How inferred contagion biases dispositional judgments of others

Abstract

Drawing on recent evidence suggesting that beliefs about contagion underlie the market for celebrity‐contaminated objects, the current work investigates how people can make biased dispositional judgments about consumers who own such objects. Results from four experiments indicate that when a consumer comes in contact with a celebrity‐contaminated object and behaves in a manner that is inconsistent with the traits associated with that celebrity, people tend to make more extreme judgments of them. For instance, if the celebrity excels at a particular task, but the target who has come into contact with the celebrity‐contaminated object performs poorly, people reflect more harshly on the target. This occurs because observers implicitly expect that a consumer will behave in a way that is consistent with the traits associated with the source of contamination. Consistent with the law of contagion, these expectations only emerge when contact occurs. Our findings suggest that owning celebrity‐contaminated objects signals information about how one might behave in the future, which consequently has social implications for consumers who own such objects.

A taste of the elite: The effect of pairing food products with elite groups on taste perceptions

“…Sensitivity to disgust was assessed using eight items derived from the scale developed by Haidt et al (1994). For the purpose of our study, we used a selective procedure similar to that of past research (Hingston, McManus, & Noseworthy, 2017;Newman & Dhar, 2014;Newman et al, 2011). We only used items related to food behaviors: six items were selected from the core disgust dimension and two from the contamination disgust dimension (Olatunji, Haidt, McKay, & David, 2008).…”

Celebrity influences on consumer decision making: new insights and research directions

“…A few studies have tested the underlying principle of the MTM by applying the law of contagion (Hingston, McManus, & Noseworthy, 2016;Newman et al, 2011). Contagion is when a consumer believes that immaterial symbolic meanings of a product are 'magically' transferred to themselves and imagine that somehow they are similar to the endorsing celebrity because they consume the endorsed product (Belk, 1988).…”

Disconfirming Expectations: Incorrect Imprecise (vs. Precise) Estimates Increase Source Trustworthiness and Consumer Loyalty

“…For example, Hingston, McManus, and Noseworthy () found that when consumers are in contact with a celebrity‐contaminated object, people expect that they will perform in a consistent way with the celebrity, and if they do not (i.e., if they perform poorly in a task in which the celebrity excels), then those objects are evaluated more negatively. However, this negative product evaluation occurs only when there is an initial expectation created by the celebrity‐contaminated object.…”