Extrinsic incentives play a key role in motivating behavior. However, conflicting findings have been observed with respect to the effectiveness of various extrinsic incentives (e.g., a cash reward vs. a donation to charity) in motivation. We propose a novel framework that accounts for these...

For many, it is difficult to imagine that sharing used clothes with strangers and/or buying low quality, temporary garments could ever be preferable to owning our own. However, new findings from the Journal of Consumer Research suggest there may be contexts in which, and consumers for whom, this...

Although many individuals endorse prosocial causes, little is understood about the factors that determine when people's desire to consume in ways that benefit society as a whole will exceed their desire to accrue direct benefits to the self. We address this question by testing how reminders of...

Academics have shown a growing interest in the effects of resource scarcity — a discrepancy between one's current resource levels and a higher, more desirable reference point. However, the existing literature lacks an overarching theory to explain the breadth of findings across different types...

Public recognition is usually thought to motivate charitable giving. However, the current research identifies an important context in which the opposite occurs. We examine commonplace donation decisions involving modest amounts of money, which either take place in private, or are observed by...

Academic research in several disciplines has demonstrated that consumers generally show a preference for certainty in the domain of gains. The current research provides evidence for an important psychological antecedent to this effect. Specifically, the authors find that the likelihood of...

Understanding how emotions can affect pleasure has important implications for both individuals and for firms’ communication strategies. Prior research has shown that experienced pleasure often assimilates to the valence of one’s active emotions, such that negative emotions decrease pleasure....