Others' choices that turn out badly often elicit schadenfreude; that is, feelings of malicious joy about the misfortunes of others. We examine the impact of experiencing schadenfreude when choosing between conventional and unconventional options. Results show that individuals are relatively more...

This research examines the influence of final trend, temporal proximity, and source similarity on consumers' overall retrospective evaluations of sequential mixed affective experiences comprised of positive, negative, and neutral affective responses. Findings from the first experiment indicate...

Can properties of emotions other than valence influence consumers' responses to emotional ads? We show that consumers' processing motivation moderates whether their attitudes are based on the valence of or the resource demands imposed by the emotion featured in an ad. When motivation is low,...

Magical thinking refers to irrational peculiar beliefs, including those that conform to the laws of contagion. We propose that touching an object that was previously touched by a high performer increases confidence via magical thinking (ability contagion) and improves actual performance among...

We document the existence of an inference strategy based on a no-pain, no-gain lay theory, showing that consumers infer pharmaceutical products to be more efficacious when they are associated with a detrimental side effect or attribute. Study 1 finds that consumers high in need for cognition...