Marketers face a myriad of decisions when developing a Web site for e-commerce. In this article, we attempt to organize our current understanding of consumer behavior into streams of research that address the development of marketplaces for the digital economy. We start by characterizing...

This research shows when and how food-related warnings can backfire by putting consumers in a state of reactance. Across three studies, we demonstrate that dieters (but not nondieters) who see a one-sided message focusing on the negative aspects of unhealthy food (vs. a one-sided positive or...

We examine several factors that determine whether exposure to thin (or heavy) media images positively or negatively affects consumers' appearance self-esteem. We find that the effects of exposure to models in advertisements depend on two moderating factors: (1) the extremity of the model's...

This research examines the moderating role of attempted dietary restraint on the amount of food consumed from small food in small packages versus large food in large packages. Four experiments demonstrate that restrained eaters consume more calories from small food in small packages, while...

This article extends the idea that priming can influence preferences by making selected attributes focal. Our on-line experiments manipulate the background pictures and colors of a Web page, affecting consumer product choice. We demonstrate that these effects occur for both experts and novices,...

Does predicting the outcome of an uncertain event enhance the enjoyment of observing that event? The current popularity of office pools, spoiler message boards, and online betting Web sites seems to suggest that the act of prediction increases enjoyment. However, in a series of four experiments,...

This research demonstrates that exposure to death-related stimuli can increase consumers' amounts of purchasing and consumption. We demonstrate that consumers who have been recently reminded of their own impending mortality wish to purchase higher quantities of food products (and actually eat...