When Uncertainty Brings Pleasure: The Role of Prospect Imageability and Mental Imagery
By Yih Hwai Lee, Cheng Qiu. 2009
184 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Consumers generally prefer certainty to uncertainty, which leads them to shun uncertain situations. This research demonstrates, however, that consumers facing uncertainty (rather than certainty) associated with a positive event (e.g., winning a lucky draw but not knowing the exact prize won) can experience greater, longer-lasting positive feelings. The sustainability of this pleasurable uncertainty effect hinges on the (right) level of imagery elaboration that consumers generate about the various possible favorable prospects of the event (e.g., imagining the possible prizes from winning a lucky draw). Findings from two experiments support the proposed imageability-based framework. (c) 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
Subfields: Marketing, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c5d19382fe62a1305aeb6e33ed9b03cf2699d3cd
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Citations in the corpus
- The Teasing Effect: An Underappreciated Benefit of Creating and Resolving an Uncertainty (2018, background): “…study the hedonic consequence of uncertainty and show that uncertainty can generate positive experiences, thus joining a growing body of literature documenting these effects (e.g., Lee and Qiu 2009; Shen, Fishbach, and Hsee 2015; Shen, Hsee, andTalloen 2018;Whitchurch,Wilson, andGilbert 2011).”
- The Motivating-Uncertainty Effect: Uncertainty Increases Resource Investment in the Process of Reward Pursuit (2015, unknown): “Although some have shown that uncertainty can have a positive impact on affective experience (Bar-Anan et al. 2009; Moon and Neilson 2014; Wilson et al. 2005; Whitchurch, Wilson, and Gilbert 2011), this impact does not seem to extend to choice or other consequential behaviors (Lee and Qiu 2009).”