Browsing by Author "Chartrand, Tanya L"

Consumers have relationships with other people, and they have relationships with brands similar to the ones they have with other people. Yet, very little is known about how brand and interpersonal relationships relate to one another. Even less is known about how they jointly affect consumer well-being. The goal of this research, therefore, is to examine how brand and interpersonal relationships influence and are influenced by consumer well-being. Essay 1 uses both empirical methods and surveys from individuals and couples to investigate how consumer preferences in romantic couples, namely brand compatibility, influences life satisfaction. Using traditional statistical techniques and multilevel modeling, I find that the effect of brand compatibility, or the extent to which individuals have similar brand preferences, on life satisfaction depends upon power in the relationship. For high power partners, brand compatibility has no effect on life satisfaction. On the other hand, for low power partners, low brand compatibility is associated with decreased life satisfaction. I find that conflict mediates the link between brand compatibility and power on life satisfaction. In Essay 2 I again use empirical methods and surveys to investigate how resources, which can be considered a form of consumer well-being, influence brand and interpersonal relations. Although social connections have long been considered a fundamental human motivation and deemed necessary for well-being (Baumeister and Leary 1995), recent research has demonstrated that having greater resources is associated with weaker social connections. In the current research I posit that individuals with greater resources still have a need to connect and are using other sources for connection, namely brands. Across several studies I test and find support for my theory that resource level shifts the preference of social connection from people to brands. Specifically, I find that individuals with greater resources have stronger brand relationships, as measured by self-brand connection, brand satisfaction, purchase intentions and willingness to pay with both existing brand relationships and with new brands. This suggests that individuals with greater resources place more emphasis on these relationships. Furthermore, I find that resource level influences the stated importance of brand and interpersonal relationships, and that having or perceiving greater resources is associated with an increased preference to engage with brands over people. This research demonstrates that there are times when people prefer and seek out connections with brands over other people, and highlights the ways in which our brand and interpersonal relationships influence one another.

This describes four studies that broadly explore the personality characteristics, physiological consequences, and neural mechanisms underlying the behavioral mimicry that occurs when people try to affiliate with others in social interactions. I address three research questions: (1) which individuals are more likely to mimic in the presence of an affiliation goal, (2) what are the physiological consequences of mimicking to build affiliation, and (3) what is the neural mechanism underlying top-down control of mimicry? Chapter 1 gives background on the causes and consequences of mimicry in social interactions. Chapter 2 asks whether extraverts mimic more than introverts as a way to build rapport. In two studies, participants were either given an affiliation goal or not before interacting with a confederate. Study 1 tested whether extraverts mimicked more than introverts in the presence of an affiliation goal. Study 2 replicated and expanded on the design of study 1 by assessing whether mimicry mediated the relationship between extraversion and rapport (as measured by an independent observer). Study 1 found that extraversion predicts increased mimicry when an affiliation goal is present but not when an affiliation goal is absent. Study 2 showed that mimicry mediates the relationship between extraversion and rapport but only when an affiliation goal is present. These studies show that the rapport-building ability of extraverts emerges only when they are motivated to affiliate, providing evidence for the reward-sensitivity-as-core model of extraversion over the sociability-as-core model of extraversion. Chapter 3 explored the link between psychological, behavioral, and physiological mechanisms involved in affiliation. In study 3, participants were randomly assigned to experience social rejection or social acceptance before they were given either an opportunity to mimic a confederate (face-to-face interaction) or not (interaction behind barrier). Rejected participants (1) mimicked a confederate significantly more than accepted participants and (2) mimicry significantly mediated the effect of social feedback (rejection vs. acceptance) on progesterone change, such that mimicking was associated with increases in progesterone. The results suggest that mimicry facilitates progesterone release, which provides preliminary evidence of a physiological mechanism by which mimicry exerts its psychological effects of increasing affiliation and decreasing psychosocial distress. In Chapter 4, study 4 directly tested two competing hypotheses on the role of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in top-down control of mimicry. Participants were randomized to receive either active or sham intermittent theta-burst stimulation (a type of stimulation that increases activation) to the rTPJ in a between-subjects design. After receiving either active or sham iTBS, I measured how much participants mimicked another person in a social interaction. The results show that, for participants in the active stimulation condition, hair and face touching was significantly lower during the social interaction compared to baseline. This finding suggests that higher activation in the rTPJ increases the distinction between representations of self and other, specifically biasing representations of self over other, leading to less mimicry. These results do not support the hypothesis that higher activation in the rTPJ leads to flexible control of self-other representations in line with goals. Chapter 5 provides an overview of the main findings of these studies, discusses how these studies inform one another, and points the field toward open questions for future research.

With the current digital age and the rise of social media, consumers are privy to a wide variety of content from brands and media figures (e.g., celebrities, content creators, athletes, influencers). I focus on investigating the effects of observing positive interactions between brands or human brands on consumer perceptions. In the first essay, across six studies, I showcase that praising one’s competitor—via “brand-to-brand praise”—often heightens preference for the praiser more so than other common forms of communication, such as self-promotion or benevolent information. This is because brand-to-brand praise increases perceptions of brand warmth, which leads to enhanced brand evaluations and choice. In my second essay, across seven studies, I demonstrate how consumers enjoy viewing positive interactions between media figures and that viewing these interactions increase interest in and attitudes towards the focal media figure. This effect is driven by the humanization of the media figure, such that these positive interactions allow the media figure to seem more human to the consumer. Together, these essays showcase how the public display of positive exchanges can help brands by enhancing consumer perceptions.

Since the cognitive ability to process information is limited, people often rely on stereotypes to help them make sense of their social environment. These knowledge structures allow people to utilize past experiences and social learning to infer the characteristics and behaviors of individual group members. Stereotypes provide their holders with scripts, specifying how to interact with members of specific social groups (e.g., what products to choose or avoid and how certain actions may be interpreted). Despite the prevalent use of stereotypes in daily life, little research in consumer behavior has examined the role of stereotypes from this perspective. I propose that consumers use stereotype knowledge to navigate interpersonal interactions through adjusting their self-evaluations and product choices to match the needs of the social situation. My research suggests that both the stereotypes applied to the self and those applied to others have implications for how consumers strategically leverage this socially shared knowledge when interacting with others.

In Essay 1, I examine how consumers use stereotypes to guide their self-evaluations when preparing to interact with someone who may stereotype them. Most interestingly, consumers are selective in what aspects of the stereotype they take on, depending on whether they have more interdependent or independent self-construals. In three studies, I demonstrate that individuals with more interdependent self-construals engage in selective self-stereotyping and that these shifts in self-evaluations are specifically tailored to the preferences and expectations of the interaction partner. However, I find that individuals with more independent self-construals engage in selective counter self-stereotyping in order to distance themselves from the constraints of the stereotype and also to rebuff the expectations of the interaction partner.

Essay 2 examines the various impression management concerns that arise when consumers choose products to share with others. I find that when the consumer has little information regarding his consumption partner, stereotypes related to the consumption partner's social group are used to guide product choices. Whether the chosen products are stereotype consistent or inconsistent depend on the consumer's social goals and the consumption partner's expectations. Across four studies, I take both the perspectives of the consumer making the choice and the consumption partner to examine the various strategies adopted for making joint consumption choices and also to evaluate the interpersonal consequences of these strategies.

This research investigates the interplay between self-worth and consumption, and explores the substantive phenomenon of trading up. Laboratory experiments were conducted in which participants were led to fail (or not) on an intelligence test, which threatened their feelings of self-worth (or not). Following the failure, participants made consumer choices. Of key interest was whether threatened self-worth would result in more "trading up" - that is, selecting more expensive products or retail stores. Results revealed that compared to consumers whose self-worth was not threatened, threatened consumers demonstrated more self-expressive consumption: trading up when a product portrayed "me" (high on self-relevance), or not trading up when a product portrayed "not me" (low on self-relevance). Self-relevance was operationalized in terms of choice sets (i.e., the choice between two Duke t-shirts vs. two white t-shirts) and individual differences in the tendency to consider material objects part of the self (this was measured via a questionnaire).

This research also examined two hypotheses regarding how consumption could, in turn, affect feelings of self-worth. The first hypothesis stated that negative feelings of self-worth can be immediately repaired via consumer decisions (here, the decision to trade up or not). Indeed, results revealed that among consumers whose feelings of self-worth were threatened, self-expressive consumption repaired negative feelings of self-worth. The second hypothesis stated that positive attachments between possessions and consumers' feelings of self-worth enable consumers to rely on possessions to protect self-worth. To test this, participants wrote about a possession that was important for who they are and how they feel about themselves (participants in a control condition wrote about a possession important to other people for this reason). Results showed that writing about a self-relevant possession before failing a test buffered the impact on feelings of self-worth. This finding was particularly robust for possessions important to consumers' social relationships.

These findings highlight the bright side of the relationship between consumption and self-worth: consumers respond to threats adaptively - sometimes spending more and sometimes spending less - and functionally - by making consumption decisions that repair self-worth and by relying on possessions to protect self-worth.

One of the most frequent things we do as consumers is make purchase. We pay for a coffee or for food, we pay for necessities around the house, we even pay for one another, buying drinks or dinner for a friend every now and then. In today’s marketplace, the decision of whether to purchase is also coupled with the decision of how to make a purchase. Consumers have so many different methods to pay for their transactions. Can the way a consumer chooses to pay change the likelihood that s/he make a purchase? And then post-purchase, can the payment method used to pay for a purchase influence how connected individuals feel to that product, brand, or organization? Given that we sometimes pay for others (and vice versa), can the way we pay influence our interpersonal relationships?

In what follows, I argue that the way individuals pay, and specifically the pain associated with making a payment, can have a pervasive effect on their decision to make a purchase and how they feel post-transaction. Across three essays, I focus on how the pain of paying can influence the likelihood to purchase an item from a consideration set (Essay 1) and subsequently, how the pain of paying can influence post-transaction connection to a product, organization, or even to other people (Essay 2 and 3). Across field, laboratory, online, and archival methods, I find robust evidence that increasing the pain of paying may initially deter individuals from choosing. However, post-transaction, increasing the pain of payment may have an upside: individuals feel closer and more committed to a product that they purchased, organization that they donated to, and feel greater connection and rapport to who they spent their money on. However, I also demonstrate the boundary conditions of these findings. When individuals are spending money on something that is undesirable, such as paying for a competitor, increasing the pain of payment decreases interpersonal connection and rapport.

How do consumers respond when they experience threats to interpersonal relationships, or social exclusion? This research suggests that consumers will seek brands that are characterized by a specific personality trait dimension. In particular, consumers will seek sincere brands as a means to fulfill the need to belong. I argue that this sincerity orientation effect occurs because the sincerity dimension is positively associated with relationship growth and strength. Several studies demonstrate that when excluded, consumers become biased in their impressions of and preferences for sincere brands; they also feel stronger self-brand connections to sincere brands. Further, two studies demonstrate the moderating roles of identity-relevant affirmation and self-esteem in the relationship between exclusion and sincerity orientation towards brands.