Accusations of wrongdoing, baseless or justified, can severely tarnish a company's reputation. Once disseminated, even baseless accusations can persist and cause considerable damage for a company. This study examines the proactive crisis communication strategy of inoculating individuals against...

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...

There are many opportunities in everyday life to associate consumer products with success or failure. For example, when a basketball fan drinks a particular brand of soda while watching her favorite team win a game, she may perceive that this consumption facilitated the victory. Subsequently,...

Accumulating evidence suggests that targets' displays of emotion shape perceivers' impression of those targets. Prior research has highlighted generalization effects, such as an angry display prompting an impression of hostility. In two studies, we went beyond generalization to examine the...

Previous research uses categorization principles to analyze the interplay between individuals and groups. The present research uniquely employs categorization principles to analyze the interplay between individuals and products. It proposes that consumers classify owned (but not unowned)...

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...

We investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer openness to sharing their possessions through peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms. Studies 1 and 2, run before and during the pandemic respectively, reveal that the pandemic had different effects on sharing across three countries...

What explains the emergence of nativist and populist movements across the globe? From the election of Donald Trump to the vote for Brexit, pundits wonder how and why these unforeseen outcomes came to pass. Why were people so surprised about these outcomes? Why do people sometimes vote against...