Social Marketing Plan based on wisdom literature review for increasing practical wisdom and behaviour change in POSITIVE COPING BEHAVIOUR.
To summarise the 5 journal articles provided on LMS. Then choose one COVID ‘practical wisdom’ example. E.g. the prime minister said in the press conference that all Australian’s need to download the COVID app.
So add in 3 COVID examples as I have (I’ve just done one for you).
So you just need to find 2 more examples.
Then the problem that you can try to solve is getting Australian’s to download the COVID app if you want. Then write the plan from this (all the other steps). Go to page 331 as well of your textbook as that chapter tells you how to write a social marketing plan.
Journal of Business Research
65 (2012) 1051–1059
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Business Research
A systematic self-observation study of consumers’ conceptions of practical wisdom in
everyday purchase events
David Glen Mick a,⁎, Stephen A. Spiller b, Anthony J. Baglioni a
a McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia, United States
b Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, United States
⁎ Corresponding author at: University of Virginia, M
Rouss & Robertson Halls, University of Virginia, Charlotte
Tel.: +1 434 924 3442.
E-mail address: dmick@virginia.edu (D.G. Mick).
0148-2963/$ – see front matter. Published by Elsevier
doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.02.033
a b s t r a c t
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 1 June 2010
Received in revised form 1 September 2010
Accepted 1 February 2011
Available online 5 March 2011
Keywords:
Introspection
Consumer choice
Systematic self-observation
Practical wisdom
This project introduces the method of Systematic Self-Observation (SSO) to business researchers, compares it
to other modes of introspection, and illustrates its application in a study of consumers’ conceptions of their
practical wisdom (or lack thereof) during ongoing purchase events. Qualitative data analysis is combined with
hierarchical linear modeling analyses. Results are discussed in terms of how this application extends the SSO
method as well as consumer behavior and wisdom theories. Discussion also addresses opportunities for future
use of SSO.
cIntire School of Commerce,
sville, VA 22904, United States.
Inc.
Published by Elsevier Inc.
1. Introduction
Introspection is the process of looking inward – as an act of self-
examination – to attend consciously to one’s current mental state.
Despite evidence of its value in the humanities and social sciences
(e.g., Boring, 1953; Hixon and Swann, 1993; Macdonald, 1996),
introspection has been used sparingly in marketing and consumer
research on a formal basis (on an informal basis, many researchers
draw from their own lives and self-insights to formulate hypotheses
and explanations). The development of introspection for the benefit of
extending knowledge will depend in part on learning about and
appreciating the application of various introspection approaches. One
of those not seen before in marketing research, and which offers
certain advantages, is Systematic Self-Observation (SSO). In this paper
we describe SSO and compare it to other modes of introspection. We
then illustrate its application in a study that explores how consumers
conceive of what it means to be wise or unwise in their ongoing
purchases. We discuss the results in terms of advancing applications
of the SSO method (e.g., via hierarchical linear analyses) and
discovering new insights on consumer choice and wisdom. Discussion
focuses also on opportunities for future use of SSO.
2. The nature, design, and conduct of systematic self-observation
Systematic Self-Observation developed from a mission to discover,
describe, and comprehend the patterns and experiences of ordinary
life (Rodriguez and Ryave, 2002). It is founded upon major theorists in
sociology and psychology, such as Goffman (1967), Garfinkel (1967),
and Jung (1961), who come from the paradigms of symbolic
interactionism, semiotics, conversation analysis, and analytic psy-
chology, among others. SSO involves multiple informants who are
trained by the investigators to notice and record selected aspects of
their daily experiences. Informants complete a timely field report of
their observations, including details of actions, communications, and
situational settings. Typically, each informant provides several
written narratives on the topic for a given study.
Since everyday life is complex, contextualized, and dynamic, the
choice of SSO topic is important so that the best theoretical and
substantive insights can be realized. SSO is especially appropriate for
concealed or subtle topics such as motives/goals, feelings, and
cognitive processes that accompany human activities. Examples in
the past have included telling secrets, withholding compliments, and
engaging in social comparisons that generate envy. Rodriguez and
Ryave (2002) outline six criteria for choosing an apt SSO topic. It
should be (1) natural to the culture under investigation; (2) singular
and specific (rather than a vague topic, such as “moments of social
intimacy,” it should be more focused, such as “admitting to someone
you are afraid”); (3) noticeable (with training) by informants;
(4) intermittent (occurring neither extremely often nor rarely);
(5) bounded (has a distinct beginning and end); and (6) of short
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.02.033
mailto:dmick@virginia.edu
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.02.033
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01482963
1052 D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
duration (not instantaneous and not lengthy so that the full course of
the event and experience can be observed and reported).
SSO research usually involves a sizeable and varied sample of in-
formants, leading to tens, if not hundreds of reports. Past SSO research
in sociology has regularly relied on college students as informants.
Rodriguez and Ryave (2002) endorse that practice by noting that these
students are adept at SSO because they are literate, cooperative, and
keen observers. In the pre-study training sessions, informants are
guided on how to be mindful to noticing the research topic as it occurs
in their lives, and they are usually shown instances of prior reports to
encourage honesty, accuracy, and detail in generating their own
reports. If feasible, informants are expected to carry a pencil and paper
with them (or a tape recorder or portable computer) to record their
entries immediately, or as soon as possible after the selected phe-
nomenon has occurred.
3. Comparison of SSO to other introspection approaches
To highlight the distinctiveness of SSO and how we extend its
usefulness, we compare it first to two other types of introspection
techniques that could potentially deal with the same issues that we
are addressing. First, there is the traditional type of introspection
known as Self Introspection in which a lone individual intensively
focuses on his or her personal psychological processes or content. Self
Introspection has produced a limited but insightful set of applications
in marketing research (Gould, 1991; Hirschman, 1992; Holbrook,
1995; Levy, 1996; Mick, 1997), drawing attention to consumption
behaviors that have remained unexplored or insufficiently elaborated,
such as hygiene rituals and dependencies on products. Secondly, there
is Interactive Introspection. As the name suggests, this form is
designed so that the investigator and one or more informants each
engage in private introspections about a selected topic, and then share
their insights in subsequent meetings. Ellis (1991) details her findings
from applying Interactive Introspection to the lived experience of
emotion complexities, strategies, and control. An important com-
monality across SSO, Self Introspection, and Interactive Introspection
is that each is invoked by the individual to gain insights about a
specific phenomenon as that phenomenon arises in daily life.
Table 1 juxtaposes these three forms of introspection along six
dimensions. As indicated, the disciplinary bases are shared but varied
across the three forms, with SSO combining sociological and psy-
chological foundations. The objective of the three different types of
introspection is approximately the same, that is, the description of
emerging experiences in day-to-day life. The sample sizes of
researchers/informants and their respective narrative records in-
crease, respectively, from one person in Self Introspection, who is both
researcher and informant (producing one or a few narratives), to a
modest amount in Interactive Introspection (1–5 pairs of researchers
and informants, producing 2–50 joint narratives) and to a large
degree in SSO (10–200+ informants, producing 50–500+ narratives).
The form of data that is shared across the techniques is narrative
stories, and all can include field notes as well, though it is perhaps
Table 1
Self Introspection Interac
Disciplinary Origins Philosophy, Theology, Psychology Sociolo
Objective Describe emergent experience Describ
Data Personal Narratives Person
conver
Common Sample Sizes 1 researcher–informant, 1–5 narratives 1 resea
2–50 j
Data Analysis Interpretive/hermeneutic Interpr
Triangulation Minimal, across narratives only Moder
across
a The use of bivariate and multivariate statistics for SSO is introduced in the present arti
most prominent in SSO. Interactive Introspection also uniquely
involves face-to-face interviews between the researcher(s) and
informant(s) after personal introspections, to take preliminary
insights to new depths via mutual curiosity and empathy. Due to its
multiple narratives, SSO can more readily involve standard content
analyses of the introspection records, using categories from prior
literature or generated from an initial reading of a sample of the
narratives. This content analysis can open up opportunities to explore
the extent of, and inter-relationships among, component aspects of
the narratives.
As for data analysis, all three are based on an interpretive/
hermeneutic approach that proceeds through repeated readings of the
narratives, with each successive reading refining prior impressions and
each reading relating parts of narratives to wholes, while also drawing
comparisons and contrasts across narratives. Of the three forms, SSO
occasionally uses its larger samples to employ quantitative analyses
through its content analysis – mostly univariate statistics in the past –
pertaining to percentages of thoughts, feelings, interpersonal interac-
tions, social and psychological strategies, and other occurrences. Due to
thenature of thedata and analyses in eachform,triangulation ofinsights
increases from Self Introspection to Interactive Introspection to SSO. In
our study we augment the use of SSO by including a series of open-
ended prompts and structured scales on the data collection instrument
so that informants can provide a wider variety of insights about their
experiences; in the past, SSO has involved few prompts for recording
experiences and no numerical scales. We also extend the typical
analyses of SSO data by triangulating and synthesizing the interpretive–
hermeneutic analyses with bi-variate and multivariate analyses through
hierarchical linear modeling. Together these efforts lead to some
provisional theoretical advances on practical wisdom in consumer
choice.
In general, the data obtained from SSO allows the researcher to move
beyond singular or small-number introspections that may be quite
intriguing, but potentially non-representative or non-transferable, or
that may be qualified by other factors or conditions that can be coded
in the records. An advantage of SSO is the opportunity to develop
statistical summaries across multiple relevant introspections and
to pursue more sophisticated statistical analyses that build or test
theories for conceptual generalization about the phenomenon under
investigation.
We should also note that there are other valuable forms of in-
trospection besides the three mentioned above, though some are less
amenable to the research we sought to conduct. One, for example, is
Descriptive Experience Sampling (Hurlburt and Akhter, 2006) in
which the informant wears a beeper that is randomly activated by the
researchers. As the beeper is sounded, the informant immediately
writes down his or her inner experiences, which can include any
thoughts, feelings, sensations, tastes, and so on. The randomness of
this approach has benefits for collecting immediate and less-edited
introspections, but it prevents a focus on a pre-determined topic that
emerges irregularly in daily life, such as making compliments or a
product choice.
tive Introspection Systematic Self-Observation
gy Sociology, Psychology
e emergent experience Describe emergent experience
al narratives, interviews/
sations, joint narratives
Personal narratives, fieldnotes, content
analysis categories
rcher, 1–10 informants,
oint narratives
10–200+informants, 50–500+ narratives
etive/hermeneutic Interpretive/hermeneutic, univariate statistics,
bivariate and multivariate statisticsa
ate, across narratives and
researcher and informants
Considerable, across narratives and informants,
and across qualitative and quantitative data
cle, in the form of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM).
1053D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
4. Applying SSO to understanding consumers’ perspectives on
practical wisdom
4.1. Conceptual overview and project purpose
As Wilson and Schooler (1991) noted several years ago, there
continues today to be little scholarship on the nature and role of
conscientious forethought in decision making. Accordingly, through
our study using SSO we sought to gather descriptions and under-
standings of how consumers conceive of, strive for, and occasionally
experience practical wisdom in their purchase decisions.
Wisdom is an ancient and diverse topic (Assmann, 1994). An
important distinction is drawn between speculative versus practical
wisdom in everyday life. According to Aristotle, practical wisdom
means doing what is right, at the right time, in the right manner, and
for the right purposes (Mick and Schwartz, forthcoming). From an
Aristotelian base, Fowers (2003, p. 415) defines practical wisdom as
“the capacity to recognize the essentials of what we encounter and to
respond well and fittingly to those circumstances.” He delineates
several key dimensions of practical wisdom. Among them is its strong
intentional quality. Fowers (2003, p. 418) writes that “Our reading of a
circumstance is largely constituted by our intentions….Against the
backdrop of our ends, we see the details of our situation with greater
clarity and insight, being able to recognize better the salience of both
particular features as well as the overall import of the present state of
affairs.”
Also, since the most fitting response is not always obvious, prac-
tical wisdom often involves deliberation and self-reflection. A sig-
nificant important goal of deliberation, Fowers explains, is to assess
alternatives and our preferred courses of action according to our
overall aims, while striving to harmonize our varied ends. And it is
through earnest self-reflection that we evaluate the extent to which
we are acting for the best reasons. Practical wisdom is akin to Brown’s
(2005) notion of “common behavioral” wisdom, which he describes as
including the management of one’s financial resources. This would
include saving and spending, the use of credit and debt, the role of
price and quality in purchase decisions, and so forth.
The two most notable streams of wisdom research in the social
sciences have been led by Robert Sternberg and the late Paul Baltes.
Both have associated wisdom with certain types of knowledge and
the application of knowledge for well-being or the common
good. Baltes and his colleagues have mainly studied wisdom as an
existential expertise that is distinguished from other human
strengths because it coordinates intellectual, affective, and motiva-
tional aspects of human functioning; thus, wisdom is an orchestra-
tion of mind and character (Baltes and Staudinger, 2000). For
Sternberg, wisdom is a process of balancing the needs and interests
of one’s self, of others’, and of one’s surroundings, spanning both
short- and long-term horizons (Sternberg, 2003). Hence, the
breadth of factors considered and the time spans contemplated are
among the significant issues in Sternberg’s paradigm of wisdom.
Sternberg and others (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1995) have also argued
that what is considered wise or not is often relative to a given
domain of life. For the purposes of our project, this includes when
and how practical wisdom might be manifested in consumer
purchase events.
Up to the present there have been no pointed studies on practical
wisdom in consumer behavior. The beginning stages for fruitful
wisdom research in a given life domain should involve what Sternberg
(2003) and Baltes and Smith (2008) call an implicit–theoretical
approach. It collects and analyzes people’s folk conceptions of wisdom
to build insights from the ground up, and to assess the overlap among
those conceptions and with prior discourses on the subject. This
approach dovetails synergistically with Systematic Self-Observation.
Thereby, we wedded the implicit–theoretical approach and SSO to
probe consumer practical wisdom.
4.2. Method
4.2.1. Participants
Forty-eight undergraduate students at a public university made
SSO records on self-selected consumer behaviors over the course of a
semester in partial fulfillment of requirements in their marketing
research course. These young adults, aged 18 to 24, are a reasonable
sample for this study insofar as they fit the sample profile of many
past SSO studies (as noted earlier) and they are capable of acting
wisely (i.e., as Sternberg, 2003, argues, wisdom is not restricted to late
life-stages). In terms of the relevance of purchase wisdom in their
lives, these students have consumer needs, wish lists, and budgets
that must be monitored and managed, as they occasionally spend on
electronic equipment, clothing, and leisure, among other things. Many
also carry with them laptop computers, to facilitate the timely entry of
SSO records.
All 48 participants completed and submitted four SSO records.
Originally we hoped to learn about purchases as well as non-purchase
events, but the informants focused heavily on buying episodes (e.g., a
new dress for a formal event), which may be a natural bias when
people are asked to report generally on any aspect of consumer
behavior. Since the number of non-choice events was comparatively
small and heterogeneous (26 entries), we focused on analyzing the
purchase data (166 entries).
4.2.2. Procedure
Participants attended an introductory meeting for an anonymous
study on wise and unwise consumer behaviors. They were told that
they would be tracking and reporting their behaviors, thoughts, and
feelings pertaining to the topic. In concert with the implicit–
theoretical approach adopted, participants were given only a short,
unadorned definition of wisdom. They were told:
Wisdom is most basically defined as “the capacity of judging
rightly in matters relating to life and conduct: soundness of
judgment in the choice of means and ends” (Oxford English
Dictionary). Thereby, in our study we are not so much interested
in consumer behaviors that are necessarily or merely successful,
smart, or impressive, but rather, we really want mostly to know of
your consumer behaviors that you believe are wise or unwise
from your own subjective viewpoint.
Each SSO entry was required to focus on a different consumer
behavior event. Following Rodriguez and Ryave (2002), participants
were first trained on the SSO record form, which included showing a
hypothetical case and then engaging a free-roaming discussion about
additional meanings of wisdom. The researcher emphasized that
there were no right or wrong perspectives. Immediately following,
participants were encouraged further toward accuracy and refine-
ment in their forthcoming SSO entries by completing a short
questionnaire in which they rated their implementation intentions
and their commitment to the study, and described how they would
remember to complete the SSO forms in a timely and thorough
manner (cf. Wood et al., 2002). Once the study began, participants
submitted the SSO forms electronically to a research assistant who
recorded submissions and then deleted names and any other
identifying information.
4.2.2.1. SSO records and measures. The initial items in the SSO form
asked participants to mark the date, their gender, and which of the
required submissions the current one was (1st through 4th). The
participants then typed in their description of the event, using a
sequence of prompts. These were: (a) what is the specific consumer
behavior you are reporting on?; (b) describe the situation or occasion
that led to and surrounded this wise or unwise consumer behavior;
1054 D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
(c) where did this consumer behavior occur?; (d) who was involved?;
(e) describe what actually happened, including (as relevant) your
goals, your prior knowledge and experience with this type of
consumer behavior, the steps you went through, and your specific
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; (f) was there specific dialogue
involved that can be reported?; and (g) from your viewpoint, what
was wise or unwise about your role, thoughts, actions, etc. in this
consumer behavior? This last prompt was intended to ensure that we
were capturing informants’ implicit–theoretical conceptualizations of
practical wisdom.
Next, participants completed several scales. They indicated how
frequently they engaged in the specific consumer behavior (less than
once per year, 2–6 times per year, 7–12 times per year, more than
once per month [2–4 times per month], more than once per week, and
just about every day). Next they reported on 11-point semantic
differential scales (a) how important the specific consumer behavior
was to them (anchored by Not Important/Extremely Important),
(b) how difficult the consumer behavior was for them (anchored by
Very Easy/Very Difficult), and (c) how unwise or wise they were in the
specific consumer behavior (anchored by Very Unwise/Very Wise).
This latter scale was also part of our implicit–theoretical/SSO
approach insofar as the participants were subjectively indicating
how wise they thought they had acted in the described episode.
4.2.2.2. Data analyses and related propositions. The SSO narratives and
their assorted details in the 166 entries were reviewed several times
in the spirit of qualitative analysis that followed the path of prior
interpretive–hermeneutical research in consumer behavior (e.g.,
Thompson et al., 1989). We searched for storylines with rich
descriptions that harbored noteworthy insights about practical
purchase wisdom, marking recurrent themes and supportive details.
In addition, the first two authors created a guide book for content
analyzing the storylines based either on the wisdom literature or the
initial qualitative analysis of the SSO records. The first two codes were
straightforward: the type of product or service being bought (e.g.,
electronics, clothing, food, and automotive) and the purchase channel
used (e.g., in-store, Internet, telephone, and catalog). Whether either
aspect would impact intuitive ratings of purchase wisdom was
uncertain. Prior consumer research and logic suggest that some
product types (e.g., food) and purchase channels (e.g., in-store) might
involve quicker or more visceral choices, leading to a perception of
less practical wisdom (see, e.g., Rook, 1987). Alternatively, since
wisdom is conceived in the literature as a transcendent virtue via a
reflective process that can be potentially invoked in any given context
of human judgment, practical wisdom may not be systematically
related to any particular product type or purchase channel.
The next codes cohered in four different subsets of factors: mo-
tivational, processual, situational, and buying outcomes (see Appendix
A for details). Motivational factors are the need- or desire-forces
involved in the purchase event. In this study these factors were assessed
through (a) the presence (or absence) of definitive purchase intent
(based on Aristotle’s emphasis on the intentional quality of practical
wisdom; Fowers, 2003) and (b) the degree of external information
search (which is an indication of deliberation and a commonly
examined factor in buying behavior that indexes effort to gain pertinent
knowledge; Guo, 2001). Based on Aristotle, strong intent and higher
levels of external information search should elevate the sense of
practical wisdom in consumer purchases.
Processual factors are components of human psychology theorized
as central contributors to the evocation of wisdom. In this investiga-
tion these factors were measured as the presence (or absence) of:
(a) taking a wide perspective (i.e., considering many different issues
in a self-reflective manner as per Fowers, 2003 and Sternberg, 2003);
(b) integrating values, goals, and behavior (based on Baltes’
paradigm); and (c) considering both short- and long-term goals and
consequences (from Sternberg’s paradigm). It is straightforward to
propose that as each of these factors appears as a psychological force
in consumer purchase stories, the consumer’s sense of being
practically wise should increase.
Situational factors are social, environmental, or life-context
elements surrounding the purchase event. In this study these were
marked as the presence (or absence) of: (a) direct buying assistance
through word-of-mouth (WOM) advice from relatives or friends and
(b) time constraints. In general, it would be reasonable to propose
that WOM assistance should increase a sense of purchase wisdom (to
buy or not buy) due to the vividness and credibility of WOM on an
interpersonal basis (see, e.g., Grewal et al., 2003). Alternatively,
elevated time constraints should cause stress and offer less opportu-
nity for deliberation (Mick et al., 2004), which in turn should lead to
the consumer perceiving less purchase wisdom.
Buying outcomes, as the phrase suggests, covers a wide range of
factors, including the socio-psychological and economic conse-
quences of the purchase event. Based on first readings of the SSO
stories, the buying outcomes in this study were assessed in terms of
(a) whether or not the consumer got carried away and seemed to have
bought more than initially intended and (b) whether or not the
consumer spent less than s/he expected to. Overall, we anticipated
that buying more than intended may decrease a sense of purchase
wisdom, perhaps due to guilt or self-reproach (see, e.g., Kottler et al.,
2004), and spending less than expected should increase perceived
practical wisdom because the buyer will feel that s/he was skillful and
responsible for this outcome (cf. Schindler, 1998).
The codebook was pre-tested and edited to improve its clarity and
accuracy of application. Then the second author and an independent
rater separately read and coded the SSO entries. Overall, the raters’
agreed on 84% of their codings, with the range of agreements being
70% to 98%. Disagreements were resolved through discussion.
The rating scale that informants completed after each narrative to
reveal their implicit–theoretical conception of purchase wisdom was
analyzed quantitatively asa functionof thecoded SSO data (as described
above) and the other scaled data using hierarchical linear modeling
(HLM, Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002). HLM has had limited use in the
marketing and consumer research field, and, to our knowledge, none in
SSO studies or wisdom research. HLM is particularly suited to data such
as ours, where the SSO records are nested within participants. That is,
the span of 166 individual narratives on purchasing cannot be treated as
independent of each other since groups of three or four came from the
same informant. Moreover, each narrative record and its codings relate
to a different consumer behavior episode putatively associated with a
relatively wise or unwise buying event. In best capturing the inherent
structure of these data, HLM increases statistical power in the context of
having just 48 participants, and it serves to control for extraneous
individual factors. The HLM analyses particularly permit an assessment
of the statistical significance of each independent variable, and a
qualitative comparison of their relative magnitudes for explaining
variation in the implicit–theoretical ratings of purchase wisdom.
5. Results
Practical wisdom in purchase activities may not seem like a topic
that people can readily grasp or report on—perhaps too ethereal for
SSO. Yet, our informants were often able to convey contemplative and
revelatory insights. For instance, as one informant opined while
recording a SSO episode, “Sometimes I cannot tell the wiseness or
unwiseness of a decision until just after I buy.” Another example of
discernment came from nuances in informants’ realizations that
neither being satisfied nor finding good value in a purchased item is a
sufficient condition for being a wise consumer. Wise purchases
involve knowing that the item fulfills intent and appropriateness,
including the awareness and control of expectations and desires, and
the infusion of values and goals. Alternatively, unwise purchases often
1055D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
violate such qualities. For example, an informant bought a computer,
and had this to say about the separation of wisdom from happiness:
Spending $2000 on a brand new one was an unwise consumer
behavior action. I did not meet the original goals I set when I
started the process of buying a computer. I just had trouble
resisting the top of the line technology and I wanted to buy my
computer on the spot. This made for an expensive computer and
one that did not necessarily meet the expectations I set out to buy.
I guess I was just very impatient and wanted the best thing
available. It was especially unwise because this was such a large
computer purchase and I should have taken more time and effort
to get exactly what I wanted. However, ignoring the cost, I still
think I’m going to be happy with my decision, even though it was
particularly unwise. I just don’t think it was worth the cost.
On the whole, our informants readily reported reflective, intuitive,
and ethical dimensions of practical wisdom that supersede conven-
tional criteria for pleasing or shrewd consumer choices and reveal that
people are capable of providing penetrating experiential insights on
issues that are less concrete than those typically examined in prior
SSO applications.
5.1. Descriptive statistics
The frequencies with which the diarists engaged in the sort of
purchase event they were describing indicated that 44.8% occur less
than once per year, whereas nearly 25% occur several times per month.
Hence, some types of purchase events reported were quite frequent,
whereas others were less so. It is worth noting that even though some
purchases represented specific types that were comparatively less
frequent, if not infrequent (e.g., buying a car, computer, or electronic
music device), these purchases were not unusual and, taken together,
they occur regularly and relatively memorably across daily life.
The means and standard deviations (11-point scales) for the rated
importance, difficulty, and wisdom of the purchase were, respectively,
M=7.2 (s.d.=2.61), M=5.1 (s.d.=2.87), and M=6.49 (s.d.=3.48).
A variety of product classes were involved in the reported purchases,
with the highest being clothing (21.7%), and then food (18.1%),
electronics (15.7%), automotive (10.2%), and a miscellaneous category
(20.5%, e.g., art, sports equipment, and home accessories).
Bivariate HLM analyses revealed that informants’ wisdom ratings
were not related to the sequence of diary records (1st through 4th), the
diarist’s gender, how recently the choice occurred, how frequently the
reported type of choice occurs, how difficult the choice was, the product
class involved, or the purchase channel used (all F’sb1.1, p’sN.30). These
initial results suggest that practical purchase wisdom does not
systematically inhere in the familiarity, difficulty, product type, or
purchase channel being dealt with; rather, as prior wisdom theorists
have implied, practical wisdom is more likely to be about the individual
and his or her process in a particular purchase event, i.e., it transcends
many common and varied aspects of purchase events. Complementing
this interpretation, the wisdom ratings were positively associated with
the importance the person attached to the purchase (F=13.9, pb .001).
This latter finding mirrors prior literature showing that higher
consumer involvement – a combination of personal interest and
relevance – tends to stimulate information processing that is more
thorough and elaborate (Celsi and Olson, 1988).
5.2. Motivational forces
The role of motivations permeated the SSO episodes on practical
wisdom. For purchases deemed moderately to highly wise, conscious
intent and acute deliberation via information search were widely
evident, reinforcing two Aristotelian factors summarized by Fowers
(2003). In one relevant case, a male informant bought a $150 MP3
player:
I wanted one with a little more storage because then it could hold
most of my music and I would not have to change the songs as
frequently. I started out doing some research online about various
brands and their prices. I discovered that the prices ranged from
$100–$250. I was only willing to spend around $150….I started
my search at Circuit City…then I checked Wal-Mart…My search
continued at Target … and I concluded my search at Best Buy,
which had a much larger selection….The SanDisk one-gig player
was on sale for $200 and had a $30 mail-in rebate…It had the
most storage for the price and I used a Best Buy gift card that
reduced the price by another $25. This lowered the total to around
my price range….I felt it was wise to purchase at Best Buy because
of the lower price and because I could use the gift card. Best Buy
also offered a two-year warranty and 30-day return policy, which
made me feel better about my decision.
Similar SSO wisdom stories of strong intention and thorough
search behavior involved the purchase of cameras, clothing, artwork,
and a case for a laptop computer, among others.
To check for quantitative convergence with these representative
qualitative data, we conducted an HLM analysis across the full sample
with the two motivational factors coded in the SSO data as si-
multaneous predictors of the informants’ implicit–theoretical wisdom
ratings. Both factors were positively and significantly related to those
ratings: prior intent (b=3.29, t=4.5, pb .001) and amount of external
information search (b=1.0, t=2.7, pb .007). Hence, the qualitative
and quantitative analyses of two motivational forces were largely in
agreement. But more than this, the coefficients in the HLM suggested
that conscious intention may be the larger of these two drivers of
wiser purchases. The instantiation of purchase intent elevated
wisdom ratings by over three scale points, whereas a change from
the lowest to the highest level of external information search in these
data raised wisdom ratings by two scale points.
5.3. Processual insights
Many informants wrote SSO reports reflecting implicit–theoretical
views of purchase wisdom that revealed important processual factors
in wisdom that prior psychologists had pointed to. For instance, taking
a wide perspective, with consideration of several factors in a decision,
was recurrent in purchases deemed especially wise. One Asian female
informant was looking to buy a new dress for her boyfriend’s
graduation dinner. She was frustrated that the local shops did not
have the style of dress she needed. She was nervous that if she did not
find something soon, she might have to attend the dinner with a dress
from the prior year, which could be a serious embarrassment. She
curbed the aggravation and her anxiety, however, and thought ahead
to spring break when she would be visiting Los Angeles, where many
styles and the latest fashions are available. As she reported:
The Hong Kong Student Association’s graduation dinner is held
every year and since the HK people circle is pretty small, I wanted
to get a new/different dress each year just in case people notice
you have the same one for every year…. I’ve been looking for a
good dress for a long time; however, this kind of shop is limited in
our college town. So I wanted to see if I could get a dress during
spring break…. Since my body proportion is different from the
majority of people (short torso, long legs, broader shoulders), I
wanted to get a tube one instead of one with strips. There aren’t
many shops selling dresses in our town, and even if there are, they
don’t usually have this specific design I want…. Therefore, I
decided to get a dress during the LA trip….We went to Nordstrom
department store and they happened to have the design I like:
1056 D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
tube with some beads in the middle. I tried it on and it fit
perfectly, but it cost more than $300….I bought the dress after
thinking about all the possible consequences….It was a wise
decision because considering I’ve been looking for a dress the
whole semester, it’s really hard to find one that fits me well and
that I like. I don’t have to worry about getting the dress anymore.
This informant considered and fulfilled several varied aspects of
her needs (to avoid embarrassment in wearing a current dress again;
her physical shape and requirements; and her situation in a town with
few dress shops), and she was willing and able to plan ahead
accordingly for a wiser choice.
Informants who reported wiser decisions also told SSO stories in
which their values and goals were consulted, and then connected to
their behavior. These included acts of buying as well as resistance to
buying. In the latter case, a female informant told of withholding a
purchase of a skirt.
While I was on spring break with some friends I noticed someone
wearing a skirt that I really liked. I decided that I wanted to look into
purchasing it; however, I quickly found out that the local mall does
not carry that particular Abercrombie and Fitch (A&F) skirt.
Therefore, this led me to looking for the skirt on the Internet on
their website….I quickly found the skirt online and also saw that it
was $98….I did not really want to spend $98 on a skirt. However, I
really like the skirt and was disappointed that it cost so much. I
believe that I would have given the purchase a lot more thought if I
could have actually seen the skirt and tried it on at the store. There
were other reasons why I didn’t want to purchase it over the
Internet. When you make clothing purchases over the Internet, you
can’t try the clothes on ahead of time. I know I am picky about my
clothes and there would be a good chance that I would not be happy
with the way the skirt fits. Then I’d have to send the skirt back and I
would to have to incur all those shipping costs. These risks and the
high price for the skirt made me decide against purchasing it. From
my viewpoint, this was a very wise decision.
This informant felt a socially-induced impulse to indulge herself
with an expensive new skirt. When she could not find it at a nearby
mall, and when she learned the skirt’s price online, she was doubly let
down. She viewed the skirt’s price and the practice of buying clothes
over the Internet as too precarious in light of how she is exacting about
spending money for new clothes. Hence, this informant did not allow a
vacation-evoked desire for a specific skirt distract her from consider-
ing and applying her values and goals. SSO stories with similar frames
were told about buying a laptop computer, replenishing a wardrobe,
and canceling a Blockbuster movie pass, among others.
Another clothing example shows an additional processual factor at
work, namely the influence of taking both short-term and long-term
perspectives for a wiser decision.
Once the weather got nice, I looked in my closet and realized that I
have plenty of spring dresses, but I don’t have very many spring
skirts….So I decided to go out and buy some spring skirts….Before
I went shopping, I called my mom and asked her if it was ok….She
told me that if I spent a lot of money, then I would have to pay for
some of it myself. At Old Navy and Gap I found skirts that were on
sale, and so were good deals….However, when I got to J. Crew I
found a skirt that I really liked, but it was not on sale. In fact, it
was $99 for a fairly casual skirt. My friend that I was shopping
with thought it was really cute and told me I should buy it. I was a
little skeptical because while I loved it, it was pretty expensive.
However, I thought about the fact that it was kind of a dressy
casual skirt, so I could wear it on a lot of occasions. I could also
wear it throughout spring and summer for several months. It also
was a really good fit, so I wasn’t going to grow out of it. It addition,
it was a very colorful and bright skirt, which is exactly what I was
looking for, and I knew that I didn’t have anything even remotely
like it in my closet now. I didn’t have anything the same colors or
style. So, in the end I decided to buy it because it was exactly what
I was looking for, and I would be able to wear it enough to get my
money’s worth.
This informant thought hard about the now-and-the-later of
wearing this more expensive skirt, and felt much wiser as a result.
Other stories sometimes told the opposite theme, where products were
quickly purchased without concern about current or future needs,
current or future expenses, and so forth. Such cases even included
expensive items such as a laptop computer.
To complement these qualitative analyses, we conducted a HLM
analysis that incorporated the three processual factors noted above.
The results confirmed the role of these wisdom theoretical notions,
showing that each was positively and significantly related to the
informants’ intuitive wisdom ratings as proposed earlier: adopting a
wide perspective (b=1.6, t=2.8, pb.005); orchestrating values,
goals, and behavior (b=3.19, t=5.6, pb .001); and taking into
account both short- and long-term perspectives (b=1.3, t=2.75,
pb .007). Moreover, since all three independent variables were binary
measured, the coefficients are readily comparable. They show that the
effect of orchestrating values, goals, and behaviors on wisdom ratings
is twice or more as those for the other two factors.
5.4. Situational forces
Situational details formed the backdrop of the SSO storylines as
potentially important influences on purchase wisdom. For instance, as
revealed in some of the narratives quoted above, there were family
members, friends, and salespeople in many cases who interacted with
and advised the purchaser. Some of these influences were positive, as
when a sales person explained and demonstrated features of digital
cameras or a friend remarked on how well a contemplated piece of
clothing fit the informant. Others were negative, as when a sales
person encouraged a thin female informant to buy dietary supple-
ments for weight gain when typically these are used to build muscle in
athletes and weightlifters who are burning hundreds of calories in
their workouts. Friends often served as helpful recommenders based
on their own personal experiences, but also sometimes put undue
social pressure on the potential purchaser, as in episodes when friends
accompanied the informant on a shopping trip to a retail store (e.g.,
clothing, electronics). These inconsistent results suggest that word-
of-mouth influences on practical wisdom may be more complex and
more contingent than our initial proposition suggested.
Time constraints also emerged in the storylines of purchase
wisdom. For example, time constraints play inherent roles in auction
sites (such as ebay) that typically set deadlines for bidding, at brick
and mortar retail stores that set closing hours, and on various kinds of
trips that have set departures to return home. Under such circum-
stances involving three respective SSO episodes, an ebay shopper had
to make a last strong bid if he wanted some attractive artwork he saw;
another informant entered a store ten minutes before closing and
hurriedly bought a scientific calculator he needed for a next-morning
exam; and a young woman purchased a fashionable and expensive
pink coat she admired during a brief visit to New York City (convinced
that nothing like it was available back home). All three informants felt
that their purchases were ultimately unwise, and it seemed that time
constraints were an impairing factor, in line with a proposition we
outlined earlier.
Following up on these insights, we coded and simultaneously
analyzed these two situational factors, namely, the receipt of word-of-
mouth (WOM) advice and the presence of time pressures. The results
showed that WOM was non-significant (b=−.14, t=−.25, p=.80).
1057D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
This result disproved our initial proposition about WOM effects on
practical purchase wisdom, but conformed to the individual qualita-
tive cases that suggested both positive and negative impacts of social
influencers on informants’ expressions of feeling wise or not in their
buyer behaviors. On the other hand, time pressures showed a trend of
reducing the wisdom ratings, though based on a two-tailed test the
effect was marginally statistically significant at best (b=−.51, t=
−1.5, p=.14). Hence, the qualitative data seemed to vividly portray
time constraints as a detriment to practical purchase wisdom, while
the quantitative evidence was convergent but weaker.
5.5. Buying outcomes
The SSO episodes also regularly dealt with the conclusion of the
purchase, which included how much money was spent and how much
was bought (e.g., number of products, number of features, etc.). These
issues were part of a window – or perhaps, better to say, a mirror
looking back – on determining how practically wise the consumer felt
he or she had been. As proposed earlier, spending less (more) than
expected led fairly consistently to a perception of greater (lesser)
practical wisdom. One informant, for instance, bought an airline
ticket, and paid a premium for convenience she did not judge, in the
end, to have been necessary.
I am taking a class in Paris and London this summer and have to
buy a plane ticket for the trip. I have to pay for it myself, so I was
looking for the best price I could find. I wanted to buy a ticket
soon because I didn’t want the price to go up. I also had to buy a
multi-destination ticket which made the ticket more expensive
than a regular round-trip ticket would be. But my dilemma was
that if I wanted to be on a non-stop flight, including the one that
my professor would be on, the price was about $500 more than if I
took flights with layovers….I called my mom and she preferred
that I buy the more expensive ticket so she wouldn’t have to
worry about me making my flights during layovers and being able
to find my way around Paris by myself….After all of this
[information search], I had the choice of tickets that ranged from
$500 to $1000. I ended up buying the more expensive ticket that
had me going on the non-stop Delta flight to Paris that my
professor was on, and coming back on a non-stop flight with
United. The ticket was about $980….[But] even though I got added
convenience, the decision was an unwise one….Considering I will
need to pay for housing this summer wherever I have an
internship, and the fact that I will soon be graduating and be on
my own, it would make sense that I should save money where I
can…I think paying extra for convenience is fine in most cases,
but $500 in this case was probably unwise.
This story and others show how purchase prices play a crucial role
in practical wisdom, especially when the consumer has a prior
reference-price range in mind and the purchase stays within or goes
beyond it.
Obtaining more than initially intended also informs the consumer
about his or her practical wisdom. This outcome is often provoked or
exacerbated by promotional deals. When consumers are drawn into a
promotion that leads to getting more than intended, it appears that an
ethical issue of materialism arises that triggers regret, if not guilt. One
related SSO account, for instance, was tinged with disappointment:
When I was at the mall on the weekend, there was a sale in one of
my favorite stores. Even though the prices were still not cheap, I
tried on and bought a lot of clothes just because they were on sale
and I ended up paying a lot of money.…I have had experiences in
similar situations and each time I perform such an unwise
behavior, and I know that it should be the last time and I
shouldn’t do it again because I feel bad. I feel bad for various
reasons: (1) spending money unnecessarily, on things I don’t
need; (2) I have too many clothes; (3) I don’t have any room for
new clothes in my closet.
A follow-up HLM analysis examined these same immediate after-
effects as they might influence the wisdom ratings. The results
showed that spending less money than intended was positively
related (b=2.17, t=5.14, pb .001) and acquiring more products/
features than intended was negatively related (b=−2.10, t=−3.08,
pb .002) to practical purchase wisdom. Their impacts appeared about
equal. Thus, the qualitative and quantitative results converged to
support the propositions that when the consumer spent less or
acquired more than originally intended, he or she felt, respectively,
wiser or less wise overall.
6. Discussion
In this article we introduced the introspection technique of
Systematic Self-Observation (SSO) to marketing and consumer re-
search, comparing and contrasting it to other introspection approaches.
We also demonstrated how SSO can be successfully applied and
extended through our specific inquiry on consumer purchase decisions.
The results have implications for the SSO method as well as consumer
behavior and wisdom theory.
We showed how SSO facilitates the collection of numerous
introspective narratives about everyday consumer behaviors and
then permits triangulation across narratives and across qualitative
and quantitative analyses. We extended the application of SSO by
illustrating how the use of specific open-ended prompts, several
rating scales, and then hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) can
increase the benefits of SSO for building and testing theories in social
science. To our knowledge, this is the first time that HLM has been
applied in an SSO study. Also, whereas SSO has been applied in the
past to highly singular subjects such as telling lies or giving
compliments, our study has shown that SSO can also be successfully
utilized for more abstract concepts such as practical wisdom, provided
that informants are given appropriate training and incentives.
Our study collected 166 narratives about consumers’ subjective
conceptions and experiences of practical wisdom in purchase
scenarios. Across multiple storylines, themes related to concrete
purchase intent, intensive information search, wide perspectives, time
constraints, and overbuying due to promotional deals, for instance,
were found to be central contributors of what it meant for informants
to feel more or less wise in their buying behaviors. The bi-variate HLM
analyses showed that consumers’ conceptions of purchase wisdom
were unrelated to the difficulty or familiarity of the choice situation,
the product class, or the purchase channel, but highly related to the
importance of the purchase. Hence, as some theorists have previously
suggested, but not thoroughly fleshed out with empirical data, wisdom
is a rather transcendent yet personal, context-specific phenomenon.
The multivariate HLM analyses confirmed several of our propositions
about practical wisdom, while also augmenting the qualitative
findings, by showing how motivational factors (intent and information
search), processual factors (wide perspective; short- and long-term
views; and linking values, goals, and behavior), and buying outcomes
(spending or buying more than intended) predicted consumers’
intuitive ratings of purchase wisdom in their varied narratives. The
use of HLM in this SSO project revealed insights of triangulation and
theoretical refinement that would otherwise have gone undetected.
These included (a) tests for statistical significance, to provide
additional trustworthiness for the qualitative interpretations, and
(b) the ability to compare the magnitude of coefficients in the HLMs to
provide new theoretical inroads on which aspects of purchase events
may have more impact on consumers’ own judgments of practical
purchase wisdom.
1058 D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
Taken together, the results help to elucidate and expand upon
prior research on improving consumer decision quality. Mann (1972),
for example, demonstrated a balance-sheet technique for inducing
high school students to consider and seek out a wider range of
alternatives in a college-selection task. Subsequently he found that
the students second-guessed their choice less. A valuable contribution
of our project is that the central act of forethought in purchase
wisdom involves not only considering a wider range of options and
increased information search, but is also predicated on strong prior
intent. In fact, analysis of the SSO data suggested for the first time that
prior intent may elevate a sense of wisdom more than information
search per se.
In other decision making literature, Huber et al. (1997) developed
a conceptual review delineating how consumers are poor at
predicting their preferences. The authors worked backwards from
those insights to suggest strategies that could improve satisfaction,
including thinking more in advance about one’s values. A contribu-
tion of our results for consumer behavior has been in showing that
Huber et al.’s (1997) hypothesis is correct. Moreover, while the
consideration of values is important, we found in addition that their
orchestration with relevant goals and behaviors is crucial to higher
decision quality gained through practical wisdom. Our findings
imply that values must be interwoven with the consumer’s goals in a
given choice context, and that these goals must be further tied to the
specific behavior undertaken in order to evoke a wiser choice. A
breakdown in that chain of linkages will likely undermine the
purchase wisdom.
As a contribution to wisdom theory, the HLM analysis of the SSO
data showed that the integration of values, goals, and behavior had a
notably stronger relation to the wisdom ratings than either the
adoption of a wider perspective or the taking of short- and long-term
horizons into account. To our knowledge, this is the first time that
processual factors from wisdom literature have been simultaneously
and quantitatively analyzed, suggesting which factor might be more
consequential to implicit–theoretical views of wisdom. This result
needs to be replicated and extended by incorporating additional
processual wisdom factors, such as humility about knowledge
deficits, asking difficult questions, and drawing on experience from
prior related mistakes (e.g., Baltes and Staudinger, 2000; Sternberg,
2003).
7. Limitations and future research
Like any study, ours had limitations that require recognition.
First, it focused only on purchasing, and overlooked a wide gamut of
other consumer behaviors (e.g., product (mis)use and disposing). It
also used a convenience sample of young adults whose purchases
and financial means are narrower in range as compared to older
adults who, for example, are buying and furnishing homes, dealing
with child-rearing expenses, and so on. On a theory level there
seems to be no sound reason as to why conceptions of purchase
wisdom would be much different among an older, more represen-
tative sample – issues such as concrete intent or linking values,
goals, and behavior should also apply – but this is an empirical
question that future research could address, for possible refinements
of our results.
Another limitation was the use of a single rating scale to capture
informants’ implicit–theoretical views of wisdom, without including
other scales of decision quality, such as ineffective/effective or
dumb/smart. Consequently, we cannot say for certain that infor-
mants wrote about and rated wisdom in a manner that differentiated
it in all cases from other decision quality concepts. We trusted our
informants to understand the instructions and to strive to report
what they perceived as unwise or wise consumer behaviors. The fact
that their narratives contained components of elaborated theories of
wisdom, of which they were unaware, provides some evidence that
their implicit notions of purchase wisdom included more than just a
distinction between what is effective versus ineffective purchases,
for instance. Future research could improve on our findings by
including comparative measures to establish discriminant validity
for the concept and assessment of practical wisdom.
Economists and decision researchers have largely ignored the
moral aspects of consumer choice, and together they have also
steered away from introspection as a research technique, despite
often relying on analyses of their own behaviors as springboards to
new research questions or theoretical claims. Hence, practical
wisdom and Systematic Self-Observation seem to each have
intriguing advantages for future economic and consumer research.
Topics can include studying consumer’s awareness and coping
strategies for well-known decision biases such as time-inconsistent
preferences and overconfidence (see Thaler and Sunstein’s, 2008
review of these biases). Another important topic for future research,
and well-suited for introspection, is word-of-mouth recommenda-
tions (WOM) about products and brands. Studying WOM could
benefit from combining SSO with Interactive Introspection in which
a group of friends who share WOM advice could record their ongoing
related experiences. Insights could include why, when, with whom,
and how WOM is experienced, particularly in relation to giving or
withholding WOM, receiving or rejecting WOM, and so forth. In sum,
introspection is a historically rich research paradigm that has several
different forms waiting to be more fully mined by business
researchers across disciplines.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Brittany Rhoney, Wade Reishman, Miji Lee, and
Eric Turkheimer for assistance in data collection, coding, and analysis,
as well as helpful comments from Richard Lutz, Ajay Sidhu, and Mary
Bowen Cates on a prior draft. The authors also appreciate research
grant support from the Marketing Science Institute and the McIntire
School of Commerce.
Appendix A. Content analysis codes in the SSO narratives for
predicting informant’s implicit-theoretical ratings of purchase
wisdom
Motivational factors:
• Was there definite prior intent or goals to buy? (No/Not apparently
or Yes)
• How many different sources did the consumer seek relevant
information from prior to completing the buying behavior?
(catalogs, websites, stores, package, etc.). The categories were:
low [0–2], medium [3–4], and high [N4].
Processual factors:
• Was the buying behavior engaged with a wide perspective in mind?
That is, did the consumer consider several factors, issues, etc.
relevant to the purchase? (No/Not apparently or Yes)
• Did the consumer synthesize or orchestrate his or her values and
goals with his or her buying behavior? (No/Not apparently or Yes)
• Did the consumer take into consideration both short-term and long-
term goals and consequences of his or her behavior? (No/Not
apparently or Yes)
Situational factors:
• Did another person (other than a marketing or company agent) give
specific advice regarding what to buy, how much to buy, etc. before
the conclusion of the buying event? (No/Not apparently or Yes)
• What was the degree of time pressures on the consumer for making
the buying decision? (personal deadline, expiration of promotional
deal, end of sale, etc.) (coded as low, medium, or high)
1059D.G. Mick et al. / Journal of Business Research 65 (2012) 1051–1059
Outcome factors:
• Did the consumer acquire more products, more features, or
anything else beyond what he or she initially intended or wanted?
(No/Not apparently, Yes)
• Did the consumer ultimately spend less than he or she intended or
expected to? (No/Not apparently or Yes)
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http://www.cop.com/info/tu2paper
- A systematic self-observation study of consumers’ conceptions of practical wisdom in everyday purchase events
Introduction
The nature, design, and conduct of systematic self-observation
Comparison of SSO to other introspection approaches
Applying SSO to understanding consumers’ perspectives on practical wisdom
Conceptual overview and project purpose
Method
Participants
Procedure
SSO records and measures
Data analyses and related propositions
Results
Descriptive statistics
Motivational forces
Processual insights
Situational forces
Buying outcomes
Discussion
Limitations and future research
Acknowledgments
Content analysis codes in the SSO narratives for predicting informant’s implicit-theoretical ratings of purchase wisdom
References
MKT3SEM SOCIAL MARKETING – Assessment Task 2 (Individual)
Assessment Task 2: Individual
Social Marketing Plan for POSITIVE COPING BEHAVIOUR
TEMPLATE
Word Length: 1,500 Words – excluding word count in the reference list
Short Task Description:
Social Marketing Plan based on wisdom literature review
for increasing practical wisdom and behaviour change in POSITIVE COPING BEHAVIOUR
Coping has been defined as thoughts and behaviours that people use to manage the internal and
external demands of situations that are appraised as stressful (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Positive
coping are thoughts and behaviours that enhance well-being e.g. reframing to see some positives,
using humour or song, volunteering to help others.
Students choose a specific social marketing problem of interest to them in the context of the current
health challenge (but not hand washing or social distancing)
Social Marketing Problem
OPTION (Internal choice of social marketing problem – positive coping behaviour)
1. Increasing Social Cohesion and Kindness / Helping Behaviours – e.g. Look after neighbours
and keep up friendships online – We’re all in this together
OR
2. Enhancing Core Values and Behaviours (Australian / Un-Australian Behaviours) – e.g.
Australians have faced many challenges – we are strong and resilient
OR
3. Increase planned buying (Decrease hoarding) – e.g. There’s enough to go around if we share
then follow the Template as below
La Trobe University Cover Sheet (with student signature) – attached to submission
Title Page: professional title page
Table of Contents*: with suggested word length for each section
1. Wisdom – Supporting Literature and Knowledge Gap (Approximately 350 words)
2. Social Marketing Problem (Increase Positive Coping Behaviour – OPTION please specify)
(Approximately 50 words)
3. Situation Analysis, Stakeholders and Partners, Upstream Policy Issues (Approximately 300 words)
4. Social Marketing Theory (Approximately 100 words)
5. Segmentation & Targeting (Approximately 200 words)
6. The Marketing Mix (4Ps) and People & Partnerships (Approximately 300 words)
7. Implementation and Evaluation (Approximately 200 words)
8. Reference List – words in reference list do not count towards overall word count
* Please note that there is no Executive Summary or Introduction or Conclusion needed for this plan.
* Word count = 1,500 words (in sections 1 – 7 of Table of Contents) (can be plus or minus 10%)
* Should be written in conjunction with use of the MKT3SEM Lit & Plan Rubric
Consumer Wisdom: A Theoretical Framework of Five Integrated Facets
Michael Gerhard Luchs
College of William & Mary
David Glen Mick
University of Virginia
Accepted by Amna Kirmani, Editor; Associate Editor, Hans Baumgartner
We establish a parsimonious theoretical framework of consumer wisdom based on five mutually reinforcing
psychological facets. Our research draws from wisdom literature and a set of 31 phenomenological interviews
with informants who were identified through a multi-stage nomination process. The five facets of consumer
wisdom that emerged are Intentionality, Contemplation, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and Transcendence.
Together, they comprise a data-grounded, aspirational model of consumer wisdom—for researchers as well as
consumers—to understand, maintain, and improve personal and collective well-being. We discuss the implica-
tions of the framework and directions for future research.
Keywords Wisdom; Well-being; Mindfulness; Values; Morality; Choice
Introduction
The formal beginnings of the academic field of con-
sumer research can be traced to the 1960s, with the
founding of the Society for Consumer Psychology
(1962) and the inauguration of the Association for
Consumer Research (1969). Over its first half-cen-
tury, a diversity of topics has been addressed, includ-
ing many related to the challenges or “dark side” of
consumption. These include impulsive and compul-
sive buying, addictions (e.g., drugs, nicotine, gam-
bling), materialism and status competition, decision
biases (e.g., myopia, overconfidence), and ecological
deterioration, among others. Research has also sug-
gested that reckless consumption decisions (e.g.,
smoking, poor diet, alcohol abuse, sedentary life-
styles) are the leading cause of premature death in
the United States (Keeney, 2008). However, con-
sumer research on related remedies and alternatives
has been historically scant, until recently.
A growing number of consumer researchers have
turned more intensively to studying personal and
collective well-being. One subset affiliates with the
Transformative Consumer Research movement (see
Mick, Pettigrew, Pechmann, & Ozanne, 2012; e.g.,
motivating sustainable consumption, improving
nutrition labeling, fortifying retirement savings,
protecting vulnerable consumers). Another involves
public policies on “helping consumers to help
themselves” (Lynch & Wood, 2006). Research is
also now appearing on “meaningful consumer
choice” in terms of long- versus short-term happi-
ness (Aaker, 2014). And there has appeared the
admirable idea of citizen-consumers within an “ele-
vated marketing system” (Webster & Lusch, 2013).
Across research on the tragedies, enrichments,
and dilemmas of modern consumption, one could
reasonably expect that the concept that encapsulates
the apex of human functioning—as recognized by
philosophers, religious leaders, and social scientists
—would have been by now woven into new theo-
ries and empirical findings in the field. Yet, wisdom
is hardly to be found. The irony is glaring when
one considers proclamations from antiquity to mod-
ern psychology on the nature, significance, and
urgency of wisdom:
First among the virtues found in the state, wis-
dom comes into view. (Plato, Republic)
(Wisdom is) the foundation of all good qualities.
Without the guidance of wisdom, all the other
perfections, like generosity and ethics, are like a
group of people without a leader. (The Dalai
Lama, 1994, p. 179)
Received 5 October 2017; accepted 4 February 2018
Available online 17 February 2018
This research was supported by the Templeton Foundation
through a grant awarded to Michael Gerhard Luchs by the
Enhancing Life Project, a project of the University of Chicago
School of Divinity and Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. The
second author acknowledges the support of the McIntire School
of Commerce, University of Virginia.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Michael Gerhard Luchs, Henry and Phyllis Shook Term Distin-
guished Associate Professor of Business, College of William &
Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, USA. Electronic mail may
be sent to michael.luchs@mason.wm.edu.
© 2018 Society for Consumer Psychology
All rights reserved. 1057-7408/2018/1532-7663/28(3)/365–392
DOI: 10.1002/jcpy.1037
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9015-5695
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9015-5695
Wisdom is what you need to understand in order
to live well and cope with the central problems
and avoid the dangers in the predicaments human
beings find themselves in. (Nozick, 1989, p. 267)
(Wisdom is) the ideal integration of knowledge
and action, mind and virtue. (Baltes & Smith,
2008, p. 56)
If there is anything the world needs, it is wis-
dom. Without it, I exaggerate not at all in saying
that very soon there may be no world. (Stern-
berg, 2003, p. xviii)
Similar assertions are readily found in Assmann
(1994), Csikszentmihalyi (1995), Fowers (2003), Hall
(2010), Kekes (1983), and Maxwell (2014), among
others.
However, wisdom might seem to consumer schol-
ars beyond the reach of most individuals, or too pre-
tentious, ethereal, and intractable to investigate. Yet
elsewhere, in psychology particularly, wisdom
research has accelerated during the last 20 years (Bal-
tes & Staudinger, 2000; Ferrari & Weststrate, 2013;
Grossmann, 2017; Schwartz & Sharpe, 2010; Stern-
berg, 1990, 1998; Sternberg & Jordan, 2005). Taken
together, these works offer hope and insights to lead
people toward higher discernment, and even excel-
lence, in the ways they comport their lives.
Despite this promising development, Grossmann,
Gerlach, and Denissen (2016) note that there still
remains meager knowledge about wisdom in every-
day life, which obviously includes consumer behav-
ior. Accordingly, we explore and seek a rich,
grounded understanding of the phenomenology of
consumer wisdom through personal stories and
viewpoints. Other projects in consumer psychology
using a similar paradigm include Baker and Hill
(2013), McGrath, Sherry, and Levy (1993), and Posa-
vac (2009). Our main intended contributions are two-
fold. First, we develop from these data and a selection
of compelling wisdom literature a parsimonious theo-
retical framework consisting of five integrated facets
of consumer wisdom, the first of its kind in the field.
Second, we employ the emergent framework to pro-
vide new directions for research on consumer wis-
dom, covering a range of topics and varied methods.
Selective Literature Review on Wisdom
Historical and Modern Sources. For centuries in
both Eastern and Western philosophies, living
wisely across activities and contexts has been con-
sidered the pinnacle of human behavior (Assmann,
1994; Fowers, 2003; Hall, 2010; Walsh, 2015). Devel-
oping and enacting wisdom has also been identified
as the principal manner by which personal flourish-
ing and the common good are achieved and sus-
tained (Ardelt, 2004; Csikszentmihalyi, 1995;
Sternberg, 1998).
The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom
as the “Capacity of judging rightly in matters relat-
ing to life and conduct; soundness of judgment in
the choice of means and ends.” Put differently, wis-
dom is doing the right thing in the right way for
the right reasons to live a good life (Schwartz &
Sharpe, 2010). Hence, as revealed below, wisdom’s
core mission of rightness and goodness continually
involves values and morality (Baltes & Staudinger,
2000; Fowers, 2003; Kekes, 1995; Sternberg, 1998).
Different types of wisdom have been identified
over the years. A renowned Aristotelian distinction
is that between phronesis, the practical kind (Fow-
ers, 2003; Schwartz & Sharpe, 2010), versus sophia,
the philosophical kind (Trowbridge, 2011). The for-
mer emphasizes observation and applied reason
toward the pursuit of specific objectives. The latter
emphasizes introspection and intuition that evoke
timeless first principles, including a holistic perspec-
tive through which commonly perceived bound-
aries dissolve (notably the Self (ego) versus the
Other), as emphasized in Eastern perspectives such
as Buddhism (Mick, 2017). The last 35 years of psy-
chology research on wisdom has concentrated on
phronesis (Trowbridge, 2011). A sub-goal in our pro-
ject is to probe for both types of wisdom in actual
consumer behavior.
The significance of wisdom is counter-weighted
by the recognition that it is among the most elusive
of concepts (Sternberg, 1990; Walsh, 2015). Not sur-
prisingly then, there is neither a consensus defini-
tion nor a predominant theory (Gl€uck et al., 2013;
Grossmann, 2017; Trowbridge, 2011). There are also
different emphases in empirical approaches, rang-
ing from analysis of iconic wisdom figures (e.g., the
Bible’s King Solomon, Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr.), to the collection
of primary data via interviews, diaries, surveys,
and even experiments. Given the complexity of wis-
dom and diversity of approaches in examining it, a
plentitude of positive human virtues and character-
istics has been associated over the years with wis-
dom (as many as 48, according to MacDonald
(2011) such as attentiveness, empathy, responsibil-
ity, patience, humility, equanimity, wonder, joy,
and desiring the welfare of the whole). Within the
366 Luchs and Mick
realm of modern empirical research on wisdom, the
characteristics that emerge, including what they
entail, depends in part on the context of interest
and research approach.
Three Contemporary Social Science Streams on
Wisdom. Three wisdom research streams have
been prominent in psychology and sociology over
the last two decades. The first is the Berlin para-
digm in which researchers have examined how
individuals analyze and resolve difficult life prob-
lems through interviews with small samples of
older adults who have been nominated by peers for
their wisdom (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). From that
orientation, the researchers define wisdom as “a
highly valued and outstanding expertise in dealing
with fundamental, that is, existential problems
related to the meaning and conduct of life” (Kunz-
mann & Baltes, 2003, p. 117). Properties of wisdom
derived from the Berlin paradigm include the
addressing of significant and demanding questions
(and related strategies) for coping with life’s vicissi-
tudes; knowledge and humility about the limits of
knowledge and the uncertainties of the world; a
synchronization of values, goals, and action; and
the use of knowledge and judgment for the well-
being of oneself and of others.
A second stream sources from Sternberg’s bal-
ance theory of wisdom. He maintains that wisdom
is above all a metacognitive style, composed of the
application of successful intelligence and creativity
as mediated by values toward the achievement of a
common good. Such wisdom is attained through a
balance among (a) intrapersonal, (b) interpersonal,
and (c) extrapersonal interests, over (a) short, and
(b) long terms by (a) adapting to existing environ-
ments, (b) shaping existing environments, and (c)
selecting new environments (Sternberg, 1998, 2003).
This dense conceptualization has strengths of focus-
ing on the meta-functionality of wisdom (i.e., first
seeing the bigger picture of situations and decisions
in need of wisdom), the central role of balancing
multiple and often contradictory issues, the inescap-
able role of values and ethics, the importance of
both short-term and long-term orientations, and a
requirement to consider a wide range of stakehold-
ers in anticipating the consequences of any particu-
lar decision or behavior. Despite its thoroughness,
or perhaps because of it, the balance theory of wis-
dom has not been the focus of much empirical
research. Exploring this perspective is another sub-
goal of our work.
The third paradigm focuses on wisdom as a
latent construct with measurable dimensions. It has
been most notably developed by Ardelt (2003,
2008), and more recently by others such as Bangen,
Meeks, and Jeste (2013), Gl€uck et al. (2013), and
Thomas et al. (2017) (see also Webster, 2003).
Ardelt portrays wisdom as a three-dimensional con-
struct that melds cognitive, reflective, and affective
qualities. The first encompasses a desire to under-
stand the deeper meaning of phenomena and
events in life, especially with regard to intraper-
sonal and interpersonal issues. The second involves
self-examination and the use of multiple perspec-
tives to deal with different phenomena and situa-
tions. The third reflects compassion and sympathy
for others. From this orientation, Ardelt has devel-
oped a scale and shown that overall wisdom scores
are positively related to a sense of mastery and sub-
jective health, among other variables.
The dimensions of wisdom that emerge from
research depend, however, on the context under
study. Today’s sociopsychological research on wis-
dom has been primarily evident within the sub-
fields of cognitive psychology, life span psychology,
and gerontology. However, it is also appearing in
applied settings such as medicine, public policy,
education, and leadership (Etheridge, 2005; Intezari
& Pauleen, 2017; Plews-Ogan, Owens, & May, 2012;
Sternberg, 2001; see website for the University of
Chicago’s Center for Practical Wisdom). Consumer
behavior has not been the subject of any wisdom
research until relatively recently.
Limited Prior Consumer Research on Wisdom. The
words wise and unwise have appeared occasionally in
consumer and decision-making research, yet nearly
always in an informal manner, without regard to
wisdom literature (e.g., Bazerman & Greene, 2010,
subsection title; Hammond, Keeney, & Raiffa,
1998; Chapter 11 title; Schwarz & Xu, 2011;
abstract; Zeckhauser, Keeney, & Sebenius, 1996,
book title).
Nevertheless, a recent conceptual paper by Mick
and Schwartz (2012) proposed 12 qualities of wis-
dom for consumer behavior derived from prior lit-
erature (e.g., adopting a wide perspective, learning
from prior mistakes). The authors then constructed
and interpreted hypothetical consumer scenarios to
illustrate the presence or absence of these qualities.
The dozen separate qualities they proposed are
quite defensible, yet arguably unwieldy and uninte-
grated as a theoretical base, and the lack of empiri-
cal evidence constrains linking wisdom more
explicitly to tangible consumer experiences and
phenomena.
In the lone empirical effort to date, Mick, Spil-
ler, and Baglioni (2012) recruited college students
who were asked to keep diaries on their product
Consumer Wisdom 367
purchases (e.g., food, clothing), and to provide for
each a rating of its perceived wisdom. Hierarchical
modeling analysis showed that buying events
rated wiser (a) had evidence of stronger pre-pur-
chase intentions, (b) involved more information
search before purchase, and (c) revealed considera-
tion of more factors, such as different usage bene-
fits. These insights are sensible too, but the concise
diary data, the reliance on college students with
restricted financial means and a highly circum-
scribed context, and the narrow spectrum of exam-
ined purchases limit broader conclusions on
consumer wisdom.
Summary. This brief review underscores that
wisdom is both an eminent and intricate concept.
In light of this background, we believe it is appro-
priate for the purposes of our project to not uncriti-
cally assume or wholesale adopt theories or themes
from one specific stream of prior research. Rather,
we maintain that the most appropriate approach is
to obtain first-hand consumer data on the wisdom
phenomenon, and identify which aspects naturally
arise and can then serve as solid footing for further
development of consumer wisdom theory. In sup-
port of this approach, Sternberg (1998), Grossmann
(2017), and others have steadfastly maintained that
wisdom is domain-specific. That is, aspects of its
nature and significance will depend on whether the
context, for instance, is parenting, law enforcement,
medical care, or, in our case, consumer behavior.
From such local sensitivity, research can inductively
determine which wisdom elements surface and
apply most fruitfully.
Nonetheless, based on centuries of writings and
prior sociopsychological research on wisdom, we
also acknowledge up front that we began with
certain oft-emphasized insights that we then
looked for with interest in our data. One is that
wisdom is integrative insofar as it is the master
virtue that recruits and comingles certain other vir-
tues as a situation demands (Ardelt, 2003, 2008;
Schwartz & Sharpe, 2010; The Dalai Lama, 1994).
Second, wisdom must often balance or take a mid-
dle-way approach to resolving alternative or seem-
ingly incompatible goals and options and avoiding
extreme responses in most cases (Schwartz &
Sharpe, 2010; Sternberg, 1998). Third, wisdom’s
leading objective is well-being, which is encom-
passed by a combination of the physical, eco-
nomic, socio-cultural, psychological, emotional,
political, and spiritual dimensions of life (McGre-
gor, 2010; Ryff, 1989). While we find the predomi-
nant paradigms of sociopsychological wisdom
research compelling and useful (as summarized
above), we also consider and endorse Aldwin’s
(2009, p. 3) criticism that most social scientists in
wisdom research have under-assimilated sophia
(philosophical wisdom).
Methodology
Psychology research on wisdom has drawn from
three approaches. They are known as (a) explicit (in
which researchers use literature and logic to
hypothesize a theory, e.g., Baltes & Staudinger,
2000; Sternberg, 1998), (b) phenomenological (based
on the study of lived experiences, e.g., Mont-
gomery, Barber, & McKee, 2002), and (c) implicit
(based on people’s lay opinions on wisdom, e.g.,
Clayton & Birren, 1980; Sternberg, 1985). Given the
long literature on wisdom, plus multiple
approaches to determine its sociopsychological
qualities, our methodological thrust is hybrid by
design. It involves keen awareness of prior theories
and research (explicit approach) combined with dis-
covery-oriented depth interviews (phenomenologi-
cal approach) and, in the end, direct queries to
interviewees for ascertaining their views through
their words on the meaning of wisdom and wise
consumption (implicit approach).
Informant Recruitment
Following the Berlin paradigm, our sampling tac-
tic was to identify and interview people who were
considered exemplars of wisdom in daily life (see,
e.g., Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker, & Smith, 1995).
Given that wise people typically do not classify
themselves as such—humility is a time-honored
trait among wise individuals (Hall, 2010)—our
recruitment approach was multi-staged and selec-
tive. In addition to seeking initial nominations of
wise persons (as described further below), we also
used snowball sampling among the early infor-
mants. Overall, we conducted fieldwork stretching
from the Northeastern and Southeastern United
States to the Midwest and West, using purposive
sampling to pinpoint specific individuals who
would be well-suited for an investigation of con-
sumer wisdom.
The initial nominators that we approached
were known gatekeepers in various organizations
across several different communities. We met with
community leaders, such as the city coordinator
for Residential Sustainability Outreach in Portland,
Oregon, who then introduced us to principals in
other local organizations. Since we did not yet
368 Luchs and Mick
have the benefit of an established definition of
consumer wisdom, we asked these individuals to
nominate potential informants after we described
attributes from prior literature that are associated
with wisdom in general. Specifically, invoking
Sternberg’s balance theory of wisdom (1998), we
described a wise individual as “a good decision-
maker who effectively balances heart and mind,
is concerned as much with the future as with the
present, and considers others’ needs as well as
their own.” We then conducted phone screenings
with each nominee and shared information about
the interview procedure and topic, described sim-
ply as “everyday decision making.” Next, we
scheduled interviews to take place in informants’
homes, except for two interviews that were con-
ducted in neutral locations at the interviewees’
request (see Table 1 for summary information on
the 31 informants).
Interview Procedure
The interviews averaged 90 min and each began
with informants providing information about their
backgrounds and lifestyles. Next, they were
reminded that the interview was focused on “ev-
eryday decision making” and that we would use
the context of consumption behaviors for us to
understand their approach (i.e., their personal phi-
losophy and practices). We then asked them to
describe in detail a “significant consumption related
decision” that they had made in the prior 6–
12 months. We repeated this instruction for other
consumption choices, eventually including those
that they would consider to be relatively minor
choices. We probed as warranted at various stages
of consumer behavior, from need identification,
search, and choice, to ownership, use, and (if appli-
cable) disposition. At each stage, we asked for
Table 1
Informant Summary (Alphabetical by First Name)
Name Age Gender Family status Occupation US region Community type
Alex 20s Male Single Student West Urban
Allen 70s Male Married Executive (ret) Southeast Suburban
Ben 40s Male Married Self-employed yoga instructor Southeast Suburban
Bernard 50s Male Married Teacher Midwest Suburban
Betty 60s Female Married Customer service West Urban
Bill 90s Male Married Accountant (ret) Midwest Suburban
Bob 50s Male Married Executive (ret) Southeast Suburban
Brent 40s Male Married Farmer Northeast Rural
Caleb Teen Male Single Student West Urban
Connie 60s Female Divorced Permaculture educator West Urban
Dale 60s Male Married Executive (ret) Midwest Suburban
Hila 30s Female Married Customer service West Urban
Iwona 30s Female Married Fitness trainer Southeast Rural
Jen 40s Female Married Farmer Northeast Rural
Jenn 40s Female Married Self-employed Southeast Suburban
Jessamyn 30s Female Married Mother West Urban
Joel 50s Male Married Farmer/author Southeast Rural
John 40s Male Married Farmer Northeast Rural
Karma 40s Female Married Farmer Northeast Rural
Kristyn 40s Female Married Mother Southeast Suburban
Les 70s Male Married Administrator (ret) Southeast Suburban
Liz 30s Female Married Farmer Northeast Rural
Matthew 30s Male Married Farmer Northeast Rural
Monica 30s Female Married Administrator Southeast Suburban
Natalie 30s Female Married Consultant/journalist Southeast Suburban
Ole 60s Male Married Physician West Urban
Randy 60s Male Married Salesman (ret) Midwest Suburban
Rita 60s Female Divorced Self-employed executive coach Southeast Suburban
Teresa 40s Female Married Farmer Northeast Rural
Tom 60s Male Married Teacher (ret) West Urban
Vickie 60s Female Married Accountant (ret) Midwest Suburban
Consumer Wisdom 369
specifics, examples, and stories to fill in and round
out the experiences being shared.
Finally, to take advantage of the opportunity of
an implicit approach to wisdom inquiry and to
ensure that we had not overlooked anything else in
the conversation, we introduced the terms “wise
consumption” and “wise consumer,” and asked
informants to tell us what they thought these terms
might mean or entail in their daily lives. We
deferred disclosing our specific interest in consumer
wisdom until the end of each interview because
prior research has suggested that people tend to
conflate wisdom and intelligence (Sternberg, 1985)
and we did not want to prematurely constrain our
conversations to a restricted layperson’s under-
standing of this complex and multi-dimensional
construct.
Data and Analysis
Interviews were video- and audio-recorded, and
field notes were typed and elaborated within a day
of each interview. In total, 507 pages of single-
spaced transcription notes were compiled and
imported into the software program MaxQDA for
analysis. An initial high-level coding scheme was
developed based on our review of wisdom research
conducted in psychology over the last 30 years.
Guided by Spiggle (1994), the scheme was devel-
oped through iterations of inductive content analy-
sis, which led to formal codes (wisdom facets), sub-
codes (facet dimensions), and memos related to the
interpretative analyses. As transcripts were marked,
codes were added or expanded or, conversely, col-
lapsed or deleted to reflect the emergent meanings
of each code and sub-code. Next, we revisited all
coded passages in a second comprehensive review,
this time reviewing passages by code and sub-code.
Throughout this final stage, we refined the memos
and recoded passages as needed. In doing so, we
were able to distill the meanings and boundaries of
our codes toward the identification of the facets
and dimensions that collectively constitute the foun-
dation for our emergent theoretical framework.
Findings
Our analysis yielded five integrated facets of con-
sumer wisdom that we label Intentionality, Con-
templation, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and
Transcendence. Figure 1 depicts the facets and their
dimensions as they relate to each other and to their
respective emphases on personal and collective
well-being. Table 2 provides the definitions for con-
sumer wisdom and each of its facets and their
dimensions, and it also expounds on these dimen-
sions through the cognitive, affective, and behav-
ioral tendencies that comprise each.
In the pages ahead, we define each wisdom facet
and their respective dimensions, and we exemplify
their lived nature through the interview data. This
Figure 1. A graphical depiction of the theoretical framework of consumer wisdom.
370 Luchs and Mick
Table 2
Consumer Wisdom Definitions and Traits
Consumer wisdom is the pursuit of well-being for oneself and for others through mindful management of consumption-related choices and behaviors,
as realized through the integrated application of Intentionality, Contemplation, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and Transcendence.
Facet Dimension
Traits (cognitive, affective, and behavioral characteristics and tenden-
cies)
Intentionality in wise
consumption includes
the commitment to and
practice of ongoing
lifestyle envisionment
and the conscious
personal resource
management needed to
realize this
envisionment.
Lifestyle envisionment: the ongoing
definition and pursuit of a
personalized, virtuous pattern
of living
• Assumes personal responsibility for ongoing lifestyle management
• Defines a meaningful lifestyle vision that aligns with values and
resources
• Decides how to selectively use consumption to enable envisioned
lifestyle
• Critically evaluates whether and how patterns of consumption
behaviors support envisioned lifestyle
• Limits consumption and material responsibilities to enable envi-
sioned lifestyle by reducing resource needs
Personal resource management: a
realistic planning and
management of fungible
resources to build and preserve
the lifestyle that one aspires to
• Actively budgets and manages a financial plan to afford envi-
sioned lifestyle and save for unexpected needs and for the future
• Practices caution and restraint; not-spending as the default
• Periodically shifts budget allocations to make explicit trade-offs
away from spending that does not sufficiently contribute to envi-
sioned lifestyle toward expenditures that provide greater value
• Focused on real, personally relevant, and long-term value poten-
tial (skeptical of exaggerated claims of value, intolerant of poor
quality, appreciative of great design, willingness to trade-off
quantity of goods for quality, minimizes costs without compro-
mising quality)
• Resourceful and averse to waste
• Extends value of goods as long as possible (caring for and
repairing possessions, yet limited attachment to possessions to
mitigate investment of time and energy)
• Avoids debt in general, with selective long-term investment
exceptions (home mortgage, education, etc.)
Contemplation in wise
consumption is the
practice of thoughtful
consideration of
discrete consumption
options at a given time
through retrospection,
prospection, and prudent
reasoning.
Retrospection: situational and
ongoing reflection on the
consequences of one’s own and
others’ past consumption
choices and behaviors
• Reflects and learns from prior consumption choices and behaviors
• Learns from others’ consumption behaviors, both directly and
through observation
Prospection: imagining and
simulating the effects of
possible consumption options
• Imagines future outcomes and consequences
• Researches product long-term reliability, costs
• Simulates or tries product to experience possible purchase out-
come
• Borrows as a form of product trial
Prudent reasoning: the thoughtful
effort applied to making
decisions by synthesizing,
balancing, and reconciling
accumulated knowledge,
insights, preferences, and values
• Knowledgeable about attributes of various consumption process
options (e.g., online, retail)
• Knowledgeable about the value and motivations of various mar-
ket participants
• Has practical knowledge about products and services in general
• Seeks additional information about products and services to
inform decisions
• Considers multiple perspectives
• Critically evaluates whether and how specific consumption
behaviors serve their needs and align with values and lifestyle
• Effectively integrates and uses procedural and factual informa-
tion to make the best decisions
(Continued)
Consumer Wisdom 371
Table 2
Continued
Facet Dimension
Traits (cognitive, affective, and behavioral characteristics and tenden-
cies)
Emotional mastery in
wise consumption is
the mindfulness toward
and strategic use of
consumption emotions
to enhance well-being,
including an active
avoidance of negative
emotions and pursuit of
positive emotions.
Avoidance of negative emotions:
recognizing the potential for
and circumventing consumer
behaviors that could lead to
adverse emotions
• Avoids specific retail and other consumption contexts to prevent
temptation
• Seeks specific retail and other consumption contexts that pro-
mote wise consumption
• Plans ahead to define intended consumption behaviors, goals, or
constraints prior to decision context
• Recognizes potential for, and actively avoids, regret, guilt and
stress in consumption choices
• Displays patience and delayed gratification
• Learns from prior consumption mistakes that led to negative
emotions
• Avoids comparisons to others and aspirational spending
• Does not obsess; avoids taking frugality, simplicity, and pru-
dence so far that they consume too much time or cause stress
Pursuit of positive emotions: the
active pursuit of positive
emotions mediated by
consumption choices and
behaviors
• Reflects on what they have, engendering a sense of gratitude
• Enables pursuit of positive emotions and emotional states—such
as joy, harmony, and flow—through selective spending on tangi-
ble goods, services, and experiences
Openness in wise
consumption includes
the adoption of a
consumption-mediated
growth mindset, and the
selective trial and
adoption of alternative
consumption practices.
Growth mindset (Dweck, 2006): a
belief that one’s personal
qualities, including skills and
intelligence, can be cultivated
by their efforts, strategies, and
help from others
• Attracted to products or services that provide new experiences
• Seeks development of new skills and knowledge
Alternative consumption: non-
traditional consumption
behaviors, including consumer
production/co-production,
borrowing/sharing, buying
used goods, buying custom or
small-batch produced goods,
and actively extending the
value of goods already owned
• Co-creates, grows, makes, or fixes things on their own
• Rents, borrows/shares as alternatives to ownership
• Purchases used goods
• Open to sharing or exchanging knowledge and skills
• Seeks custom or small-batch items for self or for gifts
• Open to unconventional means of value exchange
Transcendence in
consumer wisdom is an
unreserved compassion
for all entities affected
by consumption and a
strong sense of
interbeing.
Compassion: self- and other-
directed kindness and empathy,
and a concern for the general
welfare of others
• A holistic sense of self, caring for self, and individuality
• Prefers consumption options that promote local economy, busi-
nesses, and employees
• Prefers consumption options that promote social well-being
throughout the global supply chain and the world in general
• Practices pro-environmental consumption
• Avoids consumption or spending that harms animals
Interbeing (Hanh, 1987): an
intuitive sense that all life is
interconnected
• Prefers consumption categories and objects that promote relation-
ships and connections with others
• Prefers consumption contexts, processes, and behaviors that pro-
mote community and connection with others
• Prefers consumption options and behaviors that promote a sense
of connection with the natural environment and/or a sense of
spirituality
372 Luchs and Mick
means that our exposition is linear and sequential
as we elucidate the facets and their dimensions one
after the other, which is largely universal and
unavoidable for this genre of research. Yet, it is also
unnatural relative to actual lived experiences. That
is, more than one facet or dimension is often evi-
dent through their co-occurrence and interrelated-
ness in specific illustrations and stories. As Bangen
et al. (2013) emphasize, wisdom is a “multidimen-
sional characteristic with the whole being greater
than the sum of its parts (p. 6),” and “most concep-
tualizations [of wisdom] involve integration” (p. 5).
Due to the importance and regularity of this theme
in wisdom research, we begin with one story from
our informant cases that reveals the wisdom facets
and their dimensions manifesting simultaneously
(again, see Table 2 for definitions as these issues
initially surface in the consumption story below).
Following that, we disassemble the integrated facets
to provide more nuances on their individual
appearance in consumer life.
Consumer Wisdom’s Five Integrated Facets: An
Illustrative Example
Brent lives with his wife, Teresa, and two
young children near Ithaca, New York. Across a
wide ranging interview, Brent chose at one point
to describe his approach to purchasing footwear,
which raised issues and motifs that were also evi-
dent in other stories he shared about transporta-
tion, appliances, eyewear, and furniture. While an
isolated footwear purchase may seem relatively
inconsequential when thinking about wisdom in
general, a majority of consumption manifests as
the accumulation of seemingly small decisions
that consumers make every day about products
such as food and clothing. Thus, the following
illustrates how even an apparently minor or mun-
dane decision can be approached with the recog-
nition of the significant relevance and impact of
these choices in aggregate.
Brent: And I’ll spend money on [sandals]—like I
would much rather—if I have the money upfront
—to just buy something good and enjoy it than
buy some junky pair of flip flops for four bucks
and then next year—or a pair of crocs and then
next year go buy another pair and never be
happy. Like I really like design. I like materials.
And so you pay it once, but then you—if you’re
into that kind of thing, it’s almost paying you in
a way, to appreciate how it feels. You know I’ll
sit here—it’s kind of weird, but I’ll look at—I’ll
think about it’s actually not that easy to design a
sandal. And think about how they cut the leather
and think about why they do it a certain way.
And I saw like a video of how they make the
Birkenstocks. So I find that really interesting,
how they produce things. Then I actually found,
like I said, I had my old Birkenstocks. And
there’s a place online you can send in your
Birkenstocks in all different levels of disrepair.
They’ll like resole them, they’ll recork them.
They’ll even like just keep the leather and
rebuild the whole Birkenstock. New buckles and
everything. For like half of what it costs to get a
new pair. And I think that’s—I mean you’re not
going to do that with a piece of junky shoes. It’s
just garbage. It’s garbage from the day you got
it. And then you feel crappy because your feet
hurt. And then you got to throw them out, and
then people do that again and again. I would
much rather be like okay so I bought these
shoes. They were $130, and they should last me
like, if I wear them all the time, five years or
something. That’s not that much money. Where
you buy one for $30 and you don’t enjoy it, and
the next year you got to buy another pair and
another pair and another pair. Or it just speaks
to you in like a way—just the quality of it. When
you put it on or you see it, you just sense
it. . .It’s the real thing. And it costs $200 because
that’s what it costs. Because a person needs some
money to make it. They have to make a living
(40s, farmer).
The story about Brent’s sandals is revelatory in
regard to consumer wisdom, with all five facets
and several of their dimensions evident to differ-
ing degrees. First, with respect to Intentionality,
Brent talked about his admiration and respect for
great design as part of his lifestyle envisionment.
This theme emerged at several points throughout
his interview in relation to a variety of products,
including furniture. For Brent, well-designed prod-
ucts—especially the simplicity and functionality of
Scandinavian design—create an environment
which he considers elegant and beautiful, and
reinforce his sense of identity through their integ-
rity, efficiency, and authenticity. He also pairs this
appreciation of design with a poised consideration
of product cost: “. . .If I have the money upfront”
(personal resource management). Second, with
respect to Contemplation, Brent considers the
likely consequences of two very different options
(prospection), either the more expensive Birken-
stocks or low cost “flip flops,” as well as his
Consumer Wisdom 373
thought process for reconciling which alternative
is best over a longer period of time (reasoning).
Next, both dimensions of Emotional Mastery are
evident, including his concern with not wanting
to “feel crappy because your feet hurt” and
“never be happy” (avoiding negative emotions) and
instead wanting to “enjoy” the great design, and
“appreciate how it feels” (pursuing positive emo-
tions). His appreciation for the option of sending
his sandals in for repair to extend their useful life
(alternative consumption) reflects his Openness,
given that spending money to restore shoes is
atypical among most American consumers.
Finally, as to Transcendence and its dimensions
of compassion and interbeing, Brent demonstrates
sincere compassion in terms of the welfare of the
manufacturers’ employees: “. . .it costs $200
because that’s what it costs. Because a person
needs some money to make it. They have to
make a living.” Hence, Brent identifies very per-
sonally with the employees’ challenges and the
value of their craftsmanship.
Overall, Brent sees complexity and beauty
within the apparent simplicity of sandals. His
unadorned Birkenstocks are not so easy to craft,
and his astuteness about their design, manufactur-
ing, and repair unveils a mature wisdom about
the nature of human-made things. Other aspects
of Brent’s stories also reflect his wise consump-
tion, including a blended consideration of value
and meaning through footwear and well-being in
this case, beyond the mere cost of ownership over
time. This includes the enjoyment and pride of
wearing shoes that are comfortable, that embody
his admiration for thoughtful design, and that are
consistent with his compassion for others and his
desire to feel bonded and connected to the world
around him. Given this overview of Brent’s wis-
dom-infused story about sandals, we now turn to
more detailed development of each facet and its
dimensions.
Intentionality
Intentionality in consumption emerges from the
individual’s continuing awareness of the inex-
orable and systematic role that consumption
behaviors play in constructing and sustaining a
lifestyle, as well as from the individual’s accep-
tance of personal responsibility for the deliberate
management of a lifestyle within the confines of
available resources. More formally, we define
Intentionality in consumer wisdom as the commit-
ment to and practice of ongoing lifestyle
envisionment and the conscious personal resource
management needed to realize the respective envi-
sionment. In terms of the coding of the interviews,
all 31 informants (100%) conveyed at some point
the theme of Intentionality.
Lifestyle Envisionment. A recurrent trait of our
informants was their recognition that they have the
opportunity and accountability to define and pur-
sue their own virtuous pattern of living through a
synergy of time, money, effort, values, and con-
sumption behaviors. Across our interviews, there
was, however, a wide variety of ways to enact this
shared mindset as well as a variety of sources of
inspiration. Some informants were raised within a
lifestyle whose inherent worth they recognize and
endeavor to emulate. Others sought and realized a
change of lifestyle after substantial reflection on
their lives; at times, this trajectory came gradually
and for others it was catalyzed by a critical life
event. For Connie, wiser consumption through
Intentionality was precipitated by her divorce at
age 40:
Connie: I did a lot of changing and soul search-
ing. . .I think it was getting out of the situation
where I was in that I was stifled. I had always
had these beliefs, but mainstream kind of
pushes you along. It’s just like a stream. It’s a
good word, “mainstream.” It just pushes you
right into the next thing. Collecting Christmas
ornaments, that sort of mentality. I gotta get
the next ornament. And the consumer part of
it was so dissatisfying. It didn’t fulfill me at
all. . . And so I had a suburban lifestyle and
just felt totally disconnected to my roots in the
city and my culture and the people that—I
think the suburbs really do kind of isolate you.
That same year, I also took the permaculture
course. So things really shifted fast for me.
That’s when I started realizing that I could
make a difference in my own life with my
own hands. So I started taking control of
things that way (60s, permaculture educator).
Connie’s pensive journey of transformation was
motivated by a realization that her suburban life-
style was suffocating her, which she attributes in
considerable part to mainstream, hyper-consump-
tion American culture. Aside from also feeling dis-
connected and isolated, her prior lifestyle felt at
odds with her true but then-suppressed values.
Over time, she awakened to the idea that she
“could make a difference in my own life. . . [and]
take control.” This epiphany instigated her return
374 Luchs and Mick
to the culture and community of metropolitan life,
and the goal of orienting her lifestyle around her
dual interests in environment and agriculture,
which foster immense purpose and meaning for
her. Now currently engaged full time in the practice
and teaching of urban permaculture, Connie’s new
lifestyle reflects more accurately and more self-
reliantly her values and priorities. Her Intentional-
ity incorporates a robust linkage of values,
knowledge, goals, and behavior that Baltes and
Smith (2008) stress as a significant feature of wiser
living, and it also evinces an introspective and intu-
itive sophia-wisdom that she readily drew upon.
Compelling examples of lifestyle envisionment
were shared by other informants. On the one hand,
a prevalent theme within many stories was a con-
certed effort to strongly regulate consumption gen-
erally; this included periodic purging of possessions
to simplify lifestyles and avoid feeling over-
whelmed by material goods that required storage
and maintenance. On the other hand, many stories
equally emphasized how consumption, when selec-
tively exercised, can support the actualization of
envisioned lifestyles. Vickie and Dale, for example,
developed a welcoming home with comfortable fur-
niture for the periodic dinner parties they organize
to fulfill their active social lives. What all these
stories share is purposeful and diligent lifestyle
envisionment that uniquely exhibits each wise con-
sumer’s Intentionality while also promoting their
well-being.
Personal Resource Management. Our informants
consistently described the importance of being
levelheaded about planning and managing their
fungible resources to build and preserve the life-
styles they aspired to. Beyond the generation of
income to afford their envisioned lifestyle, they also
emphasized the need to save for unanticipated but
necessary expenditures, (e.g., a new roof for their
residence). With respect to spending money, infor-
mants emphasized the development and effective
use of budgets in view of their focus on long- ver-
sus short-term costs and benefits (reflecting Stern-
berg’s, 1998 emphasis on the necessity of both
temporal views in wisdom). Budget management
for informants often included budget-shifting,
which entailed the resolute periodic reallocation of
money from expenditures deemed to contribute less
to their envisioned lifestyle, such as cable television
(in one case), to those with greater personal value,
such as organic groceries or intercultural travel (in
two other cases). Another regular theme was the
avoidance of debt, as informants perceived a reli-
ance on debt to be a threat to the viability of their
envisioned lifestyle. Mortgage debt, however, was
considered acceptable; yet even then, informants,
such as Jenn, were cautious about what level of
mortgage debt was appropriate given her envi-
sioned lifestyle and her resource management
objectives:
Jenn: And so we ended up buying this place.
And afterwards—and I just went about it sort of
the wrong—well not the wrong way, but not the
normal way that people do. Normally you go to
the bank and you say, “How much money will
you give me?” And I went instead and said,
“Okay well this is how much I want to pay, and
this is how much I want to pay a month.” . . .
And then we went to—afterwards when we
actually went to the loan guy and we’re signing
the paperwork, I said, “All right, Paul wants to
know how much would you have given us?”
And it was, you know, 150,000 dollars more than
our house. We could have bought a whole sepa-
rate house with the amount of money they
would have given us. And I was like “that’s
crazy.” I would’ve spent all of our money—we
could’ve made it, but why would I want to
spend all of my money on the mortgage when I
could be spending this much money on the
mortgage and this much money on travel? Or
doing whatever I want. I don’t want to be locked
into my house and I can’t ever leave it because
now I don’t have any more money (40s, self-
employed).
Jenn applied shrewd budget-shifting to one of
the most consequential decisions that consumers
face. Rather than being swept away by social or
institutional influences—as mainstream mortgage
lending is often driven by rules-of-thumb about
how much one could borrow based on their income
—Jenn’s astute approach was to consider her aggre-
gate use of resources within the context of her envi-
sioned lifestyle. Beyond ensuring ample resources
for other uses, and not being “locked into my
house” (i.e., trapped by a bad financial decision),
Jenn also mentioned peace-of-mind in knowing that
she and her husband had the flexibility to adjust
their use of resources and to absorb unforeseen
changes in their ability to generate income. In short,
Jenn was both realistic and rebellious. Like Connie
above and other informants, Jenn refused to blindly
capitulate to taken-for-granted practices by the tra-
ditional marketplace.
In addition to managing financial resources,
informants also discussed the importance of
Consumer Wisdom 375
managing another lifestyle-defining resource: time.
For instance, Betty explained how she and her hus-
band decided to cut back significantly on expendi-
tures that they realized were not materially
contributing to their envisioned lifestyle (such as
new clothing fashions) to reduce their income
requirements and work schedules in favor of extra
discretionary time for activities that they enjoyed
more (such as cooking together). This too is
unorthodox among US consumers. Work, consump-
tion, money, and time were viewed as being inex-
tricably linked by most of our wise informants,
which is a guiding insight that many overworked
and overspent Americans are capable of compre-
hending and following, but are absentmindedly not
applying to their lives (Schor, 1991, 1999). The
Intentionality of wise consumption is thusly imple-
mented through the judicious harmonizing of work
effort, income versus expenses, and discretionary
time to enrich well-being.
Contemplation
Intentionality and Contemplation have a recip-
rocal relationship in which wise consumption
decisions are guided by conscious, forthright
intentions which, in turn, are informed by lived
experience and reflection upon ongoing choices,
behaviors, and consequences. Although they are
closely related, Intentionality and Contemplation
are distinguished by their orientation. Whereas
Intentionality refers to a superordinate set of con-
sumption intentions and the consumer’s collective
pattern of choices and behaviors over time, Con-
templation deals directly with the specific, discrete
consumption choices and behaviors that consumers
undertake on a daily basis. More specifically, we
define Contemplation in wise consumption as the
practice of thoughtful consideration of discrete
consumption options at a given time through retro-
spection, prospection, and prudent reasoning. In all,
28 of the informants (90%) displayed the facet of
Contemplation.
Retrospection. Consistent with prior wisdom
research emphasizing the importance of reflection
(Ardelt, 2003), as well as asking difficult questions
and learning from mistakes (Baltes & Staudinger,
2000), our informants are strongly guided by situa-
tional and ongoing deliberation on the conse-
quences of their prior consumption choices and
behaviors.
Bob: When you acquire something, there’s all
kinds of additional investment that’s required
besides you had to lower the amount of money
in your bank account a little bit and hand it off
to the purveyor of whatever it was. The learning
curve associated with using it, the maintenance
associated with keeping it up, the amount of
time it consumes your thoughts as it relates to
what else it might be able to do for you. . .And
it’s an ongoing relationship, whether it’s a piece
of clothing that you use every day or you rarely
wear and every time you look at it you feel
guilty that you bought it one size too small. Or a
gadget that you had great hopes it would change
your life, and it turns out to be kind of useless
but you can’t bear to throw it away so it’s sitting
on a shelf and you feel bad about that. There are
all kinds of elements that have to do with some-
thing that you choose to purchase (50s, retired
executive).
Beyond the immediate financial cost of a pur-
chase, Bob emphasized the demands of learning to
use and maintain new products, in addition to the
opportunity cost of investing time on gadget learn-
ing that does not augment his well-being as he sees
it. Furthermore, he recognized the emotional
expense of dubious product choices in the past that
led him to feeling guilty (due to non-use) or to dis-
appointment (due to unfulfilled expectations). Anal-
ogous to Bob’s viewpoint, our teenage informant
Caleb described how his approach to consumption
was shaped by the disenchantment he experienced
following impulse purchases he made when he was
only 6 years old (e.g., a “cool little statue” at a
museum gift shop which then stood idly on his
bookshelf and a Lego set that went untouched after
being assembled). Caleb learned, by implication, to
be cautious about quick decisions in certain settings
and about unbridled hopes or expectations that
often go unmet. Caleb’s case also revealed, as some
wisdom theorists have argued (e.g., Sternberg,
1990), that years of adulthood are not a prerequisite
for developing key aspects of wisdom. This insight
speaks to the potential for people across the lifes-
pan to be coached and encouraged in wiser con-
sumption, beginning in early schooling years
(Sternberg, 2001).
Sometimes, other people in life provide lessons
on consumer wisdom, whether knowingly or not.
For example, several informants shared stories of
retrospection based on observing the experiences and
consequences of others’ consumption choices. One
was Ben, who recounted his years of watching his
once-wealthy grandfather buy one new car after
another, seemingly “never satisfied with what he
376 Luchs and Mick
had.” As Ben concluded, and lamented, “. . .I knew
how he approached life and I knew that he was
unhappy and I saw that connection. . .in a sense,
I’ve really profited from his suffering in a way.”
Prospection. Informants also devoted substan-
tial effort to pondering the future outcomes of
impending choices. As a complement to retrospec-
tion, prospection involves imagining the effects of
different consumption options, which can be
informed by prior experiences as well as new and
different possibilities in a future situation. Dale’s
story of his interest in buying a new house is
illustrative:
Dale: I mean like I bought a house—we were
looking at a house on the Missouri side in my
first marriage. And before we made the pur-
chase, I actually got up early in the morning,
drove out there, and drove from there to my
work. Before I even lived there. Just to feel what
that was like. . . .I kind of imagine the day after
the purchase. What is life going to be like? Is it
going to do something in my life? Make me bet-
ter? Make something improved in my life. And if
not, then I back away. But is it incrementally bet-
ter? Those kinds of things. And I do think it’s
walking through this scenario of not buying or
not consuming. And that to me is—I sleep on
things. I actually don’t make purchases the first
day I start looking at things, unless it’s some-
thing real inexpensive. But the camera equip-
ment, vehicles, all those kinds of really
significant purchases, it takes time. And part of
it is trying it on mentally and seeing if it really
works (60s, retired executive).
Dale’s story disclosed his imperturbable practice
of visualizing the future outcome of a potential pur-
chase, and even simulating it when possible. In
actuating this embodied cognition through driving
the conceivable new commute, Dale approximated
ownership so that he could more fully consider
important questions such as to how he will actually
live with a new possession, including how it will
impact his current routines. Notably, Dale’s prospec-
tion went beyond ordinary affective forecasting (i.e.,
how will I feel about it?), which has been shown to
be often erroneous (Wilson & Gilbert, 2005).
Instead, he showed remarkable forethought and
forbearance in striving to envisage and pre-live the
ownership experience as conscientiously as possible
for his overall well-being.
Several other informants shared stories that also
evinced prospection in consumer wisdom. Jessamyn,
a mother of two young children, visualized the pur-
chase of a high-quality, low-maintenance, under-
the-counter water filtering system. Although it was
expensive, she came to recognize that the system
would streamline her busy days, bring healthy
drinks to the dinner table, and save money over the
long term. Meanwhile, Tom, who was enticed by
ads for a new car model, soberly foresaw that the
new vehicle would not substantively improve the
quality of his life that much, and it might even
cause stress from what he termed the “worry about
things happening to it.”
Prudent Reasoning. Unlike retrospection and
prospection, which emphasize gaining perspective as
an input to decision making, prudent reasoning
addresses the thoughtful effort applied to synthesiz-
ing, balancing, and reconciling the individual’s
accumulated knowledge, insights, preferences, and
values. Thus, prudent reasoning often follows retro-
spection or prospection, yet also integrates other
information, ultimately leading to a decision. While
this certainly requires persevering effort, our data
indicated that it was clearly and substantially evi-
dent. As prefigured in Tom’s consideration of a
new car as mentioned above, prudent reasoning
often led to postponing or avoiding purchasing
completely although the informant perceived a
need or desire to be fulfilled and had the necessary
resources to do so. For example, Ole, an urban fam-
ily-practice physician, explained his closing decision
to pass on the purchase of a Prius hybrid (to
replace his gas-engine Subaru) despite his interest
in doing so “just for the ecological impact.” Instead,
his consideration of a variety of factors led to an
unexpected realization that a new Prius would nei-
ther save him money, given how little he drove,
nor have a positive environmental impact, given
the resources used in manufacturing a new automo-
bile to replace his current car.
Prudent reasoning was not limited, however, to
major purchase decisions such as buying an auto-
mobile. A less imposing choice was sunglasses:
Brent: Like you can go to Target or Walmart and
get a pair of sunglasses for $12. Why would you
spend $120 on a pair of sunglasses? So they
would think that I’m sort of foolish or maybe
not foolish, but just wasting money basically. I
know some of my in-laws would think that.
Especially since if you’re not affluent, like you
definitely should not be spending that money on
sunglasses. But then my argument is you got one
pair of eyes and you should get really good sun-
glasses to protect your eyes if you’re out in the
Consumer Wisdom 377
sun all the time. Like that’s a smart investment.
And also you’re going to buy ten pairs of those
crappy sunglasses. They’re going to break and
they’re going to be all bent up. And at the end
of the day you’re going to spend the same
amount of money, but you’re not going to be as
happy about it (40s, farmer).
Brent’s slowed-down reasoning exhibited
methodical consideration of several factors over
time in buying sunglasses, including cost, utility,
comfort, and eye health. Brent told other con-
sumption stories that demonstrated an overall
ethic of thrift, yet he also exhibited significant
flexibility in actively exploring his options to
ensure apt solutions for his goals and values. This
example appears to present a paradox of sorts,
given the desire of some of our wise informants
to not invest too much time in the process of
deciding how and what to consume. However,
Brent resolves this apparent paradox by cogitating
on the consequences of not selectively investing
time to enact prudent reasoning within these
decisions:
Brent: Like things own you as much as you
own them. If something is breaking all the time,
causing you frustration, it’s owning you. So
how much is that worth? Is saving twelve dol-
lars a year, is that really worth all that frustra-
tion, or would you rather just pay the whatever
more and enjoy it that whole time? That’s
something I’m thinking about more and more,
is the things that you own, own you (40s,
farmer).
Brent’s admonition that “the things that you
own, own you” distinguishes a standpoint also
taken by other informants, namely, that the extra
time spent contemplating options—through retro-
spection, prospection, and prudent reasoning—is often
justified (a) by the time and money saved choosing
products that last a long time, (b) by the routinizing
of well-reasoned decisions over time (e.g., re-buying
proven goods and brands), and (c) by limiting con-
sideration (and consumption) of goods and services
to those that patently align with the consumer’s
values and goals.
Taken as a whole, Contemplation exemplifies a
firm commitment to mindfulness, as it is newly
emerging in consumer psychology (e.g., Bahl et al.,
2016; Mick, 2017). Mindfulness is the act of being
mentally present in a nonjudgmental manner with
respect to both internal stimuli (e.g., thoughts,
emotions, bodily sensations) and external stimuli.
Hence, its essential benefit is in assisting people to
disengage from automatic thinking and detrimental
behavior patterns (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Bahl et al.
(2016, p. 200) suggest that “mindful consumption is
an inquiry-based process that endows consumers
with awareness and insight to choose their
responses rather than react blindly or habitually.”
The importance of mindfulness to wisdom is also
evident in the next facet of consumer wisdom,
Emotional Mastery.
Emotional Mastery
Emotional mastery refers to our informants’
learning from consumption-related emotions,
including mindful management of current situa-
tional and plausible future emotions. Thus, beyond
regulation of emotions that might thwart con-
sumers’ intended or preferred behaviors (Kidwell,
Hardesty, & Childers, 2008), Emotional Mastery
also encompasses avoidance of behaviors that
might lead to undesired emotional states such as
regret, guilt, and anxiety. This can involve avoid-
ing future frustrations in product ownership, as
Brent described earlier. Alternatively, it can
include the active pursuit and attainment of
desired positive emotional states such as joy,
peacefulness, and flow. Taken together, we define
Emotional Mastery for wise consumption as the
awareness of and strategic use of consumption
emotions to enhance well-being. Such mastery
includes both an active avoidance of negative emo-
tions and an active pursuit of positive emotions.
Thereby, Emotional Mastery also reflects the bal-
ance theme in theories of wisdom (e.g. Schwartz
& Sharpe, 2010; Sternberg, 1998) that emphasizes a
middle ground between the hedonism of material-
ism and the asceticism of denial. In all, 29 of our
informants (94%) revealed a sensitivity to and
capacity for Emotional Mastery.
Avoidance of Negative Emotions. Our informants
recognized and circumvented consumer behaviors
they believed could lead to adverse emotions. A
shared tactic was simply to stay away from retail
contexts and other situations that were likely to
energize product desire, which represents a wise
consumer strategy of little focus in past research.
Another well-honed tactic was to buy tried-and-
true products and brands rather than spending lim-
ited time and energy exploring new or less known
options. Whereas researchers have acknowledged
this latter consumer strategy for many years, they
have often characterized it as a simplistic heuristic
378 Luchs and Mick
or a status quo bias (Samuelson & Zeckhauser,
1988), rather than being a relatively wise and defen-
sible approach. However, our informants recog-
nized the inevitability of facing ambiguous
consumption choices, the importance of noticing
and contextualizing their emotional responses, and,
when warranted, balancing these with a more con-
templative stance:
Dale: . . . I don’t let point-of-purchase decisions
kind of rule me. Occasionally I’ll see something
that gave me a new idea. But I don’t go to the
store hungry. I do things like that to make sure
that I don’t fall victim to sort of those emotional
kind of things. Which is what companies want
you to do. Everything is targeted toward getting
you to buy right now, today. Like cars even. I
mean obviously their strategy is to not have you
leave the store without something. And I don’t
fall for that. I don’t go in there with the expecta-
tion to buy and don’t allow them to talk me into
it and just be disciplined about it . . .I don’t like
to make purchases I regret. And so that drives
me to really be happy with what I decide. And I
rarely buy something and then I’m disappointed
afterward. I rarely do, and I just hate—I think
actually one time in my first marriage we bought
a car. We bought a Renault Alliance, which was
kind of a cheap-end Renault. And it was prob-
lems all the way through. We could never—that
car was like a lemon. Gas would leak out of the
gas tank and stuff. And they couldn’t find how
to fix it. There were some of those purchases I
made back then that I regret. I wish I hadn’t
done that. (60s, retired executive).
A vital element underlying Dale’s learned cau-
tious attitude was a recognition of the motives of
marketers and the promotional tactics employed to
influence his feelings and behavior, also known as
persuasion knowledge (Friestad & Wright, 1994).
While Dale does not question the purpose and
value of the marketplace in general, he recognizes
that he has a concomitant responsibility to regulate
his emotional responses within the context of his
own needs and goals, such as not going to grocery
stores when he is hungry. However, some infor-
mants expressed a balancing perspective in which
they recognized that it is likewise essential not to
exaggerate frugality and simplicity to a degree that
they utilize too much time or cause themselves
stress, including a self-inflicted sense of scarcity.
Beyond the initial acquisition of a product, infor-
mants also considered how consumption choices
would affect them during ownership—as illustrated
by Brent’s concern that “the things that you own,
own you”—and eventually at disposition, such as
the worry of figuring out how to dispose of a pro-
duct in an environmentally responsible way.
Pursuit of Positive Emotions. Informants’ con-
sumption stories also commonly oriented around
the pursuit of positive emotions. While informants
tended to share an overall sense of gratitude and
feeling of abundance that did not rely on con-
sumption per se, they also recognized the role
that consumption could play in fostering their
emotional well-being without compromising their
finances, values, and so forth. This included
everyday pleasures such as locally produced food,
including “fancy cheeses” (Natalie) and “fresh
peaches” (Kristyn) as well as shopping in food
co-ops where the scrupulous selection of suppliers
contributed to a more fulfilling shopping experi-
ence (Jessamyn). Other related purchase experi-
ences involved travel that connected consumers’
empathies to the larger cultural and natural
world, or they involved distinctive products and
possessions that welled-up profound emotions
such as cherishment, awe, and love. For example,
Tom described his custom-built bike as “one of
my prized possessions”:
Tom: I went to a bike show, and he had a frame
builder who built the frames, then he built the
bikes up. And he said I can probably put you in
one of these for about 3,000 bucks or whatever. I
think it was about 3,000, which was much less
than I thought it would be, but also more than I
was planning on spending. I was going to
upgrade my bike anyway. And I just decided
that in this case it’s worth it since—because as
my wife told me and I remember talking with
my sisters, they said you don’t get rid of things
once you get them. And it’s not as in a hoarder
or anything like that. It’s just that you take care
of them and you use them as long as you can.
So now I’ve been riding this bike for thirteen or
fourteen years. I’ve put maybe 25, 30, 35,000
miles on it. You know, and just regular mainte-
nance. And it just goes and goes and goes. But I
take really good care of it. I make sure every-
thing’s working all the time. And I’ve picked up
enough bike mechanic knowledge to be able to
do most of the maintenance myself, unless it’s
something big. . .But the bike itself, it’s a gor-
geous bike. It’s not flashy. It just is built for me.
They measure your legs, your arms, your shoul-
ders—everything about you. And then they
Consumer Wisdom 379
build the frame to fit you. It’s one of my prized
possessions. . .Again, not that it’s terribly valu-
able, except to me. . . And I will have it forever
(60s, retired teacher).
Tom’s bicycle promotes his physical and emo-
tional well-being in a variety of ways. Beyond the
fitness that cycling fosters, Tom experiences deep
satisfaction in owning a “gorgeous bike” that
serves his unique needs (“built for me”). This
strong and meaningful appreciation of the bicycle
fuels his diligent attention to preserving its enjoy-
ment value for the long term, including learning
new maintenance and repair skills. In a sense, this
level of engagement with a product such as a
bicycle, distinct from most brand or product rela-
tionships, may seem inconsistent with an intuition
that consumer wisdom is inherently anti-materia-
listic and, therefore, should involve little emotional
connection to material goods. However, Tom’s
story—consistent with those of several other infor-
mants—exemplifies how objects of wise consump-
tion can provide authentic, healthy, and evocative
emotional significance for consumers (cf. Las-
tovicka & Sirianni, 2011). Nonetheless, despite
ample financial resources, Tom’s aggregate level of
product ownership is comparatively low. Indeed,
Tom actually has a “fewer but better things” phi-
losophy which was evident in his participation in
a tool library that lends tools to members as an
alternative to ownership (cf. Belk, 2010). Product
ownership for Tom—given its many and varied
costs—is typically limited to that which unambigu-
ously provides him value over time, including
emotional value. A similar philosophy of product
ownership was described by other informants,
including Brent, Ben, and Karma, who shared sto-
ries (respectively) about a wood burning stove, a
boat, and a horse brass collection (plaques).
Openness
As nominated for their wisdom, our informants
were characteristically curious and regularly drawn
to uncommon ideas and experiences, consistent
with a similar leitmotif described by wisdom psy-
chologists (e.g., Gl€uck et al., 2013; Webster, 2003).
In our data, Openness was evident in two distinct,
yet complementary ways. First, our informants
often purposefully sought out new consumption
opportunities to impel personal growth and well-
being. Second, they exhibited a readiness to experi-
ment with and adopt unconventional consumption
practices. More formally, we define Openness in
wise consumption as adoption of a consumption-
mediated growth mindset, and the selective trial and
adoption of alternative consumption practices. The
Openness facet appeared among 26 of our infor-
mants (84%).
Growth Mindset. A growth mindset means that
an individual has a belief that their personal qualities
—such as certain skills and even intelligence—“can
be cultivated through your efforts, your strategies,
and help from others” (Dweck, 2006, p. 7). This same
quest within wise consumption was highlighted by
several of our informants through motivated spend-
ing that supported the expansion of competences
(e.g., cooking, photography, public speaking). For
others, the change sought was more fundamental
and directed their resources toward experiences that
would afford fresh or unusual perspectives, which is
a focal component of wisdom generally (see, e.g.,
Ardelt, 2003; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000).
Kristyn, a stay-at-home mother of five, described
one of the extended international trips that her fam-
ily has taken to regions such as Eastern Europe and
Africa that are atypical for a vacationing American
family. Kristyn explained that she and her husband
are stirred by the adventure and lessons of seeing
different cultures and places, and by her children’s
development from not only getting a different per-
spective but also “having to adjust”:
Kristyn: We see a lot of poverty. We see a lot of
different kinds of interactions. People that sweep
the streets for a living. Women that are hunched
over and they’re cleaning up the gutters. And
my kids are just observing all that and saying,
“Wow this is the way a lot of people live in this
world.” So their gratitude, their compassion—
things that I want them to learn. This is a way to
learn those things (40s, mother).
While these trips depend upon diligent budget
management throughout the year for Kristyn and
her husband, they are deemed essential neverthe-
less to their children’s and their own moral matura-
tion. Though full of cultural wonder, these trips
also provide a mind-widening perspective on the
challenges of everyday life in many other parts of
the world. In addition, as Kristyn explained, the
experiences lead the entire family to a realization
and endorsement of empathy, compassion, and
gratitude that motivate their serving others within
their own community.
Informants’ stories also suggested that unique
experiences can have a profound effect on how they
approach consumption itself overall. For instance,
380 Luchs and Mick
Alex described the formative experience of living in
a co-op as an undergraduate college student. While
admitting that he lived there initially because he
“needed a place to live kind of desperately and did
not have anything available,” he credited the experi-
ence with unexpectedly and fundamentally changing
his attitudes toward consumer behavior, especially
for the wiser. To illustrate, he described a recent deci-
sion to buy and repair a used basket for his bicycle:
Alex: . . . it’s less about saving money because I
can’t afford to get a bike basket ‘cause I could
afford to get a bike basket and it wouldn’t be
some sort of inordinate strain. I don’t know. It
just is more satisfying. In that co-op in college
was sort of the beginning of it. And I use that as
a way to like think about a lot of other things
beyond just that house and that specific period
of time. But that was sort of the culture, you
know, just sort of figure things out and impro-
vise things (20s, student).
Alex’s Openness to learning through life at the
co-op—including development of a greater sense of
resourcefulness and self-sufficiency—helped him
appreciate more options for his consumption activi-
ties in general.
Alternative Consumption. A natural conse-
quence of informants’ Openness to change is a will-
ingness to tryout and occasionally embrace
nontraditional consumption practices, as described
by Alex above (see also prior stories, e.g., Betty).
Our informants regularly questioned widely
accepted consumption practices in favor of alterna-
tives that they perceived to offer greater value or
enhanced fulfillment. Examples included acquiring
distinctive goods that offer singular or superior
benefits, or adopting practices that minimize the
associated expenditures of consumption, such as
the costs of purchased physical goods and/or their
storage, maintenance, and repair. Furthermore, al-
ternative consumption practices were perceived as a
way to provide benefits beyond traditional utilitar-
ian and hedonic attributes, such as personal connec-
tion and enactment of Other-oriented values.
Alternatives in consumption span a continuum of
options, with mass-market goods being often
viewed as the option of last resort, rather than the
default. Five alternative strategies along this contin-
uum, which we now briefly describe, include (a)
consumer production/co-production, (b) borrow-
ing/sharing, (c) buying used goods, (d) buying cus-
tom or small-batch produced goods, and (e)
extending the value of goods already owned.
Consumer production and co-production are
cases in which the consumer contributes in whole
or part to the manufacture of a good or service
(Etgar, 2008). Several informants produced their
own goods for personal consumption (typically
food, apparel, or crafts) or to share and barter with
others (informants: Brent, Connie, Iwona, Jenn, and
Jen). These practices simultaneously provided a
sense of freedom from the mass economy and a
strengthened connection to other people who
shared the same ethic and dedication to different
forms of value exchange (cf. Kozinets, 2002). Co-
production was a practice that also included buying
used goods with the intention to repair them or
otherwise enhance their value (e.g., Alex, Brent).
Within the realm of services, several informants
also participated in neighborhood “work-parties”
(Connie, Caleb) that called neighbors together on a
periodic basis to complete significant home or gar-
den projects that benefited from the pooled
resources and expertise of a group.
Some informants endeavored to borrow, share,
and exchange goods informally with friends and
neighbors, while others took advantage of emerging
organized networks that apply the logic of book-
lending libraries to a growing range of physical
goods (Belk, 2010, 2014). Among our informants’
examples was “Swapnplay,” a local clothing and
toy exchange that Jessamyn joined over 4 years
ago, and a tool library mentioned before by Tom.
Beyond minimizing the personal costs of tool own-
ership, Tom described other benefits of the tool
library, including extending his social network,
gaining access to information about tool usage and
maintenance, and reducing environmental impact
(less ownership means less resource use).
When purchasing and owning goods was justi-
fied or, indeed, was the only viable option, some
informants sought substitutes to purchasing newly
manufactured goods, sometimes leading to nontra-
ditional benefits. Caleb explained that he prefers to
shop at the Buffalo Exchange, a used-clothing store,
because the clothing there can be “more cool” pre-
cisely because it is not brand new, which he sees as
an advantage beyond the lower cost per se: “It’s
been around for a while. Someone’s worn it and it’s
kind of had a past.” Other informants argued that
older products can sometimes have superior
designs (to new ones) that are more functional, dur-
able, repairable, and beautiful, such as toasters
(Karma) and trucks (Brent).
When informants did consider new goods, they
were inclined whenever possible to seek out cus-
tom-made or small-batch goods, often from local or
Consumer Wisdom 381
regional producers. This was especially true in gift-
giving. Informants soundly preferred to give, and
to receive, things that reflect the individuality of
their relationships as well as the extra effort needed
to locate the most appropriate ones in terms of the
recipient’s identity and interests (Belk, 1988, 1996).
For example:
Brent: . . .like I have a belt on that Teresa got
me. The belt buckle is sentimental. Someone
gave it to me a long time ago. And it’s a brass
buckle. It’s been sitting around in a drawer for
years. And she finally brought it to a leather
worker here in town. They do amazing leather
work. And now every time I put my belt on, I
think about that person, and it’s really cool. And
it was like—I don’t know, she probably spent
fifty bucks or forty-five bucks on it. And she
could’ve gotten—she could’ve gone to a store in
town and probably got a decent, an okay leather
belt for twenty-five dollars. But it’s worth—like I
know the woman that made it. I know the whole
story behind it. And it’s like I’ll have the belt for
a long time. So that’s worth—the ten bucks is so
much more worth that (40s, farmer).
A final tactic, which bespoke of consumption
that the mass marketplace works against, was to
deliberately extend the value of things already
owned. Whether our wise consumers did it pri-
marily for practical reasons (e.g., saving money)
or for ideological reasons (e.g., to conserve
resources), they endeavored to regularly prolong
the life of their possessions through maintenance
and repair. And when the personal value or use
of a possession became sufficiently low, owners
often offered its residual value to others, for
example, by selling, trading, or donating it, or by
“re-purposing” the object. For example, Karma
illustrated this dimension of consumer wisdom
when describing secondary uses for a variety of
typical household items, including old flower
pots, plastic containers, and clothes. She also
emphasized her family’s goal to “use things until
they are completely worn out and have to move
on to some other world.” Overall, our wise infor-
mants were keenly open to consuming differently
in many situations as compared to what main-
stream consumers tend to do.
Transcendence
Our informants revealed Transcendence as a
sincere and persistent concern for the impact of
their consumption on others and a recognition
that consumption inevitably flows from and rein-
forces higher-order motives and values such as
kindness, gratitude, and love. Accordingly, several
of our informants’ stories built atop Sternberg’s
(1998) emphasis on balancing intrapersonal, inter-
personal, and extrapersonal interests. These
accounts revealed the philosophical wisdom of
sophia that Trowbridge (2011) depicts as an intu-
itive knowing of what is right and good, often
manifesting in a dissolution of the Self-Other
boundary. Hence, we conceptualize Transcendence
in consumer wisdom as an unreserved compassion
for all entities affected by consumption, invoked
through a conviction of the interconnectedness of
all life forms, which the Buddhist monk Thich
Nhat Hanh (1987) calls interbeing. Across our
informants, 27 (87%) disclosed aspects of Tran-
scendence.
Compassion. Informants showed a stalwart
personal accountability for their consumption as
oriented around motives and behaviors of kind-
ness and empathy, ordinarily beginning with self-
compassion. This focus, in turn, facilitated a
greater concern for the welfare of others, starting
with their immediate families. These insights were
especially evident in consumption stories by infor-
mants who were parents of younger children.
Their children were particularly instrumental in
catalyzing a more Other-centric perspective (infor-
mants: Hila, Jessamyn, Brent, Teresa, Ben, Karma,
and Monica). Compassion beyond the self
included not only multifaceted caring for other
people, but also for the natural environment. Sev-
eral informants framed their relationship to the
natural environment as stewardship (Joel, Ben,
Hila), invoking responsibility to provide protection
and promote healing. As Joel said, “. . .as much as
lies within you, you know, is this healing or hurt-
ing—the earthworms, your community, culture,
your children, the landscape your children will
inherit.” And Jassamyn offered, “It’s beautiful and
amazing. There’s not another earth near us. . .here
we are on this amazing place. We should really be
taking care of it.”
Compassion revealed in wise consumption was
cultivated through a variety of sources, including
observation of others, informational reading, and
religion. Such was the case for Hila, who discussed
a variety of her choices—both anti-consumption
and pro-consumption—from refusing to apply fer-
tilizer on her lawn to buying from a local farmer
whose practices support animal welfare and elimi-
nate non-recyclable packaging:
382 Luchs and Mick
Hila: And so even though I don’t actively par-
ticipate in a Christian church, I still feel like I
have a lot of the fundamental values. The
Golden Rule I would say is probably the one
that I still follow the strongest. Treat others
like you want to be treated. And I feel like
“others” applies to more than just human
beings. I think that “others” is the animals and
plants and the environment and all of that. So
I would say that one place is from my Chris-
tian upbringing. And then I would also say
that it’s from watching other people and seeing
how people live, that when I see something
and I’m like that makes sense to me. Like that
person is really practicing what they preach. . .
And so I guess that’s how I’ve continued to
develop my moral code is when I see some-
thing or I read something or I hear something
that resonates deeply, I guess I just sort of
bring that in as part of the whole moral code
(30s, customer service representative).
Hila portrayed her “moral code” as both embed-
ded and dynamic in her life. While it was borne
from the “fundamental values” of her religious
upbringing, this code was also influenced by ideas
she has read about or the behaviors she has
observed that “resonate deeply.”
For Hila and others, compassion is explicitly seen
in wise consumption behaviors that implicate a
variety of specific issues that have been studied
within the growing body of research on sustainable
consumer behavior, that is, consumption that
reflects pro-environmental or pro-social concerns
(Luchs, Naylor, Irwin, & Raghunathan, 2010;
Prothero et al., 2011). Informants’ stories collectively
addressed environmentally responsible practices
across the product lifecycle, such as choosing prod-
ucts that minimize the various impacts of produc-
tion, extending the life of products as long as
possible, and adopting responsible disposing prac-
tices. The range of social issues identified was simi-
larly broad, and ranged from concerns about
promoting local communities, the preservation of
international cultural diversity in the face of the
pressures of economic globalization, and the welfare
of others throughout the global supply chain.
Interbeing. Informants’ consumption stories
also revealed their efforts to develop relationships
with others, as well as to recognize and cultivate
connection throughout the world around them as
an elevated sense of interconnectedness and shared
existence. This interbeing manifested in possessions
themselves, as for example in the cases of Caleb’s
used shirts and Brent’s custom-made belt buckle, as
discussed earlier. It also emerged from the con-
sumption process, such as shopping in locally
owned stores (Joel, Teresa, Rita, Liz, Hila) and par-
ticipating in product lending libraries or exchanges
(Tom, Jessamyn). These activities to varying degrees
speak to the most important determinant of health
and happiness—namely, robust relationships—ac-
cording to the Harvard Study of Adult Develop-
ment that began nearly 80 years ago (Mineo, 2017).
Beyond feeling connected to their local communi-
ties, informants also sought a sense of co-existence
with nature and an experience of kinship with dis-
tant others, for example, through travel:
Tom: And I realized the first time we took kind of
a major trip out of the country, it just broadens
your horizons, your way of looking at things. It
makes the world a bit smaller. You get out to
places, and you realize you can be in Northern
Italy, you can be in Eastern or Central Turkey
where it’s all agrarian. You can be in a gigantic
city like Istanbul. . .And the people are just like
us, for the most part. They’re kinda like us. I
mean, they’re going about their lives. They’re
friendly, they’re outgoing, they’re helpful. . . If
you’re standing around with a map on a street
corner, somebody’s likely to walk by and want to
help. So I think it’s the notion of just how con-
nected we all are as people and how similar we
really are in spite of our society maybe being dif-
ferent from how theirs is run. . . (60s, ret. teacher)
Tom and his wife were inspired to visit Turkey,
despite being “nervous about the political situation,”
to experience a vastly different culture with a rich
and lengthy history. Tom also reflected on the people
they met, which he described as “kind of like us” and
then noted how “connected we all are as people.”
Finally, many informants discussed consumption
behaviors as impelled by, and as an embodiment
of, their beliefs in the sacred. While these beliefs are
understood and described by informants from the
perspective of a variety of religious practices and
spiritual traditions (cf. Mathras, Cohen, Mandel, &
Mick, 2016), informants shared an overarching
drive to experience belonging, goodness, and
wholeness that extends across and beyond the
material earthly world. For example, Betty
explained a dramatic shift away from her fashion-
oriented lifestyle as follows:
Betty: And so I really was kind of putting energy
out there searching for something else. . .And so
Consumer Wisdom 383
it was really wanting a different—almost a dif-
ferent spiritual practice. Because we don’t go to
church. But I wanted something that was deeper.
I think it’s, I feel like. . .the earth is a gift, and I
do believe in a greater power. And so I think we
shouldn’t be taking it lightly (60s, customer ser-
vice representative).
Similarly, Ole explained that his choice to be
vegan was itself a form of spiritual practice:
Ole: Veganism saves on the environment, saves
on the planet, and it’s kinder to animals. And we
have this vegan spirituality group that started
just a few months ago to explore how veganism
relates to spirituality. So I consider myself a spir-
itual person. I’m an atheist, but atheism does not
negate spirituality. Spirituality is how you deal
with other beings (60s, physician).
Rita framed her consumption philosophy in
more explicitly religious terms:
Rita: I believe that God—that we’re sent here
with a hole. There’s this hole in us. And we fill it
with alcohol. We fill it with food. We fill it with
shopping. We fill it with all of these worldly
things, and God wants us to fill it with him. See
it’s this missing piece. . . .But I believe when you
fill it with Him, that’s the joy inside and that’s
the peace inside that allows you to look at the
world instead of stuff (60s, self-employed execu-
tive coach).
Joel did as well:
Joel: And so the question every day is well
what would God do. I mean, you see the bra-
celets, What Would Jesus Do, your WWJD.
And I think that’s a fair question. I think it is
a fair question because we do make so many
decisions at an unconscious level. We just do it
because everybody else is doing it or because
it’s the thing to do or whatever. And we want
to ask, “what is the right thing to do?” (50s,
farmer/author).
He continued by relating individual choices to
the collective impact of consumption, including
shared experiences and responsibilities:
Joel: But I think if we could live moment by
moment with that level of just awareness that I
am a speck, but I’m also part of the cumulative
mass of what we do. . .you might think that
you’re insignificant, but you have to understand
that where we are right now is the physical
manifestation, it’s the cumulative effect of tril-
lions of little decisions. Trillions of them. And
where we’re going to be in fifty years will also
be the result of trillions of decisions. And so
your decisions do matter, they really do (50s,
farmer/author).
Overall, through their consumption choices and
behaviors, several of our informants revealed a
multi-sourced ethos of interbeing.
General Discussion
If consumers were wiser, they would certainly
serve a more constructive and influential role in
improving quality of life for themselves and for
others. Our main objective was to provide related
new insights and to propel future research through
the field’s first empirically grounded theoretical
framework of consumer wisdom. As we revealed
and elaborated, the framework consists of five
facets that harbor various dimensions (see Table 2).
Drawing all together, we induct from our data and
framework the following formal definition of con-
sumer wisdom:
Consumer wisdom is the pursuit of well-being
for oneself and for others through mindful
management of consumption-related choices
and behaviors, as realized through the
integrated application of Intentionality, Contem-
plation, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and
Transcendence.
We now juxtapose consumer wisdom to prior
psychology research on wisdom and compare it to
other constructs and decision approaches in con-
sumer behavior. We then summarize limitations of
our research and identify opportunities for future
scholarship.
Juxtaposing Consumer Wisdom to Previous Psychology
Research on Wisdom
Our approach has been to explicitly consider and
to selectively absorb prior wisdom research to
guide knowledge advancements on consumer wis-
dom. Naturally then, our theoretical framework
reflects aspects of wisdom attributes from extant
paradigms in psychology. For example, our
384 Luchs and Mick
framework incorporates the balance metaphor in
the pursuit of well-being both for oneself and for
others, as advocated by Baltes and Staudinger
(2000) and Sternberg (1998) and as illustrated in
Figure 1. Furthermore, our theory parallels the
approach taken by Ardelt (2003, 2008) and others
who treat wisdom as a latent measurable construct.
However, our theory is unique and specific—rather
than general—insofar as it is derived from and
focuses on the context of consumer behavior.
To gain some perspective on how our theory
converges with, and diverges from, other multi-
dimensional conceptualizations of wisdom in psy-
chology, we draw from Bangen et al. (2013), who
reviewed 31 articles that proposed a definition of
wisdom and/or developed and validated a wisdom
scale. Their review uncovered five components of
wisdom that were present in at least half of the
reviewed literature: social decision making and a
pragmatic knowledge of life; prosocial attitudes and
behaviors; reflection and self-understanding;
acknowledgement of uncertainty; and emotional
homeostasis. Other dimensions appeared as well,
but were present in less than half of the reviewed
literature (e.g., value relativism/tolerance; openness
to new experiences; spirituality; a sense of humor).
As expected, there are some clear-cut similarities
between prior psychological conceptualizations of
wisdom and certain aspects of our consumer wis-
dom framework. First, in both there is a focus on
effective decision making. This theme is most
prominent in our framework through the dimen-
sion of prudent reasoning within the facet of Con-
templation. However, the context of our work and
related findings are quite different since we address
large as well as small consumption behaviors and
related patterns, whereas the wisdom literature has
often concentrated on interpersonal relationships
and key life challenges, including work, health,
aging, and end-of-life. Second and third, general
wisdom and consumer wisdom share a prosocial
focus as well as an emphasis on reflection, the latter
being most apparent within our framework’s facet
of Contemplation and related dimensions of retro-
spection and prospection. Fourth, both general wis-
dom and consumer wisdom emphasize the
management of emotions; however, whereas the
focus within psychology is on emotional stability
and self-control, our facet of Emotional Mastery
highlights both the avoidance of negative emotions
and the pursuit of positive emotions in an effort to
foster well-being.
In contrast, there were several themes or dimen-
sions of wisdom that emerge as especially
important to consumption but which appear only
occasionally in conceptualizations of wisdom in
psychology. Specifically, whereas openness and
spirituality surface intermittently in psychology
(Bangen et al., 2013), they serve a fundamental role
in consumer wisdom as depicted in our facets of
Openness and Transcendence (especially in the
dimension of interbeing). Conversely, a frequent
dimension of wisdom in psychology is the
acknowledgment of and coping with uncertainty.
Interestingly, this aspect of wisdom was not widely
evident in our data, though not entirely absent
either. It may be less evident in consumer wisdom
due to the different nature of the challenges
encountered relative to general wisdom (e.g.,
choices about lifestyle and purchases as well as
readily searchable information and options vs.
evolving interpersonal relationships, aging, and
existential dilemmas about purpose and meaning).
Furthermore, while a sense of humor has been
occasionally identified in general wisdom, it was
hardly noticeable in our data, perhaps also due to
the different types of wisdom-related challenges
across these contexts.
Comparing Consumer Wisdom to Other Constructs and
Decision Approaches in Consumer Behavior
It is also important to recognize how wisdom
generally, and consumer wisdom specifically, are
different from other constructs and decision
approaches. With respect to other constructs, this
matter was taken up in detail within psychology
several years ago by Sternberg (1998), and again
more recently by Meeks and Jeste (2009) and Gross-
mann (2017). As they argue, wisdom is not the
same as knowledge, creativity, or intelligence (cog-
nitive, social, or emotional), although wisdom may
depend on one or more of these in different situa-
tions of judgment and decision making. Unlike wis-
dom, none of these is fundamentally values- and
morals-oriented, or consistently concerned with the
linkage of values, goals, and behavior. Nor are they
based in human qualities or processes such as
mindfulness or transcendence. In further contrast,
they are also not bolstered by equanimity (modera-
tion) or the balancing of the diverse interests and
welfares of affected parties in a pending decision or
action. And they are certainly not ultimately about
well-being or the common good, as wisdom is.
Thereby, it makes sense that well-being—as mea-
sured by greater life satisfaction, less negative
affect, better social relationships, and greater long-
evity—has been shown empirically to depend on
Consumer Wisdom 385
wise reasoning, but not on intelligence (Grossmann,
Na, Varnum, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2013).
In parallel argumentation, we maintain that con-
sumer wisdom is not identical to consumer exper-
tise, variety seeking, high persuasion knowledge,
being a market maven, or a high need for cognition,
to name five noteworthy consumer constructs that
may guide consumer wisdom in some situations,
but which are not synonymous with it. None of
those constructs or any others we are aware of in
the field are founded on a holistic and integrated set
of facets comparable to Intentionality, Contempla-
tion, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and Transcen-
dence in the quest for a good and flourishing life.
Consumer wisdom is also not the same as being
smart. That concept has been most developed as
the smart shopper phenomenon (Schindler, 1998),
and it exclusively relates to taking timely advantage
of retail promotions that lead to consequent feelings
of pride and achievement. Consumer wisdom can
surely involve getting a favorable deal for a con-
sumer product, but it would also recognize that
there are times when an insistence on cost saving
may deter from choosing a more fitting and more
fulfilling option for the consumer’s needs and
resources, both short term and long term.
And while several of our interviewees con-
sciously led modest, ecologically informed lives
across their consumption activities, this does not
mean that a concept like voluntary simplicity (VS)
is tantamount to consumer wisdom. Historically,
VS has been almost singularly tied to the pro-envir-
onmental movement; it has manifested at times as
an extreme form of anti-consumption ideology, and
in recent years it has been identified primarily as a
consumer subculture (Belk, 2011). Consumer wis-
dom as developed here can encompass aspects of
VS through the former’s mission to advance the
common good, and through its Transcendence facet
and interbeing dimension. However, consumer wis-
dom typically favors moderation (not extremes) in
most things, and it is broader than the usual VS
focus on environmental issues. Our data indicate
that a consumer can be wise or wiser without any
necessary allegiance to VS.
In comparison to prior decision-making para-
digms, wisdom may seem at first glance akin to
the classical, hyper-rational “economic man”
model, at least in the sense that both seek to pro-
mote the interests of the individual decision
maker and both presume that the individual is
capable of exceptional psychological performance.
However, beyond those resemblances and the
obvious distinction that wisdom equally considers
the welfares of other stakeholders (human and
non-human), there are other important differences
between consumer wisdom and economic rational-
ity. For example, while consumer wisdom also
depends on thorough deliberation, it uniquely
incorporates significant roles for humility and resi-
lience (learning from mistakes), as well as human
intuition and experience-tested successful heuris-
tics (cf. Gigerenzer, 2014). Consumer wisdom, as
our data revealed, perceives life generally, and
the economic world specifically, as an ever-chan-
ging and byzantine assortment of options,
demands, and constraints toward which the wis-
est thing to do is often a matter of “robust satis-
ficing” (Schwartz, 2015). The wisdom approach
acknowledges limits and flaws in human informa-
tion resources and processing (e.g., Sternberg,
2005), as does behavioral economics (Thaler &
Sunstein, 2008), which largely razed the classical
model over the last 30 years. However, com-
pletely unlike the classical model or behavioral
economics, consumer wisdom is established on
equanimity, moderation, discretion, and strong
doses of gratitude and self-knowledge (including
personal values) for improving and maintaining
well-being.
Another paradigm on decision making for com-
parison to consumer wisdom was developed by
Hammond et al. (1998), and also called “smart
choices.” Their model proceeds through six steps:
define the problem, establish objectives, identify
alternatives, compare alternatives, make trade-offs
between objectives and alternatives, and make a
selection. This orientation has much in common
with standard cost–benefit analysis (Bennis, Medin,
& Bartels, 2010). Both of these approaches are pre-
dominantly cognitive, lock-step, and rule-bound
across situations. In contrast, consumer wisdom is
by its nature more adaptive and context-fitting
(Schwartz & Sharpe, 2010), and it places much
heavier emphases on balancing the decision’s
impact for short-term and long-term time horizons,
on the decision’s potential effects on other beings
(ecologies included), on the injection of values and
ethics throughout, on the occasional need for intu-
itions or heuristics, and on a steadfast mission for
the common good. Collectively, these are not issues
that other consumer decision-making paradigms
accentuate, if even acknowledge at all.
Limitations
Our project used a purposive sample, which is
typically small and narrow by definition, but which
386 Luchs and Mick
also facilitates a depth of exploration into compli-
cated topics that the informants are considered
especially pertinent to. The approach we took—
seeking wise individuals nominated by their com-
munities and colleagues—has been used effectively
by prior wisdom researchers. However, we could
not know with certainty in advance that these indi-
viduals were truly wise as consumers. We had to
trust the nominators that most of our interviewees
were capable of revealing important insights about
wise consumption. Once a scale of consumer wis-
dom is developed (see below), it can be used in the
future to screen or isolate informants who meet cri-
teria for being a wise consumer. It also remains to
be determined if the same five wisdom facets that
we unveiled would arise in interviews with con-
sumers from a different or more diverse profile of
socioeconomic classes, ethnicities, and so forth. Sim-
ilarly, our present findings are based solely on the
US cultural context, and remain to be considered
for their appropriateness to and priorities in con-
sumer wisdom as it manifests in other cultures.
Future Research
Despite the dearth of consumer research on wis-
dom, discrete aspects of wisdom are implicit within
our literature. Table 3 provides a limited yet illus-
trative list of prior consumer research that may help
to further demonstrate the holistic nature of con-
sumer wisdom, provide insights into each facet and
dimension of consumer wisdom, as well as stimu-
late thinking about opportunities for future
research. Next, we identify in more detail some
additional research opportunities involving a vari-
ety of theoretical, substantive, and methodological
considerations.
Theoretical and Substantive Considerations. Wis-
dom is as pertinent and essential to consumption as
to any other domain of life. As an ideal, however,
being a wise or wiser consumer cannot occur in
every decision, in every situation, that a person
faces. So the logical first questions for future
research are when, where, and why each or several
of the five facets of consumer wisdom (and related
dimensions) are most vital in different consumption
situations for well-being, whether physical, social,
emotional, financial, environmental, political, or
spiritual (McGregor, 2010).
In concrete terms, research is needed to deter-
mine when and how increased consumer wisdom
(specific facets and their dimensions) improves
behaviors related to food and nutrition, financial
planning and retirement, medical and health
decisions, exercise, hobbies and other enriching
activities, community volunteering, and gift-giving,
among other topics. Also, does consumer wisdom
definitively increase life satisfaction and flourishing
in general (Diener et al., 2010) and, if so, how and
why? A similar need for future work applies to
understanding when and how consumer wisdom
can avoid or reduce the effects of decision biases
such as myopia, overconfidence, egocentrism, and
feelings of invulnerability, among others (Sternberg,
2005; Thaler & Sunstein, 2008), as well as sociocul-
tural pressures to engage in high personal debt (in-
cluding credit card abuse) and a status-oriented,
materialistic lifestyle.
Future research can also drill down deeper into
specific facets and/or their dimensions. For
instance, are wiser consumers who exhibit strong
Emotional Mastery more able to avoid or reduce
fantasies and desires for new innovations, impul-
sive purchases, unplanned (non-impulsive) pur-
chases, and over-buying (excess quantities)? Are
they also better at fending off buying urges trig-
gered by retail promotions, when they objectively
have little need for the items and would otherwise
(absent promotions) not have made the purchases
at all? Do certain facets or dimensions make it more
likely that wiser consumers attain more happiness
in the way they spend their money, per principles
from Dunn, Gilbert, and Wilson (2011)? In reverse
view, are people who classify as religious or who
practice yoga or meditation (Mathras et al., 2016)
more inclined to evoke the Transcendence facet of
consumer wisdom and its dimensions of compassion
and interbeing when making certain kinds of con-
sumer decisions (e.g., charitable giving, media
usage, product disposing)?
Methodological Considerations. To explore or
test the causes, correlates, and consequences of con-
sumer wisdom, several methodological approaches
are available. Diaries can be implemented using dif-
ferent instructions or prompts (e.g., via texts on
smart phones), and respondents can then fill out
questionnaires about their current consumption
activities (cf. Grossmann et al., 2016; Mick, Spiller
et al., 2012). This approach can improve precision
for capturing a variety of everyday consumption
behaviors in-process that exhibit consumer wisdom
(or don’t), and then can relate those insights to
topics like mindfulness, volition, habits, feelings,
plans, and so forth.
Another approach would be to use surveys,
which typically focus on identifying insights drawn
from large, diverse, and sometimes probabilistic
samples. To do this will require taking the five
Consumer Wisdom 387
facets revealed here and using them to develop an
instrument for measuring individual consumer wis-
dom (per Grossmann’s, 2017 suggestions).
Although there are skeptics of self-report wisdom
scales (Gl€uck et al., 2013), some efforts in psychol-
ogy (Ardelt, 2003; Thomas et al., 2017; Webster,
2003) have proven valuable in identifying wisdom’s
components and correlates (e.g., self-efficacy and
inductive reasoning, per Gl€uck et al., 2013) as well
as its prospective antecedents and consequences
(Ardelt, 2000, 2005; Stange & Kunzmann, 2008).
The conceivable merits of a reliable and valid con-
sumer wisdom scale are high, including, for
instance, better understanding of consumer wis-
dom’s associations with subjects such as retirement
saving; personal hygiene practices; the use of Wes-
tern conventional disease remedies versus Eastern
and other alternative medicine practices; consuming
soda, sugary food, alcohol, and tobacco products;
materialism; compulsive buying; hoarding; and
gambling. It could also stimulate investigations of
consumer wisdom as a moderator variable in
Table 3
Illustrative Existing Consumer Research That May Be Drawn from to Advance Insights on Each Dimension of the Five Consumer Wisdom Facetsa
Facet Dimension Existing consumer research that may advance knowledge on consumer wisdom
Intentionality Lifestyle envisionment Conspicuous consumption of time (Bellezza, Keinan, & Paharia, 2014); voluntary
simplicity (Elgin, 1993); frugality (Lastovicka et al., 1999); mindfulness (Bahl et al.,
2016); values-based choice (Huber et al., 1997); consumer lifestyle (Weinberger,
Zavisca, Silva, 2017)
Personal resource management Resource theories (Dorsch, Tornblom, & Kazemi, 2017); personal saving and saving
orientation (Garbinsky et al., 2014; Dholakia et al., 2016); consumer spending and
self-control (Haws, Bearden, & Nenkov, 2012); valuation of the future (Bartels &
Urminsky, 2015); propensity to plan (Lynch et al., 2010)
Contemplation Retrospection Consumer learning (Bettman & Park, 1980); challenges to learning from experience
and mistakes (Nikolova, Lamberton & Haws 2016; Schwarz & Xu, 2011)
Prospection Affective forecasting (Wilson & Gilbert, 2005); elaboration on potential outcomes
(Nenkov et al., 2008); imagery (Yuwei et al., 2014); mental simulation (Elder &
Krishna, 2012)
Prudent reasoning Consumer knowledge and expertise (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987; Sujan, 1985);
purchase decision involvement (Mittal, 1989); values-based choice (Huber et al.,
1997); robust satisficing (Schwartz, 2015); thinking, fast and slow (Kahneman,
2011)
Emotional Mastery Avoidance of negative emotions Hierarchical approach to negative emotions (Laros & Steenkamp, 2005); regret
(Tsiros & Mittal, 2000); dissatisfaction (Fournier & Mick, 1999); consumer
emotional intelligence (Kidwell et al., 2008); temptation (Baumeister, 2002); guilt
(Burnett and Lunsford, 1994); persuasion knowledge (Friestad & Wright, 1994);
delay of gratification (Norvilitis, 2014)
Pursuit of positive emotions Hierarchical approach to positive emotions (Laros & Steenkamp, 2005); fun (Laran
& Janiszewski, 2011; Woolley & Fishbach, 2016); hedonic consumption (Hirschman
& Holbrook, 1982); material possession love (Lastovicka & Sirianni, 2011); material
mirth (Pieters, 2013); savoring (Chun et al., 2017); gratitude (Schlosser, 2015)
Openness Growth mindset Theories and research on mindsets (Murphy & Dweck, 2016); extraordinary
experiences (Arnould & Price, 1993; Bhattacharjee & Mogilner 2014)
Alternative consumption Consumer co-production (Etgar, 2008); borrowing & sharing (Belk, 2010);
collaborative consumption (Belk, 2010, 2014; Scaraboto, 2015); gifting (Belk, 1996);
escaping the market (Kozinets, 2002); voluntary simplicity (Elgin, 1993)
Transcendence Compassion Sustainable consumption (Luchs et al., 2010; Prothero et al., 2011); moral/ethical
consumption (Giesler & Veresiu, 2014; Grayson, 2014); prosocial consumption
(Cavanaugh, Bettman & Luce, 2015); charitable giving (Kulow & Kramer, 2016)
Interbeing Social ties (Joy, 2001); experiential consumption (Chan & Mogilner, 2017); gifting
and interpersonal relationships (Aknin & Human, 2015); brand communities
(Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006); consuming nature (Canniford & Shankar, 2013);
sacred consumption (Belk, Wallendorf & Sherry, 1989); spirituality (Shaw &
Thompson, 2013); religion (Mathras et al., 2016)
aA separate reference list for Table 3 is available at Appendix S2.
388 Luchs and Mick
examining the effects of marketing stimuli (e.g.,
ads, packaging, promotions) on consumer judg-
ments, attitudes, and choices.
Also intriguing is the use of experiments in
which consumer wisdom, or aspects thereof, is
manipulated and its effects directly assessed. For
example, Kross and Grossmann (2012) developed
an approach to having lab participants take less
egocentric viewpoints, adopt a “big picture” per-
spective, and think more holistically, which are
embedded in all five facets of our consumer wis-
dom framework. These authors call their induc-
tion “distance from self” and they have shown
that greater distance encouraged intellectual
humility, cooperation, and openness to diverse
viewpoints. Consumer researchers could follow
and expand this approach, and determine how
distance from self may evoke consumer wisdom
to mitigate rash, unhealthy, or selfish consumer
behaviors.
Another fascinating possibility would be to
adapt a technique that has fostered new under-
standing on commitments, cooperation, and lie-
refrainment when a subset of participants sign a
pre-study oath to tell only the truth during the
investigation (Jacquemet, Joule, Luchini, & Shogren,
2013). For consumer psychology, some participants
could read a short essay on the meaning and char-
acteristics of consumer wisdom, and then sign an
oath that they will strive in a follow-up task to be
as consumer-wise as possible. Novel insights might
be gained, when compared to a control group, on
the potential and the process of consciously evoking
wisdom for managing expectations, desires, atti-
tudes, and choices.
A third experimental approach would be to fol-
low Staudinger and Baltes (1996). They manipu-
lated (elevated) wiser reasoning by having some
individuals respond to a given life dilemma accord-
ing to what other people whose opinions they value
would say or do. This same technique could be
applied, for illustration, to consumers who are
choosing from a series of options after being told
that they just received an unexpected tax refund
and needed to decide what to do with the money.
Other consumer decisions could be readily incorpo-
rated into this paradigm (delaying gratification,
engaging in healthy or unhealthy eating, buying a
first vehicle for a teenage driver, downshifting into
retirement, etc.)
The list of those who believe that wisdom is
not only conceivable, but also reachable at times,
trails back a long way to luminaries such as Con-
fucius, Plato, and Aristotle, and continues today
among spiritual leaders (e.g., The Dalai Lama), a
former president of the American Psychological
Association (Robert Sternberg), and numerous
other philosophers, educators, psychologists, and
social scientists. Leading centers for the study of
wisdom have also been established (e.g., at the
University of Chicago). To date, however, wisdom
has been largely absent from the agenda of con-
sumer psychology. Whether to live by or to
research, wisdom is imperative and urgently
needed in today’s complicated, fast-moving, and
stressed world (Harari, 2017; Maxwell, 2014;
Sternberg, 1998, 2003). Hopefully, more consumer
scholars will feel called.
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Supporting Information
Additional supporting information may be found in
the online version of this article at the publisher’s
website:
Appendix S1. Methodological Details Appendix.
Appendix S2. References for Table 3.
392 Luchs and Mick
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Practical Philosophy, 10:1, (web edition, 2011; originally published July 2010) 47
Philosophical Counselling as a Process of
Fostering Wisdom in the Form of Virtues
Arto Tukiainen
Abstract
The main theme of this article is that an adequate understanding of the concept of wisdom
enables philosophical counsellors to identify their proper tasks. The concept refers to a great
number of cognitive and practical virtues, and philosophical counselling is a process where
the counsellee’s powers of virtue are examined and encouraged. This is often therapeutic in
the sense that it enhances the counsellee’s well-being.
Keywords: Philosophical Counselling, wisdom, virtue, well-being, therapy
Introduction
It has often been said that the goal of philosophical practice is wisdom
(Achenbach, 1998 and 2002; Lahav, 2001 and 2006). This is of course not a
surprising view, given the original notion of philosophy as love of wisdom. But
wisdom is a philosophically challenging concept: it is by no means obvious what
we mean by it. Since we do not wish to be ignorant about our aims, some
explication is necessary.1
I will first provide a virtue-based account of wisdom, and then discuss some
of the implications of this view to philosophical counselling. The first implication
is that philosophical counselling is a process of fostering virtues. The second
implication is that philosophical counselling can be therapeutic.
Virtues as Wisdom
Robert Nozick (1989, p.267) characterises wisdom in these terms: ‘Wisdom is what
you need to understand in order to live well and cope with the central problems
and avoid the dangers in the predicament(s) human beings find themselves in.’ He
says that a wise person needs to understand many things: the most important
goals and values of life; what means will reach these goals without too great a
cost; what limitations are unavoidable and how to accept them; knowing when
certain goals are sufficiently achieved; how to tell what is appropriate at a given
time. John Kekes (1983), Sharon Ryan (1999) and Gerd Achenbach (2000, 2001)
similarly emphasise that wisdom has to do with knowing how to live well.
1 We cannot know whether the conceptions of wisdom of different people overlap each other without
examining them together. This article can be seen as a contribution to such an effort. On the one hand I do
not see any reason to assume a priori that all readers have the same conception of wisdom. Philosophy as
love of wisdom may correspondingly mean different things to different people. On the other hand I do not
believe that agreement of conceptions is impossible; and perhaps there are even now more similarities in our
conceptions of wisdom than one might initially assume. Such an agreement might bring a sense of unity to a
field that can appear bewilderingly varied.
Arto Tukiainen Philosophical Counselling as Fostering Virtues
Practical Philosophy, 10:1, (web edition, 2011; originally published July 2010) 48
The conception that wisdom is concerned with knowing how to live well
means that philosophers have to set emphasis on the skills, dispositions and
mental states that make living well possible. The concept of virtue should occupy
a central position in our account: any effort to live well depends crucially on
virtues.
2
Attachment to virtues has of course been a part of the philosophical self-
understanding from the very beginning, and we do not have any reason to sever
this link.
The following is not a complete catalogue of the virtues that belong to wisdom
but rather examples from a vast set with fuzzy borders. Let us first briefly discuss
cognitive virtues and then practical virtues. As will become evident, the difference
between these two categories is not sharp.
Self-knowledge is an important virtue. This importance derives at least partly
from the fact that self-knowledge enables us to pursue goals that we find
personally fulfilling instead of being controlled by external, to some extent
haphazard, influences. The idea that philosophical counselling is essentially
‘world view interpretation’ (Lahav, 1995 and 2008a) or ‘critical examination of life-
directing conceptions’ (Schefczyk, 1995) becomes understandable from the stand-
point of self-knowledge: the self that philosophical counsellors wish to elucidate
by their questions and remarks certainly includes the counsellees’ conceptions. But
we do not have to reduce the philosophically interesting self to beliefs and other
such relatively cognitive elements. The virtue of self-knowledge also concerns our
bodies and emotions.
Knowledge of the external world can be seen as a virtue to the extent that it
enables us to lead personally satisfactory and morally acceptable lives (Cohen,
2005; Maxwell, 2000 and 2007; Ryan, 1999 and 2007). The truth of our beliefs about
physical and social realities is important because the success of our activities
depends on it. Ignorance may also lead us astray with respect to morally required
ends. In our time knowledge of ecological threats and disasters, for example,
might be seen as morally important.
Nozick says that a wise person needs to know what means will reach the most
important goals of life without too great a cost. The ability to form balanced
overall judgments concerning the feasibility and appropriateness of different
courses of action to worthy ends can be called good judgment. Good judgment is
both a cognitive and a practical virtue. Technological know-how can be a part of
this virtue, but a person with good judgement takes into account many additional
factors in her deliberations.
Openness to new ways of understanding ourselves and our world is a
cognitive virtue (Lahav, 2001, 2006, 2008c and 2008d; Mattila, 2001a; Tukiainen,
2000). Occasionally we need radically new perspectives and novel concepts, and
some of these notions may not be logically deducible from our present views.
Such changes in point of view may be identical with, or at least lead to, re-
evaluations of our situation. Reframing can also affect our feelings and behaviour,
as Epictetus and many other philosophers have recognised (see for instance
Cohen, 2003, pp.53–56; Mattila, 2001b).
Cognitive virtues like knowledge, good judgment and openness to new
conceptions are only a part of wisdom. Philosophical practitioners should be able
2 A stronger claim would be that wisdom equals virtues. Although this is not far-fetched view, the present
claim is a more modest one: virtues are necessary for wisdom.
Arto Tukiainen Philosophical Counselling as Fostering Virtues
Practical Philosophy, 10:1, (web edition, 2011; originally published July 2010) 49
to see a wider vista which includes virtues like sincerity, patience, mercy and
justice (see Achenbach, 2001, p.36). Ran Lahav (2008b) says that wisdom excludes
being petty and self-involved, and there seems to be no reason not to count many
other vices among philosophically repulsive character traits. Cruelty, ruthlessness,
thoughtlessness, manipulativeness, treachery, recklessness, irascibility, stubborn-
ness, ingratitude, bitterness, dishonesty, malice, greed, gluttony and hubris surely
do not fit our conception of wisdom. Let us take a few more examples of these
moral and existential virtues.
Considered as a practical virtue, objectivity means distancing oneself from
one’s immediate concerns and seeing them in a larger context of human and non-
human life, or even from a cosmic perspective. Plato’s lofty view that human
things seem puny from a ‘satellite perspective’ of soul’s flight is a good
imaginative-pictorial representation of this virtue (Hadot, 1995, pp.238–250). The
virtue of justice may presuppose, or at least benefit from, an objective view of
things. And as Plato remarked, the aerial perspective gives rise to greatness of soul
(Hadot, 2004, p.68). Bertrand Russell (2006, p.159) says that a person with greatness
of soul sees ‘himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will
permit’, and realizes ‘the brevity and minuteness of human life’. Russell also writes
in a rather Platonic and Stoic manner that a person ‘who has once perceived,
however temporarily and however briefly, what makes greatness of soul, can no
longer be happy if he allows himself to be petty, self-seeking, troubled by trivial
misfortunes, dreading what fate may have in store for him.’
The virtue of disinterestedness is an ability to experience the world as it is in
itself, and not only as it is for us and our projects (Hadot, 1995, p.254; see also
Curnow, 2000). Disinterestedness requires that we are able to disengage ourselves
from our everyday cares and motives of action, and this means that we have to let
go of an evaluative attitude towards our experiences and the world. Any
genuinely philosophical attitude involves a dimension of disinterested perception
of life and the universe.
Nozick’s definition of wisdom suggests that our conceptions of virtue should
have room for skills and dispositions that are oriented towards avoiding dangers
to our personal well-being and enabling us to cope with difficulties in our own
lives. Some practical virtues like flexibility in one’s aims and hopes are not so
much moral virtues as ways of securing a personally tolerable or even satisfactory
life. This does not mean that moral virtues do not enhance our sense of personal
well-being. Often they do; and in many cases one and the same virtue—objectivity,
disinterestedness, forbearance, foresight, moderation, carefulness or courage, for
example—has both moral aspects and aspects that have more to do with the
health of our own souls (von Wright 1963, ch.7).
To take some historical examples of these self-regarding virtues and their
objectives, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Cynicism deepened our understanding of
the ideals of ataraxia (tranquillity) and euthymia (a steady, contented state of mind);
and of course they were also concerned with the practical means of attaining these
ideals. Autarkeia (self-sufficiency), for example, was valued because it was seen to
lead to a calm state of mind without disturbing emotions. Other important virtues
included moderation in one’s expectations of worldly success, the readiness to
accept failure, and the ability to maintain one’s mental independence from
unreasonable social conventions.
Arto Tukiainen Philosophical Counselling as Fostering Virtues
Practical Philosophy, 10:1, (web edition, 2011; originally published July 2010) 50
In the contemporary philosophical counselling movement Elliot D. Cohen (2005;
see also 2003 and 2008) has drawn attention to many virtues that are clearly self-
regarding in the sense we are discussing. For instance, an ability to accept
imperfections in ourselves and external reality is conducive to peace of mind.
Authenticity and temperance will similarly enhance a person’s capacity to lead a
satisfactory life.
3
To complete this cursory overview of the great domain of virtues, let us recall
that wisdom and virtue are also concerned with ways of preserving bodily health
and attaining pleasure. For instance, Schopenhauer (1995, p.50) counsels physical
exercise as a means of preserving good health, and Seneca frequently gave the
same piece of advice to his counsellees. The centrality of the notion of ‘living well’
in philosophy appears to make their advice quite understandable. Bodily pleasure
was the objective of the Cyrenaics, and perhaps we should have some place for
this notion in our philosophical thinking as well. Even Seneca—generally a
defender of an austere way of life—writes to Serenus that we should occasionally
relax properly and drink ourselves ‘to the point of intoxication’ because this will
wash away our cares (2004, p.105).
Although there may not be any exhaustive, final list of the virtues that belong
to wisdom, we should not assume that the virtues we need must be invented on a
case-by-case basis. This would amount to forgetting that the worries and difficulties
of different people are often the same, and that very similar virtues apply to a
great number of individual cases. It would also amount to overlooking the fact
that the human condition is in its main features much the same as it was two
thousand years ago. The major world religions seem to get along through
centuries with the same old virtues, and to a certain extent this is also true in
philosophy. The view that there is ‘nothing new under the sun’ with respect to
virtues is probably closer to truth than the idea that we should, or even could,
invent something genuinely new.
Different social environments and situations of life may of course require and
highlight different virtues (see Fleming, 2000). For example, military virtues like
being prepared to kill are not relevant in the lives of the majority of contemporary
Europeans, and neither do they appear to believe that silent submission to
political authorities is a virtue.
If virtues are the essence of wisdom, the core of philosophy is love of virtues.
It is important to bear in mind in this connection that philosophy does not always
mean any kind of discussion—and still less lecturing or research. It is also a way of
life and an ‘existential attitude’ (Hadot, 1995 and 2004; Curnow 2006). Philosophers
do not necessarily write anything, and some of them do not even discuss our
concepts and lives in way that could be characterised as philosophical (Hadot,
2004, p.173). But they show their love and understanding of wisdom by their acts
and manner of living.
3 Cohen (2005) states that the eleven cardinal virtues he mentions ‘define the concept of happiness’ in the kind
of philosophical counselling he practices (Logic-Based Therapy), and that an individual is happy to the
extent that these virtues are attained. Happiness is clearly one of the traditional aims of philosophy. This
article does not claim that virtues are sufficient for happiness, but only that they increase the likelihood of a
tolerable and even satisfactory life.
Arto Tukiainen Philosophical Counselling as Fostering Virtues
Practical Philosophy, 10:1, (web edition, 2011; originally published July 2010) 51
Philosophical Counselling as a Process of Fostering Virtues
Counselling is an invitation to a philosophical way of life with its inevitable
emphasis on virtues. An attempt to separate philosophical practice from virtues
would lead to an impoverished and unnatural image of counselling. Impoverished,
because without them philosophical thinking loses much of its power to reduce
our sufferings and to guide our lives. Unnatural, because philosophy has always
been inspired by life-orienting ideals, and if philosophers are asked to remain as
virtue-neutral as possible, they are quite simply asked to be something else than
they are. All, or at least most, forms of philosophical counselling subscribe to
cognitive virtues like self-knowledge; but these are just a part of a much larger set
of moral and non-moral virtues.
The point of philosophical counselling is not so much to discuss virtues but to
help the counsellee to modify her thoughts, feelings or behaviour through the
power of virtues. Philosophical counsellors ought to assume that all kinds of
predicaments provide opportunities for virtues to show their force. Examples
include increasing the counsellee’s self-understanding and authenticity through
questions; enabling the counsellee to see that her anxiety-producing beliefs about
some social facts are distorted; assistance in finding the best course of action in a
complicated family situation; mentioning the pleasures of disinterested contem-
plation; discussing the thoughtlessness of a companion and how to avoid getting
disturbed about it; finding good reasons not to feel that a personal failure implies
total worthlessness; helping the counsellee to see that a professional disaster
might also offer opportunities; inducing the counsellee to assume a tolerant,
accepting attitude towards her seemingly bad situation when there is little hope of
improving it; indicating that acquiescence to negative emotions one cannot get rid
of might be the best available option; showing how the counsellee can be less
driven by social pressure and commercial influence. This is what many
philosophical counsellors have been doing for decades. The concept of virtue
gives coherence and historical depth to these activities.
One good way of understanding philosophical counselling is this: we seek to
clarify together what a wise person would think and do in the counsellee’s
situation. On the one hand, virtue-oriented counselling must of course take into
account the counsellee’s unique circumstances and way of thinking. We have to
start from the understanding we have and strive to find and foster what is good
within us. The idea that philosophical counsellors should suggest to their
counsellees notions that have no connection whatever—logical or associative—
with their present way of seeing things, or views that they cannot adopt as their
own, is surely misguided (see Zinaich 2005). On the other hand, it seems that the
counsellor has an obligation to try and give voice to her own perception of what
‘Lady Wisdom’ would counsel. This is what Seneca did in his letters, and this is
what contemporary philosophical counsellors should do. Seneca’s letters were
probably intended for large audiences despite seemingly being addressed to a
friend, but philosophical counsellors can, and ought to, tailor their proposals to
each individual case. Counsellors cannot know in advance what kinds of inner
powers of virtue need to be examined and stimulated to grow.
In some cases a virtue might be present in the counsellee’s mind and heart in a
hidden or nascent form to be amplified and encouraged. It is my experience that
most people have thoughts and attitudes that are not a part of their mainstream
Arto Tukiainen Philosophical Counselling as Fostering Virtues
Practical Philosophy, 10:1, (web edition, 2011; originally published July 2010) 52
self (see also Lahav, 2008d). For example, a person might not have given much
thought to virtues like flexibility, patience and disinterestedness, but this does not
mean that she does not or cannot understand their meaning and importance. If
she begins to hope that these virtues could help her towards peace of mind, she
may want to accord them a larger role in her life.
Philosophical Counselling Can Be Therapeutic
Virtues can help us either to avoid or to accept many sources of anxiety and
irritation. For instance, a capacity to take a distant, objective look at our lives
enables us to see the smallness of our worries. Mercifulness with respect to our
own shortcomings and those of others soothes our feelings of anger and
disappointment, and an attitude of benign indifference towards external matters
makes us readier to accept our circumstances even when they appear distressing.
Forward-looking virtues like prudence protect us from many sorrows and causes
of resentment, and a realistic appreciation of all the contingencies that can ruin us
will enable us to maintain our composure when we actually end up in disasters.4
The fact that virtues enable us to cope with actual and potential problems of life
entails that the distinction between philosophy and therapeutic alleviation of
suffering is not sharp; and since philosophical counselling is a process of fostering
virtues, it can often be regarded as therapy.
Lahav (2006) has argued that philosophy should not be seen as therapy. He is
right when he says that philosophers should avoid a pampering attitude that
causes them to refrain from questioning their counsellees’ wishes, desires and
views (see also Fastvold, 2006; Tuedio, 2008). In particular, the consumer ideology
of‖trying‖to‖find‖the‖means‖of‖reaching‖the‖counsellee’s‖goals‖irrespective‖of‖their‖
specific nature is unsuitable for philosophy. Lahav is also right when he writes
that philosophers should try to help their counsellees to escape from narrow
conceptions of their lives, and encourage them to open their minds to new ways of
understanding themselves and the world. But these points do not justify a
complete break with the concept of therapy.
5
Philosophy as love of wisdom is
therapeutic in essence, not through a clever add-on for marketing purposes. This
view accords with the age-old analogy between medicine and philosophy: while
medicine treats our bodily ailments, philosophy heals our souls (see for example
Nussbaum, 1994, pp.13–47).
4 Peter B. Raabe (2000, p.171) points out that philosophical thinking may enable us to prevent problems of life
from arising. This is true; but we should add to his view that some problems cannot be solved, eliminated or
avoided but only tolerated and endured; and from the Stoic perspective we need philosophy precisely when
we cannot solve our problems—when we run against something that will not yield and that cannot be
circumvented. According to Epictetus (2005) the basic philosophical problem is our attitude towards things
that are not in our power: the starting point of philosophy is the awareness of our own weakness and
helplessness. As the example of Boethius shows, philosophical ideas may offer consolation and enable us to
‘take a kindly view even of misfortunes’ (Seneca, 2004, p.98). Endurance and acceptance are virtues. As
Nozick says (see above), wisdom includes knowing what limitations are unavoidable and how to accept
them.
5 Lahav (2006) says that wisdom means richness of understanding and non-egocentric openness to realities
beyond one’s world view. A wise person lets a great number of realities speak through her attitudes,
emotions, views and actions. These are very abstract descriptions of wisdom. Awareness of a wide range of
virtues enables us to adopt a more concrete and practical conception of philosophy and philosophical
counselling. It also enables us to see more clearly how philosophy can be therapeutic.
Arto Tukiainen Philosophical Counselling as Fostering Virtues
Practical Philosophy, 10:1, (web edition, 2011; originally published July 2010) 53
Virtues do not seem to belong to the vocabulary of psychological theories and
psychotherapeutic techniques in any essential way, and this is an important
difference between philosophy and these therapies. But the difference does not
imply that philosophy is not therapeutic. Virtue is the distinctively philosophical
contribution to therapeutic activities.
However, if the central therapeutic aim is thought to be alleviation of
suffering, regarding philosophy merely as therapy would be an error. Wisdom as
the goal of philosophy may necessitate many enquiries and actions that this aim
neither requires nor justifies. For instance, understanding the place of mental
phenomena in a seemingly material universe may not offer any therapeutic gains,
and even if some therapists might be interested in politics, the dominating
professional attitude appears to be one of exclusion; but politics and the
ontological status of mental events can be seen as philosophically important
issues. The philosophical emphasis on moral and cognitive virtues even when
cultivating them does not heighten our sense of personal well-being appears to be
foreign to the notion of philosophy as therapy. In sum, we have to avoid the
simplistic view according to which philosophy either is or is not therapy. In some
ways it is, in some others it is not.
There is no simple way of dividing philosophical enquiries into those that can
have therapeutic value and those that cannot. Philosophy of mind in particular
can have a therapeutic dimension even if it may initially seem like a very abstract
and theoretical pursuit. For example, the idea that our minds and selves are not
separate from what we usually think of as external reality can have a calming
effect, because it leads us to let go of self-centred thoughts. If we do not stand
opposite to the world, we do not have to assert our will against it. The distinction
between the subject and the object of thought and perception can become either
blurred or obliterated; and this is not always merely a theoretical insight but also
an experience, an aspect of life. Wittgenstein has a concise description of this
experience: ‘The world and life are one’ (2001, remark 5.621). Although Lahav
makes a strict distinction between philosophy and therapy, he has presented
similar statements that could be regarded as potentially therapeutic. For instance,
he says that ‘you are in everything there is, and everything is in you’ (Lahav
2008e).
Conclusion
This article has suggested that virtues are essential to wisdom, and that
philosophical counselling can find a sense of identity and direction by paying
attention to them. Philosophical counselling should be seen as a process where the
counsellee’s inner and often neglected powers of virtue are unearthed and allowed
to modify her thoughts, feelings and behaviour. While virtues can be therapeutic
in the sense of alleviation of suffering, they might also necessitate enquiries and
actions without any obvious connection to therapeutic aims.
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About the Author
Arto Tukiainen earned his doctoral degree in 1999 from the Department of Practical
Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and now works as a system
designer at the IT department of the Finnish Board of Customs. He has written
several articles on philosophy as a way of life rather than a theoretical, specialised
profession.
artotukiainen@hotmail.com
The Wisdom of Some: Do We Always Need High
Consensus to Shape Consumer Behavior?
Michael R. Sciandra, Cait Lamberton, and
Rebecca Walker Reczek
From the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to prompt healthier eating to the Environmental Protection
Agency’s desire to prompt people to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors, a wide range of policy
makers aim to persuade consumers. To do so, they must decide how and whether to use information about
the behavior of other consumers as part of their persuasive message. In four experimental studies, the
authors demonstrate that the persuasive advantage of high- versus low-consensus information depends
on the target consumer’s trait level of susceptibility to interpersonal influence (SII). Low-SII consumers
differentiate between low- and high-consensus information, such that they are more persuaded by
high-consensus information. In contrast, high-SII consumers find any cue about the behavior of others
persuasive, regardless of whether it is high or low consensus. Importantly, this finding suggests that policy
makers may find success motivating behavioral change even in low-consensus situations. The authors close
by reporting data from two broadscale correlational surveys that identify behavioral, psychographic, and
demographic characteristics related to consumer SII as well as domains in which low consensus currently
exists, so that policy makers can identify and target these individuals and related issues.
Keywords: persuasion, susceptibility to interpersonal influence, social norms marketing, consensus, social proof
P
olicy makers often want to persuade people to change
their thoughts and behaviors. For example, politicians
frequently stump for votes, advocate for change, and seek
support for new policies or legislation. Similarly, state and local
governmental agencies and nonprofit nongovernmental orga-
nizations (NGOs) continually encourage consumers to engage
in a multitude of desirable behaviors, including eating healthy
foods, staying physically active, recycling, and conserving en-
ergy. As such, policy makers frequently employ persuasive
messages designed to encourage specific behaviors. For ex-
ample, in May 2015, New York City launched a campaign de-
signed to reduce consumer waste and generated awareness
through persuasive messages on buses and subways and in
digital communications (Gerlat 2015).
Prior research in psychology and marketing has indicated that
the success of such persuasive messages is largely contingent on
two factors: (1) the credibility of the message source (i.e., the
policy maker or organization; Petty and Briñol 2008) and (2) the
strength or quality of the message argument (i.e., how strong
a case is made for the advocated attitude or behavior; Petty and
Cacioppo 1984). In general, most policy makers are endowed
with source credibility by virtue of political power (in the case of
elected officials), legal authority (e.g., state and local govern-
ment agencies), or expertise (attributable to people within a
governmental or nongovernmental agency as a result of formal
education or experience with a particular societal issue). Fur-
thermore, once established, source credibility cannot be easily
altered within a given persuasive message.
However, policy makers do have considerable control over
the nature and strength of the arguments advanced in the
persuasive communications they employ. One aspect of mes-
sage strength has to do with the behavior of other people. That
is, messages can provide high-consensus information, which
states that a majority of people engage in a given behavior, or
low-consensus information, which states that a minority of
people do so. In general, high-consensus messages are per-
ceived as providing a stronger argument. The normative en-
dorsement of a majority of consumers presents a compelling
argument that other people should behave in the same way
because it is either objectively superior or socially desirable
(Aarts and Dijksterhuis 2003; Cialdini, Kallgren, and Reno
1990; Naylor, Lamberton, and West 2012). For example, high-
lightingthefactthatmoststudentsdonotengageinbinge-drinking
behavior effectively curbed the consumption of alcohol among
college students (Haines and Spear 1996). Similarly, informing
hotel patrons that the majority of guests reuse their towels in-
creased reuse of towels in a hotel field study (Goldstein, Cialdini,
and Griskevicius 2008).
However, what can be done when policy makers want to
prompt behaviorsthat arepresently low consensus—for example,
Michael R. Sciandra is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Dolan School
of Business, Fairfield University (e-mail: msciandra@fairfield.edu). Cait
Lamberton is Fryrear Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Mar-
keting, Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh
(e-mail: cpoynor@katz.pitt.edu). Rebecca Walker Reczek is Associate
Professor of Marketing, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State Uni-
versity (e-mail: reczek.3@osu.edu). Barbara Bickart served as associate
editor for this article.
© 2017, American Marketing Association Journal of Public Policy & Marketing
ISSN: 0743-9156 (print) Vol. 36 (1) Spring 2017, 15–35
1547-7207 (electronic) DOI: 10.1509/jppm.14.12315
mailto:msciandra@fairfield.edu
mailto:cpoynor@katz.pitt.edu
mailto:reczek.3@osu.edu
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jppm.14.123
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1509%2Fjppm.14.123&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2017-04-01
to make prosocial but atypical choices (e.g., considering labor
practices of manufacturers as an important determinant of
which brand to buy, carrying reusable grocery bags, donating
to charities) or act in ways that may improve well-being even
when others are not engaging in the behavior (e.g., getting
a yearly flu shot, eating the daily recommended servings
of fruits and vegetables)? To the extent that low-consensus
messages are viewed as weaker arguments for a given behavior,
some research has argued that they may be unsuccessful at
persuading consumers. For instance, Gerber and Rogers (2009)
note that persuasive messages indicating that voter turnout is
currently low actually depressed, rather than increased, voting.
In light of findings such as these, policy makers might conclude
that they should only use high-consensus information in per-
suasive messages.
However, we argue that all hope is not lost in cases with low
consensus. In this article, we identify consumers who do not
need high-consensus information to shape their behavior. In
particular, we explore the role of consumers’ susceptibility to
interpersonal influence (SII; Bearden, Netemeyer, and Teel
1989; McGuire 1968)—a psychographic measure with reliable
demographic correlates—in determining sensitivity to persuasive
messages containing high- versus low-consensus information.
Across four experiments, we demonstrate that whether high-
consensus information is more effective than low-consensus in-
formation at persuading consumers depends on the consumers’
level of SII. To do so, we hold the persuasion goal and the source
of the persuasive message constant. We manipulate only argu-
ment strength by varying consensus information to be high or
low. We demonstrate that for low-SII consumers, the degree of
persuasion is contingent on consensus level (i.e., whether it is
high or low consensus), whereas high-SII consumers find any
consensus information persuasive, regardless of its level. As
a result, high-SII consumers can even be persuaded by the
presence of low-consensus information.
We close by reporting results from two broadscale correla-
tional surveys that identify behavioral, psychographic, and
demographic characteristics related to consumer SII, as well
as behaviors likely to be desirable to policy makers that are
currently low consensus. These results offer targeting direction
for the promotion of new or less popular behaviors, consistent
with previous work in the marketing and public policy domain
suggesting that psychographic differences can be used to inform
interventions (Rose, Bearden, and Manning 1996; Wood 2012).
As such, our work can provide hope in situations in which
desirable behaviors are low consensus, prompting some seg-
ment of consumers to begin to build the consensus that may
persuade others to conform.
Theoretical Development
Processing Persuasive Messages
Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) elaboration likelihood model has
arguably become the dominant model of persuasion in mar-
keting (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983; Shrum et al.
2012) and public policy (Angst and Agarwal 2009; Rucker and
Petty 2006) research. One of the central arguments of Petty and
Cacioppo’s theory is that messages can be processed centrally
(i.e., carefully and with effort) or peripherally (i.e., with little
care). Elaboration likelihood model research has suggested that
people are likely to centrally process most policy-related mes-
sages for two reasons. First, public policy messages are often
related to important issues (e.g., health, financial security,
safety) that people find personally relevant, a key determinant of
involvement (Celsi and Olson 1988), and prior research has
shown that increased involvement leads to more central route
processing (Petty and Cacioppo 1979; Petty, Cacioppo, and
Schumann 1983). Second, many public service announcements
(PSAs) from policy makers and NGOs use emotion-based
appeals (e.g., an anti–texting and driving campaign that uses
a fear appeal), and emotions have also been shown to increase
motivation to process (Tiedens and Linton 2001).
When consumers are processing centrally, both source
credibility (Petty and Briñol 2008) and argument strength (Petty
and Cacioppo 1984) have been identified as key elements that
determine the effectiveness of the persuasive message. In gen-
eral, sources perceived as credible are more persuasive than less
credible sources (Lirtzman and Shuv-Ami 1986; Maddux and
Rogers 1980; Ohanian 1991; Watts and McGuire 1964), and
strong arguments are more persuasive than weak arguments
(Batra and Stayman 1990; Petty and Cacioppo 1984). Thus, we
would anticipate that strong arguments yield strong persuasion.
However, we propose that this is not always true. Specifically,
we argue that a psychographic characteristic, SII, influences how
people integrate consensus information into their judgments of
argument strength; thus, SII affects an argument’s persuasive-
ness (Petty and Wegener 1998). That is, even when consumers
are processing a persuasive message centrally, individual dif-
ferences may direct different amounts of attention to various
message components, making them more or less important in
persuasion. In general, our proposition is consistent with research
suggesting that individual difference measures can influence
persuasion (Cacioppo and Petty 1982; Cacioppo, Petty, and
Morris 1983) and with previous research on the power of
consensus showing that high consensus sometimes matters
and sometimes does not (Maass and Clark 1984; Moscovici
1985; Wood et al. 1994). We detail our predictions in the
following section.
SII and the Power of Consensus
Susceptibility to interpersonal influence is “the need to identify
or enhance one’s image with significant others through ac-
quisition and use of products and brands, the willingness to
conform to the expectations of others regarding purchasing
decisions, and/or the tendency to learn about products and
services by observing others and/or seeking information from
others” (Bearden, Netemeyer, and Teel 1989, p. 474). Sus-
ceptibility to interpersonal influence has been shown to have
a wide range of effects on consumer product preferences and
message responses. For example, people high in SII prefer prod-
ucts that induce positive attributions from others (Netemeyer,
Bearden, and Teel 1992) and that are socially visible (Batra,
Homer, and Kahle 2001).
Not surprisingly, prior work has argued that the persuasive
power of information about the behavior of others varies with
SII (Bearden, Netemeyer, and Teel 1989; Martin, Wentzel, and
Tomczak 2008; McGuire 1968; Mourali, Laroche, and Pons
2005). In general, people low in SII are motivated to make
decisions on the basis of what they believe to be “correct” and
therefore do not make decisions solely to fit in with others
16 The Wisdom of Some
(Batra, Homer, and Kahle 2001; Bearden, Netemeyer, and Teel
1989; Netemeyer, Bearden, and Teel 1992; Wooten and Reed
2004). Therefore, we predict that people low in SII will use both
the message source and the argument strength when evaluating
policy-relevant messages. Furthermore, we believe these con-
sumers will differentiate between low- and high-consensus
information when making a decision. This is due to the in-
formational social influence of consensus information; lower-
SII people are more likely to conform to high-consensus than
low-consensus information because people assume that the
actions of a majority of others reflect the more “correct”
behavior (Thibaut and Kelley 1959). In general, social proof
theory acknowledges that people determine what is correct in
a certain situation by looking to the behavior of others (Cialdini
2009; Lun et al. 2007). Greater consensus will therefore be
interpreted as a stronger message argument on the basis of the
social proof it provides (Cialdini, Kallgren, and Reno 1990,
1991). Thus, we predict that, all else being equal, lower-SII people
will be more persuaded by information indicating that the
advocated behavior is a high- (vs. low-) consensus behavior.
In contrast, high-SII people are primarily motivated to make
socially safe decisions (Wooten and Reed 2004). Those high in
SII have been shown to easily trust the judgments and behaviors
of a single interpersonal source and to view this information as
a reliable foundation of reality and sufficient for making de-
cisions (Deutsch and Gerard 1955; Mourali, Laroche, and Pons
2005). Therefore, we argue that even though they are processing
centrally, people high in SII will primarily attend to whether
anyone has engaged in the action rather than to the exact level of
consensus provided. As a result, unlike low-SII people, we
predict that high-SII people do not need high-consensus in-
formation to be persuaded. The presence of even a small number
or proportion of supporters may be a strong argument to this
group. As such, they will be equally persuaded by either low- or
high-consensus messages. This prediction is consistent with the
definition of SII, which does not provide any guidance on how
many “others” are necessary to persuade or influence the be-
havior of those high in the SII trait. Thus, we predict that, ceteris
paribus, high-SII people are just as persuaded by information
that the behavior in the persuasive message is high consensus as
they are when informed the behavior is low consensus.
While this prediction is consistent with a broader literature
base acknowledging the potential for small groups or single
individuals to wield considerable persuasive power (Maass and
Clark 1984; Moscovici 1985; Wood et al. 1994), our research
differs from this prior work in that we assess the influence of an
unidentified minority (low consensus) or majority (high con-
sensus) of people. In particular, prior research has found that
information on minorities is most influential when the identity
of the minority is known. For example, information from
a single individual, such as a market maven (Feick and Price
1987) or opinion leader (Iyengar, Van den Bulte, and Valente
2011; King and Summers 1970) can have a significant influence
on opinions and product adoption decisions. However, opinion
leaders are often sought out for their expertise or influential
position in a network (Feick and Price 1987); their identity is
known and part of the reason for their influence from a minority
position. Similarly, the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and
Fishbein 1980; Fishbein and Ajzen 1975) recognizes the role of
norms in influencing behavioral intentions, noting that a single
individual or small group can be particularly persuasive if the
beliefs of the minority are highly valued. However, again, for
a minority to be influential, information about the identity of the
minority individual or group is paramount. In contrast, we in-
vestigate situations in which consumers do not have any infor-
mation about the identity of the minority or majority being used
in the persuasive message. Formally, we therefore propose:
H1: When evaluating persuasive messages, as SII increases, the
relative advantage of high-consensus information over low-
consensus information in generating persuasion decreases.
We further predict that this failure to distinguish between
persuasive messages containing information about high- and
low-consensus behaviors is because high-SII people are pri-
marily vigilant in detecting the presence or absence of any
consensus information but have a weaker focus on the level of
consensus provided. That is, even though high-SII consumers
are processing policy-related messages centrally, they treat con-
sensus information more as a peripheral cue, focusing only on
whether it is there and not on the detail of whether it is high or
low. Note that this prediction is congruent with dual process
theories of persuasion, which acknowledge that peripheral cues
can be used in central route processing (Chaiken, Liberman, and
Eagly 1989; Eagly and Chaiken 1993). Thus, we are proposing
that attentional differences in the processing of consensus in-
formation drive the differences we predict for high- and low-
SII
consumers. This effect should therefore be moderated as follows:
H2: When evaluating persuasive messages, attentional cues high-
lighting whether information about others’ behavior is high
versus low consensus moderate the effect of SII on persuasion
such that (a) when no attentional cue is given, as SII increases,
the relative advantage of high-consensus information over low-
consensus information in generating persuasion decreases, and
(b) when an attentional cue is given, the relative advantage of
high-consensus information over low-consensus information in
generating persuasion is preserved.
Overview of Studies
Next, we report the results of four experiments and two
broadscale surveys designed to test our predictions about SII
and the (un)importance of high consensus in certain segments;
we then highlight the practical utility of our findings. Consistent
with recent recommendations (Murayama, Pekrun, and Fiedler
2014; Schmidt 2009), we test our hypotheses in multiple con-
texts that may be relevant to policy makers and marketers,
using both lexical and quantitative manipulations of consensus
level and testing for replication in projected and real behavior.
In Study 1a, we probe the interplay between consumer SII and
consensus information using an ethically based purchase de-
cision. In Study 1b, we investigate the impact of consensus
information on healthy eating habits. Study 2 assesses the
impact of consensus information and SII on environmentally
friendly behaviors. Finally, Study 3 evaluates charitable con-
tribution decisions and examines the impact of attentional cues
emphasizing high-consensus and low-consensus information,
demonstrating process through moderation as advocated by
Spencer, Zanna, and Fong (2005). To isolate the effect of SII
on susceptibility to persuasion by messages containing high-
versus low-consensus information, in all of our studies we
manipulate only argument strength, as reflected in consensus
information. Within each study, we keep both the persuasion
goal of the message (i.e., the desired or advocated behavior) and
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 17
the source of the persuasive message constant. Finally, we re-
port the results of two correlational studies that isolate demo-
graphic and psychographic characteristics associated with SII
and identify low consensus issues for which our findings may
be most helpful. These findings can help policy makers segment
the market using SII and choose consensus-based messages ap-
propriately for segments with high versus low levels of SII.
Study 1a
Study 1a examines consumers’ reactions to lexically described
high- and low-consensus information in a car-buying scenario.
We adapt the conjoint procedure and ethical decision-making
stimulus employed by Irwin and Naylor (2009) to quantify re-
actions to high- versus low-consensus information for re-
spondents at different levels of SII. In this study, we focus on
behavior that is prosocial and policy relevant: taking the labor
practices of the manufacturer into account when making a car
purchase decision.
Method
Seventy-six participants (43% female; Mage = 36.5 years,
age range 19–69 years) recruited using Amazon Mechanical
Turk (MTurk) participated in Study 1a in exchange for a small
monetary incentive. Study 1a employed an SII × consensus in-
formation (high vs. low) between-subjects design, whereby SII
was a measured continuous variable and consensus information
was manipulated. Before beginning the study, participants
completed an instructional manipulation check (IMC) to
identify people who did not follow directions (Oppenheimer,
Meyvis, and Davidenko 2009).1 All participants passed the
IMC and were included in the analysis.
Participants imagined that they were in the market for a new
automobile and were asked to share their opinions on a variety
of cars that differed on three main attributes: price, performance,
and an ethical labor attribute. Participants were informed that
the cars they would be evaluating did not differ in any ways
other than these three attributes:
• Price: The final negotiated cost of the car.
• Performance: Performance ratings for the car, from a leading
consumer magazine. The performance ratings range from 1 to
10, with 10 being the highest rating.
• Labor practices of the car manufacturer: The manufacturers
differ in the treatment of their workers. The best measure of this
treatment is the number of lawsuits brought by employees
against the management.
The explanation of the labor practices of the car manufac-
turer clearly stated that the number of lawsuits against man-
agement had no bearing on the quality of the car, only the
treatment of employees. Participants were then provided with
a recommendation from a casual acquaintance on how to
proceed with their car search. In the high-consensus informa-
tion condition, participants were provided with the following
recommendation:
Most people consider the labor practices of car manufacturers when
purchasing a car since that provides a good indication of how ethical
the organization is. Like everyone else, you should consider labor
practices as an important factor in your decision.
In the low-consensus information condition, participants saw
the following recommendation:
Most people don’t consider the labor practices of car manufacturers
when purchasing a car. However, unlike everyone else, you should
consider labor practices as an important factor in your decision since
that provides a good indication of how ethical the organization is.
After participants saw this recommendation, they viewed and
rated all possible car combinations that could be formed using
the aforementioned attributes. Because each attribute had three
levels, participants viewed and evaluated 27 different cars
(labeled from car A through car AA). The three levels of the
price attribute were $15,977, $18,385, and $20,793. The three
levels of the performance attribute (on a ten-point scale) were
6.0, 7.75, and 9.5. Consistent with Irwin and Naylor (2009), the
three levels of the ethical labor attribute were “fewer than
average,” “average,” and “more than average.” These categories
corresponded with the following descriptions: “one or two
lawsuits every few years,” “five to ten lawsuits per year,” and
“many complaints, including assault charges.” Finally, after
completing a short filler task, participants completed Bearden,
Netemeyer, and Teel’s (1989) 12-item measure of SII, which
was indexed for analysis (a = .92; M = 3.02, SD = 1.17).
Results
To be certain that our manipulation of consensus information
did not influence our measure of SII, we first assessed SII within
both the high- and low-consensus information conditions. There
were no differences in SII between the high-consensus infor-
mation condition (M = 2.94) and the low-consensus information
condition (M = 3.07; F(1, 74) = .24, p > .60). Given this finding,
we next discuss our focal analysis.
We applied a sequential processto analyze the data, obtaining
conjoint weights for each participant and then testing whether
the weights were dependent on consensus information and SII.
Following Irwin and Naylor (2009), we converted negative
slopes to zeros for the second part of our analysis.2 Given that
participants were advised to take labor practices into account
when evaluating the vehicles, we investigate labor practice
weights as a proxy for persuasion. Greater weights on the labor
attribute indicated greater persuasion as a result of the rec-
ommendation provided. We conducted a regression analysis
with contrast-codedconsensus information, consumer SII (mean-
centered for analysis), and the SII × consensus information
interaction as predictors of weights for the labor attribute. There
was no main effect of whether the recommendation was high
consensus or low consensus (t(1) = _1.68, p > .05). However,
there was a main effect of SII (t(1) = 2.20, p < .05, b = .17), such
that an increase in SII resulted in greater persuasion as a result of
1In our IMC, participants viewed a page that consisted of a title, directions, and
one multiple-choice question asking which factors they considered when making
a purchase. The directions clearly stated that people should not answer the question
shown on the page. Instead, to demonstrate that they were paying attention, par-
ticipants were told to leave the question blank, click on the title at the top of the page
(which turned green once clicked), and then click continue. If a participant did not
follow these directions they were taken to the same screen, which prompted them to
“Please Read the Directions.” If they failed a second time, they saw a note in all
capitalized letters and red font again advising to “Please Read the Directions.” 2Results remain consistent without converting negative slopes to zeros.
18 The Wisdom of Some
the recommendation. Although this was not the focus of our
central hypothesis, this result makes sense given that previous
research has supported the notion that high-SII consumers
would be particularly interested in complying with a recom-
mendation from an acquaintance because an acquaintance is
more likely to be viewed as a “significant other.” More impor-
tantly, a significant interaction between consensus information
and consumer SII emerged (t(1) = 2.10, p < .05, b = .16).
To understand the interaction between consensus in-
formation and consumer SII, we applied a floodlight analysis
(Hayes and Matthes 2009). A floodlight analysis shows the
rangeof values for which a simple effect is and is not significant
(Spiller et al. 2013). Therefore, in the context of our study, the
floodlight analysis identified the range of consumer SII values
for which there is a significant difference in labor attribute weight
between the high- and low-consensus information conditions
and the range of consumer SII values for which there is not a
significant difference in labor attribute weight between the
high- and low-consensus information conditions.
This procedure revealed that participants scoring below an
average value of 2.96 on the seven-point SII scale weighted the
labor attribute more heavily in the high-consensus information
condition compared with the low-consensus information
condition (ps < .05). However, the high-consensus cue did not
generate different weighting of the labor attribute for people
high in SII (participants scoring above 2.96 on the SII mea-
sure; ps > .05). Figure 1, Panel A, provides a graphical rep-
resentation of these results, and Table 1 captures the crossover
values for all studies, beginning with this set of results. This
finding provides support for H1 and illustrates high-SII con-
sumers’ tendency to be persuaded by a persuasive message
backed by either high- or low-consensus information about
others’ behavior.
Discussion
Study 1a demonstrates that consumers’ response to high-
consensus versus low-consensus information is dependent on
SII. We found that lower-SII consumers were more persuaded
by a recommendation backed by high-consensus informa-
tion relative to one backed by low-consensus information.
In contrast, higher-SII participants showed similar levels
of persuasion when a recommendation was accompanied by
either high- or low-consensus information. The results of
Study 1a therefore suggest that the high-SII segment of con-
sumers may be a particularly attractive segment for policy
makers and marketers to target when advocating a new pro-
social behavior (e.g., installing low-flow shower heads to
conserve water) or attempting to build support for a new
prosocial initiative (e.g., charitable or recycling programs).
Targeting these people initially can be an effective way to
ultimately build the majority support needed to persuade
low-SII consumers.
While Study 1a provides initial support for H1, these findings
are subject to an alternate explanation: psychological reactance
on the part of low-SII consumers. Psychological reactance oc-
curs when a person feels threatened by a recommendation and
is therefore motivated to do the opposite of the recommenda-
tion in a bid to regain freedom that has been lost or threatened
(Brehm 1966). It is possible that low-SII people are particularly
likely to experience reactance to a low-consensus recommen-
dation, viewing this communication as a strong threat to their
ability to make a free choice, especially given that the low-
consensus information suggests a low-quality argument to those
high in SII. Therefore, the purpose of Study 1b is to provide
additional evidence for our demonstrated effect and dig deeper
into the process driving the result, including ruling out this
alternative explanation empirically. We also use a different op-
erationalization of high and low consensus. The operationali-
zation of low consensus used in Study 1a requires consumers to
make the inference that while “most people don’t” consider
labor practices, some people do (and, thus, there is low con-
sensus). Given that we expect high-SII consumers to primarily
attend to whether any consensus is present and not to devote
additional processing resources beyond simply noting whether
it is present, we use a simpler operationalization of low con-
sensus (that does not require an inference) in Study 1b and all
subsequent studies.
Figure 1. Consumer SII and Consensus Information for
Studies 1a and 1b
L
ab
or
A
tt
ri
bu
te
W
ei
gh
t
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
+2 SD
SII
High consensus Low consensus
–2 SD 2.96
A: Study 1a
V
eg
et
ab
le
s
on
G
ro
ce
ry
L
is
t
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
–2 SD +2 SD
SII
High consensus Low consensus
2.60
B: Study 1b
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 19
Study 1b
In Study 1b, we aim to replicate the effect demonstrated in
Study 1a and provide additional support for H1 using a different
product category and consensus cue manipulation. In our first
study, we used lexical cues (i.e., “most people”). In this study,
we use quantitative consensus cues similar to the method used
by Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius (2008). An additional
goal of this study is to provide initial evidence that attentional
differences are driving this observed effect.
Method
In Study 1b, 241 participants recruited through MTurk com-
pleted the study for a small monetary incentive. Study 1b used
an SII × consensus information (high vs. low) between-subjects
design, in which SII was a measured continuous variable and
consensus information was manipulated. Congruent with Study
1a, participants completed an IMC to detect whether they
followed directions (Oppenheimer, Meyvis, and Davidenko
2009). Eight participants failed the IMC three times and were
dropped from the analysis. Thus, Study 1b had a final sample of
233 participants (50% female; Mage = 36.7 years, age range
18–83 years).
To begin Study 1b, participants completed Bearden,
Netemeyer, and Teel’s (1989) 12-item measure of SII (a = .92,
M = 3.21, SD = 1.16). Measuring people’s SII before they
completed the focal task helped ensure that our experimental
manipulations did not influence this measure. After com-
pleting approximately ten minutes of unrelated filler tasks,
participants were asked to imagine that they had just arrived
at their local grocery store to purchase some food items for
the week. On entering the grocery store, participants imagined
seeing a PSA produced by the Organization for Healthy Eating,
a fictitious public health organization. In the high-consensus
information condition, participants read the following recom-
mendation from the organization:
Almost 76% of American grocery shoppers eat five servings of
vegetables a day. We recommend you join your fellow shoppers and
consume at least five servings of vegetables a day.
Conversely, in the low consensus information condition,
participants read the following recommendation from the
organization:
Almost 26% of American grocery shoppers eat five servings of
vegetables a day. We recommend you join your fellow shoppers and
consume at least five servings of vegetables a day.
After reading the PSA, participants were asked to put to-
gether a grocery shopping list for their trip. Each participant
compiled a list of 15 items from a total of 60 available grocery
items. Ten of the 60 available grocery items were vegetables
(potatoes, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, celery, corn, cucumbers,
lettuce, onions, and peppers).3 We used the number of vegetable
items included on the list as our focal dependent variable.
In our conceptualization, we have argued that high-SII
consumers attend to the fact that consensus information is
present but place relatively less weight on the degree of con-
sensus provided. If those high in SII indeed place less emphasis
on consensus information, we would anticipate that they would
have a more difficult time recalling the consensus information
present in the PSA when compared with those lower in SII.
Therefore, after completing the grocery shopping task and sev-
eral filler items unrelated to the current hypotheses, all partici-
pants were asked to recall the consensus information shown in
the PSA by typing in the percentage they saw in the PSA. We
measured memory for this information to serve as a proxy for
participants’ attention given that greater attention should result in
a stronger memory trace (Baddeley et al. 1984). Responses were
coded as either correct or incorrect.
Finally, given that the results of Study 1a could be explained
by reactance (Brehm 1966) on the part of low-SII people, par-
ticipants completed an eight-item measure of reactance to the
recommendation from the Organization for Healthy Eating
adapted from Hong and Faedda (1996), which was indexed for
analysis (a = .90, M = 2.48, SD = 1.10; sample items: “I resisted
the attempt of the OHE to influence me”; “The recommendation
from the OHE restricted my freedom of choice”; “I considered
the recommendation from the OHE to be an intrusion”).
Results
We first conducted a regression analysis with contrast-coded
consensus information, consumer SII (mean-centered for
Table 1. Consumer SII Crossover Values for Floodlight Analyses
Significant SII Crossover
Values from the Floodlight Analyses Average SII Value for Study
Study 1a £2.96 3.02
Study 1b £2.60 3.21
Study 2: No control £3.44 3.28
Study 3: Low attentional emphasis £2.18 3.38
Study 3: High attentional emphasis ‡5.06 3.38
Notes: The crossover values indicate the value of SII at which the floodlight test reached statistical significance for each study. The floodlight test highlights a range
of values of our continuous predictor SII and demonstrates for which values the group differences (high- vs. low-consensus information) are significant
(Spiller et al. 2013). For example, in Study 1a, this table indicates that for SII values less than or equal to 2.96, there is a significant difference in labor
attribute weight between the high- and low-consensus information groups. At SII values greater than 2.96, there was no significant difference in labor
attribute weight between the experimental groups.
3Although some of these products may be better classified as fruits from
a scientific perspective, they are typically classified as vegetables by U.S.
consumers (Rupp 2015).
20 The Wisdom of Some
analysis), and the SII × consensus information interaction as
predictors of the number of vegetables included on participants’
shopping lists. There was no main effect of whether the rec-
ommendation in the PSA was high or low consensus (t(1) = _.95,
p > .30). Furthermore, there was no main effect of SII (t(1) = .20,
p > .80). While inconsistent with Study 1a, this result is not
surprising given that organizations are less likely to be per-
ceived as significant others. However, consistent with the results
of Study 1a, we found a significant interaction between consen-
sus information and consumer SII (t(1) = 2.40, p < .05, b = .25).
To better understand this interaction, we again used a
floodlight procedure (Hayes and Matthes 2009). This pro-
cedure revealed that participants scoring below an average
value of 2.60 on the seven-point SII included more vegetables
on their shopping lists in the high-consensus information
condition compared with the low-consensus information con-
dition (ps < .05). However, participants scoring above 2.60 on
the SII measure showed no difference in the number of vege-
tables included between the high- and low-consensus conditions
(ps > .05). Figure 1, Panel B, provides a graphical representation
of the results. This finding offers additional support for H1 and
further demonstrates that people high in SII can be influenced
in the face of both high- and low-consensus information.
We next conducted a logistic regression analysis with
contrast-coded consensus information, consumer SII (mean-
centered for analysis), and the SII × consensus information
interaction as predictors of correctly recalling the consensus
information. There was no main effect of consensus informa-
tion and no interaction between SII and consensus information
(ps > .10). However, there was a main effect of SII (c2(1) = 4.00,
p < .05, b = _.24), such that a one-unit increase in SII corre-
sponds to a 22% decrease in the odds of correctly recalling
the consensus information, in support of our theorization that
higher-SII consumers are less focused on the exact nature of the
consensus information. We also recorded the time participants
spent reading the PSA (M = 13 seconds) and found that time
spent processing the PSA (p > .10) did not differ by SII. This is
consistent with our theory that the differences in attention are not
driven by the overall amount of attention paid to a persuasive
message but how this attention is allocated, with those high in
SII devoting less attention to the nature of whether consensus
information is high or low.
Finally,weconductedaregressionanalysiswithcontrast-coded
consensus information, consumer SII (mean-centered for analy-
sis), and the SII × consensus information interaction as predictors
of reactance. All effects were nonsignificant (all ps > .50). Fur-
thermore, a process mediation analysis (Hayes 2013) confirmed
that reactance did not fully or partially mediate the focal effect.
Discussion
The results of Study 1b replicate Study 1a’s effects using a
different consensus information manipulation and consumer
context. We again demonstrate that consumers’ response to
low- and high-consensus information is dependent on SII. Fur-
thermore, Study 1b demonstrates that this effect holds when
the consensus information is presented in quantitative rather than
lexical form. Finally, the results of Study 1b provide initial
insight into the process driving these results. Previously, we
argued that people high in SII actively process message in-
formation in the same way as people lower in SII, but the former
are more vigilant to the presence of consensus information
rather than the exact level of consensus. Consistent with our
argument,weobservethat peoplehigher inSII processfor similar
lengths of time as do people lower in SII but are in fact less likely
to accurately recall consensus information, irrespective of the
nature of the consensus information (i.e., high or low). In ad-
dition, we ruled out reactance as a driver of the observed effect.
We return to the role of attention in Study 3. However,in our next
study we dig deeper into the role that consensus information
plays in high-SII consumers’ perceptions of argument strength.
Study 2
The purpose of Study 2 is to tease apart the influence of the
message source and consensus cues in the persuasion process.
Previously, we have argued that any consensus information
influences high-SII consumers’ perceptions of argument
strength. However, we have not demonstrated the importance of
consensus information beyond a simple source recommenda-
tion. Therefore, in Study 2 we include a control condition in
which no consensus information is provided.
Method
Two hundred forty-nine participants recruited using MTurk
participated in Study 2 in exchange for a small monetary in-
centive. Study 2 employed an SII ×consensus information (high
vs. low vs. control) between-subjects design, in which SII was
a measured continuous variable and consensus information
was manipulated. Consistent with Studies 1a and 1b, participants
completed an IMC to identify whether they were following
directions (Oppenheimer, Meyvis, and Davidenko 2009). Two
participants failed the IMC three times and were removed from
theanalysis,leavingauseablesampleof 247people(46% female;
Mage = 35.0 years old, age range 19–68 years).
We designed Study 2 following one of the most compelling
recent demonstrations of the effectiveness of consensus in-
formation in a policy relevant setting, Goldstein, Cialdini, and
Griskevicius’s (2008) hotel field study. That research demon-
strated that using high-consensus information in a persuasive
message increased hotel guests’ participation in an environ-
mental conservation program (by giving guests information
about the number of previous guests who reused their towels)
when compared with traditional proenvironmental appeals.
To begin this study, all participants completed Bearden,
Netemeyer, and Teel’s (1989) 12-item measure of SII (a = .90,
M = 3.28, SD = 1.08). After completing approximately ten
minutes of unrelated filler tasks, participants were asked to
imagine that they were staying seven nights in a hotel. Fur-
thermore, participants were asked to imagine that on entering
the hotel room they notice some literature provided by the hotel
chain related to environmentally responsible behaviors. In the
high-consensus information condition, participants saw the fol-
lowing recommendation from the hotel chain:
Almost 75% of our guests participate in our resource conservation
program by reusing their towels more than once. Please join your
fellow guests in this program to help save the environment by
reusing your towels during your stay.
In the low-consensus information condition, participants read
the following recommendation from the hotel chain:
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 21
Almost 25% of our guests participate in our resource conservation
program by reusing their towels more than once. Please join your
fellow guests in this program to help save the environment by
reusing your towels during your stay.
Finally, participants in the control condition viewed the fol-
lowing recommendation from the hotel chain:
Our hotel has a resource conservation program that involves reusing
towels more than once. Please help save the environment by reusing
your towels during your stay.
After the presentation of the hotel’s literature on environ-
mentally responsible behaviors, participants indicated their
likelihood of reusing their towels for two nights on a scale from
0 (“very unlikely”) to 100 (“very likely”).
Results
We measured how long participants spent reading the hotel’s
statement about environmentally responsible behaviors. On
average, participants spent 24 seconds reading, and, as in Study
1b, processing time did not differ by level of SII (p > .70).
No Control Group
We first tested for replication of our prior results, using con-
trast codes to compare the low-consensus and high-consensus
conditions. We conducted a regression analysis with contrast-
coded consensus information, consumer SII (mean-centered for
analysis), and the interaction between SII and consensus in-
formation as predictors of towel reuse likelihood. We found
a main effect of consensus information (t(1) = _2.35, p < .05,
b = _5.17) such that the likelihood of towel reuse was sig-
nificantly lower in the low-consensus condition when compared
with the overall study mean. Consistent with Study 1b, there
was no main effect of SII (t(1) = _.87, p > .30), which again is
not unexpected given that organizations are less likely to fill the
role of significant others. Most importantly, and consistent with
the results of Studies 1a and 1b, a significant interaction be-
tween consensus information and consumer SII emerged (t(1) =
2.26, p < .05, b = 4.78).
To understand the interaction between consensus infor-
mation and consumer SII, we again used the floodlight pro-
cedure advocated by Hayes and Matthes (2009). This procedure
revealed that participants scoring below an average value of
3.44 on the seven-point SII scale were more likely to reuse their
towels in the high-consensus information condition compared
with the low-consensus information condition (ps < .05).
However, high-SII people (participants who scored above
3.44
on the SII measure; ps > .05) showed no difference in their
likelihood of reusing towels between the high- and low-
consensus conditions. Figure 2, Panel A, provides a graphical
representation of the results. This finding provides additional
support for H1 and again affirms the persuasive influence of both
high- and low-consensus information for people high in SII.
With Control Group
Next, we analyzed the results with the control group. We ap-
plied a regression analysis with two contrast-coded consensus
information variables (“high consensus”: control group vs. high-
consensus information; “low consensus”: control group vs.
low-consensus information), consumer SII (mean-centered for
analysis), and the interaction between SII and the two con-
sensus information variables (high consensus and low con-
sensus) as predictors of towel reuse likelihood.
No main effect of the low-consensus contrast code (t(1) = .46,
p > .60) or consumer SII (t(1) = .84, p > .35) appeared. However,
a significant main effect of the high-consensus contrast code
emerged (t(1) = 2.74, p < .01, b = 6.22) such that, regardless of
SII, participants showed higher likelihoods of towel reuse when
viewing the high-consensus message compared with the con-
trol message. This result is consistent with prior research on
social proof and high-consensus effects (Cialdini 2009; Cialdini,
Kallgren, and Reno 1990; Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius
2008) and further demonstrates the power of high-consensus
messages compared with standard control messages.
We find that the interaction between the high-consensus
contrast code and consumer SII was not significant (t(1) = _.12,
p > .90). However, we did find a significant interaction between
the low-consensus contrast code and consumer SII (t(1) = 2.19
Figure 2. Consumer SII and Consensus Information for
Study 2
A: No Control Condition
B: With Control Condition
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
–2 SD +2 SD
L
ik
el
ih
oo
d
of
R
eu
se
T
w
o
N
ig
ht
s
SII
High consensus Low consensus
3.44
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
–2 SD +2 SD
L
ik
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oo
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R
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se
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ht
s
High consensus
SII
Low consensus Control
22 The Wisdom of Some
p < .05, b = 4.52). This result demonstrates that as consumer SII increases, participants showed a greater likelihood of reusing their towels when viewing the low-consensus message when compared with the control message. Figure 2, Panel B, provides a graphical representation of the results.
Discussion
The results of Study 2 provide several important insights. First,
we replicate the general effect found in Studies 1a and 1b. We
also find that consistent with previous research, both low- and
high-SII people found a high-consensus message more per-
suasive than a control message. However, high-SII people also
found the low-consensus message significantly more persuasive
than the control message. This result reaffirms our conceptu-
alization and suggests that high-SII people are sensitive to
consensus elements in a message (beyond a simple recom-
mendation) but do not differentiate between high and low con-
sensus levels.
Study 3
We have argued that high-SII people pay relatively less at-
tention to whether consensus information is high or low and
focus instead on the fact that any consensus information is
present in a message. If high-SII consumers’ failure to differ-
entiate between high- and low-consensus information is driven
by a weaker attention to the nature of consensus information,
externally drawing focus to the level of consensus information
should change the way that high-SII people react to high- versus
low-consensus cues. That is, increasing the salience of the spe-
cificlevel of consensusinformationwillsignal tohigher-SIIpeople
that this information is relevant in their decision making.
For this study, we therefore take an experimental causal-chain
approach to demonstrate our proposed process. By manipulating
bothour independentvariableandtheproposedprocessmeasure,
focal attention, this approach enables us to make inferences
about the mechanism driving our results (Spencer, Zanna, and
Fong2005).Furthermore,inthisstudy,weexaminepeople’sactual
donation behaviors to an environmental charitable organization.
Method
A total of 200 participants recruited using MTurk participated in
Study 3 in exchange for a small monetary incentive. Study 3
employed an SII × consensus information (high vs. low) ×
attentional emphasis (low vs. high) between-subjects design, in
which SII was a measured continuous variable and consensus
information and attentional emphasis were manipulated. Con-
sistent with our previous studies, participants first completed
an IMC to identify whether they were following directions
(Oppenheimer, Meyvis, and Davidenko 2009). Three partici-
pants failed the IMC three times and were removed from the
sample, leaving 197participants(47% female; Mage = 33.9 years
old, age range 19–69 years).
To begin this study, all participants completed Bearden,
Netemeyer, and Teel’s (1989) 12-item measure of SII (a = .93,
M = 3.38, SD = 1.25). After completing the measure of SII,
participants began the study, which consisted of several dif-
ferent tasks. First, participants were informed that they
would evaluate a series of charitable organizations. Each par-
ticipant read about five charitable organizations (the United
Way, Feeding America, the Task Force for Global Health, the
American Red Cross, and the American Cancer Society) and
evaluated each organization. This task was meant to orient
participants and prepare them for our focal investigation. After
rating these charitable organizations, participants completed
approximately 15 minutes of filler tasks. Finally, participants
were informed that they would be asked to evaluate one last
charitable organization. As a thank you for evaluating this final
charitable organization, participants were provided with a $
.25
bonus. Each participant then evaluated the American Wood-
land Foundation (AWF), a fictional charity, which was mod-
eled after the American Forest Foundation. Participants saw the
charity’s web page, which included information on the mission,
vision, and values of the AWF, as well as a recommendation
from the manager of AWF advising each person to make
a donation.
In the high-consensus information condition, participants
were informed: “In previous studies, 75% of people made
a donation to this charitable organization. We recommend
you consider making a donation.” By contrast, in the low-
consensus information condition, participants saw the fol-
lowing information: “In previous studies, 5% of people made
a donation to this charitable organization. We recommend you
consider making a donation.”
In addition to manipulating the consensus information, we
also manipulated attention to the high- or low-consensus in-
formation by changing the spatial and visual presentation of the
message. Recent research has acknowledged the considerable
difference that ad positioning makes in garnering attention in
a digital environment (Sharethrough 2015; Stambor 2013). For
example, using eye-tracking technology, Sharethrough (2015)
found that native online advertisements (i.e., ads using the same
format and positioning as the focal content of a website) re-
ceived 52% more attention than banner advertisements in the
periphery. Similarly, advertisements placed in-stream on a web
page showed click-through rates 45 times greater than display
ads on the right margin of the page (Stambor 2013). Given these
findings, in the high–attentional emphasis condition, the high-
consensus or low-consensus information was placed in the web
page stream (vs. on the right margin of the page) and was a
larger font than the rest of the web page. Furthermore, the num-
erical information was in red, boldface font to create a visual
contrast (see Appendix A). In contrast, in the low–attentional
emphasis condition, the high- or low-consensus information
was placed in the right margin of the AWF web page and used
a font that was similar in size to the rest of the web page, and
the red font was not used for the numerical information (see
Appendix A).
After reviewing the web page, participants were asked if they
would like to donate any of their $.25 bonus to AWF. The
instructions were clear that the decision was up to the partic-
ipant, who could choose if and how much (s)he wanted to
donate. We used the amount donated to the AWF charity as our
dependent variable in this experiment. Participants who donated
a portion of their bonus to the charity received the remaining
balance (if any) as their bonus.
Results
Consistent with prior studies, we measured the time participants
spent reading the AWF web page. Participants spent 40 seconds
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 23
on average reading the information shown on the AWF site,
which did not differ by level of SII (p > .90).
We conducted a regression analysis with the contrast-coded
consensus information, contrast-coded attentional emphasis,
consumer SII (mean-centered for analysis), and all possible
interactions as predictors of donations. All main effects and two-
way interaction effects were nonsignificant (ps > .15). However,
as we predicted, results revealed a significant three-way inter-
action among consensus information, attentional emphasis, and
SII (t(1) = _2.95, p < .01, b = _.16).
To further investigate this three-way interaction, we sepa-
rately examined the impact of consensus information and con-
sumer SII within the low– and high–attentional emphasis
conditions. In both conditions, we conducted separate regression
analyseswithconsensusinformation,consumer SII, andtheSII ×
consensus information interaction as predictors of donations.
In the low–attentional emphasis condition, the effect of
consensus information (t(1) = _.58, p > .50) and consumer SII
were not significant (t(1) = _.35, p > .70). However, we found
a significant interaction between consensus information and
SII (t(1) = 2.23, p < .05, b = .02). A floodlight analysis (Hayes
and Matthes 2009) revealed that participants scoring below an
averagevalue of 2.18on the seven-point SII scale donatedmore
money to AWF in the high-consensus information condition
compared with the low-consensus information condition (all
values less than 2.18; ps < .05). In contrast, the high- and low-
consensus cues did not generate different donation amounts for
high-SII participants (people who scored above 2.18 on the SII
measure; ps > .05). Figure 3, Panel A, provides a graphical
representation of the interaction. This result is conceptually
consistent with the findings of prior studies and provides sup-
port for H2a.
In the high–attentional emphasis condition, the effect of
consensus information (t(1) = _.69, p > .40) and consumer
SII were not significant (t(1) = _.36, p > .70). However,
we found a significant interaction between consensus in-
formation and SII (t(1) = _1.92, p = .05, b = _.01). Most
importantly, a floodlight analysis (Hayes and Matthes 2009)
revealed that participants scoring above an average value of
5.06 on the seven-point SII scale donated more to AWF in
the high-consensus information condition compared with
the low-consensus information condition (all values greater
than 5.06; ps < .05). Figure 3, Panel B, provides a graphical
representation of the results. This finding provides support
for H2b, demonstrating that when attentional emphasis is
added to consensus information, people higher in SII can
effectively differentiate between high- and low-consensus
information.
Discussion
Study 3 demonstrates that attentional emphasis highlighting
consensus information moderates the interactive effect of
SII and consensus information on persuasion. By showing
this moderation, the results of Study 3 provide evidence of
our proposed process (Spencer, Zanna, and Fong 2005), in
support of our theory that attentional differences drive high-
SII consumers’ failure to differentiate between high- and
low-consensus information. The results of Study 3 therefore
suggest that if policy makers want to discourage a given
behavior by pointing out how few people engage in the
behavior (e.g., smoking), it is critical that they use these type
of attentional cues to ensure that high SII consumers re-
spond in the desired manner. Importantly, public policy
makers can easily implement an attentional intervention in
the type of PSA used as the stimulus for this study if the goal
is to ensure that high-SII consumers recognize the difference
between the behavior of a majority and that of a minority.
Although this particular study was done in an online con-
text, similar techniques for emphasizing consensus in-
formation (e.g., with different font sizes and color) can be used
in offline contexts.
While the results of Study 3 demonstrate the importance of
attentional cues to help high-SII consumers effectively differ-
entiate between high- and low-consensus information, we note
that our manipulation seems to eliminate low-SII consumers’
differentiation among consensus information levels. It is pos-
sible that highlighting consensus information may have acti-
vated a strong persuasion knowledge schema (Friestad and
Figure 3. Consumer SII and Consensus Information for
Study 3
A: Low Attentional Emphasis
B: High Attentional Emphasis
0
.05
.10
.15
.20
.25
–2 SD +2 SD
A
m
ou
nt
D
on
at
ed
($
)
SII
High consensus Low consensus
2.18
0
.05
.10
.15
.20
–2 SD +2 SD
A
m
ou
nt
D
on
at
ed
($
)
SII
High consensus Low consensus
5.06
24 The Wisdom of Some
Wright 1994) in low-SII consumers, leading them to be skeptical
of the message.
Study 4a
Although work that focuses on an individual difference as
a moderator often provides important theoretical insights, one
critique is that it is challenging for this type of research to shape
practice. How can policy makers or charities reach people of
various trait characteristics? To support a legitimate discussion
of the practical implications of our work for policy makers,
NGOs, and managers, we sought reliable demographic and
psychographic correlates of SII—observable variables or be-
haviors that could allow for the identification and targeting of
people at different levels of SII. To do so, we conducted
a survey of 582 consumers, using MTurk, who completed the
survey in return for a nominal payment (Mage = 31.3 years, age
range 18–70 years; 44% female). To begin, all participants
completed Bearden, Netemeyer, and Teel’s (1989) 12-item
measure of SII, which was indexed for analysis (a = .92, M =
3.12, SD = 1.15). Next, participants completed items capturing
a wide variety of focal constructs. We chose these behavioral,
psychographic, and demographic constructs for both practical
and theoretical reasons, described next. The measures used
appear in Appendix B.
Money Management
If better or worse money managers consistently vary in
SII, managers of various types of products (i.e., debt col-
lection services vs. wealth-management services) or
policy makers (who may be attempting to motivate people
with poor money management skills) might choose to use
consensus information and/or attentional cues differently.
Prior research has established that consumers’ financial
knowledge and constraints affect both their financial
planning (Morrin, Broniarczyk, and Inman 2012; Xiao et al.
2011) and the type of products they purchase (Cheema
and Soman 2006; Soman and Cheema 2002). Similarly,
financial management has been linked to different de-
mographic and personality characteristics (Norvilitis et al.
2006); thus, we included a measure of money management
to determine whether it is significantly related to consumer
SII.
Political Orientation and Nationalism
A rich store of research has established the geographic dis-
persion of people of different political orientations. For example,
states are commonly known as more “red” (conservative) or
“blue” (liberal). Furthermore, data on political orientation can
also be captured longitudinally and at district or local levels.
Thus, if people of different SII levels can be identified on the
basis of political orientation, we have a large amount of in-
formation that can be used to geotarget messages and shape
persuasive communications accordingly. In addition, under-
standing whether SII is related to political orientation may
enable us to make contributions directly to the literature on
political communications, an arena in which consensus in-
formation has been used with varying degrees of success
(Gerber and Rogers 2009). We therefore measured individual
political orientation and nationalism.
Responsible Consumerism and Resource
Conservation
Policy makers and marketers are increasingly recognizing
environmentalism and social responsibility as an important
domain both for the introduction of new products and for
encouraging positive behavior change (Banerjee, Iyer, and
Kashyap 2003; Kronrod, Grinstein, and Wathieu 2012; Luchs
et al. 2010; Prothero et al. 2011). In addition, some work has
acknowledged environmental conservation attitudes as a use-
ful profiling and segmentation basis (Laroche, Bergeron,
and Barbaro-Forleo 2001; Straughan and Roberts 1999). Fur-
thermore, given the importance of consensus information in
encouraging conservation behaviors (as in Goldstein, Cialdini,
and Griskevicius 2008), our findings may have implications for
how prior research findings are implemented. Accordingly, we
included measures of responsible consumerism and resource
conservation.
Individual Lifestyles
Prior work has established the importance of individual life-
styles and habits in both marketing (Burroughs and Rindfleisch
2002) and public policy domains (Verplanken and Wood 2006).
Therefore, we also included measures of individual lifestyle,
religious habits, life satisfaction, and health perceptions, inclu-
ding information such as frequency of exercise, frequency of
diningout,hours spent pursuing ahobby,smoking habits, general
feelings of stress, feelings of religiosity, and general satisfaction
with life, to determine whether any of these values, activities, and
lifestyles are significantly correlated with consumer SII.
Media Habits
Both marketers and policy makers identify and target indi-
vidual consumers on the basis of these consumers’ media habits
and consumption. It is still imperative to use both traditional
channels of communication (i.e., television and print adver-
tising) and newer channels (i.e., the Internet and social net-
works) to deliver content and messages to a relevant and highly
selective market segment. Therefore, we also included measures
of media usage such as television and Internet habits.
Demographics
Finally, we also included measures of demographic variables.
These included age, gender, marital status, and educational
background.
Results
The average score on SII was 3.12 in the overall (n = 582)
sample. To provide background on the pervasiveness of high
SII in the general population, we assessed the average SII in the
top quintile (n = 123) of SII. The average SII value for these 123
people was 4.81 (SD = .46; range 4.25–6.33). Furthermore,
37% of our sample fell above an SII value of 3.44, the highest
crossover value from our experiments. These findings sug-
gest that higher-SII consumers are not an inconsequential group
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 25
and make up a substantial number of people in the general
marketplace.
Next, we discuss the results of our associative analysis be-
tween SII and the demographic, psychographic, and behavioral
measures previously highlighted. For continuous measures, we
conducted a regression analysis with responses to the afore-
mentioned measures as predictors of consumer SII. To assess
multicollinearity, we evaluated variance inflation factors for all
continuous predictors in the model. All variance inflation
factors were well below a value of 10, indicating no issues with
multicollinearity (Kutner et al. 2005).
For categorical measures, we ran analyses of variance with
a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Results
revealed that higher SII is associated with better ability to
manage money (b = .12, p < .01), a more liberal as opposed to
conservative political orientation (b = _.07, p < .05), consumer
behaviors that are environmentally responsible (b = .16, p <
.001), and strong feelings of nationalism (b = .21, p < .001).
Regarding lifestyle and media habits, higher SII was positively
associated with prevalence of dining out in a restaurant (b = .07,
p < .05), time spent on the Internet for fun (b = .01, p < .05), and
time watching cable television (b = .02, p < .05). Notably,
consumers who do not smoke also showed higher levels of SII
compared with consumers who do smoke (p < .001).
Perhaps of most use to marketers and policy makers, we
also found that age was negatively associated with SII (b = _.03,
p < .001) and that men showed higher levels of SII when
compared with women (p < .01). In addition, single consumers
had higher SII than married consumers (p < .001).
To enhance these findings, we applied an index procedure
similar to the one employed by the Nielsen company to
identify measures likely to be successful in targeting high-SII
consumers (ACNielsen 2006). For this analysis, we compared
the overall mean (n = 582) with the mean of those in the top
quintile of SII (n =123) for each measure.Measures inwhich the
top SII quintile was greater than or less than 15% of the overall
mean are likely to be successful in targeting higher-SII con-
sumers. Using this procedure, the results revealed that nation-
alism, frequency of eating out, time spent on the Internet for fun,
time spent watching cable television, and age are all measures
that can be used to effectively target higher-SII consumers.
Study 4b
In Study 4a, we outline important psychographic, demo-
graphic, and behavioral characteristics that can be helpful in
identifying and targeting high-SII people. The purpose of
Study 4b is to highlight policy-relevant behaviors that are
currently low consensus and therefore to offer useful avenues
for policy makers to employ low-consensus information aimed
at high-SII consumers. Thus, Study 4b pinpoints additional
practical applications of our work for policy makers and
managers.
We used MTurk to survey 251 consumers, who provided
responses in return for a nominal payment (Mage = 36.8 years,
age range 18–83 years; 54% female). All participants read
a series of 35 behaviors often encouraged by policy makers,
NGOs, and governmental agencies (see Appendix C). Partic-
ipants were asked to read each behavioral statement and indicate
their level of agreement or disagreement on a scale from 1
(“strongly disagree”) to 7 (“strongly agree”).
Results
To identify policy relevant behaviors to which our work might
be most fruitfully applied, we assessed the means for each of the
35 statements and compared each value with the scale midpoint.
Means that are significantly lower than or no different from the
scale midpoint are likely to represent low-consensus behav-
iors, such that messages cannot honestly say that a majority of
consumers currently engage in an activity. Conversely, those
means that are significantly greater than the scale midpoint are
likely to be high-consensus behaviors, such that information
could be presented arguing that a majority of consumers engage
in a behavior. As Appendix C outlines, this analysis suggests
a wide range of applications for our findings: behaviors such as
taking reusable bags to the grocery store (M = 4.12); installing
low-flow shower heads at home (M = 3.34); considering
manufacturers’ labor practices during product purchase (M =
3.93); eating five to six servings of fruits and vegetables a day
(M = 3.92); getting a yearly flu shot (M = 3.23); buying fair-
trade products (M = 4.11); buying organic foods (M = 4.04);
donating money to social (M = 3.78), environmental (M = 3.31),
and religious charities (M = 2.90); buying carbon offsets (M =
2.33); and purchasing non-GMO foods (M = 4.03) are all likely
to be low-consensus behaviors. In this range of domains, our
results suggest that policy makers do not need to avoid sharing
consensus information if they want to persuade high-SII con-
sumers. Rather, the simple information that some consumers
engage in the focal action should be persuasive to the types of
consumers profiled in Study 4a.
We also measured SII in this sample to provide further
characterization of its prevalence in the population. The av-
erage score on SII was 3.41 in the overall sample (n = 251). The
average SII value for those in the top quintile of people (n = 48)
was 5.52 (SD = .55; range 4.83–7.00), Furthermore, 48% of
our sample fell above an SII value of 3.44, the highest cross-
over value from our experiments. These findings are consis-
tent with those of Study 4a in indicating that consumers high in
SII make up a substantial number of people in the general
marketplace.
Discussion: Studies 4a and 4b
The results of Studies 4a and 4b offer insight into identifying
higher-SII consumers and policy-relevant behaviors that might
currently be low consensus. Study 4a suggests that higher-SII
consumers may be relatively easy to reach because they are
more likely to view Internet and television ads. Furthermore,
higher-SII consumers’ propensity to eat out often may make
them an important target for nutritional interventions such as
those managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (e.g.,
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/supertracker-tools/supertracker.
html), an especially important intervention given that eating five
or six servings of vegetables a day is currently a low-consensus
behavior. Finally, the finding that people higher in SII tend to
be younger suggests that social media sites might be attractive
platforms through which to reach them.
Study 4b identifies many critical behaviors important to
policy makers that may currently lack majority support; there-
fore, these are attractive categories to promote to higher-SII
people. For example, our results revealed several environmental
(using reusable grocery bags, installing low-flow shower heads,
26 The Wisdom of Some
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/supertracker-tools/supertracker.html
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/supertracker-tools/supertracker.html
buying carbon offsets, purchasing non-GMO foods), health
(eating five to six fruits and vegetables per day, getting a yearly
flu shot, buying organic foods), and ethical (considering
manufactures’ labor practices, buying fair-trade products, do-
nating to charities) behaviors that might benefit from our
findings. Our theory suggests that if higher-SII consumers can
be persuaded to be responsive in these low-consensus situations,
they may well form consensus for others—an implication we
explore next.
General Discussion
Prior research has recognized the benefits of building and em-
phasizing high consensus as a means to influence consumers
(Cialdini 2009; Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius 2008).
Highlighting the persuasive powers of consensus information,
business bloggers and writers have continually recommended
that organizations invest in generating majority support to in-
crease compliance (e.g., Dowdeswell 2013; Zych 2013).
However, the present work demonstrates that for certain
consumers, an investment in consensus creation may be
unnecessary to persuade them to change their behaviors. We
show that high-SII people evaluate argument strength without
considering whether consensus levels are low or high, leading
them to conform with recommendations in both high- and
low-consensus situations.
This work provides several novel theoretical insights. First,
we find that for consumers high in SII, any consensus in-
formation provides enough evidence to persuade. Therefore,
this work extends prior theory that established high-SII con-
sumers’ tendency to emulate others (Bearden, Netemeyer, and
Teel 1989), fit in, and avoid attention (Batra, Homer, and Kahle
2001; Wooten and Reed 2004), showing that the drive of high-
SII people to do so can result in situations in which they fail
to differentiate between high- and low-consensus cues. As such,
we find that high-SII consumers may comply with positions
deemed unlikely by prior research (Cialdini 2009; Cialdini,
Kallgren, and Reno 1990, 1991). Second, our research suggests
variations in SII as the reason why people can occasionally be
persuaded by low-consensus information, beyond situations in
which sources of influence are clearly identified (Asch 1951;
Maass and Clark 1984; Moscovici 1985; Wood et al. 1994). Our
findings locate this tendency in an individual attentional failure:
high-SII consumers fail to pay attention to the nature of the con-
sensus information and instead focus solely on the presence of
consensus cues.
Furthermore, our application of two types of consensus cue
presentations (i.e., lexical in Study 1a and quantitative in
Studies 1b, 2, and 3) demonstrates that the outlined effect holds
across multiple conditions. This is an important finding be-
cause it suggests that marketers and public policy makers can
display consensus information in either a lexical or quantitative
manner and still achieve the desired effect. Finally, we show
that high-SII consumers are equally persuaded by information
about other consumers that is high- or low-consensus re-
gardless of whether the information is presented as a direct
recommendation from another consumer (Study 1a), a per-
suasive message from a for-profit firm (Study 2), or a per-
suasive communication from a nonprofit organization (Studies
1b and 3). Similarly, we demonstrate the effect using a variety
of dependent variables including attribute weights (Study 1a),
planned shoppingbehaviors (Study 1b), behavioral likelihoods
(Study 2), and real donation behavior (Study 3).
How Can This Research Inform Policy, Practice,
and Consumers?
Our experimental studies demonstrate that even without majority
support, public policy makers and marketers can highlight the
actions of a minority of relevant others and still persuade high-
(but not low-) SII consumers. Furthermore, using both demo-
graphic and lifestyle variables, we find that SII is likely to be
a targetable characteristic. As such, our research is consistent with
previous work exploring the intersection of marketing and public
policy that suggests that SII and other personality traits can be
successfully used to segment the market to more effectively de-
velop appropriate interventions to reduce undesirable behaviors
suchas teensubstanceabuse (Rose, Bearden, and Manning 1996)
or to better understand consumer response to, and interest in,
prosocialbehaviorssuchassocialentrepreneurship(Wood2012).
In the following sections, we discuss the specific implications
of our findings. In addition, to help policy makers manage the
use of consensus information in communications, we developed
a decision table based on two important factors: (1) the com-
position of the target market (i.e., predominantly low- or high-
SII consumers) and (2) the nature of the consensus information
available to policy makers (i.e., low- or high-consensus in-
formation). Table 2 highlights situations in which the use of
consensus information may be helpful and situations in which
the usefulness of consensus information may be limited.
Encouraging Nonmajority Behaviors
Our results can provide considerable guidance for policy makers
aiming to encourage consumers to engage in nonmajority (i.e.,
low-consensus) behaviors, such as environmentally friendly
behaviors or other prosocial actions like those considered in our
experiments and highlighted in Study 4b. Our findings indicate
that marketers can first target high-SII consumers who we have
demonstrated to be particularly sensitive to any information on
the actions of other consumers, regardless of whether the actions
of others are consistent with a majority or minority. This initial
targeting of high-SII consumers can help establish support for the
behavior, which can later be used to influence low-SII people.
As we highlight in Study 4b, there are several important,
policy-relevant behaviors that might be bolstered using our
findings. Consistent with our results, many important public
health and environmental behaviors currently demonstrate low
consensus. For example, in 2015 the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that only 43% of adults
over the age of 18 received a seasonal flu vaccination
(CDC 2015). Furthermore, a recent Gallup poll found that
45% of Americans actively try to include organic foods in their
diets (Riffkin 2014). Similarly, in the first quarter of 2015,
electric and hybrid vehicles accounted for 2.7% of all new car
sales in the United States (Edmunds 2015). In addition, it is
estimated that consumers purchase carbon offsets on only 2% of
international flights (Gallucci 2014). Finally, the CDC notes that
less than 9% of Americans consume the recommended two to
three cups of vegetables per day (Moore and Thompson 2015).
All of these behaviors, while critically important for the
preservation of our environmental resources or improvement
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 27
of public health, are currently low consensus. Therefore, our
results suggest that policy makers and governments can target
high-SII consumers and highlight the actions of the minority of
consumers already engaging in these behaviors. After per-
suading high-SII consumers, policy makers can then begin to
employ norms-based appeals in persuasive messages, leading
to conformity among low-SII consumers as the power of social
proof becomes overwhelming.
Building Support for a New Program or Initiative
As in the previous examples, our results also demonstrate that
policy makers introducing a new program or initiative may find
it easier to first persuade higher- as opposed to lower-SII
consumers. If people high in SII form a support base, they can
help build a strong-enough norm to persuade consumers lower
in SII. The ability to target and persuade high-SII consumers
even without majority support is critical because chance plays
a large part in popularizing new initiatives. Therefore, much in
the same way that innovators and early adopters are critical
targets for innovation diffusion through the marketplace
(Rogers 1995), high-SII consumers may be essential early
targets for any new program. This is likely to be especially true
for new programs that are particularly prosocial or for con-
sumers’ well-being. These programs may have a difficult time
finding support otherwise, so targeting high-SII consumers may
be a particularly effective way to build long-term support for
prosocial, proenvironmental, or health-focused initiatives.
Consumer Welfare
Along with informing communications strategies for both
public policy makers and marketers, our results can also be
valuable in enhancing consumer welfare. Prior research has
highlighted high-SII consumers’ desire to blend into the crowd
and refrain from drawing attention (Wooten and Reed 2004);
however, our results suggest that high-SII people’s failure to
note whether information on relevant others is high or low
consensus may lead to behaviors that create differentiation
from others. Therefore, high-SII consumers must be certain to
process the magnitude of consensus cues rather than only
noting that consensus information is present. These consumers
can benefit from asking themselves whether an advocated
position or behavior is consistent with a majority or minority
before conforming. For example, high-SII consumers pur-
chasing products on a website such as Amazon.com must be
aware of their tendency to overlook whether consensus in-
formation is high or low while shopping. If they can do so, they
will be able to better recognize that a product with a four-star
rating from one consumer is very different from a product with
a four-star rating from 1,000 consumers.
Furthermore, although we have focused on policy makers’
and marketers’ desire to prompt certain actions, they may also
want to persuade consumers to refrain from certain negative
behaviors. It maybe detrimental to expose higher-SII consumers
to information that even a minority of people have, for example,
cheated on their taxes or engaged in binge drinking. As such, if
low-consensus information is used to dissuade consumers
from behaving in a certain way, a substantial amount of
attention should be drawn to the low-consensus nature
of the behavior using external prompts, visual devices, or
explicit framing, consistent with our findings in Study 3. This
recommendation is critical for the execution of social norms
marketing, in which persuasive messages often highlight that
only a minority engages in a specific negative behavior (e.g.,
drinking, smoking).
Limitations and Further Research
While this research extends our understanding of consumers’
response to high consensus and low consensus information,
several avenues remain for future inquiry. First, further research
can assess the interplay among consensus cues, consumer SII,
and the strength of the message source. Our studies demon-
strated that high-SII people fail to differentiate between high-
and low-consensus information when the communication
comes from a moderately strong source. However, we did
not manipulate the strength of the message source, a vari-
able that prior research has shown can significantly influ-
ence compliance with a recommendation (Naylor, Lamberton,
Table 2. Market Composition and Level of Consensus: When Should We Use Consensus Information?
Composition of Target Market
Level of Consensus Information
Low Consensusa High Consensusb
Predominantly low SII (approximately
45%–55% of population across Studies 4a
and 4b; more likely to be older, female,
and married)
Presentation ineffective: Policy makers
should withhold low-consensus information
from persuasive messages.
Presentation effective: Policy makers should
use high-consensus information in persuasive
messages. Those low in SII will find this
information to be an important part of
argument strength.
Predominantly high SII (approximately
35%–45% of population across Studies 4a
and 4b; more likely to be younger, male,
and single)
Presentation effective: Policy makers should
use low-consensus information in persuasive
messages. Those high in SII will find this
information to be an important part of
argument strength.
Presentation effective: Policy makers should
use high-consensus information in persuasive
messages. Those high in SII will find this
information to be an important part of
argument strength.
aFor example, installing low-flow shower heads, getting an annual flu shot, purchasing carbon offsets, and consuming recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
bFor example, refraining from smoking, paying taxes, buying energy efficient lightbulbs, not texting while driving, taking prescribed medications, getting
recommended sleep each night.
28 The Wisdom of Some
http://Amazon.com
and Norton 2011). High-SII consumers might be more likely
to scrutinize messages provided by weaker or less credible
sources, potentially creating situations in which high-SII
people effectively differentiate between high- and low-
consensus information if the identity of the message source
leads to greater message elaboration.
Second, we only explored messages that consumers are likely
to process using central route processing. Additional research is
needed to investigate how consumers of varying levels of SII
respond to consensus information when a message is processed
peripherally. We speculate that low-SII consumers may behave
like high-SII consumers under peripheral processing because
they fail to attend to this important determinant of argument
strength as a result of their lack of motivation. However, we
leave this empirical question to further research.
Third, we demonstrated that high-SII consumers are sen-
sitive to consensus elements in a message beyond a simple
recommendation but fail to differentiate between high and low
consensus levels (i.e., Study 2 results); however our control
message lacked an element of social inclusion (e.g., “join your
fellow guests”). Consequently, it is plausible that high-SII
participants were persuaded by these short social compliance
statements in the manipulated messages. Therefore, further
research is needed to investigate high-SII consumers’ reactions
to social inclusion cues in messages and compare their ef-
fectiveness with consensus information.
Fourth, additional research can evaluate the interplay among
SII, consensus information, and cultural orientation (e.g.,
Hofstede 2001). In all of our analyses, we employ a very U.S.-
centric perspective; however, cross-cultural variability has been
recognized as an important construct affecting persuasion
(Aaker and Maheswaran 1997). Therefore, dimensions of cul-
tural variability such as individualism–collectivism may play
a critical role in consumers’ response to high- and low-consensus
information. For example, consumers from cultures character-
ized by high collectivism might be less likely to overlook the
nature of consensus information because their cultural orienta-
tion emphasizes connectedness and focuses on relationships
(Triandis 1989). Therefore, consumers from highly collective
cultures might have a stronger incentive to pay attention to the
nature of consensus information as high or low.
Finally, additional research is needed to assess different
ways to highlight high-consensus cues for high-SII consumers.
Although we have shown that high-SII consumers can dis-
criminate between high- and low-consensus information
when their attention is prompted, our manipulation in Study 3
demonstrated only one way to achieve this goal. Consumers
may find it odd or intrusive for policy makers to highlight
consensus information using our approach. In addition, our
attentional manipulation eliminated low-SII people’s ability to
differentiate between low- and high-consensus information.
Therefore, policy makers who want to get the most out of
consensus cues would likely be interested in additional ways to
highlight consensus information.
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30 The Wisdom of Some
Appendix A. Continued.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 31
Appendix B. Study 4a Measures
Category Number of Items Sample Items
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5 • I have a system set up for managing my money.
• I have trouble keeping my finances organized.
Political Orientation and Nationalism (Pratto,
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Responsible Consumerism and Resource
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• I avoid products with a lot of unnecessary
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• I avoid using a car for environmental reasons.
Satisfaction with Life (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and
Griffin 1985)
5 • In most ways my life is close to my ideal.
• The conditions of my life are excellent.
Lifestyle, Religiosity, and Health 6 • How many days a week do you exercise?
• How many days a week do you dine out?
• How stressed do you feel during a normal week?
• How religious or spiritual are you?
Media Habits 8 • How many hours per week do you watch TV?
• How many hours per week do you use the Internet?
Demographics 6 • Gender, age, employment status, ethnic background,
educational background, and household size.
Appendix C. Study 4b Low- and High-Consensus Behaviors
Behavior M SD
Low-Consensus Behaviors
I buy non-GMO food and products 4.03 2.03
I consider manufacturers’ labor practices when purchasing products 3.93 1.91
I donate money to environmental charities 3.31*** 2.00
I donate money to religious charities 2.90*** 2.17
I donate money to social charities 3.78* 2.09
I eat five to six serving of fruits and vegetables a day 3.92 2.02
I frequently take reusable bags to the grocery store 4.12 2.31
I get a flu shot every year 3.23*** 2.49
I have installed low flow shower heads in my home to conserve water 3.34*** 2.18
I often buy fair trade products 4.11 1.84
I often buy organic foods 4.04 1.99
I purchase carbon offsets to compensate for my greenhouse gas emissions 2.33*** 1.77
I see my doctor once a year to get a physical 4.19 2.36
High-Consensus Behaviors
I buy energy efficient light bulbs 5.39*** 1.77
I do not smoke 5.74*** 2.17
I drink eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day 4.66*** 2.04
I get 30 minutes of exercise at least five days a week 4.29** 2.19
I get at least seven hours of sleep each night 5.15*** 1.74
I often buy locally grown produce 4.45*** 1.83
I often buy products with recycled content 4.84*** 1.75
I often read food labels when grocery shopping 5.24*** 1.88
I often turn off the lights after I leave the room to conserve energy 6.02*** 1.36
32 The Wisdom of Some
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Appendix C. Continued
Behavior M SD
I pay my income taxes 6.46*** 1.15
I properly dispose of all of my trash 5.97*** 1.39
I rarely eat fast food 4.64*** 1.98
I recycle my used aluminum cans 5.34*** 2.01
I refrain from binge drinking 5.64*** 1.90
I refrain from littering 6.38*** 1.13
I refrain from talking on the phone while driving 5.53*** 1.68
I regularly refrain from texting while driving 6.04*** 1.54
I take my prescribed medications as directed 5.76*** 1.60
I try to buy products from companies that pay their workers a fair wage 4.55*** 1.73
I vote in my local elections 4.90*** 2.14
I would purchase a hybrid or electric car 4.90*** 1.97
When I stay at a hotel, I reuse my towels to conserve natural resources 4.58*** 2.16
*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .001. Notes: All responses on seven-point scale where 1 = “strongly disagree,” and 7 = “strongly agree.” Significance testing mean values to the scale midpoint of 4.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 33
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- The Wisdom of Some: Do We Always Need High Consensus to Shape Consumer Behavior?
Theoretical Development
Processing Persuasive Messages
SII and the Power of Consensus
Overview of Studies
Study 1a
Method
Results
Discussion
Study 1b
Method
Results
Discussion
Study 2
Method
Results
No Control Group
With Control Group
Discussion
Study 3
Method
Results
Discussion
Study 4a
Money Management
Political Orientation and Nationalism
Responsible Consumerism and Resource Conservation
Individual Lifestyles
Media Habits
Demographics
Results
Study 4b
Results
Discussion: Studies 4a and 4b
General Discussion
How Can This Research Inform Policy, Practice, and Consumers?
Encouraging Nonmajority Behaviors
Building Support for a New Program or Initiative
Consumer Welfare
Limitations and Further Research
References
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Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
