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Marketers often employ a variety of positive emotions to encourage consumption or promote a particular behavior (e.g., buying, donating, recycling) to benefit an organization or cause. The authors show that specific positive emotions do not universally increase prosocial behavior but, rather, encourage different types of prosocial behavior. Four studies show that whereas positive emotions (i.e., love, hope, pride, and compassion) all induce prosocial behavior toward close entities (relative to a neutral emotional state), only love induces prosocial behavior toward distant others and international organizations. Love's effect is driven by a distinct form of broadening, characterized by extending feelings of social connection and the boundary of caring to be more inclusive of others regardless of relatedness. Love—as a trait and a momentary emotion—is unique among positive emotions in fostering connectedness that other positive emotions (hope and pride) do not and broadening behavior in a way that other connected emotions (compassion) do not. This research contributes to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion by demonstrating a distinct type of broadening for love and adds an important qualification to the general finding that positive emotions uniformly encourage prosocial behavior.

In four experiments, we asked subjects for judgements about scenarios that pit utilitarian outcomes against deontological moral rules, for example, saving more lives vs. a rule against active killing. We measured trait emotions of anger, disgust, sympathy and empathy (the last two in both specific and general forms, the latter referring to large groups of people), asked about the same emotions after each scenario (state emotions). We found that utilitarian responding to the scenarios, and higher scores on a utilitarianism scale, were correlated negatively with disgust, positively (but weakly and inconsistently) with anger, positively with specific sympathy and state sympathy, and less so with general sympathy or empathy. In a fifth experiment, we asked about anger and sympathy for specific outcomes, and we found that these are consistently predictive of utilitarian responding.

Concerns about the integrity of scientific investigations have increased sharply in the wake of recent high profile reports of scientific misconduct in the social, physical, and clinical sciences; some of these concerns affect the Journal of Consumer Research directly. Many current discussions about scientific discovery have shifted from trying to understand how new findings might reshape conceptual understanding to questioning whether new findings are even to be believed. When the fundamental quality of research comes under scrutiny, individual scholars and the academy as a whole are challenged to examine how that research is carried out. In our first year as editors, we have frequently been asked to endorse, adopt, or comment on proposed solutions to the problem of ensuring scientific integrity and ethics. As editors considering possible routes forward, we have noted that the potential problems differ: for example, outright data fabrication is distinct from opportunistic data collection methods and from improper rounding of p -values. To grasp the scope of the problem it is critical to distinguish among these issues, to delineate methods for investigating and resolving them, and to understand their interplay. For example, solutions focusing primarily on data handling neglect other important priorities in the development of a literature. In this editorial, we advocate a course of action that speaks to the entirety of the research process. Our recommendations are consonant with our perceived and desired role as fostering a cohesive and productive community of consumer research scholars. We do recognize that ethical lapses occur, including but not limited to some recent high-profile incidents. Nevertheless, our hope for the coming years is to support a research climate that harnesses the integrity of the community and thereby promotes and sustains ethical practices. As described in our first editorial (McGill, Peracchio, and Luce 2011), we view this climate of …

Our primary focus is on analysis of the concept of voluntariness, with a secondary focus on the implications of our analysis for the concept and the requirements of voluntary informed consent. We propose that two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions must be satisfied for an action to be voluntary: intentionality, and substantial freedom from controlling influences. We reject authenticity as a necessary condition of voluntary action, and we note that constraining situations may or may not undermine voluntariness, depending on the circumstances and the psychological capacities of agents. We compare and evaluate several accounts of voluntariness and argue that our view, unlike other treatments in bioethics, is not a value-laden theory. We also discuss the empirical assessment of individuals' perceptions of the degrees of noncontrol and self-control. We propose use of a particular Decision Making Control Instrument. Empirical research using this instrument can provide data that will help establish appropriate policies and procedures for obtaining voluntary consent to research.

We are honored to have been given the opportunity to serve as coeditors of the Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR ) and are inspired by this responsibility. Our overarching goal is to continue to publish the best scholarly research through an editorial process that respects the vision of authors while deploying the talents of a devoted and skilled team of associate editors and reviewers. We are committed to building a coherent understanding of consumers and consumption so that scholars from a broad array of disciplines, marketers, policy makers, and consumers will find value in JCR . Our aspirations for the journal are very high, because it is already in tremendous shape. We admire the intellectual leadership and approach of John Deighton, who leaves the journal and the field it represents in robust health. We are encouraged by John's wisdom, generous scholarship, and devoted service to the consumer research community. Thank you, John, for the enduring contribution your stewardship of JCR has given to our field. During John's term, submissions of new manuscripts to the journal have increased 60%, exceeding 600 in 2010. Total decisions per year have reached 800. Each issue contains high-quality work of substantial value. Further, any editor would envy the community of scholars that the journal comprises. The number of submitting authors is large and drawn from diverse regions and backgrounds. Advising the editors and, in the process, assisting these authors is a correspondingly large, hardworking team of volunteers who serve as associate editors, editorial review board members, and ad hoc reviewers. These referees set out to do what is right for the field and for authors, devoting considerable time to these efforts. They do so because they are dedicated scholars. We also believe they do so because this is a worthwhile field that is still young, with …

Many important and complex consumer decisions rely on the advice of trusted professional experts. Many experts, however, such as doctors, financial advisers, and accountants, may be prone to conflicts of interest. As such, consumers may seek a second opinion. A series of studies investigate consumers’ reluctance to seek additional advice in the context of having an ongoing relationship with one expert service provider. The authors find evidence in health care claims that long-term relationships contribute to more expensive, but not necessarily better, treatment. In addition, a series of experiments show that people recognize when they could benefit from a second opinion but are more reluctant to do so when thinking about their own providers rather than someone else's. Further studies test a relationship maintenance hypothesis and show that consumers’ reluctance to seek second opinions is partially driven by their motivation to preserve relationship harmony, even when it is at their own personal expense and well-being. Taken together, these results provide important insight into the potential limitations and consequences of longstanding relationships between consumers and experts.

We examine the conditions under which the distinct positive emotions of hope versus pride facilitate more or less fluid cognitive processing. Using individuals' naturally occurring time of day preferences (i.e., morning vs. evening hours), we show that specific positive emotions can differentially influence processing resources. We argue that specific positive emotions are more likely to influence processing and behavior during nonoptimal times of day, when association-based processing is more likely. We show in three experiments that hope, pride, and a neutral state differentially influence fluid processing on cognitive tasks. Incidental hope facilitates fluid processing during nonoptimal times of day (compared with pride and neutral), improving performance on tasks requiring fluid intelligence (Experiment 1) and increasing valuation estimates on tasks requiring that preferences be constructed on the spot (Experiments 2 and 3). We also provide evidence that these differences in preference and valuation occur through a process of increased imagination (Experiment 3). We contribute to emotion theory by showing that different positive emotions have different implications for processing during nonoptimal times of day.

Reliable and valid measures of relevant constructs are critical in the developing field of the empirical study of research ethics. The early phases of scale development for such constructs can be complex. We describe the methodological challenges of construct definition and operationalization and how we addressed them in our study to develop a measure of perception of voluntariness. We also briefly present our conceptual approach to the construct of voluntariness, which we defined as the perception of control over decision making. Our multifaceted approach to scale development ensured that we would develop a construct definition of sufficient breadth and depth, that our new measure of voluntariness would be applicable across disciplines, and that there was a clear link between our construct definition and items. The strategies discussed here can be adapted by other researchers who are considering a scale development study related to the empirical study of ethics.

Heuristic use is a central topic in consumer research, but the factors that determine when consumers will settle for shortcut solutions to choice problems (e.g., compromise) versus rely on “true” preferences (e.g., self-goals) remain unclear. We propose that both motivation to use self-goals, as indexed by need for cognition (NFC), and cognitive ability, manipulated through cognitive load, influence the use of the compromise heuristic. Three studies showed that NFC is associated with less compromise at baseline but not under load. Process measures and moderation tests suggest that load disrupts access to self-goals and that NFC relates to self-goal use. Thus, load differentially influences compromise choice across levels of NFC.

This article examines consumers' emotional reactions for a specific negative service—a mammography screening test—and measures how such reactions are influenced by the consumer's stage in the screening process and her beliefs in the efficacy of the test. Stage in process moderates the relationship between test efficacy beliefs and stress, such that those obtaining screening tests feel more stress as their belief in the efficacy of mammography increases while those obtaining follow-up diagnostic tests feel less stress as their belief in the efficacy of mammography increases. Process measures indicate that fear of a positive mammogram result is uniquely associated with stress for those receiving a screening mammogram, while uncertainty regarding diagnosis is uniquely associated with stress for those receiving a diagnostic mammogram. Implications for better managing the testing experience and for understanding negative services more generally are discussed.

Should individuals delegate thinking about complex choice problems to the unconscious? We tested two boundary conditions on this suggestion. First, we found that in a decision environment similar to those studied previously, self-paced conscious thought and unconscious thought had similar advantages over conscious thought constrained to a long fixed time interval in terms of identifying the option with the highest number of positive outcomes. Second, we found that self-paced conscious thought performed better than unconscious thought in a second decision environment where performance depended to a greater extent on magnitudes of the attributes. Thus, we argue that it is critical to take into account the interaction of forms of processing with task demands (choice environments) when considering how to approach complex choice problems.

This paper extends the familiar multi-stage framework for choice by explicitly describing the role that goals play at each stage. We first present a typology of goals, ranging from content to process and from immediate to long-term illustrating it in the context of two examples—purchasing a new car and earthquake retrofitting. We then delineate each stage of the choice process based on recent advances from the descriptive literature on the influence of the various goals. Finally, we draw the prescriptive implications as to how goals can inform what we know, or need to know, about the choice process.

We advocate a different approach to the important questions that Simonson raises regarding preference construction. First, we argue that existing literature both acknowledges and addresses preference stability. In particular, we show that stable preferences are not incompatible with theories of preference construction. We note that construction can influence experienced utility as well as prediction of preference and argue that a careful analysis of stability must allow for contextual influences in both these domains. Finally, we note that Simonson's notion of ‘inherent' preferences is unclear, and we argue that a better way to take up this important challenge is through existing literatures providing insights into conditions leading to preference stability.

In negative service environments, waiting time can serve to facilitate consumer coping. Consequently, the very wait management strategies (such as providing duration information or shortening the wait) that mitigate wait-based stress for nonnegative services may interfere with consumers' efforts to cope with an upcoming negative event. We show that the effectiveness of wait management strategies is moderated by event valence and, further, by the individual's coping orientation. Shortened wait times lead to increased stress for those using approach-oriented strategies (compared to avoidance), and duration information leads to increased stress for those using avoidance-oriented strategies.

This article considers the consumer research implications of the Appraisal-Tendency Framework (ATF; Han, Lerner, & Keltner, 2007). This article outlines how the ATF approach could be applied to sequential consumer choices (e.g., effects of emotional responses to stockouts on later decisions) and high-stakes decisions (e.g., medical decisions). This article also proposes several areas in which the ATF might be extended: examining complex sequences of choices with emotional consequences, considering how incidental and integral emotions interact, characterizing how both evaluative and regulatory mechanisms may influence the effects of emotion on judgment and choice, and extending the range of positive emotions and appraisal dimensions considered.

Most of the articles appearing in JCR that are characterized as behavioral decision theory (BDT) address some kind of bias or deviation from normative decision making. In addition to pointing out biases, these articles often examine underlying decision processes. We leverage approaches that researchers have used to understand process for insights into when and how biases can be corrected. We argue that some of these biases can be corrected by directly altering the decision maker's conscious processes, while other biases can be corrected more indirectly by altering the decision environment.

Adherence to preventive measures is shown to be influenced by prior usage, particularly when hazards do not occur. Two outcomes weaken resolve to use preventive measures: (1) “hassle” events and (2) “false security” following the neglected use of the measure. Implications from the model provide suggestions for public policy interventions that can encourage repeated use of preventive measures.

This article reviews a model of emotional trade-off difficulty in decision making. The model argues that decision makers are motivated to cope with the negative emotion associated with decision-processing operations, notably emotion generated by explicit trade-offs between highly valued attributes. The article begins to explore implications of this model for patient decision making in the cancer control domain. For instance, the model points to emotional reactions to decisions as both a cost and a barrier in the move toward greater patient participation in health care decision making.

Research on mental simulation finds differential effects for process versus outcome focus. We manipulate the focus of participants' thoughts while viewing advertisements and find that under low to moderate involvement, argument strength has a greater effect on behavioral intentions when participants focus on the process versus the outcome of product use. This differential advantage of process-focused thought reverses under conditions of high involvement. The apparent reason for the sensitivity of process-focused thought to argument strength under low to moderate involvement is that a process focus leads to the relatively spontaneous formulation of a plan to purchase given strong, but not weak, ad arguments.

Consumers often face emotion-laden choices involving conflicting goals of personal importance (e.g., safety). Research suggests that consumers cope with the negative emotion associated with these choices by avoiding certain behaviors, in particular attribute trade-off making. This research investigates a factor that moderates these coping effects. Four experiments show that simple cognitive load can make consumers less averse to making attribute trade-offs. This research demonstrates, counterintuitively, that a reduction of cognitive resources through increased load can result in more normative decision behavior. Load apparently disinhibits trade-off making by disrupting consumers' abilities to consider relevant self goal information and the negative emotional consequences of trading off something of personal importance, thereby reducing consumers' need to cope.

Consumers often have to decide whether to acquire information in high-stakes decision domains. We study women in mammography waiting rooms to test how a “false-alarm” result (i.e., an indication that a malady is present when a “more accurate” follow-up test reveals it is not) affects willingness to get retested. In Study 1 we show that, given a false-alarm result, life-threatening test consequences are associated with more disutility for future testing than when test consequences are less significant; this does not hold for normal test results. In Study 2 in the mammography context, we show that patients receiving a false-alarm result experienced more stress, were less likely to believe that a positive mammography result indicated cancer, and more likely to delay mammography than patients receiving normal results unless they were also told that they may be vulnerable to breast cancer in the future. We show that delays in planned adherence following a false-alarm result can be mitigated by an information intervention. Finally, we have preliminary evidence that a previous history of false-positive results can cause a consumer to both react more negatively to emotional stress and respond more positively to coping information.

We seek to reinforce the importance of the notion of within-alternative conflict for consumer research. We replicate our own earlier findings that conflict associated with integrating an alternative's pros and cons influences responses to a judgment task. In the earlier work, we focused on test-retest reliability in judgment; here we extend the work by developing a measure of explicit preference uncertainty using subjective confidence intervals placed around evaluative judgments in consumer purchase contexts. We also extend the prior work by demonstrating an effect of within-alternative conflict on preferences expressed through evaluative ratings. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.

Recent social psychological research demonstrates that certain types of mental simulation are particularly useful for helping individuals reach the future they envision (e.g., Taylor, Pham, Rivkin, & Armor, 1998). More specifically, Taylor's (Pham, Taylor, 1999; Taylor et al., 1998) recent research indicates that the most successful simulations focus on the process of reaching a goal rather than on the outcomes or attainment of the goal. In this article, we extend consideration of process- versus outcome-focused thought to advertising. In studies manipulating the focus of participants’ thoughts while viewing a print advertisement, we find that process-focused thought results in significantly higher behavioral intentions than outcome-focused thought when advertisement arguments are strong. However, in the case of weak advertisement arguments, process-focused thought actually lowers behavioral intentions compared to thoughts focusing on the end result or outcome of product usage. Thus, in addition to increasing the persuasive power of strong advertising claims, process-focused thinking appears to make individuals better or more discerning consumers who do not form behavioral intentions when it is inappropriate to do so.

This paper reviews the state of the art of research on individual decision-making in high-stakes, low-probability settings. A central theme is that resolving high-stakes decisions optimally poses a formidable challenge not only to naive decision makers, but also to users of more sophisticated tools, such as decision analysis. Such decisions are difficult to make because precise information about probabilities is not available, and the dynamics of the decision are complex. When faced with such problems, naive decision-makers fall prey to a wide range of potentially harmful biases, such as failing to recognize a high-stakes problem, ignoring the information about probabilities that does exist, and responding to complexity by accepting the status quo. A proposed agenda for future research focuses on how the process and outcomes of high-stakes decision making might be improved.

This paper extends the behavioral results reported in Fischer et al. (2000) by developing a model addressing preference uncertainty in multiattribute evaluation. The model is motivated by two hypotheses regarding properties of multiattribute profiles that lead to greater preference uncertainty. Our attribute conflict hypothesis predicts that greater within-alternative conflict (discrepancy among the attributes of an alternative) leads to more preference uncertainty. Our attribute extremity hypothesis predicts that greater attribute extremity (very high or low attribute values) leads to less preference uncertainty. To provide a deeper explanation of attribute conflict and extremity effects, we develop RandMAU, a family of additive (RandAUF) and multiplicative (RandMUF) random weights multiattribute utility models. In RandMAU models, preference uncertainty is represented as random variation in both the weighting parameters governing trade-offs among attributes and the curvature parameters governing single-attribute evaluations. Simulation results show that RandMUF successfully predicts both the attribute conflict and attribute extremity effects exhibited by the experimental participants in Fischer et al. (2000). It also predicts an outcome value effect on error whose form depends on the shape of single-attribute functions and on the type of multiattribute combination rule.

This paper examines how decision makers cope when faced with trade-offs between a higher quality alternative and a lower price alternative in situations where both alternatives involve relatively unfavorable versus relatively favorable values for quality. We hypothesize that choices between alternatives defined by unfavorable quality values will generate negative emotion, resulting in emotion-focused coping behavior. Choosing the higher quality alternative (i.e., maximizing the quality attribute in choice) appears to function as a coping mechanism in these situations. These apparently coping-motivated choice effects are found even after methods are implemented to control for more cognitive factors associated with manipulations of quality-attribute value, such as the possibility that unfavorable attribute values are associated with increased attribute ranges and therefore increased relative importance for quality. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

This research investigates preference uncertainty generated as a function of specific alternative characteristics during multiattribute evaluative judgments. We propose that preference uncertainty has at least two behavioral manifestations: longer judgment times and greater response error in expressed preferences. We investigate two hypotheses regarding stimulus-based causes of preference uncertainty. As predicted by our attribute conflict hypothesis, greater within-alternative conflict (discrepancy among the attributes of an evaluative alternative) led to longer judgment times and greater response error. As predicted by our attribute extremity hypothesis, greater attribute extremity (very high or low attribute values) resulted in shorter judgment times and less response error. We also found that judgment times and response errors were strongly positively correlated at the item level, consistent with our assumption that preference uncertainty generated by stimulus characteristics is manifested in judgment time and error. Finally, we found that the item-level preference uncertainty effects proposed here operate in parallel with strategy-level, effort-accuracy tradeoffs observable across participants. These findings are consistent with the RandMAU random multiattribute utility model developed in a companion article by Fischer et al. (2000).

Recent research indicates that attributes vary along multiple dimensions with implications for how trade-offs are resolved during choice. We present an exploratory study of the dimensionality underlying naive subjects' ratings of attributes on the characteristics commonly discussed in the literature on tradeoff resolution and decision difficulty. Factor analysis of attribute characteristic assessments indicates that subjects view decision attributes in a multi-dimensional fashion, including an importance/loss aversion dimension, an emotional potential/protection from tradeoffs dimension, and a cognitive difficulty dimension. These results suggest that a one-dimensional measure of attribute characteristics, such as a standard attribute importance rating, may obscure some factors determining individual responses to attributes during decision processing. However, the results also suggest that developing a relatively succinct set of scales in order to characterize the dimensions along with subjects response to attributes is a viable goal for future research.

In this article, the authors explore whether choice patterns are sensitive to the potential of relevant trade-offs to elicit negative emotion. Across three experiments, decision makers increasingly use a choice strategy that maximizes quality at the expense of some currency (usually price) when the quality attribute is rated as more inherently emotion-laden (Experiment 1) or involves losses rather than gains (Experiments 2 and 3). These emotional trade-off difficulty effects on choice are obtained even after controlling for effects that are attributable to subjects’ relative importance weights for the quality versus currency attributes. A fourth experiment validates that tasks requiring losses (versus gains) on quality attributes are assessed as particularly emotion-laden by naïve subjects. Overall, it appears that coping with potentially emotion-laden choice trade-offs is one factor influencing consumer choice strategies. Thus, emotional trade-off difficulty is a factor that marketers should consider when attempting to predict and explain consumer choice patterns. These conclusions are consistent with recent research that argues that avoiding or otherwise coping with negative emotion is an important goal that guides decision behavior (e.g., Larrick 1993; Luce, Bettman, and Payne 1997; Simonson 1992).

The influence of false-positive results on consumers' decisions to get retested in high-stakes domains is examined. Findings across four laboratory experiments indicate that a false-positive outcome increases perceptions of vulnerability and test inaccuracy, even holding constant test-error base rates. Increased perceived vulnerability appears to be directly related to the testing event, as the effects are not replicated by simply asking subjects to imagine having the malady. The findings also show that a false-positive result increases planned compliance if there are poor alternatives to testing or if the value of test-initiated treatment is high but does not affect compliance if good testing alternatives are available or the treatment value is low. Using a pooled analysis across multiple studies, the results of a false-positive outcome on compliance are shown to be partially mediated by changes in perceived vulnerability and test inaccuracy. Public-policy implications regarding individual decision behavior and professional test administration are discussed. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago.

This article addresses how consumers resolve decisions involving conflict between attributes linked to highly valued goals, such as an automobile purchase decision requiring determination of how much safety one is willing to sacrifice in order to obtain other benefits. One salient goal for these decisions may be coping with or minimizing the negative emotion generated during decision making. The conceptual framework developed in this article predicts that choosing avoidant options (e.g., the option to maintain the status quo) can satisfy coping goals by minimizing explicit confrontation of negative potential decision consequences and difficult trade-offs. Two experiments demonstrate that reported emotion can be altered by manipulating decision attributes, that the opportunity to choose an avoidant option mitigates levels of reported emotion, and that increasingly emotion-laden decision environments are associated with more choice of avoidant options. Mediation analyses indicate that actual choice of an avoidant option results in less retrospective negative emotion (in experiment 1) and that increased initial negative emotion results in increased choice of avoidant options (in experiment 2). Mediation analyses for experiment 2 also indicate that increased response times mediate avoidant choice, in contrast to explanations of the status quo bias and similar choice phenomena that appeal to decision makers' desires to minimize cognitive effort.

Consumer decision making has been a focal interest in consumer research, and consideration of current marketplace trends (e.g., technological change, an information explosion) indicates that this topic will continue to be critically important. We argue that consumer choice is inherently constructive. Due to limited processing capacity, consumers often do not have well-defined existing preferences, but construct them using a variety of strategies contingent on task demands. After describing constructive choice, consumer decision tasks, and decision strategies, we provide an integrative framework for understanding constructive choice, review evidence for constructive consumer choice in light of that framework, and identify knowledge gaps that suggest opportunities for additional research.

This paper explores how consideration of the medical context can add newelements to marketing thought. Differences between the medical context andother consumer contexts are reviewed. The effects that the medical contexthas on the way traditional constructs such as involvement, affect andstress, uncertainty and satisfaction affect choice are discussed. Finally,emerging research in medical contexts where future discoveries could enhanceconsumer choice theory are presented.

Decison-making dilemmas can arise because errors may result either from deciding too soon or from delaying decisions too long. Delay can result in lost opportunities or reductions in payoffs from the most accurate decision. This paper investigates decision processes in environments where there is time stress due to the opportunity cost of delaying decisions. First, using computer simulation, the relative accuracy of alternative decision strategies is examined in environments that differ in terms of the levels of opportunity cost of delay. The lexicographic choice rule is shown to be a very attractive decision process in situations where there is opportunity-cost time pressure. Two experiments test the adaptivity of actual decision behavior to the presence or absence of opportunity-cost time pressure along with variations in goals (accuracy emphasized vs. effort savings emphasized), dispersion in probabilities or weights across the outcomes of the choice options, and the degree of correlation among the outcomes. Subjects were generally adaptive to opportunity-cost time pressure. However, failures in adaptivity were identified when choice environment properties with conflicting implications for adaptation were present simultaneously. In particular, under opportunity-cost time pressure, subjects received a lower expected payoff when the goal was to emphasize choice accuracy than when the goal was to emphasize savings in effort. The question of when adaptivity in decision making might fail is discussed.

Objective To examine the relationship of external influence to parental distress when making a decision about research or treatment for a child with a life-threatening illness and to test potential moderators of this relationship. Methods Parents (n ¼ 219) who made a decision about research or treatment for a child completed measures of external influence, distress, decision-making preference, and coping. Results More external influence was associated with more hostility, uncertainty, and confusion. Decision-making preference and coping style moderated the relationship between external influence and distress: More external influence was associated with more distress when decision-making preference was low and task-focused coping was high. Conclusions External influence appears to be related to distress in parents making research and treatment decisions for children with life-threatening illnesses. However, it is important to consider parent characteristics, such as decision-making preference and coping style, when examining the effects of contextual factors on distress during decision making.

Background. The decision to participate in a research intervention or to undergo medical treatment should be both informed and voluntary. Objective. The aim of the present study was to develop an instrument to measure the perceived voluntariness of parents making decisions for their seriously ill children. Methods. A total of 219 parents completed questionnaires within 10 days of making such a decision at a large, urban tertiary care hospital for children. Parents were presented with an experimental form of the Decision Making Control Instrument (DMCI), a measure of the perception of voluntariness. Data obtained from the 28-item form were analyzed using a combination of both exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic techniques. Results. The 28 items were reduced to 9 items representing 3 oblique dimensions: Self-Control, Absence of Control, and Others’ Control. The hypothesis that the 3-factor covariance structure of our model was consistent with that of the data was supported. Internal consistency for the scale as a whole was high (0.83); internal consistency for the subscales ranged from 0.68 to 0.87. DMCI scores were associated with measures of affect, trust, and decision self-efficacy, supporting the construct validity of the new instrument. Conclusion. The DMCI is an important new tool that can be used to inform our understanding of the voluntariness of treatment and research decisions in medical settings.

We examined the degree to which individuals adapt their decision processes to the degree of interattribute correlation and conflict characterizing a decision problem. On the basis of an effort-accuracy framework for adaptive decision making, we predicted that the more negatively correlated the attribute structure, the more people will use strategies that process much of the relevant information and make trade-offs. A computer simulation study supported these predictions, and two experiments using process-tracing techniques to monitor information acquisition indicated that individuals did indeed respond to interattribute correlation by shifting their processing strategies in ways that are adaptive according to the effort-accuracy framework

We examine moderators of the impact of cognitive load on choice strategies and susceptibility to decision bias. In four studies, we investigate the conditions under which load increases the compromise effect. Overall, our research shows that the ultimate influence of load on bias is contingent on motivational factors that determine how choice processes would have progressed under conditions of no load. Our findings indicate that there is no de facto impact of load on bias. Instead, the biasing effects of reduced resources are confined to consumers who have sufficient motivation to resolve choice problems and avoid biased (e.g., based on preferences rather than compromise position) choice outcomes. The implications of our research for the reliance on load to study consumer choice and for the two-system view of consumer decision making are discussed.

Recent social psychological research demonstrates that certain types of mental simulation are particularly useful for helping individuals reach the future they envision (e.g., Taylor et al. 1998). More specifically, Taylor's recent research indicates that the most successful simulations focus on the process of reaching a goal rather than on the outcomes or attainment of the goal. This paper extends consideration of process- vs. outcome-focus thought to advertising. In studies manipulating the focus of subjects' thoughts while viewing a print advertisement, we find that a process-focus ad condition results in significantly higher behavioral intentions than an outcome-focus ad condition. Additional results demonstrate that the benefit of process-focus occurs when ad arguments are generally appropriate (e.g., strong and credible). However, in the case of inappropriate ad arguments, process-focused thought actually lowers behavioral intentions, compared to thoughts focusing on the end result or outcome of product usage. Thus, in addition to increasing the persuasive power of strong advertising claims, process-focused thinking appears to make individuals better, or more discerning, consumers who do not form behavioral intentions when it is inappropriate to do so. This basic phenomena appears to be robust across the specific form of ad arguments (specifically, whether arguments involve the process or outcome of product usage) and it appears to operate independently of motivational or elaboration processes.

International audience; La prise de décision du consommateur a suscité un intérêt majeur dans la recherche sur le consommateur, et les tendances du marché (changement technologique, explosion de l'information) impliquent que ce sujet continuera d'avoir une importance critique. Nous arguons que le choix du consommateur est en soi construit. En raison de capacités de traitement limitées, les consommateurs, souvent, n'ont pas de préférences existantes bien définies, mais les construisent en utilisant différentes stratégies dépendantes des nécessités liées à la fonction. Après avoir décrit le choix construit, les fonctions de décision du consommateur, et les stratégies de décision, nous proposons un modèle intégré pour comprendre le choix construit, puis passons en revue les preuves d'un choix construit du consommateur à la lumière de ce modèle, et identifions les lacunes de la connaissance qui suggèrent des recherches supplémentaires.

Publisher Summary Behavioral Decision Research (BDR) aims to elaborate the aspects of judgment and choice behavior along with a good understanding of psychology which helps in improving the decision making behavior of an individual. The field of behavioral decision research is vast and this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the subject. While forming ideas and beliefs about actions that are not certain, multiattribute preferences, taking calculated risks while making a final decision, as well as a structured decision making process, help integrate the discussion on BDR. Difficulties in decision making, aspects of rationality and decision making strategies based on multinominal logit model, and many other probabilistic choice models unravel the complicacies of the entire decision making process. The effect of emotions on decision making by making the problem more complex is also given importance in this chapter. In the field of BDR, understanding decision processing requires sophisticated tools and with the help of these, both cognitive and emotional influences on the decision making process can be analyzed. Better understanding of the decision making process of individuals has been greatly facilitated by recent advances in BDR.

We finalize this editorial as the new team of editors has been announced and our editorial term is winding down. First and foremost, we extend our sincere congratulations to Darren Dahl, Eileen Fischer, Gita Johar, and Vicki Morwitz. Below, we share our observations on the consumer research field. This is the last of a triptych of editorials authored by our team. The first described our desired compact with the field and was therefore forward looking. The second commented on integrity in the wider academic community. There, we took some time and space to reflect, but we were also addressing a specific set of concerns and events. In this final editorial, we provide reflections from the vantage point of having had the privilege to be stewards of JCR . These reflections result from our listening to the concerns of the consumer research community, as well as from our experiences while guiding JCR . They provide our sense of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for each one of us as consumer researchers. Our core approach, both in our editorship more broadly and in this final editorial, is to consider consumer research as an interconnected field. JCR has an integral role in the field of consumer research, and we have worked to guide the journal such that it will set a healthy direction forward. We agree that “there are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves” (Lyndon Johnson). We advocate working together, where the working group is defined as consumer research rather than by subarea, paradigmatic approach, or research niche. Our field is at an interesting historical point, arguably a crossroads. Many building blocks are in place, from Consumer Culture Theory, to Information Processing, to Behavioral Decision Theory, with robust paradigms, methods, and …

JCR Research Curations are virtual collections of recently published JCR articles selected to highlight an important …

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses that people use a variety of strategies to solve decision problems, and it depends on the properties of the choice task as to which strategies they use. Selecting a particular strategy, or deciding how to decide, results from a trade-off between desires for maximal accuracy and minimal effort. Finally, although the use of simplifying strategies can sometimes lead to errors, people often are adaptive in their use of choice strategies: if not always optimal, they are often intelligent decision makers. Studies also support a theme of much recent decision research that preferences for objects of any complexity are often constructed not merely revealed-in the generation of a response to a judgment or choice task. It suggests that cognitive effort and coping with emotions play a role in understanding how people construct responses to contingent valuation questions, which are increasingly being used to guide public policy decisions. Studies of decision behavior have been enriched by the concepts and methods of cognitive psychology. Ideas about the topics of contingent strategy selection, constructive preferences, and the effects of emotion on information processing during choice can enrich research in other areas of cognition.