We demonstrate that marketing actions such as pricing can alter the actual efficacy of products to which they are applied. These placebo effects stem from activation of expectancies about the efficacy of the product, a process that appears not to be conscious. In three experiments we show that...

Much research in consumer psychology has investigated how affective reactions unrelated to a decision at hand (i.e., incidental affect) influence consumers’ preconsumption preferences. Most of this research has approximated the incidental affect through its valence or induced action tendency...