EXPRESS: Beautiful and Confident: How Boosting Self-Perceived Attractiveness Reduces Preference Uncertainty in Context-Dependent Choices

Despite marketers' efforts to make consumers feel attractive in many sales and advertising contexts, little is known about how consumers' self-perceived physical attractiveness influences their decision-making. The authors examine whether a boost in consumers' self-perceived attractiveness influences subsequent choices in domains unrelated to beauty. Across six studies, the authors find converging evidence that a boost in consumers' self-perceived attractiveness enhances their general self-confidence and reduces preference uncertainty, resulting in less reliance on the choice context and thus fewer choices of compromise, all-average, and default options. Our findings further show that consumers use self-confidence as metacognitive information for inferring preference uncertainty in subsequent decisions. This process is a misattribution that can be attenuated when consumers attribute their self-confidence to the self-perceived attractiveness. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.

Preference uncertainty accounts for developmental effects on susceptibility to peer influence in adolescence

Adolescents are prone to social influence from peers, with implications for development, both adaptive and maladaptive. Here, using a computer-based paradigm, we replicate a cross-sectional effect of more susceptibility to peer influence in a large dataset of adolescents 14 to 24 years old. Crucially, we extend this finding by adopting a longitudinal perspective, showing that a within-person susceptibility to social influence decreases over a 1.5 year follow-up time period. Exploiting this longitudinal design, we show that susceptibility to social influences at baseline predicts an improvement in peer relations over the follow-up period. Using a Bayesian computational model, we demonstrate that in younger adolescents a greater tendency to adopt others’ preferences arises out of a higher uncertainty about their own preferences in the paradigmatic case of delay discounting (a phenomenon called ‘preference uncertainty’). This preference uncertainty decreases over time and, in turn, leads to a reduced susceptibility of one’s own behaviour to an influence from others. Neuro-developmentally, we show that a measure of myelination within medial prefrontal cortex, estimated at baseline, predicts a developmental decrease in preference uncertainty at follow-up. Thus, using computational and neural evidence, we reveal adaptive mechanisms underpinning susceptibility to social influence during adolescence.

Consumer appreciation of a shark-free eco-label for small pelagics

PurposeThe objective of this study is to assess if Italian fish consumers are sensible to shark protection and if they would contribute paying more for small pelagic fishes coming from fisheries that are certified as “shark-free”.Design/methodology/approachContingent valuation is used to estimate willingness to pay with a double approach, including a dichotomous choice and an open-ended question. Inconsistency between the two answers is allowed. This allows the correction of two sources of bias (i.e. preference uncertainty and anchoring effect) and has permitted that the two estimation methods converged to the same result.FindingsConsumers show interest for the “shark-free” label. Premium price is estimated at +26%. Variables affecting willingness to pay (WTP) in the sample are age, income, environmental attitude, knowledge of organic labels and frequency of small pelagics' consumption. Results need to be confirmed by a replication on a larger (probabilistic) sample and with a different distribution of bids.Originality/valueEcosystems provide different benefits to humankind, including non-use services, such as the satisfaction to know that a species is well conserved. Generally, appreciation is higher for what are considered charismatic species. In this paper, the authors investigate if sharks can be considered charismatic species despite their “bad reputation”. The interest in shark survival is measured indirectly using a “shark-free” label on a commercial species like anchovy, allowing to increase the value added of this low-price species.

Predicting responsiveness to information: consumer acceptance of biotechnology in animal products

We propose a novel framework using individual choice data and Bayesian updating to predict which consumers are most responsive to information—namely those consumers whose pre-information choices reveal a high level of uncertainty surrounding their preferences. We apply our method to the study of consumer acceptance of genetically modified animal products, which prior research has revealed is a particularly polarising subject. Utilising conditional willingness-to-pay estimates from mixed logit models, we find that individuals with higher preference uncertainty prior to receiving information are most responsive. Implications of our results are discussed in the context of recent breakthroughs in biotechnology.