Pavlov’s Buzz? Mobile Vibrations as Conditioned Rewards

People spend a large portion of their day interacting with vibrating mobile devices, yet how we respond to the vibrotactile sensations emitted by these devices, and their effect on consumer decision-making is largely unknown. Integrating recent work on haptic sensory processing and classical conditioning, the current research examines: (1) the relationship between vibration duration and reward response, (2) to what extent rewarding vibrations modify consumer decision-making, and (3) the underlying mechanism of this effect. We find that mobile vibrations of intermediate length (400ms) evoke a reward response, particularly among younger and more impulsive consumers, which in turn boosts purchasing in ecological online shopping environments. We examine mobile vibration in a variety of experimental settings, drawing on a diverse participant pool, leveraging both controlled experiments and a large, country-wide field experiment to assess theoretically- and practically-important boundary conditions. We further examine the mechanism of this effect, providing direct evidence that vibrations influence consumers due to classical conditioning, such that vibrations become rewarding due to their learned association with positive mobile events. Our findings have important implications for the effective design of haptic interfaces in marketing and the role of mobile vibration stimuli as a novel form of reward.