It is self-evident that performing poorly on a task makes people dissatisfied relative to performing well. How can this negative affect be overcome? We provide an adaptive strategy for dealing with poor performance. Experiment 1 shows that poor performers tend to recruit the highest potential...

In four experiments we examine the ability of simple concurrent disclosures to correct invalid inferences about brand quality based on advertising claims. We ensure that the disclosure is always encoded, yet we find that it is utilized to correct invalid inferences only under high-capacity...

Information processing research published in the Journal of Consumer Research has produced theoretical advances in our understanding of consumer behavior. This article highlights two themes that have emerged in consumer research over the past 15 years. These are the interplay between motivation...

Effective communication requires that consumers attribute the message content to its intended source. The proposed framework distinguishes four types of source identification processes--cued retrieval, memory-trace refreshment, schematic inferencing, and pure guessing--and delineates their...

We demonstrate the effect of consumers' lay theories of self-control on goal-directed behavior as evidenced by New Year's and other resolutions. Across three studies, we find that individuals who believe that self-control is a malleable but inherently limited (vs. unlimited) resource tend to set...