Categorization is a core psychological process central to consumer and managerial decision-making. While a substantial amount of research has been conducted to examine individual categorization behaviors, relatively little is known about the group categorization process. In two experiments, we...

Contrary to predictions based on cognitive accessibility, heightened gender identity salience resulted in lower perceived vulnerability and reduced donation behavior to identity-specific risks (e.g., breast cancer). No such effect was manifest with identity-neutral risks. Establishing the...

The article reviews the conceptual foundations of advertising polysemy – the occurrence of different interpretations for the same advertising message. We discuss how disciplines as diverse as psychology, semiotics and literary theory have dealt with the issue of polysemy, and provide...

The article contributes to current understanding of language effects in advertising by uncovering a previously ignored mechanism shaping consumer response to an increasingly globalized marketplace. Extending recent psycholinguistic research on the emotions of bilinguals, a series of experiments...

Consumer embarrassment is an important concern for marketers. Yet, little is knownabout embarrassment in passive situations like advertising viewing. The authors investigate when and why consumers experience embarrassment as a result of exposure to socially sensitive advertisements. The theory...

Although the influence of identity on consumer behavior has been documented in many streams of literature, the absence of a consistent definition of identity and of generally accepted principles regarding the drivers of identity-based behavior complicates comparisons across these literatures. To...

Increasingly, some products do not merely automate some piece of our lives but act as autonomous agents. When these technologies are not yet perfected, what are their risks? Here we explore the case of AI companion apps. Although these apps are designed for companionship rather than therapy, we...