This research examines how consumers' spending on themselves versus others can be affected by temporary shifts in their states of power. Five experiments found that individuals experiencing a state of power spent more money on themselves than on others, whereas those experiencing a state of...

This research proposes that consumers’ preference for supersized food and drinks may have roots in the status-signaling value of larger options. An initial experiment found that consumers view larger-sized options within a set as having greater status. Because low-power consumers desire...

Three experiments examine how power affects consumers' spending propensities. By integrating literatures suggesting that (a) powerlessness is aversive, (b) status is one basis of power, and (c) products can signal status, the authors argue that low power fosters a desire to acquire products...

Power transforms consumer behavior. This research introduces a critical theoretical moderator of power’s effects by promoting the idea that power is accompanied by both an experience (how it feels to have or lack power) and expectations (schemas and scripts as to how those with or without...

A large literature demonstrates that people process information more carefully in states of low compared to high confidence. This article presents an alternative hypothesis that either high or low confidence can increase or decrease information processing on the basis of how information is...

Building on an action-orientation perspective of power, original hypotheses regarding power and consumer switching behavior are presented. Because high power is associated with a readiness to act, and switching behavior often requires taking action in some form, inducing consumers to feel...

This research introduces the distinction between compensatory consumption that is engaged in after, as opposed to before, one experiences a self-threat (termed reactive vs. proactive compensatory consumption). Five experiments document the phenomenon of proactive compensatory consumption as well...

Prior research has shown that psychological threat can provoke consumers to desire, seek out, and acquire products that symbolize accomplishment in the domain of the threat. Although such within-domain compensation can serve as a psychological salve to repair the self, the current research...