Interactions between consumers and humanoid service robots (HSRs; i.e., robots with a human-like morphology such as a face, arms, and legs) will soon be part of routine marketplace experiences. It is unclear, however, whether these humanoid robots (compared with human employees) will trigger positive or negative consequences for consumers and companies. Seven experimental studies reveal that consumers display compensatory responses when they interact with an HSR rather than a human employee (e.g., they favor purchasing status goods, seek social affiliation, and order and eat more food). The authors investigate the underlying process driving these effects, and they find that HSRs elicit greater consumer discomfort (i.e., eeriness and a threat to human identity), which in turn results in the enhancement of compensatory consumption. Moreover, this research identifies boundary conditions of the effects such that the compensatory responses that HSRs elicit are (1) mitigated when consumer-perceived social belongingness is high, (2) attenuated when food is perceived as more healthful, and (3) buffered when the robot is machinized (rather than anthropomorphized).

The authors propose a restructuring of the "food as health" paradigm to "food as well-being

This research examines the moderating role of attempted dietary restraint on the amount of food consumed from small food in small packages versus large food in large packages. Four experiments demonstrate that restrained eaters consume more calories from small food in small packages, while unrestrained eaters consume more calories from large food in a large package. For restrained eaters, overconsumption of the small food in small packages results from a lapse in self-control caused by the stress of perceiving conflicting food information: the small food in small packages is perceived as both diet food and high in calories. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

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Little empirical consumer research has focused on the decoding of conspicuous symbolism, that is, the inferences consumers make about others’ conspicuous consumption. Grounded in theory on social perception and role congruity, four experiments show that consumer inferences about and behavioral intentions toward conspicuous sellers are moderated by communal and exchange relationship norms. Specifically, conspicuous consumption by a seller decreases warmth inferences and, in turn, behavioral intentions toward the seller under the communal norm; conversely, it increases competence inferences and, in turn, behavioral intentions under the exchange norm. A seller's mere wealth triggers similar inferences, suggesting that conspicuous consumption is a surrogate for actual wealth. Priming consumers with persuasion knowledge inhibits the inferential benefits resulting from conspicuousness under the exchange norm. These findings reveal the theoretically meaningful role of the consumption context by showing that consumers’ warmth and competence inferences operate differentially in commercial relationships as a result of salient communal versus exchange norms, with important consequences for consumers’ behavioral intentions.