One Without the Other: the Effects of Priming Individual and Collective Mindsets on Consumer Choice and Valuation

Priming individual- and collective-mindsets has been shown to influence individuals in the domain of marketing, but the research has primarily focused on studying self-construal with respect to influence via interpersonal relationships. The current paper extends the theory into the realm of inter-product relationships by examining the effect of mindsets on product selection. Three experiments demonstrate how priming of mindsets leads to differences in initial product selection, willingness to consume partial sets, and reluctance to break apart items perceived as related. Our findings suggest that participants primed with collective-mindsets, compared to those primed with individual-mindsets, identify more relationship sets that consist of products that are not obviously related during initial product selection, avoid consuming partial sets of products that are perceived to be related, and are willing to pay more to obtain complete sets of products. The results suggest several practical implications for how to structure product bundling, up-selling, cross-selling, product presentation, and advertising or point-of-purchase displays.

Citation:

James Alvarez-Mourey, Daphna Oyserman, and Carolyn Yoon (2011) ,"One Without the Other: the Effects of Priming Individual and Collective Mindsets on Consumer Choice and Valuation", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 455-456.