Quantity can be described using perceptual units (e.g., bags, pieces) or standardized units (e.g., ounces, grams). Merely making perceptual units more salient in quantity description can increase perceived economic value. Even when the objective information and numerosity are kept constant,...

Economic price theory assumes that consumers’ responses to prices can be characterized by stable demand curves and price elasticities. The author posits that this assumption lacks descriptive validity because the demand curve is rather unstable; subtle changes in framing and contextual cues can...

This paper reports subjective ratings of unhealthiness and impulsiveness of 100 food categories that are purchased by a typical American consumer. These ratings are used to identify food items that are considered as vice and virtue products

At each stage in customers’ journeys, they encounter different types of numeric information that they process using different judgment strategies.Relevant numbers might include budgets, price, product attributes, product counts, product ratings, numbers in brand names, health and...

It has been widely documented that fluency (ease of information processing) enhances evaluation. We propose and demonstrate in three experiments that this is not the case when people construe objects abstractly rather than concretely. Specifically, we find that priming people to think abstractly...

Through five experiments, we provide a cognitive account of when and why nine-ending prices are perceived to be smaller than a price one cent higher. First, this occurs only when the leftmost digits of the prices differ (e.g., $2.99 vs. $3.00). Second, the left-digit effect also depends on the...

Consumers' budgets are influenced by the temporal frame used for the budget period. Budgets planned for the next month are much lower than recorded expenses, while those for the next year are closer to recorded expenses (study 1). The difficulty of estimating budgets for the next year imparts...

We examine two questions: Does the roundness or precision of prices bias magnitude judgments? If so, do these biased judgments affect buyer behavior? Results from five studies suggest that buyers underestimate the magnitudes of precise prices. We term this the precision effect. The first three...

Purpose This paper aims to examine the realities of food deserts and the vulnerable populations in urban areas in the USA; review underlying causes of these realities; and propose a set of solutions to address challenges facing vulnerable populations living in urban food deserts....