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The purpose of this study is to propose that high categorization flexibility’s positive influence on hedonic or affect-laden choice is attenuated by conservation and nutrition mind-sets. Further, categorization flexibility can also promote utilitarian or cognitively superior preference and may have a role in steering customers toward healthier dietary choices.

Two experimental studies document that the pro-utilitarian impact of food categorization flexibility can be facilitated by priming conservation mind-set and nutrition mind-sets.

The results of this study show that conservation and nutrition mind-sets not only mitigate the earlier-demonstrated facilitative influence of food categorization flexibility on hedonic food preference, but also facilitate utilitarian food preference.

The current study provides the first evidence that food categorization flexibility can facilitate both hedonic and utilitarian preferences. The findings contribute to literature streams on categorization flexibility, resource-scarcity and hedonic versus utilitarian consumption. In addition, the findings offer specific prescriptions about encouraging customers to choose utilitarian and relatively more healthful food options, which in turn will improve the general welfare of the society.

Time pressure may change how people behave. The multiplicity of options and the nature of the products, hedonic or utilitarian, might increase the complexity of the choice and alter the effects of time pressure. Combining both factors, the purpose of this paper is to verify the moderating role played by the nature of the products observing the relationship between interaction (time pressure × multiplicity of options) and choice delay.

A two-level factorial experimental design was applied (time pressure: with; without) × 2 (number of alternatives: two; six) × 2 (type of purchase: hedonic; utilitarian), with mixed design, considering the purchase delay a dependent variable.

The results signal that the nature of the products moderates the effects of the interaction between time pressure and choice overload in purchase delay. Utilitarian purchases are more susceptible to the effects of time pressure and options overload than hedonic purchases.

The interaction between time pressure and choice overload, researched in previous works, influences in different ways the purchase of utilitarian or hedonic products. This differentiation, taking into consideration the type of product, brings new perspectives on the purchase decision process and provides theoretical and practical information on the effects of information overload and time pressure over the consumer decision-making process.

This study aims to analyse what type of premium, hedonic or utilitarian, is preferred in a promotional context. Additionally, it seeks to examine the role of affective and cognitive reactions in decision processes where utilitarian and hedonic premiums are involved.

Three experiments were conducted. A single factor within-subjects design was employed, with the nature of the premium (hedonic/utilitarian) as the treatment factor. Respondents were asked to make their choice between two promotional offers. Affective and cognitive reactions were measured. Regression analyses were conducted to test the hypothesized effects.

The results show that hedonic premiums are preferable to utilitarian ones in a promotional context, other characteristics of the premium (e.g. premium attractiveness) being equal. The findings also identify that a preference for the hedonic/utilitarian premium is more likely to emerge when affective/cognitive reactions are incited, and indicate that the nature of the preferred premium determines the mediating effect of cognitive reactions.

The paper only focuses on the hedonic/utilitarian nature of the premium. However, premiums come in very different forms and several characteristics – such as a premium with a relatively low price, the reception delay of the premium, and the perceived fit between the product and the premium – may reverse the relative preference for hedonic premiums.

The hedonic vs utilitarian nature of the premium should be considered when planning premium promotion. It appears that the use of more hedonic premiums increases the effectiveness of promotional actions alongside other variables such as premium attractiveness, the promotional benefit level or the product-premium fit. Furthermore, the type of premium offered influences the role of affective and cognitive reactions aroused during shopping. Thus, the nature of the premium may influence the reactions of consumers when participating in promotional actions.

The research extends the factors that may explain the effectiveness of premium promotions, since few studies to date have focused on the hedonic or utilitarian nature of premiums.

We examine how social exclusion and temporal distance (i.e. being socially excluded in the present or the anticipation of exclusion in the future) shape whether people choose hedonic or utilitarian products.

We conduct four experiments to test the hypotheses. Study 1a and study 1b provide the initial evidence that consumers strategically engage in differentiation in response to social exclusion in the present and in the future. Study 2 and study 3 replicate the basic interaction effect of social exclusion and temporal distance on product choices and test the underlying mechanism.

We find that temporal distance affects consumer product choices through people’s coping strategies. When consumers are socially excluded, they are more likely to have a problem-solving tendency and more likely to choose utilitarian products. In contrast, when consumers imagine being socially excluded in the future, they are more likely to have to use emotions to solve problems and choose hedonic products.

Our study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it deepens our understanding of the psychological drivers of social exclusion in consumer research. Second, it offers insights into understanding prior findings that document both problem-solving and emotion-regulating behavior in response to social exclusion. Third, by showing that social exclusion and temporal distance can influence the type of products selected, our findings contribute to a new stream of work that examines the impact of people’s fundamental desire for control on consumer behavior.

The purpose of this study is to explain how cognitive and emotional responses may influence decisions to purchase cause-related products.

An experimental design clarifies how autonomic reactions determine altruistic choices in a simulated shopping environment. Eye-tracking and electrodermal response measurements were set to predict choices of hedonic vs utilitarian cause-related vs unrelated products.

Emotional arousal, pleasure and attention to the cause-related bundle are associated with altruistic behaviour in hedonic choices. When facing utilitarian choices, customers focus on brand logo and donation amount while experiencing pleasure, but emotional arousal does not increase marketing effectiveness in this case.

The experiment may be replicated in the real-world shopping environment, but spurious influences will be difficult to control. Distracting cues such as background music and scents used to increase positive emotions may affect intensity of emotive and cognitive processes.

The results highlight the prominence of automatic reactions in customers’ choices. In the present instance, managers’ effort should be directed to the raising of altruistic visual cues of the donation-based promotion and positive emotional responses through guilt reducing effects.

The study pioneers the use of eye-tracking coupled with skin conductance measurement in experimental designs aimed at clarifying the role of autonomic reactions such as emotional arousal, pleasure and attention in the effectiveness of emotionally charged marketing campaigns.

This paper aims to examine the benefits of letting customers choose among compensation methods following a service failure. The author is also interested in the role of gender in influencing satisfaction with the compensation method and post‐recovery emotions.

A between‐subjects quasi‐experiment was conducted in addition to a series of pretests.

Findings from this study indicate that women are more satisfied with the compensation when given the opportunity to choose from alternatives than are men. Moreover, women seem to value the act of choosing more than their male counterparts. The findings further suggest that service operators and retailers might benefit from offering the customer a choice between hedonic and utilitarian compensation options as part of the service recovery process. Letting the customer choose his/her preferred recovery option enhances satisfaction with the chosen compensation method, thus somewhat mitigating the ill‐effects of service failures.

This research contributes to understanding of service recovery efforts both from a theoretical and practical standpoint.

This study aims to investigate the psychological process of intertemporal choices between larger-later and smaller-sooner monetary options. Prior research showed consumer impatience – a tendency to prefer a smaller-sooner option over a larger-later option. This research identifies an individual difference that predicts patience and mediators that explain the underlying mechanism.

Two studies are conducted. Study 1 examines whether the implicit theory of intelligence consumers endorse (i.e. entity theory vs incremental theory) constitutes an antecedent of patience and whether their thoughts regarding anticipated purchase with the chosen monetary option (i.e. hedonic versus utilitarian purchase) mediate the relationship. Study 2 analyzes whether psychological reactance toward larger-later options is a mediator in this relationship using a perceived threat to freedom and affect as reactance indicators.

Entity-oriented consumers exhibited less patience than incremental-oriented consumers, especially when anticipating a hedonic purchase. Moreover, entity-oriented consumers perceived a threat to freedom from larger-later options more strongly – this enhanced perception influenced patience through two routes. One route is that the perceived threat to freedom leads to more consideration of a hedonic purchase rather than a utilitarian purchase, thereby decreasing patience. The other route is that the perceived threat to freedom elicits a stronger negative affect, resulting in lower patience.

Findings of this research shed light on the understanding of patience. They demonstrate that consumers’ implicit theory orientation is a crucial individual difference that can explain patience. Also, demonstrating the mediating roles of anticipated purchase using the hedonic/utilitarian classification and psychological reactance expanded literature by showing how they internally interact.

Economic choice theory is built on utilitarian foundations. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether a foundation of virtue ethics might be more consistent with human nature.

The paper focuses on utilitarianism vs virtue ethics as foundations of economic choice theory.

Economic choice theory describes consumer choice in terms that are inconsistent with findings from recent research in behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, and psychology. The consumers' dynamic optimization problem, as outlined by traditional theory, is unsolvable in the sense that it contains too many unknowns. This means that the consumer must approach the problem in a different manner than is usually suggested by the literature. Moreover, new psychological theories of well‐being suggest that we can, to some extent, choose what we want to want and that true happiness is based on our character as much as it is based on our consumption of goods.

The idea that human choices may not be based on consistent preferences calls into question the policy suggestions of the literature on revealed preference and welfare economics. In particular, we cannot rely on past choices to draw inferences on people's preferences.

To maximize social welfare, society must value and promote the development of virtue and character.

The paper highlights some of the differences between utilitarian and the virtue ethics perspectives on choice.

Driven by functional theories of attitude and addressing the emerging themes of luxury brands and social media, the purpose of this paper is to explore the marketing potential of social media for luxury brand management.

A survey was conducted to prompt participants to explore Louis Vuitton's Facebook page and complete a questionnaire designed to measure their satisfaction with the luxury brand's Facebook page and various endogenous variables.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses uncovered dynamic relationships among consumers’ perceptions of value‐expressive and social‐adjustive functions of luxury brands, satisfaction with a luxury brand's (Louis Vuitton) Facebook page, attitudes toward the brand, intentions to utilize the brand's social media (Facebook and Twitter) for online shopping, and intentions to research online and purchase offline (ROPO).

This paper marks an exploratory step toward our understanding of the dynamic roles user‐generated content and social media play in the formation and maintenance of the emerging consumer‐brand‐consumer triad culture. Theoretical and managerial implications of this exploratory research are discussed.

This paper aims to introduce how sociological traditions can provide a complementary, conceptual lens needed to better understand a country’s orientation in its digital transformation policies. While historically sociology has been used to study technological effects, introducing a sociological lens that considers broader macro digital policies can better complement a country’s national innovation system framework by highlighting where forms of acceleration and inertia in digital diffusion may or may not occur.

To formulate this lens, iterative literature reviews were conducted and four major sociological traditions (i.e. Durkheim, Functional-Utilitarian, Marxist and Micro-interactionist) were identified and integrated into one structure. The integrated structure was then applied to the French case of Minitel as a sample application. The French Minitel was selected because it is well-known and due to one of the author’s familiarity with the French culture. The description was based upon secondary data.

Through the use and application of this lens, the findings reveal that understanding a country’s specific orientation within a sociological tradition can help academics and practitioners determine what accelerates or provides inertia in the diffusion of new digital technologies within a country’s sociological frame. For the French Minitel, two dominant views seem to exist in France, the Durkheim and the Functional-Utilitarian view, which both affected the country’s path dependency in continued investments in Minitel.

While policymakers are tasked with the development and implementation of digital transformation policies, a key consideration for both scholars and practitioners on digital policy and governance is to understand the broader macro ramifications of sociological frameworks on the evolving effects of digital transformation. While the authors provide a sample illustration, future research is needed to operationalize this lens and to apply it across various regions and countries in the development of new digital transformation policies.

As countries face considerable pressure to digitize their economies, policymakers require a better framework to advance the sociological aspects of digitization and its effects upon local institutions and actors in society. The paper provides a complementary lens that can better help them in this regard.

To date, policymakers and governments lack an integrated framework to understand the sociological effects of digital technologies and their diffusions along with their implications on societies such as on the framework of national innovation. The authors provide a sample integrated structure and sample application.