Swiping Is the New Liking: How Product Orientation Shapes Product Evaluations Conveyed Through Swiping

Apps like Tinder or Stylect require consumers to evaluate people/products by swiping them, to the right or left. This work explores whether product orientation affects the product evaluations expressed by swiping movements. Building on stimulus–response compatibility theory, which indicates the facilitation of certain motor responses by task-irrelevant visual aspects of a stimulus, a horizontal product orientation, cueing a horizontal direction, is predicted to facilitate responses in a congruent direction. Four studies indicate that when people use swiping movements to evaluate objects, their evaluations are influenced by the object’s orientation, whereas evaluations conveyed through button presses reveal no orientation effect.

Citation:

Anneleen Van Kerckhove (2018) ,"Swiping Is the New Liking: How Product Orientation Shapes Product Evaluations Conveyed Through Swiping", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 11, eds. Maggie Geuens, Mario Pandelaere, and Michel Tuan Pham, Iris Vermeir, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 1-8.