The present research demonstrates that symbolic boundaries such as political borders act as psychological buffers. Across six experiments (N = 583) we demonstrate that consumers prefer to avoid crossing a town border to reach a store (experiments 1 and 2), even when no visual cues are provided...

Contagion is the belief that an entity’s invisible or essential qualities can be transferred to a target. Researchers studying contagion have often distinguished between physical contagion (the perceived transfer of germs, toxins, and pathogens) and spiritual contagion (the perceived transfer...