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ACR 2008 Roundtables

Aesthetics and Consumption Roundtable

Posted By: hhagtvedt on 10/5/2008 6:29 PM (EST)

Dear roundtable participants. It is now less than three weeks till ACR, so we believe it is a good time to begin finalizing our preparations. Below we are including again the topics we initially proposed. We would greatly appreciate it if the participants could make some preliminary comments here as to the interestingness of any or all of these questions, as well as any initial responses you may want to share, so that we can get an indication of which questions are likely to be broadly discussed during the roundtable, and which questions may be less interesting to emphasize. Depending on what comes up here, we may also add some other questions to include in the roundtable. Conversely, if any of the below topics receive no attention or endorsement at this preliminary stage, we may opt to drop them from the roundtable. Please remember that the success of the roundtable depends on your active participation on Friday, October 24, 9:30-10:45am. This is an opportunity to get warmed up! (For those of you who are answering via email, you can choose whether or not to post here in addition.)

Topic 1: What is aesthetics, especially as it pertains to consumer behavior and marketing? A useful starting point is to discuss what constitutes aesthetics. Myriad definitions exist, most of them emphasizing art and/or beauty (Charters 2006; Dickie 1997). However, various other concepts are often introduced, such that even ugliness may be viewed as having aesthetic value. Consequently, we have no unified understanding of the main construct under investigation in this area. Perhaps it will not be possible to attain consensus on this matter, but it would seem useful to discuss the merits of different approaches.

Topic 2: Are there some common principles/themes/elements that underlie aesthetics, regardless of consumption domain? Aesthetic elements are involved in product design, retail environments, and advertising. However, it is not clear whether the same basic principles of aesthetics apply to the various areas, or whether certain aspects of aesthetics are more or less relevant to these areas.

Topic 3: What are the cognitive and affective components of processing aesthetic stimuli? It is unclear how consumers process aesthetic stimuli and whether they process them in the same manner as other stimuli. In general, consumers’ processing mode for aesthetic stimuli, including both conscious and unconscious processes, merits further discussion.

Topic 4: What is the interplay between aesthetics and hedonics? Or, are all aesthetic experiences hedonic and vice versa? An observation from the extant literature is that aesthetic appreciation is an experience enjoyed purely for its own sake (Holbrook and Zirlin 1983). While there is much controversy about the exact definition of aesthetics, there appears to be much consensus that aesthetic properties are intrinsically enjoyable, valued for their own sake rather than for some other utility. This distinction from function seems almost paradoxical in a marketing context. In advertising, how does this principle coincide with the marketers’ persuasive efforts? In product design, how does it coincide with the function of the object? In the retail environment, how does it coincide with the goal of making sales? How can we draw on the growing literature on hedonic consumption to inform aesthetics?

Topic 5: What is the role of different sensory input in an aesthetic experience? The current topic may suggest an emphasis on the visual element of aesthetics. However, auditory, gustatory, tactile, and olfactory stimuli may also include salient aesthetic properties. Neuroscience research demonstrates that the different senses work together to form an overall experience. Understanding how the different sensory elements combine in an aesthetic experience is important for consumer researchers. Further, articulated thoughts on the possible integration of research focused on different sensory stimuli would benefit the field and possibly open up new avenues for research.

Topic 6: Where should we go from here? What are some future research directions? A central focus of the roundtable discussion is to develop a research agenda for the future that is informed by the combined input of various scholars. We hope that the roundtable discussion will result in a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the current research approaches as well as gaps in our current knowledge. In sum, we expect that this roundtable would be an ideal forum to discuss and evaluate future research opportunities, and to identify the major contributions that research in aesthetics can make to our understanding of consumer behavior.

Posted by: mluchs	Member Response
10/8/2008 10:15 AM (EST)
Regarding topic 4, it may be interesting to think beyond the hedonic value of aesthetics to the symbolic value. e.g., some people like cars that look "angry" - see details at this link: http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/081006-car-face.html

Posted by: rreber	Member Response
10/13/2008 2:48 AM (EST)
Regarding topic 1: An interesting approach is the one by John Dewey who claimed that contemporary art is separated from everyday experience. He wrote that in 1934 (Art as experience), but I think this separation is still prominent today. How does marketing address the apparent need for art and beauty in everyday life? Regarding topic 2: I am a proponent of a fluency account of aesthetic experience. Recently, we have worked on a fluency account of insight experiences in scientific discovery. I think that the same mechanisms underlying insights are important in the context of marketing: There is a discrepancy between expected and actual fluency when processing a message; this unexpected fluency then increases both aesthetic preference and judged "truth"; consumers like the product and are persuaded of its quality. This in my view is the common denominator in product design, retail environments, and advertising. Regarding topic 3: Again, fluency, which is a cognitive feeling that translates into affective and inferential consequences because high fluency signals that things are going smoothly; if fluency is unexpectedly high, it signals that things are going even more smoothly than expected. Regarding topic 4: I like Michael's comment on symbolic value, as opposed to hedonic value. It is an interesting paradox that aesthetics is supposed to be experienced by a recipient who is disinterested, whereas marketing is about persuasion, which includes strong interests. However, it may be that advertisement or a retail environment is more persuasive if the consumer looks at it with disinterest. As soon as a consumer has a certain interest (e.g., wants to purchase a high quality camera), aesthetics may not work; the same if a consumer notes that a marketer uses aestethics to an instrumental end. Regarding topic 5: Our research shows that fluency from different (visual) sources result in a singular experience of fluency. However, we have not tried out different sensory modalities. There, I assume that there must be a fit between modalities (sad pictures with sad music, to take a simple example). Regarding topic 6: Maybe it's esoteric: We may ask whether marketing should have the mission to bring art and aesthetics back into everyday life (see topic 1). How could this be done? Rolf Reber

Posted by: hhagtvedt	Author Response
10/14/2008 10:34 AM (EST)
Great, those are some interesting thoughts so far. I am also a fan of Dewey’s Art as Experience. And I think that the fluency account is a very interesting approach. In our own research Vanessa and I find that heuristic (rather than analytic) processing, i.e., processing requiring less cognitive resources, is tied to a favorable influence on product or brand evaluation, when the evaluation is based on the aesthetics or artistic manner of the object associated with the product or brand. This fits well with a fluency account, given that diminished fluency would presumably be tied to more effortful processing. That said, we might also discuss aesthetic experiences enriched by, for instance, incongruities or intriguing complexities, which may be resolved through in-depth contemplation. This latter alternative is often among the strongest types of aesthetic experiences. What are the situations in which fluency contributes to aesthetic experiences, and are there situations in which it might detract from aesthetic experiences? Like Rolf, I’m also intrigued by the paradox of disinterested viewing and marketing persuasion, and in recent research we find that making this use of the aesthetic stimuli (artworks) salient diminishes persuasion. Perhaps we could expand on these notions during the roundtable. I don’t think we’ll end up agreeing on a restrictive definition of aesthetics, since we all have different approaches, but it’s a great opportunity to explicate the merits of the various approaches, thus increasing our understanding of each other’s work. Thanks again to all who have contributed so far. Let’s keep the discussion going.