J

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.