Providing explicit instructions to compare one option to other (reference) options is one of the most basic and commonly used promotional and persuasion tactics. Building on prior research on persuasion knowledge and the impact of suspicion, we propose that the mere fact that consumers are...

People invest much time and money in consuming knowledge. We argue that people systematically vary in the types of knowledge they prefer to know and that such preferences can have broad implications for consumer behavior. We illustrate this in the context of the preference for practical versus...