Consumers often make inferences to fill in gaps in knowledge when they do not have complete information regarding products. Eight experiments show that consumers often have contradictory naive theories about the implications of common market phenomena and that they draw different conclusions as...

The disrupt-then-reframe (DTR) influence technique involves confusing consumers with a disruptive message and then reducing ambiguity by reframing the message. Experiment 1 shows that the DTR technique increases retail sales in a supermarket setting. Experiment 2 shows that the DTR technique...