Self-Affirmation through the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Products

By Claudia Townsend, Sanjay Sood. 2012

233 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Marketing

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ad039aceb3a57567c06ab171b48b85b1a1f282b7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Applied Psychology

1. Julio Sevilla
2. Claudia Townsend
3. Andreas Herrmann
4. Dan Ariely
5. Michael I. Norton
6. Gavan J. Fitzsimons
7. Andrea C. Morales
8. Daniel Mochon

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

1. Michael I. Norton
2. Julio Sevilla
3. Claudia Townsend
4. Andreas Herrmann
5. Dan Ariely
6. Gavan J. Fitzsimons
7. Andrea C. Morales
8. Daniel Mochon

In Marketing

1. Gavan J. Fitzsimons
2. A. Samper
3. Andrea C. Morales
4. Dan Ariely
5. Daniel Mochon
6. M. V. Tilburg
7. Julio Sevilla
8. Claudia Townsend

Citations in the corpus

• The Space-to-Product Ratio Effect: How Interstitial Space Influences Product Aesthetic Appeal, Store Perceptions, and Product Preference (2016, background): “Prior work has shown that consumers are more likely to pick better-looking products (Townsend and Shu 2010; Townsend and Sood 2012) because they find them to be more desirable (Veryzer and Hutchinson 1998).”
• The Compensatory Consumer Behavior Model: How self-discrepancies drive consumer behavior (2017, unknown): “In further support of the idea of fluid compensation, Townsend and Sood (2012) proposed that esthetics are an important and fundamental personal value and, as such, the choice of an esthetically pleasing option could serve as a means to affirm the self.”
• Bolstering and restoring feelings of competence via the IKEA effect (2012, result): “These results build on prior research that shows that products can be used to affirm the self (e.g., Gao et al., 2009; Townsend & Sood, 2012) by demonstrating that even the most mundane assembling activities that consumers engage in, such as assembling a storage box, can have implications for…”
• It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product Aesthetics Discourage Usage and Lower Consumption Enjoyment (2017, background): “These products included the higher aesthetic stimuli utilized in our focal studies, such as toilet paper, cupcakes, and paper napkins (see appendix A for images), as well as higher aesthetic items used in prior research, such as calculators and coffee makers (Townsend and Sood 2012).”
• Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation (2015, background): “Indeed, there is prior research that has used principles of person perception to explain consumer responses to product aesthetics (Townsend & Sood, 2012).”