The Impact of Thinking Style on Sympathetic Magical Thinking

We investigate the moderating role of consumers’ intuitive thinking style on manifestations of sympathetic magic. We find in a series of studies that beliefs in essence transfer onto products may result in greater willingness-to-pay for consumers with high (vs. low) levels of intuitive processing. Further results show for the first time that achievement is a property capable of being transferred through magical thinking, demonstrating that high (vs. low) intuitive processors perform better on analytic reasoning problems, but only if they believe that their intelligence is malleable. Implications are related to the psychology of superstition and consumer behavior in secondary markets.



Citation:

Thomas Kramer and Lauren Block (2009) ,"The Impact of Thinking Style on Sympathetic Magical Thinking", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 31-35.

Authors

Thomas Kramer, Baruch College, USA
Lauren Block, Baruch College, USA



Volume

NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36 | 2009



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